Disclaimer: Dear CBS, if you hadn't made them so beautiful I would be borrowing someone else's characters instead wouldn't I, so therefore it's your own fault!
Author Notes: A big hello to all the wonderful readers of my WIP story Stars in Motion, sorry for the delay on that story, the next chapter is giving me grief but I'm battling with it. (You'll all, hopefully, understand why when you read it!)
This one was just a whim… pure fluff.
If you were looking for a time frame for this I'd say early to mid season 6.
I would like to say a HUGE wow and thank you to all the people who have reviewed the first part of this, and put it on their alerts and favourite story lists. Gob-smacked was a nice word I used; the others aren't allowed in a K+ story!! (And a lovely thank you to Judy Kirsten for the review, I always like to reply personally, slightly tricky with anon reviews ;)! So Thank You!!)
To be completely honest I hadn't planned to write any more to this story. It was a scribble! I was just having a crappy day and like to write my way out of those… But as so many people wrote to tell me that they wanted more I have had a little think, shouldn't do crazy things like that I know…
I hope this works!!
Holding Patterns.
By Rianne.
Chapter 2.
Caring.
He had forgotten what it felt like to know that someone cared when you had your worst of days.
To know that someone noticed.
His head hurt. The signs were there. All the signs.
The migraine signs.
Stars around his already clouded field of vision, the stirring throb at the base of his skull, the urge to steal the hooded sweater from a rogue teenager and pull the hood strings tight until he couldn't see out any more.
This one was going to be a bad one.
o0o0o0o0o0o
The day had ended for him by starting out so well.
Yeah, that was the confusion of working the night shift. It played havoc with the English language.
Waking to start his day as everyone else was preparing to wind down from theirs.
But he had slept. Deep, dreamless, comfortable sleep.
It had been wonderful.
And it was all her fault.
Sara.
Sara Sidle.
His body, usually so attuned to waking at the same moment each evening even if he hadn't for whatever reason remembered to set his alarm, woke him in a different way.
He usually flicked his eyes open, swung out a palm ready to silence the sound, but tonight was different.
Tonight he let the alarm ring. His eyes remaining closed.
Instead he drew the stirring warmth in his arms closer.
Reluctant to move.
You couldn't have bribed him with anything.
"Ignore it."
It was more of a sigh than a command. Breezed warmly, growly, against the sensitive furls of her ear as he felt her echoing sigh of contentment slide through her body.
Wait what?
Was that really his voice?
Was that really him; Gilbert Grissom telling her to ignore the ringing alarm, which she obviously knew was set to wake them for work?
Unthinkable!
He almost moaned audibly as she wiggled back into him more. Not that there was a whole lot of more right now.
They were still pressed warm and tight.
Neither had been foolish enough to move during sleep.
With the horrors they saw on a daily basis the nights that either one of them slept soundly were few and far between.
Last night had been the most relaxing both had enjoyed for a long time.
But this morning it was different.
She moved again, her sleepy slow and lazy motions sliding further and further away from comfortable innocent cuddling and easing helplessly lower into something so much more delicious.
He shifted behind her again, the motion paining him but he had to try and ease back without being obvious; his pelvis cradled to her gave him no shelter.
None at all.
She had to know.
She had to feel it.
But she said nothing.
Her handhold tightening around his as she felt him try to ease back, just as reluctant as he was to break the sleepy intimacy between them.
And she certainly hadn't leapt from the bed.
That had to be a very good sign.
But she was moving again, nuzzling him with her whole body, actively trying to drive him crazy, or maybe so sleepy she wasn't fully aware in that amazing brain of hers what she was essentially doing to him.
"Sara," it was a hoarse gasp. Edged with frantic.
A warning.
A last chance to behave.
He was trying so hard here.
Hard!
But he really did mean everything he had vowed to himself last night, watching her sleep against his chest on his couch. The black and white movie fluttering over the pale glowing curve of her cheek.
He would not rush this.
He'd drive himself and her completely crazy most likely, but he still wanted to wait.
Not to mention that they really had to move soon or they would both be conspicuously late for work. On the same night, the same amount of late, probably with huge naughty grins that they couldn't fight.
But they lingered a little longer.
Eyes still closed, his nose still in her curve of her neck.
He would never be able to smell coconut again and not think of this day.
Moments like this were rare.
And then shattered as the alarm once again blasted through the air around them, bored of snoozing.
Sara's sleep husky regretful chuckle reverberated down her spine.
