May 2004
In the weeks and months that followed, Sara watched as Grissom cleaned up his act. He lost weight, grew scruff and seemed to have recaptured his boyish tendencies. It was clear that he was enjoying his work more, evidenced by talking in riddles, quoting classic books and playing mind games with his CSI to help lead them toward the right path.
This, she thought, was the man she fell for back in San Fransisco. But Sara wasn't doing so well herself. She had promised herself that she would be patient for Grissom to find his way to her on his own, but after another six months had come and gone, she didn't know how much longer she could keep up the rouse. By all accounts, Sara was lonely. She had no social life after ending things with Hank—and, worse yet, she was feeling incredibly unfulfilled at work. Getting passed up for the Lead CSI position was just insult to injury.
Grissom sat behind his desk about an hour after shift had ended. His CSIs had taken Nick out for a celebratory drink, congratulating him on the Lead CSI promotion. But Grissom rarely joined these late night adventures with the team. He was much more content to catch up with some long overdue paperwork that covered the surface of his desk.
His office phone rang twice before he reached to answer.
"Grissom."
"Dr. Grissom, are you CSI Sidle's direct supervisor?"
"Yes."
"We have her down in the precinct now." Grissom pulled off his reading glasses, worry etched on his face.
"Is she alright?"
"She was lucky she wasn't on the strip. That's highway patrol's jurisdiction. She blew a .09. Technically, she's over. But they just lowered the limit. So we cut her a break, didn't book her. But we did have to call her supervisor." The officer walked Grissom to the holding area were Sara was seated.
"Well thank you, I appreciate the courtesy."
"No problem." The officer walked away, leaving Grissom in the doorway. He walked tentatively toward Sara.
She could feel his presence in the room but was too ashamed to look at him. He sat down beside her and placed her hand in his.
"Come on," His voice was soft and caring, "I'll take you home." Her head bowed in shame.
Eventually they stood, his hand still holding onto hers as they walked out of PD. She didn't say a word on the drive back to her apartment.
"Do you want to talk about it?" Grissom finally cut through the silence, fifteen minutes into the drive. They only had about five more before they'd arrive.
She didn't respond, just kept watching the trees pass by through the passenger side window.
"I know you're disappointed about the promotion."
"I'm happy for Nick." She finally offered.
"I know." He paused, trying to pick his words very carefully, "You're a brilliant CSI, Sara."
He turned the corner to her home and parked the car in front of her building. "One day, when you're director of the lab, you'll look back on this moment and realize how silly it all was."
She sighed and shook her head, "You don't get it, Gil."
The use of his first name like that took him aback. She rarely ever called him Gil. He remember how long it took him to convince her to even call him Grissom, rather than Dr. Grissom after they'd first met.
"Tell me."
She shook her head again. "Thank you for the ride. Goodnight, Grissom." and with that she was gone, having disappeared from the car, up the walkway and into the building. He waited there a little while longer to watch as the light in her apartment flicked on, confirming that she had made it inside okay.
Sara was a complex mystery to him. Each time he though he had her figured out, she would throw a curve ball.
The next day came and Sara acted like nothing had ever happened. She went back to being her same old self, the demeanor she carried the night before as he drove her home was but a ghost. Grissom played along. Sara's passion for cases and victims was a double edged sword to Grissom. It was one of the things he truly admired about her, but also a trait he feared the most. Over the next few months, Grissom watched as Sara balanced dangerously on that line.
February 2005
Sara sat at her home desk fiddling with a pen in one hand, a beer occupied the other. She couldn't shake the days events from her mind. The blow up at Catherine, the even worse blow up at Ecklie. What had come over her? She was confused, and there was a deep anger boiling insider of her. A knock at the door interrupted her thoughts. She turned off her stereo with the remote and made her way to the peep hole.
"Well, if you're here it can't be good."
"Can I come in?" She stepped aside to let Grissom in.
"Want to ask me if I'm drunk?" She smirked awkwardly, holding up her almost full beer.
"We both know that's not your problem." He turned to her, "I spoke to Catherine."
"Ecklie."
"He wants me to fire you."
"I figured." She sighed heavily through her words, defeated. "Can I get you anything?" She gestured to the kitchen.
"Sure, an explanation."
"I—lost my temper."
"That seems to be happening quite a bit." He retorted. "Do you know why?" He watched as she made her way across the room, as if she were trying to get as far away from him as possible.
"What difference does it make? I'm still fired." Her inflection was resigned, empty.
"It makes a difference to me." His soft eyes pierced through her.
