A/N: My guess is that we have about 10 to 15 chapters to go here, but we'll see where this takes us!
Also, so far in this series I've kept the dates fairly true to the timeline of events put forth by the show. However, in the episode "Forget Me Not" Where they reveal Grissom and Sara are no longer together, it takes place in February, despite us knowing she has a September birthday. That said, I had to move around some of the dates for it to line up correctly here.
Here's a long one, Enjoy! (Next update should follow shortly)
July 2012
Sara stood in a layout room re-filling her field kit. For a change, it was a slow night and the team were finding ways to fill their time usefully. She refilled her powders, cleaned her brushes, added some more swabs. As she went through the motion she took out her phone.
"You've reached Gil Grissom, Please leave a message."
"Hey Gil, just wanted to hear your voice. Give me a call if you get a chance."
Sara sighed through a pang in her heart. Their visits had become more sparse over the last year. For the first two years they'd made a point to see each other at least every other month. Weather he'd fly to Vegas, she to Peru or they meet in San Fransisco or Santa Monica. More so, they spoke almost every day. But old habits began to creep out from the shadows after a while and in year three of long-distance marriage their default loner personalities were weighing a heavy toll.
She hadn't spoken to him in four days now. Each getting the other's voicemail. Short clips of "Sorry I missed you"s and "Call when you get a chance"es.
During the first two years Sara could look forward to a hand written letter from him once every few months or so. Scrawled penmanship of his favorite sonnet's or poems. Little 'thinking-of-you' messages. But she hadn't received one of those in over six months, maybe more—she couldn't quite recall anymore.
She missed him deeply. But their lives were at a stalemate. She'd promised him that she'd only be in Vegas until they could find a replacement—but this turned out to be a lie she hadn't intended. Morgan Brody joined the team quite some time ago now, but she justified that Morgan was filling in for Ray's absence. Of course Finn had joined the team even before then, and so had D.B. But then Catherine had left...There was always an excuse.
"What will it take for you to leave Vegas?" Grissom had asked months ago, in a very uncharacteristic blunt fashion.
"Gil..." Was all she knew to respond with, and it was met with a sad sigh on the other side of the phone.
There had been a brief moment last year where they'd thought they had figured it out. Grissom moved back to Vegas, being commissioned by Pearsons to rewrite part of an Entomology textbook. He had taken a sabbatical of sorts from his consulting position in Peru at the time. They bought a house together and sold the condo. He'd changed his sleep routine to write the textbook at night so to be in sync with her grave shift schedule. But that lasted a mere two months before he was called back to Peru for an exciting excavation.
"Come with me." He had pleaded as he packed his suitcase. "It's all anthropology. You love that, no?" He teased, calling back their memories to the day they met. Her standing in front of him, pony tail swinging, asking too many questions about anthropology—trying to get up the nerve to ask him to dinner.
But she hadn't joined him. And he never really moved back. Every few months when they though a project was over and he could come find work to do in the States, something pulled him back in. If he really wanted to be here, he would. She'd convinced herself. And so the rift began.
A buzz from her phone brought her out of her thoughts. "10-19 THE BREAK ROOM." A text from D.B read. She quickly stopped what she was doing and walked out of the room, bumping into something, someone—
"Sara Sidle." A low, deep voice staccato'd her name. She looked up.
"Doug?" She blinked to ensure her eyes weren't deceiving her. "Doug. What are you doing here?" She gave him a quick embrace.
"You're about to find out." He spoke through a sly crooked smile and walked to the break room with her.
There, the rest of the team had assembled. D.B. played a clip obtained by a tourist on the strip of a plane going down.
"This is NTSB Investigator, Doug Wilson. He's going to be leading the crash investigation. You two guys worked together before, right?" D.B. pointed between Doug and Sara, both quickly says "Yeah."—a little too quick. Something Finn caught immediately.
"Yeah, on an NTSB crime scene when I worked in the San Fransisco Crime Lab." She stared intently into his eyes, almost as a warning. She'd brought up that specific investigation on purpose, silently telling him not to bring up any other part of their history.
He smiled, catching her drift, "Right now we have very little information." He continued to brief the room, looking between each CSI, always landing his eyes on Sara has he ended his sentences. She shook her head in almost undetectable motions, knowing he was trying to flirt.
"What about the black box?" Sara asked as she, Doug, Finn and D.B. stood around a layout table.