Oh she really had to stop that!
With her laughter slowly fading she uncurled her fingers from his, lifting her hand to rub against her sleepy eyes.
The frustrated groan and accompanying sensual cat like stretch that followed almost broke him.
All that lithe energy stirring.
His was the most natural male response in the world, but that didn't stop it from being pretty embarrassing.
Especially as the motion had caused her top to rise up and his palm had somehow found its way under to the warm achingly soft flesh beneath.
For a moment everything stopped.
He felt her freeze, and then slowly begin to relax into his touch.
His fingers were moving lightly, without his permission, exploring this newly revealed territory, unable to stop, the very tip of his middle finger dipping lightly into her belly button.
He heard her breath catch.
Felt her head loll back against him.
The muscles beneath her soft flesh jumping as he teased caresses.
Then another sound shattered everything.
The irritating, shuddering beat and vibration of his cell phone on his bedside table.
She made a slightly strangled sound, which echoed his own thoughts exactly.
If he had been in reaching distance of something heavy, like a brick, or War and Peace, or an anvil, he would have fractured that plastic like the worlds strongest man.
As it was he huffed an anguished sigh.
Feeling her relax against him once more with a huff of her own resigned disappointment.
He pressed his next sigh into a light kiss against the bare skin of her shoulder, gently easing her top back down, smoothing the fabric tenderly.
Before leaning over her to secure the offending technology.
"Grissom."
o0o0o0o0o0o
The night had soured in a single long throbbing heartbeat.
The boy, no more than eight, nine at the most, his battered and broken body sprawled.
Missing no more than five hours.
The distraught parents.
Their wailing and their pain.
Their hopelessness.
Their questions.
He had needed time to answer them. To find answers to the questions in his own mind.
But he knew the chances of logical simple conclusions were slim to none.
The rain.
The usually steady skies over Vegas had stormed, had ruined any chances of finding any trace evidence left behind.
Had washed away everything but the pain, the broken bones, and the bruises, which graced the child's face and body in his last moments.
The autopsy had felt long.
Doc Robbins usual humour noticeably absent.
Gil had stood by, the child's last sentry.
He cared.
He showed it in his own ways.
But this case was special.
He had always told his team, had told each member several times that they couldn't let the cases be special.
But he was special.
This child could have been him.
A younger him.
He was the image of him at eight, curly hair, glasses and skinny limbs, schoolbag stuffed with science books and comics.
The boy hadn't made it home from school. Hadn't been missing long enough for PD to man a real search.
His questioned schoolteacher had described a shy, awkward boy with little or no friends, kept his nose in a book and his words short. But he was smart.
His young, terrified of policemen, classmates had admitted to teasing.
Bullied.
Not old enough to learn the talents and power of becoming a ghost. A boy who had wanted more from life and hadn't been able to wait long enough to realise that life got better once you left school, that his tormenters and bullies were just equally small frightened children with their own fears and their own worries.
He had bragged about running away.
And he had run straight into the hands of what looked like men, the force of the trauma too brutal to have been administered by a child.
Larger bullies who hadn't learnt. Whose desperate lives had driven them to steal from children.
The only thing missing from his schoolbag was the small expensive calculator he had begged for as a Christmas gift.
The treasured aid to learning he had lost his life to try and keep tight hold of.
The waste.
It was unfathomable.
And untraceable, there was no process-able evidence.
A dead end.
A dead child.
o0o0o0o0o0o
Grissom's head hung low as his feet seemed to sink with each step he made back to his office.
Hopelessness made the world darker around him and his limbs heavier since the sweetness of the early evening.
How could it be that this case was the unsolvable one?
Where was the sense of cosmic justice?
Where was the backup of the clear-cut answers of his one constant; science.
His foundations were crumbling.
He just wanted to shut himself away.
His fingers scrambled through his desk drawer, his brain cringing at the tumble and rattle of the contents as he searched for the thin orange-labelled bottle that contained some small semblance of relief.
The lights behind his eyes were dancing. His every pained heartbeat was echoed tenfold.
Outside the lab the sun was just coming up, but in the cavern of his office he tilted the blinds to shade, flicked off the lights.
Sitting made him nauseous, standing made him dizzy.
Lying down made his stomach muscles clench and heave.
He swallowed the pills with a mouthful of long cold, bitter coffee.
Scrubbing his hand harshly over his lips to remove the excess.
Even his teeth hurt.
