A/N:
I forgot to include David Gray's "This Year's Love" in the soundtrack listing/playlist for last week's Spain chapter; this has now been rectified.
For me, the heart of that chapter was the Schiphol/Alhambra section, which I wrote last July. 💕 I wanted to expand it a little, though, so this July I added the San Sebastián street scene, which was partly inspired by the "I want you desperately" from the chapter epigraph and partly by the "[When/Won't] ya kiss me on that midnight street / Sweep me off my feet / Singing, 'ain't this life so sweet?'" from Gray's lyrics. I thought a little lust would complement the love, and I wanted to demonstrate that, as much as Sara wants her man intellectually and emotionally, she most certainly still wants him carnally as well. 😉
What follows is the most travelogue-y of the chapters in this story (and it is again very much a tourist's view). When I picture Sara and Grissom's time in Europe during the year of honeymoons, I imagine super-hot seasons 8-9 bearded Grissom plus super cute/pretty/happy "Family Affair" (10x01) Sara. I imagine them wandering the streets of Paris hand in hand during the day and having lots of steamy intimate encounters at night (or in the morning, or in the afternoon, or whenever…) and being really just blissfully happy, and it makes me super happy, too. I hope you will imagine the same! 💕
This chapter has some very general plot information for Et si c'était vrai... and Just Like Heaven.
Summer 2009. France + Benelux.
I adore you. You make me believe that everything is possible.
— Henry Miller, from A Literate Passion:
Letters of Anaïs Nin & Henry Miller, 1932-1953.
Hold me close and hold me fast
The magic spell you cast
This is "La vie en rose"
When you kiss me, heaven sighs
And though I close my eyes
I see "La vie en rose"
When you press me to your heart
I'm in a world apart
A world where roses bloom
And when you speak, angels sing from above
Everyday words seem to turn into love songs
Give your heart and soul to me
And life will always be
"La vie en rose"
— Mack David, "La Vie en rose"; based on Édith Piaf, "La Vie en rose."
To Catch a Thief
From San Sebastián, Sara and Grissom had taken the short train ride north to Biarritz, in the southwest corner of France, also on the Atlantic's Bay of Biscay. As in previous surfing destinations they'd visited, Grissom sat on the beach reading and watching Sara while Sara tried the waves. When she came in from the surf and kissed him, Sara again tasted salt and sunscreen, and she'd begun to find the taste quite magical.
After Biarritz, they took the train east along the south of the country, stopping for a couple nights in each of Toulouse, Montpellier, and Marseille, before reaching their ultimate destination of Antibes, on the Mediterranean coast; they would be spending two weeks in and around Vieil Antibes. From Antibes, they would also take day trips to Cannes, Nice, and Monaco.
In Vieil Antibes, they visited the Musée Picasso. They regularly walked through the Marché provençal and picked up fresh local produce and baked goods. One afternoon, they took a walk out to the famed Hotel du Cap-Eden-Roc, paid for their expensive drinks in cash as the hotel required, and did their best F. Scott and Zelda impressions.
Having reached the end of their journey with Jake and Brett (whose fate both had already known from individual readings many years earlier), they bought a copy of Tender Is the Night from a tiny local bookstore. Although Grissom was concerned the story of Dick and Nicole Divers' respective descents into alcoholism and mental illness might be triggering for Sara, she insisted they continue their joint readings with the story, considered by Fitzgerald to be his masterwork.
On sunny mornings, Sara would take Grissom to the Plage de la Gravette—with its vast white sand beach hemmed in by medieval walls and discreetly tucked away at the end of the port—and drag him in for a leisurely swim in the Mediterranean. By this time, both were toned and tanned (but not too tanned). After all the walking, hiking, swimming, and cycling—not to mention canoeing—they'd done since Grissom had joined her in Costa Rica, he was, Sara would swear, as fit as she'd ever seen him, and she was utterly enamored with the state of his beard.
To Sara's (extremely biased) mind, her husband had never been handsomer. Of course, to Grissom's (extremely biased) mind, his wife had always been exactly this beautiful. We would be hard-pressed to say who jumped whom whenever they returned to their room.
