A/N:
I wrote the first (shorter) drafts of these travel chapters last July, when I wrote the first (much shorter!) draft of these stories. I hadn't been overseas in a long time, so I very much enjoyed imagining some overseas travel for Sara and Grissom. đź’• I hope you will enjoy it, too! đź’›
This chapter tells you very vaguely whether each of The Sun Also Rises, Casablanca, and Charade end with a ❤️ or a 💔. Is that a spoiler at this point? I hope not.
Spring 2009. Spain.
I want you desperately. I want your strength and your softness, your hands, all of you; you don't know the things I… crave…. I want you from me to have the experience of being loved.
— Anaïs Nin, from A Literate Passion:
Letters of AnaĂŻs Nin & Henry Miller, 1932-1953.
Holiday: In Spain
Sara and Grissom left for the continent in late spring. Before returning to their academic and research pursuits, they would be making the most of their summer in Europe. They had concluded they should spend most of the time before the semester in France, practicing their French. They didn't really want to take a whirlwind tour through Europe anyway. They wanted to relax. Neither of them had spent any substantial time relaxing before—ever, in their whole entire lives.
So Sara and Grissom would be spending most of their time in France but starting out with just over two weeks in Spain: Barcelona, in the northeast of the country, on the Mediterranean; a beach town just south of Barcelona that Grissom had chosen for them; and San Sebastián (Donastia in Basque), on the northern coast, on the Atlantic's Bay of Biscay, very near the border with France.
Sara wasn't sure why Grissom had chosen the beach town, and she didn't know the details, but she trusted him. She'd decided to let him oversee the planning. Sara had really never in her life had anyone to take care of her (her parents certainly hadn't taken care of her), so she'd decided she trusted him to take care of this trip.
Quite a number of years earlier, Sara had told Grissom about how many of her classmates at Harvard would go off to Europe for Christmas holidays or spring break or summer vacation. They'd brought back pictures, and sometimes she'd looked at some of those pictures.
Sara hadn't been jealous. She really hadn't. She hadn't begrudged them these trips. Beginning life as she had, she had been more than content just to be at Harvard, on a full scholarship, making the start of a life for herself.
One time, though, someone had brought back pictures of the Alhambra, the palace and fortress complex of the Moorish monarchs of Granada, in southern Spain. It had gorgeous, intricate tile patterns on its walls. Sara had thought that, if she ever made herself the kind of life that would take her to Europe, she would like to see those patterns in person. She had not made a big deal about this when speaking with Grissom, though; it was just part of one of the innumerable conversations they had shared over the years.
Sara had only idly thought of all this, for the briefest of moments, when she and Grissom had decided to start their trip in Spain. The Alhambra was, as already noted, in the south of the country, far from the rest of their destinations. Sara hadn't said anything about it, and she hadn't thought any further of it.
So, when they were standing in Amsterdam's Schiphol airport and Grissom handed her a ticket to Malaga, Spain, not Barcelona, and he informed her they would be starting their trip by going to Granada to see the Alhambra… well, that absolute badass Sara Sidle sobbed openly on his shoulder in the middle of that Dutch airport.
Grissom was kind of embarrassed—not of her, of course, for crying in the airport, though he'd never seen anything like it from her before—but kind of embarrassed at the evident success of his surprise. Mostly, though, he was pretty proud of himself; he was beyond pleased he could make her so happy.
For her part, Sara was very happy to be going to the Alhambra, of course, but that wasn't what had caused the tears. In truth, Sara was still shocked that this man she loved—this man she'd loved since she'd met him over a decade earlier—this man who had finally decided she was worth all the risks—had remembered something so minor she had told him so many years ago, and he had thought to do something about it, just because he wanted to make her happy.
"I love you," she whispered in his ear once the tears had subsided somewhat.
"I love you, too, sweetheart."
"No, but I really love you. I love you so, so much." She sniffled a little.
Grissom couldn't imagine loving anything more than he loved her in that moment. He was wrong, of course. He would always find some way to love her more. In that moment, though, he wished he could find a way to tell her that he loved her so, so, so much more than anything he could ever have imagined.
She sniffled again as she held on to him still. "So much." She kissed his neck.
"I love you, Sara."
In person, the Alhambra was every bit as impressive as Sara had imagined it would be. The complex's colorful, intricately patterned tiles were even more gorgeous in person than they had been in pictures, and Sara spent her time there so terribly grateful, still, that this man she loved—her husband—had remembered something so minor she had told him so many years ago and had thought to do something about it, just because he wanted to make her happy.
After spending several days spent visiting the Alhambra and wandering around the streets of Granada, Sara and Grissom took the nearly day-long train ride north to Barcelona.