"Haven't found it yet. I'm going to go back to the site and take a look around." He paused briefly and looked at Sara, "Could use some help." There it was again, his flirtatious smile. After all these years apart, she could still read him so well. He was transparent to her, but she couldn't let on that she knew.
"That's a good idea." D.B. spoke, forcing Sara out of her thoughts, "You've worked together before. You probably have your own short hand. It's a good idea."
Sara gave him a knowing look as she walked out and headed for the locker room.
She opened her locker, a photo of her and Grissom from Costa Rico hun on the inside door—a photo that was now three years old. She through on her vest, checked her gun and holstered it.
"Ready to roll?" Doug appeared in the threshold of the locker room.
"Just about." She answered somewhat mindlessly, feeling her phone vibrate she checked the caller ID—Grissom. She sighed internally knowing she didn't have time to answer his cal now. She let it go to voice mail.
"Just like old times." He smirked, taking in her appearance.
"Very old times." She countered.
"Heard you uh, married your boss. What's his name?"
"Gil."
"Right, Grissom. Bug guy."
She pursed his lips, "We met him the same day, you know."
"Right. You turned my date invitation for coffee down so you suck up to him after the lecture."
"You still married to whats her name?"
"Candy?"
"Candy. Right. Yoga instructor"
"No, no," He smiled, feeling their almost sibling-like banter return to normal, "We crashed and burned years ago."
"Yeah, I didn't see that coming." Her voice laced with unsubtle sarcasm, accompanied by a Sidle-famous smirk.
"Yeah you did."
She brushed past him. "Just like old times." Was she flirting back? She realized as she walked down the hall toward the front of the building, waiting for him to catch up so they could head to the site together. It came so naturally to her, their easy banter, the shared smiles, knowing looks. She rubbed at the band on her ring finger mindlessly.
After spending the day together out at the crash site, Sara and Doug sat side by side in the AV lab. He turned to her as he processed some wires.
"Hey, did you hear that the Rusty Nickel closed?"
Sara let out a laugh, "Well that's about time. That bar gave dives a bad name."
"What are you talking about. You loved that place."
"Yeah you're right I did love it." She quipped quickly and leaved back in her chair, "Right until the moment they kicked me out for life." She cleared her throat, sitting back up.
"They did do that."
"Yep." She knew they were sharing an unspoken memory. One of her and Doug at that bar drinking away the grime of the day. When they had been dating for a few months at that point.
"You were pretty wild in those days." He mused aloud. She caught the gleam in his eyes, that flirtatious look.
"Cut it out." She scolded but it came out more playful than she'd intended.
They continued to discuss the case at hand, Sara trying to distance herself a bit.
"Okay what's left then? The window blew out? Or a door? Whatever it is it had to fall to earth, right? Extrapolating from their position at the time of depressurization and factoring in their altitude and velocity, I mean I can zero in on their location."
He looked deep into her eyes, "Always a physics major."
"I'll tell you what. I'm going to take my physics and I'm going to find whatever fell out of your airplane."
"And what me? What do I do?"
"Well you're going to build me a plane." She flashed him a sidle-famous grin. A look that never failed to melt him.
They spent the next few hours in the garage building a make-shift model of the plane. They stood inside it together now, acting out Sara's theory of what must have happened aboard the flight before they crashed.
"I try to over power you." Doug moves in close and grabs Sara's extended wrist pointing like a gun.
"Then we struggle for the gun." They moved in a mimicked struggle, their bodies close now. She looked up at him, his height towering over her, faces mere inches apart.
"Struggling."
She smiled at him instinctually. She could feel the warmth of his body against hers, his soft touch on her shoulders as he gripped her in a pretend struggle. Her stomach began to flutter. She hadn't felt this close to another person in months. Hadn't felt touched, or admired, or seen. A lump caught in her throat as he moved his hands to pin up both her wrists.
A quick flash of a memory bounced into view. Grissom. Pinning her up against a blood and wax stained sheet. Back when the sexual tension still lingered heavily between them, before they'd gotten together. His bearded face, soft blue eyes. His scent. The feeling of warmth rise within her at their proximity. The closest they'd ever really been next to each other at that point. His lips so close to hers that only centimeters separated them, close enough to kiss—but forbidden.
She quickly but gently took her wrists back and pushed him away, as if they were still acting the scene, "Commanders the plane. Pilot only has time to radio once and turns the plane around."
