After their late night shenanigans with vomit, laughter and tears, Candy ended up falling asleep in the bedside chair as Sara resumed slumber in the bed she so desperately wanted to leave. It was in those positions that Grissom and Greg found them when they arrived in the morning, both women having slept heavily and not so much as twitched at shift change. Gil smiled and lowered himself gently into a chair, propping his arm, sling and all, on a pillow in his lap; Greg shook his head and outright snickered at the pair of them, especially Candy who was sprawled sideways with her colourful hair splayed across the arm and her mouth slightly open as she snored softly.
Gil settled with the morning paper and Greg reached for the book he had left the day before, wincing as it slipped out of his fingers and crashed to the floor. Candy stretched like a cat stirring from a nap, and opened her eyes with a yawn. Sara opened a bleary eye, peered through the bed rail at him, gave a tiny wave, and promptly went back to sleep, not yet refreshed enough. Glancing at the clock Greg noted they were earlier than usual. Mentally placing the blamed on Juliet, who had started a war with Lucy just after six thirty, he grinned at Candy as she rubbed her eyes and slithered into an upright position.
"Nice snooze?" he asked.
"Excellent," she replied. "This is an outrageously comfy chair for a hospital."
"Agreed," nodded Greg. Candy stood, picked up her bag and vanished into the bathroom, emerging with clean teeth and combed hair just as Jenni arrived for morning routine. Griss put aside his paper to help coax Sara through it, if she chose to wake up, and Greg stood to leave for a while.
"You hungry?" he asked Candy as she said goodbye and made for the door.
"Famished," she declared, following him out.
"Let's go get some breakfast; there's a good diner not far from here that I've taken to frequenting at this time of day." Candy laughed at his implication.
"So mornings really are as bad as I've heard?" she asked as they walked out to the parking lot.
"Worse," he sighed, "if she's awake. Now she's learned to sleep through it, it's better, but she doesn't like waking up after either and they keep trying to get her to eat and she just can't keep anything down."
"I know that," said Candy wryly, producing her keys and offering to drive.
…
The diner was busy with morning patrons but they found a table and ordered, settling back into their booth seats with quiet contentedness as coffee arrived and they sipped with relief.
"So, what are you doing back here in the middle of the week?" asked Greg as he put his mug back on the table.
"I had nothing on today, and I miss my dog," shrugged Candy, stirring sugar into her coffee. "I wanted to see Sara too."
"I have a dog," said Greg, reaching for his phone and pulling up a picture of the Jack Russell.
"He's cute," laughed Candy, examining the picture of Greg's pet sprawled across his basket, paws hanging over the edge. "What's his name?"
"Gizmo," Greg swiped his finger over the screen and showed Candy another photo. "I got him from a woman I met outside a bookstore; said she loved him, but she had to move and was desperate to find a new home for him. I couldn't say no, not when he looked at me with those eyes."
"Who has him now?" asked Candy, enchanted by the photos.
"My neighbour is looking after him for me; she's totally in love with him, and he's totally in love with all the extra treats and toys."
"Lucky little guy," grinned Candy, pulling out her own phone to show Greg photos of Sammie. "Have you always wanted to be a CSI?" she asked after a few minutes. Greg looked up at her, startled by the abrupt change of topic. She shrugged.
"I've been wondering for a while what makes someone want to do that for a living. I asked Sara why she did, and she said she went to a conference on forensics, and never looked back." Greg snorted.
"Yeah, I'll bet," he laughed. Candy raised an eyebrow and Greg pinched his lips together to stop laughing before explaining. "Sara met Grissom at that conference. He was a speaker, and she was a grad student working for the San Francisco Coroner."
"Ohhh," murmured Candy, her own smirk spreading across her features. She laughed aloud and sat back in her seat, reaching for her coffee.
"I started as a lab rat; I studied Chemistry at Stanford. I watched Grissom and Sara and the rest of the team for years and wanted to be part of it. Griss let me start CSI training; Sara was my primary mentor. I've learned a lot from her."