In Barcelona, they again wandered the streets, experiencing the best of what the city had to offer. They were charmed by the city's Gothic cathedrals and the fantastical works of Modernisme architecture created by Antoni GaudĂ and his contemporaries. They were enchanted by GaudĂ's famed unfinished but UNESCO-designated Sagrada FamĂlia basilica. They indulged in classic Catalan dishes and a variety of tapas—with Sara finding some new favorite vegetarian items amongst all the olives and cheeses and patatas bravas she consumed—as well as many orders of churros con chocolate.
Sara had already discovered that Grissom's mysterious beach town had just been a placeholder in their itinerary to account for the time spent in Granada, and, after one week in Barcelona, they boarded the train to San Sebastián.
While on the train, Grissom took advantage of the roughly six-hour journey to review materials for the course he would be teaching in the fall, but Sara just relaxed. She leaned against her husband and enjoyed watching the Spanish countryside go past as they headed northwest to the Atlantic coast.
At some point, Grissom started singing in her ear, just loud enough for her to hear: "So I bought me a ticket / I got on a plane to Spain / Went to a party down a red dirt road / There were lots of pretty people there / Reading Rolling Stone, reading Vogue." Unlike Joni Mitchell, though, Sara didn't yearn for California. Sara didn't need to go home; she was already there. For Sara, home was a person, and he was with her.
In San Sebastián, the culinary heart of Basque Country, Sara and Grissom spent their days exploring La Parte Vieja (the Old Town) and the waterfront and their nights meandering between pintxo bars, enjoying the various bite-size local delicacies. They also took a day trip to Bilbao, where they visited the Guggenheim, the Frank Gehry-designed museum full of modern and contemporary art and itself a renowned work of contemporary architecture.
Sara and Grissom had started reading to each other, in the mornings and evenings, from books related to their travels; in San Sebastián, they began The Sun Also Rises and, with their reading, began to anticipate their time in Paris.
Wait Until Dark
At the end of their final day in Spain, Sara and Grissom strolled back hand in hand through La Parte Vieja after visiting the last of that night's pinxto bars. They soon found themselves alone on a quiet street they had not previously visited, looking in darkened shop windows. Well, they had both been looking in various darkened shop windows; before long, Sara was paying attention to nothing but her husband.
Suddenly seeing an opportunity present itself, she took his hand and pulled him off the street and into the shadows of a shop entranceway.
"Hi," he said, almost questioningly.
"Hi," she responded, most definitely flirtatiously.
She put her hands behind his head as she leaned in, capturing his bottom lip between both of hers. Then she leaned back out, resting her back against the cold stone side of the entranceway, bringing him with her, holding him close. For several minutes they stayed like that: lips embracing, tongues tangling, the scent of red wine from their breath swirling in the air, her fingers swirling through the soft curls that barely managed to form in his short brown hair. Occasionally a soft moan or a whimper emerged to join the rustling of clothes and the movement of mouth on mouth.
Eventually, without removing her mouth from his, she began to move her right hand down—down over his neck to his chest, down his chest to his stomach, then down below his belt. There she began massaging, first gently, then applying more pressure, and he groaned into her mouth. When she progressed to more of a squeeze, however, he pulled away.
"God, Sara, what are you trying to do to me here?"
Her eyes twinkled. She was feeling more than a little amorous, and she wasn't making any effort to hide it. "I think you know exactly what I'm trying to do." She ran her tongue over her slightly pink teeth.
"Do you really think this is the best place for it?"
"Mmmm…. If I weren't afraid of getting us thrown out of the E.U., I'd have you right here, you know." She couldn't help herself from laughing—even more so when she saw his eyes go wide and his eyebrows shoot up.
"You… had way too much red wine."
"Nooo." She tried not to slur her words; she was also feeling more than a little inebriated, and she was making at least a very slight effort to hide that. "I think I had just enough red wine." She leaned in, lightly tugging on his lower lip with her teeth, then once again embracing his lips with her own. His hands were at her waist, under her shirt, holding her tight.
"'When I think of how you press against me…'" he murmured.
"'I want you desperately…'" she purred in response, as her right hand began to resume its previous activities.
"Sara…." With much effort, he pulled away again; he had a higher alcohol tolerance and had drunk less wine than she, but he wouldn't have passed a breathalyzer test either. "Sara, honey…. This isn't going to end well."
"Or maybe it's going to end very well…."
"Look, we're less than ten minutes from the hotel…."
"But I want you now. I want to feel you now, baby…." She couldn't remember a time when she hadn't wanted this man. Her fingers tugged on the waistband of his jeans. She was feeling a little desperate from the lack of contact between their two bodies, frustrated by the space he'd created between them when he'd pulled away.