On a day beset by rain, Grissom went to scrounge up snacks from a local boulangerie, so he and Sara could stay in their room watching Vertigo, North by Northwest, and To Catch a Thief on Sara's laptop—thus allowing Hitchcock to take them on a tour of their past travels old and new.
After returning to their room with bags from a couple local shops, Grissom took off his shoes and jacket and shook off the rain before greeting his wife.
"Hey, so how is young Greg?" he asked, referring to the telephone call that had come in just as he and Sara had been leaving for the shops, turning the shopping trip into a solo mission. "You haven't talked to him in a while."
"He said it was a quiet night. And the lab's not the same without us there. And he's still frustrated at being treated like a kid—'like the lab tech with the crazy hair,' in his words."
"That's too bad."
"Yeah. Oh, he also said I sounded terribly happy. He said it was unnatural."
Grissom frowned.
"It was a joke." She gave a light pucker of the lips. "He did say I sounded terribly happy, but he said it was good. He said he was happy you were making me so happy. So I told him you were making me terribly, terribly, terribly happy."
At this, Grissom tried not to smile.
"Come here; make me happy."
He walked over to his wife, who was reclined in the bed, and leaned in to kiss her.
Right as his lips were about to meet hers, though, she put her hands on his chest to stop him. "So what did you bring me?"
"Hey!"
"Just kidding." She kissed him languidly, then she pulled away. "But, seriously, what did you bring me?"
"Well, I got us some to-go cappuccinos and pastries from that place down the street you liked." He held up one of their reusable shopping bags, containing a selection of French pastries.
Sara took the bag and looked inside. "Oh, excellent!" She smiled. She was sure the treats would be delicious. But part of her couldn't help thinking that popcorn and Junior Mints would have been the perfect snacks for some rainy-day movie watching. As much as she enjoyed all the delicious local food they'd been eating, part of her really, really had a hankering for some completely junky snacks—something salty, something sugary, possibly something covered in fake butter or orange dust; all unhealthy; all completely artificial.
"Also, I couldn't find any good popcorn options or Junior Mints, so I picked out some other stuff for you." He handed her another reusable shopping bag, which he had set down on the floor beside the bed.
Sara took the bag, and her eyes widened when she saw the contents, which she proceeded to dump on the bed. "Nacho cheese Doritos, salt and vinegar potato chips, Haribo coke bottles, those little strawberry marshmallow thingies, mint chocolate…. Honestly, all we need now is—"
He handed her a third bag, which had also been resting at his feet.
"Diet Coke, orange Fanta, different flavors of Fanta…." Sara looked up at Grissom. "You…." She couldn't help grinning. "I swear to you, I would marry you a second time if I could, Gil Grissom."
Grissom was trying unsuccessfully to contain a grin of his own, again beyond pleased that he could—so easily—have delighted her so. "I think just the once should be enough."
She beckoned him with a finger. He leaned toward her, as she moved toward the edge of the bed. "I think you should take off those wet clothes now."
"Oh, I left the wet stuff by the door." He gestured toward the jacket and shoes by the entryway. "The stuff I still have on is pretty dry."
"Oh, I'm pretty sure they're wet." She looked him up and down. "Yes, I think you need to take those wet clothes off now, Gilbert."
At her inflection on his full name, he finally started to get the point. "And the movies…."
"Oh, I think old Alfred can wait a little while, don't you? I mean, he has been dead for several decades."
"Fair enough."
"Maybe you'd like me to help you out with that?" Sara tugged on the hem of his t-shirt.
"Well, I…. I, uh…. I've always been in favor of teamwork, you know?" He held up his arms to give her better access.
She pulled the t-shirt up and over his head, then she tossed it to the side. "Oh, I do." She leaned in closer and started working on his belt. "I really, really do."
"So… do you have any wet clothes you want me to help you out with, dear?"
"Yes, Gilbert." She leaned in and whispered in his ear, "I am very, very wet."
God, he loved this woman.
Paris When It Sizzles
From Antibes, the happy couple took the TGV high-speed train to Paris, where they would be spending over six weeks getting acquainted with the city and practicing their French before the fall semester started.