"That's mutual," nodded Candy. "Her brain scares me sometimes."
"I know that feeling," Greg picked up his knife and fork as their food arrived.
"Mmmm," hummed Candy, inhaling the warmly appetising scents surrounding them.
"So have you always wanted to be an artist?" Greg wanted to know.
"I can't remember ever wanting to be anything else. My earliest memories from when I was a child are all art related."
Greg swallowed a mouthful of scrambled eggs and toast, remembering something.
"When I was a kid, I wanted to write a comic book more than anything," he told her.
"Really?"
"Yeah, I dreamt up my own superheroes, a group of teenagers who are unnoticed science nerds during the day, and kickass save-the-world protectors at night. I wrote a bunch of stories about them."
"So why not write the book?" asked Candy, curious.
"I can't draw," admitted Greg. "I tried a bunch of times to make a likeness of what I imagined they would look like, but I'm more of a stick figure person." Switching her spoon to her left hand, Candy reached into her bag and pulled out a sketch book and a pencil. Flipping to a clean page, she said,
"Describe them to me," and began to draw.
…
A couple of hours, a lot of coffee and plenty of good food later Candy sat back in her chair and let Greg marvel over the quick sketches she had drawn and the test page of storyboard they had come up with, based on his recollections of the first plot he had dreamt up.
"This is amazing," he murmured, his fingers tracing over the pages they had placed side by side.
Candy had managed to perfectly capture his vision of what the three high school hero's looked like; Simon, Sebastian and Francesca were pictured multiple times in their school science laboratory, and again in their costumes, saving children and rescuing the world.
"It's so real," he mused.
"It's a rough draft," shrugged Candy, considering the drawings. "I can do full colour images with all the detail later." She looked at Greg as he poured over the characters he had imagined years ago; studying his excitement and awe, she found herself drawn into the magic of the concept.
"Do you want to try and do this?" she asked him. "Create an actual comic book?" Greg stared at her. "It would take a lot of work, and plenty of time, but we could make it happen. You have a few days left here; we can get the characters right before you go. When you get home, you can hunt down your old ideas and we can go from there."
"Las Vegas is a long way from New Hampshire," he gawked at her, struggling to keep up with this suddenly captivating new reality. Candy tilted her head to one side and raised her eyebrows.
"You ever hear of email? Skype? Cell phones have this wonderful feature called text messaging now too! Distance is only a physical thing; just because our bodies will be what, two and a half thousand miles away or so, that doesn't mean our minds can't meet in the same place." He continued to gape and Candy shrugged at him. "Hey if you don't want to, then that's your call. It's your idea, they're your characters." Greg swallowed hard and found his voice.
"I want to," he blurted out, before pausing to take a deep breath. "I mean," he said more slowly and with a sip of coffee to further calm himself, "that I would really like to see if we could make this work. I just needed a minute to catch up with you," he grinned when her eyebrows rose again. "You have sort of turned a long forgotten dream on its buried head in the space of a meal," he reminded her. Candy shrugged and laughed at him.
"There's no waiting for art," she told him dreamily. "Something says draw me and I do; right there and then." Greg smiled and watched as she pointed to the vase of fresh flowers on the table. "Like this," she said quietly. "See this bud here? Tomorrow, it will look like this," she told him, reaching for a clean page and a bright red pencil, quickly sketching and shading in a perfect flower.
"How do you know that?" he asked her, stunned.
"I spent two years of middle school obsessed with drawing flowers over the course of the seasons." She pulled the sketch out of her book and handed it to him. "Keep it; come back tomorrow and see if I was wrong." He took the paper and looked at the picture and then the bud resting atop its delicate stem, wondering. Candy excused herself and went in search of the restroom, having drunk a little too much coffee. Greg watched her go, and was strongly reminded of someone he couldn't put a name to, despite feeling that he should.
The waitress dropped off the bill as she passed with another table's drinks order and he stood up and made his way over to the counter to pay before Candy came back and protested him not splitting it with her. He couldn't believe that in the space of a few short hours she had shown him something he had believed dead along with his childhood. He thought back over the meal, the way she sat cross-legged on the bench seat with her papers spread out in front of her and her pencils lined up beside them; she could reach for the right one without looking for it, just like he knew where everything in his kit was without having to search for it.