"We've got an early train to catch…."
"I always want you, Gil…." She looked at him imploringly.
"We've still got some packing to do…."
"I want all of you. I want to feel all of you…." She felt herself pulsating with the want of him.
He leaned in and whispered in her ear. "And I have some things I want to do to you back at the hotel before we go to sleep."
"Oh." She began to smile, a somewhat drunken but definitely megawatt smile.
He smiled back at her as he leaned out. "Just think about it. First we have tonight still in the hotel here. Then tomorrow we get to go to the south of France. We'll make our way along the south of France. Then we'll be in Paris—wandering, meandering, exploring…." As he looked her up and down, his expression made clear that the streets of Paris were not all he wanted to explore.
"Just like Audrey Hepburn and Cary Grant."
"Exactly. And we'll go off on a new adventure after that, once our funding comes through…. But… well, after these next months, we'll always have Paris, Sara."
"Like Charade, though."
"Yes."
"Not like Casablanca."
"No."
"Not like Rick and Ilsa."
"No."
"Not like Jake Barnes and Lady Brett Ashley."
"Of course not." He'd raised his right hand, and he used it to stroke her cheek.
"Like Reggie Lampert and… oh… whatever his name was."
"Yes."
"You have things you're going to do to me…?"
"Yes."
"Nice things?"
"Yes. Very nice things, Sara."
"Okay."
"Okay?"
"Yes, Gilbert. I will let you do very nice things to me tonight," Sara said coyly.
"So… shall we?" With his left hand, Grissom gestured in the direction of the route back to their hotel.
"Oh, we shall."
He stepped out onto the street and offered her his hand. Again hand in hand, they walked back to their hotel. They didn't get much sleep that night, in the end, but they did some very, very nice things together.
The next morning, when they boarded their train to Biarritz, Sara was bleary-eyed and more than a little hungover, and she was grateful she had her sunglasses to shield her from the overhead lights. As soon as they sat down, she wrapped an arm around Grissom and buried her head in his chest, and he put an arm around her and began stroking her hair.
"Feeling a little hungover, are we, dear?" he asked.
"Yes," she said, slightly muffled by his chest. "But it was worth it."
"Yeah. It was." He kissed the top of her head. He was feeling a little hungover, too, but he smiled, though she couldn't see it. "It's always worth it with you, Sara."
She smiled, too, though he too couldn't see it. As she drifted off to sleep, safe in her husband's arms, she thought back to how they'd begun this trip to Spain and how they'd ended it; to love and lust so closely intertwined she still couldn't separate one from the other; and to how much she'd always, always, always wanted this man.
UP NEXT: NEXT CHAPTER: SUMMER 2009. FRANCE + BENELUX.
NOTES
On Basque Country:
I am not the WP expert, but his daughter was apparently born about an hour from San Sebastián, and his Wikipedia entry says this:
While at Idaho State, Petersen took an acting course, which changed the direction of his life. He left school along with his wife, Joanne, in 1974, and followed a drama professor to the Basque country, where he studied as a Shakespearean actor. Petersen was interested in Basque culture: He studied the Basque language and gave his daughter the Basque name "Maite Nerea" ("My Beloved"); she was born in Arrasate/MondragĂłn in 1975.
So it was fun to bring Grissom to Basque Country, if only for a few days!
On "When I think of how you press against me…":
Henry Miller, from A Literate Passion: Letters of AnaĂŻs Nin & Henry Miller, 1932-1953.
He can quote Shakespeare and The Big Chill, so I tend to assume Grissom can quote from memory anything I need him to quote.
On some very nice things:
After this chapter, I feel almost obligated to state that I have tried to write a scene for this story where these two science nerds get some "onscreen" satisfaction, so we'll see how that goes.
SOUNDTRACK LISTING
Joni Mitchell. "California."*
*Apparently Joni Mitchell is not generally available on Spotify (which I just now realized), so I'll have to see if I can find a cover to do her justice.
(You can listen to this song in my playlist for this series, which can be found by searching my username on Spotify.)
A/N:
Today I am thinking of Tony Bennett, whose version of "The Way You Look Tonight" (the song Grissom sang to Sara during their Chicago river cruise in the previous chapter) is my favourite and is referenced twice in this series of stories. ❤️
I feel obliged to mention that today is the 34th anniversary of the theatrical release of When Harry Met Sally—definitely a good excuse to watch it (if you need an excuse)!
Thank you so very much for reading! I hope you enjoyed this short stop in Spain. As you've probably already figured out, next week our two lovely science nerds will continue their journey, in France! đź’•
Have a lovely weekend and week! đź’›