Blackbird
Author wobbear
Rating General/K
Pairing Grissom/Sara, Brass/LH
Disclaimer Characters borrowed for fun, not profit.
Spoilers Leave Out All the Rest, 19 Down and One to Go. Chapter titles from the Beatles song.
Author's note It is done. Thank yous and general waffling appear at the end.
Summary Ages after the event, a post-LOATR fic.
6: Into the Light
There was no cake in the break room.
I insisted on that, and although Catherine didn't agree with me, she respected my choice. And I'm pleased I held firm.
Heather gave me a ride to the airport, and as I wait for the boarding call for my flight out of McCarran I reflect on how each person, in their own way, found a moment — in Hodges' case, several moments — to talk to me and say good bye, thank you, a few heart-felt words. So much more meaningful than small talk over cake could ever be, even if I sometimes had to battle against surging emotion to keep my calm facade.
Catherine was right, so many years ago, when she reminded me of my responsibilities as supervisor and the need to engage with the people around me, my work family. "Lift your head up out of that microscope," as she so pithily put it. I didn't appreciate then just how rewarding that can be.
It's fitting that she was the last person I said my silent goodbyes to as slowly I made my way down the lab's long central corridor, looking through the glass walls at the people, the world I'm leaving behind. Her knowing wink cheered me no end and I left the building with a warm, albeit wistful, smile on my face.
I will miss them all, I'm sure of it, but for now I'm filled with a serene sense of peace. It's the right time for me to go.
It has taken far too long, many missteps along the rocky road, tearing sorrow at times and so much soul-searching, but at last I'm ready.
Greg told me that I changed his life.
Today, the life I'm changing is my own.
And soon, I fervently hope, Sara's.
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I've tried to ignore the memory, but it keeps popping out of my subconscious at inconvenient times — pretty much any time, in other words — Gil, sitting in the Eames chair, his feet up on the ottoman, regaling me with butterfly-related quotes. It started after I stupidly revealed that I knew The Very Hungry Caterpillar by heart. He seemed to take it as some weird sort of personal challenge and, after he'd read up sufficiently, I got used to him coming out with gems like "What the caterpillar calls the end of the world the master calls a butterfly."
Some things don't change. It's officially my day off, but I'd really rather be working. I hear his voice again: "We are closer to the ants than to the butterflies. Very few people can endure much leisure."
It's a steamy trek through the jungle to the rutted excuse for a road and then a bumpy hour on the bus to the closest town, but there's nothing I need. Nothing I can buy in a store anyway. So I prefer to stay around the camp. I've already done my washing and it's dripping on the line. Next I'm going on a butterfly hunt.
I seem to have developed an obsession with day-flying Lepidopterans. I want to add a good blue morpho to my digital collection, and a zebra and … what was the name of the dark one with the deep pink patches? … the ruby-spotted swallowtail. Whether I'll be more successful than last time is anyone's guess. Not that they're hard to find, but taking good photos is a totally different matter. They always seem to sense when I'm about to press the button, and flit away out of my carefully composed shot.
Inevitably, that thought leads back to Gil and one of his many quotations: "Happiness is a butterfly, which when pursued, is always just beyond your grasp, but which, if you will sit down quietly, may alight upon you."
Yeah, well … I did send Gil that video, but I've been "sitting quietly" for weeks now and happiness is nowhere in sight.
Very occasionally I do manage to digitally capture a butterfly, and get an image I want to keep. I smile in satisfaction then immediately sigh, because my next thought is "Gil would love this." Every time I get a decent photo, it's the same scenario. Sometimes I try focus instead on ants or beetles, but changing the insect species doesn't help. It gets a little wearing after a while. And yet I keep going in search of butterflies.
Maybe I'll hold off on the butterfly photography. If I bribe the black-capped capuchin that hangs around the camp with some nuts I can take some more shots of her, while I figure out what to do next to while the day away. Minstrel, as I call her in my head, seems to know when I want her to stop eating and look at the camera. Or at least I like to think she does.
"In the light of the moon a little egg lay on a leaf …"
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It's photo time again.
I've discovered that the camera lady is called Sara. Sometimes she concentrates for a long time to get a picture of a butterfly — our jungle butterflies are amazing, but they don't understand about keeping still for photos — and when she succeeds she smiles a little smile, then she sighs. Every time. She does the smile/sigh thing with beetles too, even ants. Wistful, that's the word. I reckon she should stop with the bugs; they just make her sad.
I don't make her sigh. She talks to me and she never shoos me away like the young guys do, and — oh yeah — she feeds me, so I'll pose for her whenever she wants.
She's putting some food up above her in the tree. Looks like it's my turn to star today. Of course I investigate. Nuts! Hey, I haven't seen these before. Partly open shells, with green bits peeking through. Weird, but … wow, these are goooood.
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There must be a clearing ahead — I can see the brighter light where the jungle canopy is less dense. I check the GPS: it can't be much farther. The feeling of peace I had when leaving Las Vegas has utterly deserted me. The adrenaline of anticipation thrums my pounding pulse.
To be so close seems surreal, yet I know I'm not dreaming. The sweat dripping from my pores and the damp patches on my shirt are all too real. Used to the desert's dry air, it will take me a while to acclimatise. But my physical discomfort is a happy reminder of my life-changing decision. Where Sara is where I want to be.
Just to the left side of the trail a Tropidacris cristatus catches my eye. A beautiful specimen, the Costa Rican grasshopper is gilded by the foliage-filtered sun. I smile at the sighting, but I can't stop. My mission is vital, and insects must wait. Even the golden grasshopper.
A few more yards and … I've arrived.
There she is in the little clearing. Facing away from me, but I'd know her anywhere.
Sara.
The love of my life.
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She's picked up the camera now and is fiddling with the focus. I stop munching for a moment as I open my next nut, and I can hear someone approaching. No question it's a person. That two-step lumbering is unmistakable. Sara is unaware: human ears are next to useless.
The footsteps get closer, then stop. A man, hot and sweaty, is standing staring at Sara. He looks a tiny bit like that Indy guy in the movies Luis watches on his computer. But the beard's not right, and what's with that hat? Scratch the Indy idea.
Um … is he ever going to speak?
I'm wondering if I should alert Sara when suddenly, somehow, she turns around.
Still no-one's speaking.
Capuchins would be screeching at this stage.
Finally he smiles, drops his back pack and they move together, into each other's arms, and kiss.
And kiss.
And kiss.
And kiss.
I'm guessing they know each other. Really well.
Love.
Awwwww.
Ya know, these nuts are really good.
END
Endnotes
"What the caterpillar calls the end of the world the master calls a butterfly." — Richard Bach
"We are closer to the ants than to the butterflies. Very few people can endure much leisure." — Gerald Brenan
"Happiness is a butterfly, which when pursued, is always just beyond your grasp, but which, if you will sit down quietly, may alight upon you." — Nathaniel Hawthorne
"In the light of the moon a little egg lay on a leaf" — the start of The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle
Author's note the final Thanks to SylvieT for nudging me to finish and to JellybeanChiChi who told me I had to (or words to that effect). Thank you also to Smacky30 for beta-ing when I was wise enough to ask for help. Er … this chapter hasn't had the benefit of a beta and the ending was dictated by the monkey, who seems to come from New Jersey — she insisted I wrote it this way. Last but not least, thanks to goldengrasshopper from whom I learnt that the Grissom family crest has a golden grasshopper on it. I think that's very geekishly cool.
I had fun writing this; I hope you enjoyed reading it.