She talked with him as she drew, extracting details from deep within the recesses of his memory as she sketched, occasionally reaching out her free hand for a bite of toast or a sip from her mug as she worked. It was the expression she wore as she worked that stayed with him though; equal parts joy, serenity and desire had radiated from her as she brought his characters out of his thoughts and into the real world. He couldn't remember the last time he had experienced anything like it.
Waiting for the woman in front of him to finish her transaction, he idly scanned the small racks and tubs of merchandise on display; nearly all of it was cheap and childish, the kind of items designed to attract small children and their parents. There was one item that caught his eye though, and he picked it up, examined it carefully and smiled, keeping it in his hand as the woman ahead left and he stepped up to the till.
…
"We need a bad guy," said Candy as they walked into the warm, late summer morning sun, heading for her car.
"Something not typical," mused Greg. Candy glanced at her watch.
"Do you like walking?" she asked.
"What?" her abrupt change of topic caught him off guard.
"Are you in a hurry to get back to the hospital?"
"Not really," he admitted.
"Ok, cool," she replied. "Let's go then."
"Go where?" he asked.
"One of my favourite places in the world; it's a park I go to for inspiration. But first, we need to get the dogs."
"We do?"
"Yes! I haven't seen Sammie in three days. Three days!" She practically screeched, before lowering her tone to a grumble. "Stupid dorm rules."
"Three days is a long time," agreed Greg hastily as they got in the car. Candy glanced sideways at him, one eyebrow raised. He grinned and raised his hands in defence; she broke into laughter and pulled out onto the street.
…
They had always conducted a large part of their life together in companionable silence, each taking joy in the close proximity of the other and not feeling the need to speak unnecessarily. Now though, Gil found himself starting to find the silence uncomfortable. True it seemed as though Sara was sleeping all the time, but when she was awake she seemed perfectly content to lie there saying nothing. And her lack of communication was beginning to make him feel uneasy. She responded appropriately when he spoke to her, or Greg asked her a question, but he had noticed she now almost never initiated conversation, and he worried.
Today she had slept through most of the morning routine, refusing to wake up and participate, not that he blamed her. There was little she could do except lie there and suffer through the pain. About half an hour after she had opened her eyes and glared at the day light, obviously still tired, but she had seen him and smiled, reaching out a frail hand to him, which he had taken in his and brought to his lips to kiss gently. She had smiled again and sighed warmly before letting her eyes slide shut as she squeezed his fingers gently and kept her fingers linked with his as he continued to read the paper and she dozed. Constant exhaustion was extremely wearing, and she was tiring of it rapidly.
Breakfast arrived and Sara scowled, but sat up and took a few hesitant bites, willing them to stay down. There was zero hope of her being released before she could feed herself orally, and exhaustion aside, she was dammed if she was staying here a moment longer than she had to. She managed twenty- one minutes before the tell-tale swirl of her stomach made her clench her fists in the blanket and scowl. Seconds later it all came back up again with a messy splatter; the nurse who had brought her food today had forgotten the bucket. She could need another gown change and more clean sheets. Sara growled her frustration and felt the hated tears spring to her eyes.
In seconds Gil was there, passing her a handful of tissues as he leaned down and pressed a tender kiss to the top of her head. He smoothed her hair away with gentle fingers and rubbed her shoulder soothingly, pressing the call button.
"It's ok," he tried to comfort her as she wiped her mouth with the tissues, her hands trembling. He brushed her tears away with tender fingers and rolled the table with its offending tray of food out of the way.
"No it's not," she sniffed, distraught. "I can't do anything; I'm going to be stuck here forever."