"We're missing something."
Sara gave him a squinted, disapproving look as he challenged her physics.
"Just saying." He put his hands up in innocence.
Hodges walked the halls back to his lab when he passed an empty AV lab hearing a phone vibrating. He took a peak in to see a cell phone on the table vibrating, the caller ID screen lighting up. Two quick strides brought him to it and saw "Grissom." scrolling across.
He looked around for Sara, realizing it must be her phone that she'd left there but she was no where in sight. Without thinking he answered it.
"Hello?"
"Who is this?"
"Grissom!" Hodges smiled widely, acting surprised even though he'd seen the caller ID. "How are you?"
"Hodges? What are you doing with Sara's phone?"
"Just found it, she must have left it here in the AV lab."
"You should return it to her." He said shortly. A big part of him not missing Vegas and the crime lab life included Hodges' nosey, suck-up attitude.
"Sure, sure. You know—I think she's in the garage getting chummy with Doug. Old flames never really burn out do they."
"Excuse me?"
"Doug? Doug Wilson? Oh you know, the NTSB guy. I'm sure Sara told you about him helping out on an investigation. Her ex-boyfriend from San Fran." Hodges didn't actually know if this was true at the time, but his hunch told him it was.
"Alright, Hodges. Just return her phone will you?"
"You got it boss. I'll keep an eye on them."
"That's not necessary, and I'm not your boss anymore." With that Grissom hung up. Doug. He tried to rack his mind to remember a Doug but nothing came to mind. An ex from San Fransisco means the relationship ended over 12 years ago. Grissom shook his head, leave it to Hodges to try to metal in someone else's marriage.
"You left this in the AV lab." Hodges spoke as he walked into the garage handing Sara the phone.
"Oh, thanks." Sara quickly pocketed it and returned to her task at hand. "You want to check the door for trace while you're here?"
"Sure." Hodges moved to the plane door that laid on a table, combing over it with a magnifying glass. "Green paint." He spoke as he picked up a remnant of it with tweezers. "All yours." Hodges moved over to let Sara take a cast of the tool mark on the door.
"So, this uh, NTSB guy—Wilson—seems like a good sort."
"He is." She spoke absently as she focused on casting a mold.
"When you guys worked together in Frisco, were you close?"
"Well it was a lengthy investigation. We spent a lot of time together."
"Well there's spending time together and there's spending time together."
Sara looked up from the mold now, "What are you getting at Hodges?" She spoke in a cold, harsh tone. One that always made Hodges nervous.
"I'm—I'm not getting at anything."
"How's it going in here?" Doug walked back into the garage.
"The mold is ready." Sara peeled back the mold as Doug stepped closer to get a better look.
"Looks like a good cast. No bubbles, see the tool marks."
"Helps if you get in close. Doesn't it?" Hodges chimed in earning him a death stare from Sara. A movement not unnoticed by Doug.
"Is that paint transfer?"
"Indeed."
"You have a machine to go put that in?" Doug looked down at Hodges sternly.
"Say no more." Hodges moved back and collected the sample, "Three's a crowd."
"What's his problem?" Doug turned to Sara once Hodges was gone.
She shook her head, "Don't even get me started."
"He obviously think's something is going on here." Doug smirked.
"But nothing is." She looked up at him sternly, almost warningly.
"Seems like Hodges has a vested interest in this." He spoke, not giving much in the way of showing he heard her warning.
"He idolizes Gil."
"Ah, the famed Husband of yours."
She ignored him and cleaned up the cast mold.
Sara's phone sat on the layout room table, ringing. Grissom mobile flashed across the lock screen.
"You can take that." Finn spoke as she glanced at the caller ID. "I can come back." She moved to lave for Sara to have privacy.
"No, that's alright. I'll call him back later."
"You sure?"
"Yeah."
Finn returned to the table, helping Sara sort the tools.
"If you ever feel like talking..."
Sara pursed her lips, "You ever try the long distance thing?"
"No. But I think it would have helped my relationship with husband number two."
"Ah the Seattle husband. How was that, seeing him again?"
"It was weird, and then it wasn't." She smirked.
"I wondered why you took a later flight." Sara smiled knowingly.
"What about your NTSB guy? Is that weird?"
"Very weird."
"Gonna stay that way?"
"It has to, right?" Finn could here a pang of regret in Sara's voice.