He had begun pacing restlessly, the dull weight of his footsteps counting off the passage of time, as his brain instinctively tried to find the one place in his office which was sheltered from the nauseating sounds of the Lab going about its business all around him.
He couldn't leave yet.
He had to wait. Wait until the pills took their soothing hold.
Then he could call a cab. Only then would he be remotely ready to face the rising sun and the Lab Techs who would no doubt hound his exit with questions so trivial.
He could hear the minutes ticking onwards and away with every dull thump of his broken heartbeat.
When the door behind him opened suddenly, the invader sure enough in their place that they saw no reason to knock, he immediately reached for the nearest book on the shelf before him.
He didn't look at the title that graced the spine.
But it was a futile defensive gesture.
He could never fool her.
He didn't need to turn to recognise the footfalls that slowly approached him.
He just knew.
He felt the wonderful lazy quietness of her as she stepped up behind him.
She didn't need to say anything.
She knew that.
The gentle palm she placed right between his shoulder blades made him screw his eyes closed.
He wasn't sure he could deal with her comfort.
If he could keep his control when she reached out so tenderly. When she offered him what he so desperately wanted, but fought.
When she let on that she knew he was vulnerable. When she told him that it was okay to be.
His lip caught between his teeth to hold back the sob.
His whole body tensing when the pain of his bite was not enough.
She couldn't miss that.
His muscles shuddered.
The book clutched too tight in his fist fell forgotten to the floor from suddenly trembling fingers as another uncontrollable wave hit.
Her palm soothed a motion, fingers spreading in a caress before sliding downward, encircling his waist as its mate slid around to join it, drawing him close.
Counterbalance.
Care.
Comfort.
His new constant.
She moved closer, her hold tightening as another sob rumbled through him in defiance of his wishes.
He felt her body lean closer until she was pressing fully against him. Her softness furling around his slumped form.
Felt the sympathetic curve of her cheek press against his back.
Felt her hot breath warm the place where moments ago her palm had made contact.
It was too much for him.
He was so unaccustomed.
The first tear escaped.
Bitter, tang running heavy and fast down over his lips.
He couldn't contain the shudder that accompanied it.
Or the harsh gasp that brought on the overspill.
When was the last time he had cried?
He always kept that control. It was vital to this job.
Yet it was different this time.
This one was personal.
He scrubbed his hands over his eyes.
Fighting guilt and shame and a whole tangle of emotions he usually pretended he wasn't afflicted by.
Took a deep sighing breath, the exhale only slightly shaky.
But she said nothing.
She simply waited. Weaving her fingers tightly through his.
His anchor.
She did not pity.
She just offered what she could.
For she understood.
o0o0o0o0o0o
She had expected pain.
Anguish.
Anger.
She hadn't expected that.
She hadn't expected a breakdown.
Or the phone call from Doc Robbins.
It had been phrased tactfully, discretely, but the message had been clear.
Check on him.
It made her chest tighten with guilt.
He was always so quiet that it was hard to tell when something deeply affected him.
He kept it in like she did.
That was more worrying than anything.
That was when that desperate ache she knew all too well tore at your insides.
Cases with children had always bothered him.
They bothered all of them.
But this time it was different.
She had been so busy working her own case with Warrick, she had known he was working hard on a missing kid case, but since she had slipped from his house with buoyed step that morning their paths hadn't crossed.
Until she had visited Trace. She had been waiting on her own results, but her usual curiosity had drawn her to the items spread across the examination table.
Hodges had been working on Grissom's case. He had been trying to distinguish if any trace evidence had remained after the relentless onslaught of the rain,
The boys clothing lay out on the table before her, beside a picture of the body.
The picture had made her blink.
She had drawn it closer, feeling her stomach tighten in sorrow.
Curly hair, broken little glasses, satchel of books.
And bruises, and pain and hurt.
A baby Grissom.
She had taken a moment to remember how to breathe again.
Then she had moved out in search of him. The pull in her heart to seek him out too strong to resist. Knowing he had to be somewhere in this maze of windows.
Stepping into the corridor she had seen him in the distance, walking towards his office, head lowered, she had raised a smile in his direction only for him to look right through her and walk on.
She had hesitated. So many years of rejection and push and pull had left her wary.
Her self-preserving instinct didn't want anything to happen that would shatter the perfect moment of waking this morning in his arms.
He wouldn't mean to lash out at her, but she didn't know if she could risk her all too fragile heart.
But his weary gait, his creased forehead.
He was lost somewhere in that head of his.
And she understood why.