"Oh honey," he sighed, taking the used tissues and throwing them in the bin before dampening a towel for her to wash her hands and face. "I wish I could make it better for you," he murmured, rolling up the soaked blankets into a ball at the end of the bed. Her glasses had slipped off as she washed her face; he picked them up and inspected them for cleanliness, before perching them back on her face and smiling softly. "Beautiful," he murmured, resting his palm against her cheek and looking deep into her eyes, to make sure she knew he truly believed it. They had always been able to have an entire conversation with just a single look; now, seeing what he was telling her, Sara gave him a watery smile and tried to push away her gloom.
"I love you," she said quietly, lacing her fingers with his as he moved his hand down to hers. He grinned at her.
"I know. But," he winked at her, "I bet you don't love me as much as I love you," he teased; it was an old joke, and it worked. The closest he had seen to a true smile in days spread over her face as she let her shoulders relax back against the bed, the tension visibly leaving her body.
"Oh Sara, I'm so sorry," sighed McKenna as she walked in and saw the problem.
"It's alright," replied Sara calmly, still smiling at Gil. "Can I please just change and have more blankets? I'm getting cold."
"You bet," nodded McKenna, hurrying back out of the room and returning quickly with the linens. She quickly stripped away Sara's filthy old clothing and helped her into a new gown before slipping fresh blankets around her.
"How's that?" she asked as she finished tucking the bottom corners in.
"Good thanks," sighed Sara, happy to be comfortable again.
"I'm really sorry," repeated McKenna, as she double checked everything else was in order.
"It's ok," shrugged Sara. "It happens all the time. I'm getting used to it; I can't even remember what real food tastes like."
"Ugghh," grimaced McKenna, trying not to imagine. "Well, like I said, I'm ever so sorry. I can't believe I forgot the basin for you."
"It's fine," Sara shrugged, ready to brush the whole incident aside. "Really, no harm done," she added, looking at the young nurse. She frowned, seeing something like distress hidden in the young woman's features. "What's wrong McKenna?" she asked suddenly. The nurse shook her head, blinking.
"Nothing, everything's fine!" she protested quickly. Sara raised an eyebrow in that precise manner she had, letting her carer know in no uncertain terms she knew she was being lied to. McKenna knew it too, and caved, her face falling as her eyes filled with tears that she refused to let fall. "It's just a bad day," she sighed. "My cat, he needs surgery, but the vet said it's only fifty-fifty that he comes through it, and I've had him for ten years, ever since he was a kitten, and I love him to pieces and I don't know what I'll do without him if he…" She stopped and took a deep breath, again ordering the tears not to fall.
"What's wrong with him?" asked Sara, reaching out to take McKenna's hand as she settled on the edge of the bed.
"He was attacked last month. I don't know by what, but now he has a problem with his breathing. The vet said, if he doesn't fix it Felix won't live, but if he tries, there's only a half a chance he'll come through it."
"That's terrible," murmured Sara. "I'm so sorry to hear that." McKenna sniffed.
"I'm being silly really," she sighed. "He needs fixing up; the vet said he'll be fine if it works. I just hate seeing him in pain and not his normal cheerful self."
"It's not silly," soothed Sara. "Pets are just a much a part of a part of our lives as people, and it's just as horrible and distressing when something happens to them." She handed over a tissue before continuing. "We have two dogs, three cats, a fish and seven cockroaches, and I miss them all. Well, maybe not the roaches," she admitted, gaining a watery grin from McKenna, "but I'd give a lot to have them here with me, or better yet be home with them." McKenna took a deep breath and nodded, calming visibly under Sara's comforting influence.
Gil watched the entire interaction with interest, wondering how many times he had seen this behaviour from his wife before. In the past it had been victims and their families; more recently he had seen it with Candy and the other young women she worked with at the rescue centre. She really was going to make an amazing mother to Rowen, he thought, his chest tight with pride and love.
"When is he having the operation?" asked Sara.
"Tomorrow," sighed McKenna.
"Good luck," wished Sara. "Will you let me know how it goes?"
"Definitely," promised the nurse, her normal smile almost back in place as she left to attend to other patients. Gil smiled to himself and reached for the water jug, pouring them both a glass. Sara took the cup he handed her and stared pensively into it, rather than drinking.