"Three years is a long time for a long-distance marriage." Finn mused aloud. "Eventually, It's—" She paused, trying to choose her words carefully, "It's understandable to let old feelings creep in when the present themselves."
Sara nodded absently. Knowing Finn was trying to tell her that just having feelings doesn't constitute as cheating, but it still felt like it.
The night went on like that. Grissom calling back every few hours, Sara ignoring his calls.
"This is Sara Sidle. Please leave a message." Grissom hung up, not wanting to leave her yet another voicemail. Suddenly he resented the fact that she identified herself as Sidle still, not Grissom. He pinched the bridge of his nose hard and exhaled. Hodges' unsolicited musings on what Sara was currently up to kept replaying in his head. And while he knew that Sara would never do anything to be unfaithful... he couldn't help but feeling like something was wrong in his gut.
They hadn't seen each other in months now. Their call less frequent and often filled with silence, not sure what to say to one another. He knew he still loved her, could feel it in heart—but something wasn't working.
Despite his best judgement he opened his laptop and searched, "Doug Willson, San Fransisco." In mere minutes he'd found him online. Young and handsome. Grissom flipped through some Google image results and stopped at a photo more that 3/4ths the way down the page.
It was Doug and Sara, her arms wrapped around him tightly, head swung back in laughter as he kissed her cheek. She looked to be in her late-twenties here, maybe 28 or 29... around the age she was when he and Sara had first met at the conference. He clicked the link to the photo, taking him to someone's Facebook page, a friend of Doug's he assumed. The friend captioned the photo "Doug and Sara closing down the Rusty Nickel—August 2000" Three months before he'd brought her to Vegas.
Grissom laid back on his bed and stared at the white ceiling. This isn't working. The phrase kept creeping into his thoughts. He had no plans to return to Vegas, and she clearly had no plans to leave. It had been Three years of this and he was finally able to admit that the weight of their distance was decaying their relationship. He was aging, his hair getting white, wrinkles surfacing. But she always looked the same whenever they'd see each other—however rare that was now. She deserved someone young, someone willing to be in Vegas with her, someone she could grow old with.
It was clear at this point that children were out of the question. They hadn't talked about it since the last time their grant fell through, a year and a half ago. Grissom closed his eyes tightly, never wanting to admit how badly he'd wanted them to have a child. If you love something, you must let them go. A line from a poem flowed through his thoughts. He loved her so much, he knew this, but letting her go was the only way he could think to keep her happy. It would hurt at first, for both of them—he knew that. But in time, she'd forget the pain. She'd move on. She'd find someone to be with that could make her happy in all the ways he was failing to.
He let a tear drop from his eyes as he conceded to the idea of going through the rest of his life without her.
"Listen, Sara. I was just wondering if I could take you and Gil out to dinner to night. You guys pick the place, NTSB picks up the tab, I'm a hell of a third wheel."
"Actually, Gil's out of town."
"Okay, Just the two of us then?"
"Don't."
"Don't what?"
"Do this."
"Okay." He spoke in a resigning voice but only let a moment pass before refocusing, "But if everything is good between you two, and I know you Sara so I'm getting the feeling that maybe it isn't. And I understand—"
"Everything's great." She cut him off quickly. But he could sense that she was trying to convince herself of that fact more than he.
"Okay."
The phone rang again. She didn't even bother checking the screen, she knew it was him. This was the seventh call today, completely out of character of him. He'd never call more than three times without her at least attempting to return the call. Maybe something was wrong? She considered answering but was quickly interrupted.
"Cargo plane downed." Doug's voice caused her to look up.
"No rest for the NTSB."
"Nope." They stood there facing each other.
"So I guess this is it." He shrugged a little sadly.
"Yep."
"Look, about my uh—dinner offer."
Sara shrugged him off, "Oh, don't—" She began but he cut her off.
"It's just that seeing you again, brought back a lot of good memories, Sara." They exchanged a somewhat sad smile, "Honestly It's kind of annoying how great you look."
She laughed bashfully at this, "Thanks."
"I'm glad things worked out for ya. You deserve it."
He could see some regret and sadness fill here eyes as she tried to fight it back, "Give my regards to the Bay."
"Will do." They embraced. His long arms wrapping around her, pulling her in close. She could feel his heart beating against her. Realizing how long they'd been hugging she pulled back and looked up at him. He walked away.
He didn't call back again that night, and she wasn't quite in the right mood to talk anymore.