"I have a problem with authority. I choose men" She gestured toward him, "Who are emotionally unavailable. I'm self destructive. All of the above."
"Have you ever gone a week without a rationalization?" His question earned a Sidle-famous eye roll. Her amusement absent.
"It's from the Big Chill," He offered, "One of the characters offer a basic fact of life." He watched as she sat down, seemingly bracing herself for a long-winded analogy, "Say that rationalizations are more important to us than... sex even."
"I am not rationalizing anything. I crossed the line with Catherine and I was...insubordinate to Ecklie."
"Why?" He continued to probe.
"Leave it alone." Her quick response, scowled lips and lack of eye contact warned him he was treading deep. But he pushed on.
"No, Sara."
"What do you want from me?"
"I want to know why you're so angry." His soft voice was a complete contract to her short tempered one. She just stared at him for a moment, before breaking eye contact and looking down at the ground.
He moved toward her—the first time he had moved since entering her apartment. He took up the vacant seat on the couch adjacent from her.
"Sara," Her name came out of his lips in a near whisper. "It's just me here. I can help you"
"No-no you really can't."
"Why do these cases get under your skin like this?"
"it's as obvious as it seems." Her voice was small but angry. Her head was turned away from him.
"Were you in an abusive relationship?" His words were spoken with great hesitation and she could tell how uncomfortable the idea of that made him.
She shook her head.
"Then what is it?" She could hear the relief in his voice—Is that what he thought this whole time? That she had been beaten by a boyfriend?
This is it. There's no running from it now. The one person she never wanted to open up to about her past was now prying the door open and leaving her no choice but to let him in. She looked absently into space as she spook almost robotic like:
"It's amazing the things you remember, you know. There was a smell of iron in the air. Cast off on the bedroom wall. There was this young cop puking his guts. I can't remember the woman who took me to foster care."
Grissom's heart constricted, realizing she was talking about her childhood.
"I can't remember her name. Which is strange, you know, because I couldn't let go of her hand."
"Well," He offered, "The mind has it's filter."
Though she continued as if he hadn't spoken at all. "I do remember the looks. I became the girl whose father was stabbed to death." Finally, she made eye contact at this statement. Grissom tried his best to hide any ounce of surprise or horror from his face as she revealed each piece of information slowly.
She took a moment to collect herself, but even still her voice was rasp, "Do you think there's a murder gene?"
"I don't believe that genes area predictor of violent behavior."
"You wouldn't know that in my house." The tears she had been fighting back began to surface, "The fights, the yelling, the trips to the hospital. I thought it was the way that everybody lived. When my mother, killed my father, I found out it wasn't." The tears flowed uncontrollably now as she tried to cover her face with her hand.
Grissom's hear broke a little more with each tear he watch fall from Sara's eyes. He instinctively grabbed her free hand and held it tightly within his own. The smallest amount of comfort he could think to give her. He sat there a while as she cried out the tears that she had willed away for so long. After a minute or so he moved closer to her, brushing her hair out of her face, but she continued to diver her eyes from his.
He quickly realized he was over stepping some key lines as her supervisor, and even as a friend, but he couldn't help it. He thumbed over her falling tears as they began to slow.
"Thank you." He spoke once her cried subsided. "Thank you for opening up to me."
She looked at him now, her eyes glasses and bloodshot. She could tell he had questions but was trying to be polite.
"Ask."
He looked at her quizzically,
She whipped away a few stray tears. "The floodgates are open—If you have other questions, now's the time to get that answer."
He fidgeted with his hands, "Did he hit you? Your father?"
She nodded, "My mother was mentally ill and undiagnosed. She would conjure up these elaborate stories of people and places that she never knew and have never been to. Their fights centered around this. They would hit each other mostly." She paused, swallowing hard, "I was only injured if I got in the way... It was nothing too serious" she added, "A couple fractured ribs or a broken wrist." After she spoke those words she realized how much she sounded like all the other domestic abuse victims she comes across at work it was my fault, it doesn't hurt, I interfered, I was clumsy.
"How long were you in foster care?"
"Only three years. I graduated high school at 16 to get away from it all."
Suddenly it clicked, what Dave Crow had meant by she never had an adolescence.
They sat in silence for a moment, he finally let go of her hand. She whipped away any last trace of tears from her eyes and ran her hand through her hair. She looked back at him,
"There's something else, isn't there?" Her eyes probing. "You want to know something else?"
He nodded awkwardly. She could see the vulnerability in his eyes. It was like watching a turtle who's nature told him to revert back into his shell, but who desperately fought to fight the urge.
He finally spoke, "What did you mean by, choosing men who are emotionally unavailable?"