"What's the matter?" he asked, frowning at her expression.
"Nothing," she mumbled, still staring into the cup.
"Something is bothering you," he prodded, not wanting to let her sit and stew. He was beginning to understand that fighting her changing moods was next to impossible, but if she was frustrated by something, it was generally best to try and get her to talk about it and see if there was something they could do to resolve it. The difficulties of getting her to open her thoughts to him though were compounded by her sudden dislike of talking, making the task inordinately more difficult that it should have been.
"I miss Socks," she said abruptly, when he continued to stare pointedly at her. "And Romeo and Hank and Juliet and Lucy. I miss sitting at the table watching Shakespeare. I miss all of them."
"And they miss you," he assured her. "Socks has just decided that she can come and say hello when I get home, but she won't sit on my lap or Greg's. She sits in the window mostly, looking morose and waiting for you."
Sara scowled at her water, her heart clenching as she thought about her beautiful, shy cat who had been coming out of her shell so wonderfully in the last few weeks prior to the accident. The anger was back again. It washed over her in a flash of hot, trembling rage, as quick as a snap of the fingers.
"I hate that man," she snarled, furious.
"I know," sighed Gil heavily. 'Here were go again,' he thought as he reached for his phone, hoping that if he showed her some recent photographs of their animals she might calm down before physio. He plucked her cup from her hands and set it aside.
"Look, I took this of Juliet last night." He held up his phone so she could see. "She tried to steal Greg's sandwich while he took forever debating his next chess move." Sara leaned forward to look at the image, and promptly lost her balance, toppling sideways. Fortunately he was already on his feet next to her and simply let her slide into him, wrapping his good arm around her in the best impression of a hug he could give with his other arm still strapped to his body.
He felt her grind her teeth in frustration at her utterly diminished core strength, and quickly kissed the top of her head, parking his backside on the bed next to hers and snuggling up as close as he could get so they could view the pictures together. Before she could become any more frustrated, he started flipping through the photos, finding one of Socks he had spent nearly ten minutes trying to take so he would have something to show her. When she relaxed against him, he breathed a sigh of relief and when she smiled and thanked him, he felt his heart squeeze; crisis averted momentarily.
…
Physio was a disaster almost from the start, and for the first time Sara was reduced to tears as she slogged determinedly through exercise after exercise, task after task. Everything hurt, her head was pounding, and her weakened muscles suddenly cramped up, her back going into spasm as her fingers curled involuntarily. Sara, normally so stoically silent about her pain, suddenly let out a cry that made Gil's blood run cold. Gwen abruptly ended their session, calling Doctor MacAndrew's pager directly, rather than pressing the bedside button.
The doctor came, assessed the situation with his practiced, penetrating calm stare, and administered a muscle relaxant with a sedative side-effect. As Sara slid away from them into the realm of slumber, he asked what had brought on the episode. Gwen walked him through what they had worked on, and then Ian looked at Gil, who shrugged helplessly.
"It's been a bad morning for the most part," he said, quietly resigned. "She's pretty upset and angry today. Breakfast was a messy affair." Ian nodded in understanding.
"I think this is probably just a stress overload reaction; she's tired, she's in pain, it's been a tough few days and all of that combined just pushed her too far. Don't get too disheartened," he advised kindly, "she's done amazingly well thus far, and she's still going to keep doing well. Sometimes she's just going to have a bad day. It's like sailing; you have to take the rough with the smooth I'm afraid."
"Is this going to happen again?" asked Gil, feeling defeated despite the words of encouragement. Ian shrugged, his head tilting to the side slightly.
"This is her first episode… maybe it will happen again. But the stronger she gets, the more the likelihood starts to drop. I'd say probably not, but if it does, it does. It's not going to hurt her in the long run. She might just be tired and uncomfortable later. Maybe she'll sleep better tonight too."
He took in the fraught expression of Gil's face.
"She'll sleep a while," he said. "Go take a walk to the cafeteria and get yourself something to eat and read your paper. You need to relax too." Grissom managed a smile at the friendly order and nodded in agreement. A change of scenery would do him some good, and so would something to eat.