She had seen exactly the same in the boy.
How could she be so selfish?
How could she think of herself when he looked more dejected than she had ever seen him?
He needed her.
Biting her lips she hovered a few feet from the door to his office, her inner investigator recognising the rare but glaring signs of a Gil Grissom migraine on the horizon.
The blinds were drawn, the light was off, the door was closed.
A beeping at her hip had halted her thoughts about following.
Doc Robbins call.
Check on him.
So on light feet she had entered the dark room, closing the door with the utmost care.
She caught his sudden movement, his half blind grasp for the nearest book.
She wasn't fooled for a moment.
Her tender protective instincts didn't fail her. The blissful memory of that one simple moment last night when he had reached for her, right there in her mind. The way it had made her feel.
She drew courage from him. The bravery she felt she harnessed, it came so much easier than she thought.
She reached for him. Winding herself about him. Feeling his desperate strain, his heart pounding hard, the way he swayed in her arms as she tightened her hold. Nuzzling her face against his back.
She felt his heart break.
o0o0o0o0o0o
It was a long time before they moved.
Neither caring that they stood in his office, bare metres from the rest of the world.
Together they were a million miles away.
Eventually his fingers slowly withdrew from hers about his waist.
He stood a little taller, as if recharged simply by her touch.
"Did you take your pills?" she asked, her voice whisper soft.
His response was just as quiet as he turned, his voice gravel edged with the tears she knew he had shed, keeping his face dipped so she couldn't see the evidence in his red-rimmed eyes.
"I'll take you home."
He didn't protest. Didn't even consider it.
The journey was made in silence.
With his eyes closed tight behind dark sunglasses as about them the hot desert sun rose, streaking rays across the sky.
The cool lull of his home was another wave of comfort.
The pleasure of the familiar.
When he attempted to sink into the couch cushions she stopped him.
Shaking her head she slid an arm under his and around his back, tugging him upwards to his feet again, guiding him towards the bedroom.
"Anything to get me into bed again, hey Sidle?"
He tried to joke, but even the smile he gave her hurt.
But the quirk of her lips and the glimmer in her eyes was worth the effort his tease cost him.
He wavered by the bed, his motions slowed by the lulling sensations of the medication, the speed of his blinking had decreased.
Around him she was fluttering, laying out a t-shirt and sweats on his bed.
She turned, looking pointedly at him.
But he just looked back.
Little could dull the impressive mind of Gilbert Grissom, but a migraine and medication was a pretty catastrophic combination against his grey matter.
"Are you are waiting for me to undress you…?" she teased with a spreading grin.
He sighed softly, closing his eyes, but when he finally reached to undo his shirt he was hesitant, and she could have sworn that a faint blush coloured his cheeks.
His head raised slowly, and there was something different in his eyes.
Something more vulnerable and beseeching.
Oh God! She was staring!
"I'll… I'll be in the kitchen," she murmured, her eyes widening as she realised her faux pas. What was she expecting, that he'd strip before her!
Idiot!
Always an idiot!
As she made her way quickly into the other room her own cheeks were suddenly just as hot.
He was sick for goodness sake!
But it was desperately cute that he was embarrassed to change before her when she had slept with a t-shirt and boxer short wearing Grissom tightly banded around her just last night.
She idled her time, visiting her car for her gym bag from the trunk. Slipping into her own more comfortable clothing, drawing her hair back into a loose ponytail, removing the barely there traces of make up left after her long day.
He lay under the covers, with them drawn up over his head when she slipped into his bedroom, cautiously tiptoeing through the room she wasn't completely familiar with yet in all its artificially dark glory, whilst trying desperately to be quiet.
Carefully placing his pill bottle and a glass of clear cool water by his bedside in case he needed it in a few hours she only paused for a moment before she shook all the stupid nervous fears from her brain and slid carefully into the bed beside him.
He didn't stir.
She hitched slightly closer, tucking the covers in around herself.
Another pause.
She weighted the pros and cons.
Would he want to be touched when he was in pain?
Then went with her heart.
Everyone wanted comfort, whether they knew how to ask for it or not.
What was she even considering it for?
Lightly sliding her arm around him, she curled in close to his solid warmth, settling in, sighing before she closed her own eyes.
She was almost asleep when he finally stirred.
His hand rising to clutch at hers, cradling it preciously against his heartbeat.
"Thank you," he whispered, the reverence in his voice tugging at her heart.
She smiled against his back.
"Sleep," she soothed.
And with her there he did.