…
Despite the sedative being a mild one, Sara slept for hours. Occupational Therapy was cancelled for the day; Janine stuck her head in and said hi, asking him how he was doing and sharing a few minutes of conversation before she moved on to another patient she had slotted in. Gil put aside the paper he had now read cover to cover and settled back in his chair, closing his eyes with a yawn. A nap of his own sounded like the perfect idea.
…
The NICU was quieter than usual that evening as the pair of them sat with Rowen, trying to let go of the pain and tension the day had born. Gil sat in a seat pushed right against the reclining wheelchair Sara was occupying, her hand clasped in his, her fingers resting against his lips as they watched.
Jenni stood across the room with Shawna, talking about the day.
"A bad one all around," she sighed, as the two watched Gil and Sara.
"It happens," murmured Shawna sadly. They watched Gil tilt his head toward Sara, his lips grazing her temple as his free hand moved to gently stroke her cheek, brushing aside locks of hair that curled wildly around her slowly relaxing features. Under his touch and whispered words, the two women watched as Sara took on a calmer demeanour, the stress of the last few hours slipping away as if it had never been there to mar her life at all.
"They are so good together," sighed Jenni with wondering admiration. "I've never seen a couple like them, ever." Shawna shook her head.
"Me either." She glanced at Jenni and smiled, a thought coming to her. "Do you want to help me with something?" she asked, thinking it was time. Jenni looked at her and lifted an eyebrow in question. When Shawna explained her plans, she felt a true smile crawl across her face for the first time in hours.
"Sara, we want to try something," said Shawna quietly as the two women approached the family.
"You need to stay very still," explained Jenni, "because I'm going to take your neck brace off."
"Ok," said Sara, warily, but she didn't move as Jenni did as she had said, and then gently moved the blankets away from her chest and loosened the ties on her hospital gown.
Gil gasped as he watched Shawna open the incubator, disconnecting some wires and tubes, and simply moving others before sliding her hands under Rowen's tiny body and lifting her gently out of the miniature bed.
"Skin to skin contact has proven very successful in aiding the progress of premature babies' recovery," she explained quietly as she tucked Rowen under the hem of Sara's gown, laying the baby directly onto Sara's chest and distributing the wires carefully out of the way.
Sara found she could say nothing as she felt the slight pressure and then the wondrously incredible feeling of her child resting against her. A touch so light it terrified her, yet at the same time one so familiar she felt as though she had known it her entire life. Her breath trembled on her lips as she raised a hand to rest it gently on the back of Rowen's head. She could not see her baby, but that held no matter because for the first time she was holding her, touching her, and she could think of nothing in the universe that could, or would, ever come close to that moment.
Gil stared in stunned awe at the incredible sight mere inches from his eyes. His hand slipped over Sara's, caressing her fingers before sliding around to trace the very tip of his finger over his daughter's cheek. She sighed under his touch, and he felt something in his chest come loose. He stroked her hand with his little finger, and felt tears fill his eyes when she curled her impossibly tiny fingers around his. His tears, hot and salty, dripped slowly onto Sara's neck and he felt her smile beside him as he let his head rest against hers, hip lips seeking her temple in the most tender of kisses.
Breathless with love, he pulled his head back slightly to stare at the two of them. Sara's eyes were closed and the expression on her face was so full of love and wonder that he didn't need to see into her gaze to know what she was thinking. He could feel it, a mirror image of his overwhelmed heart and soul. Rowen flexed her fingers; he looked down at her and watched as she tightened her grip, felling his vision blur with a fresh wave of tears. He sat, frozen by the moment, as feelings he had never thought he would know washed over him and left him truly stunned by the extraordinary magnificence of life.
...
...
I can only beg forgiveness for the terrible wait; all hell broke loose in mid February, and there just hasn't been the time. I refuse to give in though, and just hope this story is worth it. I have been waiting so long for the final scene of this chapter. Much love to all those still out there. GT?