Through a connection at the university, the newlyweds were getting a deal subletting a furnished apartment in a seventeenth-century building on the Île Saint-Louis, the small island in the Seine next to the Île de la Cité. Though the apartment itself was not overly large, the view over the Seine and to the back of Notre-Dame couldn't be beat. Besides, Sara and Grissom didn't need a lot of space for how they would be spending their time.
Paris is the City of Lights, but also the City of Love, and, in the summer of 2009, it was certainly the city of Sara Sidle and Gil Grissom's love. For those many weeks they spent together in Paris that summer, Sara and Grissom were flâneurs. They ate, drank, and wandered their way through the city, hand in hand visiting every neighborhood and quiet, unknown street they could.
In the mornings, they would stop at one of the local cafés for breakfast or bring back treats from a local pâtissière or boulangerie. They ate all the croissants and pains au chocolat they could manage. They took turns with the International Herald Tribune and worked on crossword puzzles together—genius-level crosswords, now that this was fully a joint activity.
For lunch, they would visit various cafés, brasseries, or other restaurants, as they came across them in their wanderings. Sara ate more tomato and mozzarella salads, more slices of baguette, and more mousses au chocolat than she could count.
Sara told Grissom she didn't mind him ordering steak frites, just as long as she was sitting beside him facing the street, not across from him watching; she didn't tell him she quite enjoyed getting to steal his fries and bearnaise sauce. Eventually, though, he realized she wouldn't kiss him until after he'd brushed his teeth, so he gave up ordering steak frites, and Sara had to order frites with bearnaise sauce for herself.
When they wanted snacks during their wanderings, they'd often stop for crêpes—filled with melted chocolate, fresh strawberries, and whipped cream; bananas, coconut, and Nutella; or perhaps simply sugar and fresh lemon juice—as their mood dictated.
For dinner, they bought baguettes and stinky French cheeses and tomatoes and other produce, as well as tartes aux fraises, tartes au citron, éclairs, or other baked goods. Sometimes they ate in the cozy, light-filled apartment overlooking the Seine, and sometimes they packed their provisions up with a bottle of chilled rosé or champagne, and they joined the Parisians picnicking on the river's banks.
When it wasn't closed for the season (August being the month Paris takes its vacations), the Berthillon ice cream shop was their nightly destination; they purchased the cher but worth-every-cent cones from the shop window on their little island. They would take their cones and wander over the bridge to the Île de la Cité and past the back of Notre-Dame, which they tried to visit at least once per day, just because they could. When they kissed, they both tasted the wild strawberries of their chosen fraises des bois ice cream.
They visited gardens near and far, large and small: the Jardin des Plantes, the Jardin du Luxembourg, the Jardin du Palais Royal, the Jardin des Tuileries, and so on. They visited museums near and far, large and small: the Louvre, the Musée D'Orsay, the Centre Pompidou, the Musée Rodin, and so on.
They took a tour of Paris's old opera house, the Palais Garnier, and they took in an opera at its new opera house, the Opéra Bastille. Grissom was so giddy, Sara thought him almost as boyish as that afternoon on the northern California coast when she'd first accompanied him on a roller coaster ride. She, again, found him so darn cute.
They walked the banks of the Seine, buying small art-reproduction prints and black and white postcards, the latter of which Sara would send home to their friends and former colleagues with tales of their wanderings.
They stopped in for hours at the English-language bookshop Shakespeare & Co., where they bought, amongst other things, The Enormous Room and a book of poetry by E.E. Cummings; copies of the collected short stories of Fitzgerald and Hemingway; and A Moveable Feast, Hemingway's posthumously published memoir of his days in Paris in the 1920s. At night, they often read to each other—or Grissom recited from memory—poems from their collection of books, both French and English.
During the day, they visited, on several occasions, Les Deux Magots and the Café de Flore, two café-restaurants Hemingway et al had frequented in the Saint-Germain-des-Prés neighborhood of the city. While eating, they read to each other from their books and imagined Hemingway's exploits with his circle of friends. They knew that in doing so they were following in the footsteps of thousands upon thousands (upon thousands) of tourists past, but they didn't care; it was all new to them.
On rainy days, they visited smaller museums or galleries, or they just stayed in their cozy apartment with the enviable view. In the morning, Grissom would go in search of coffee and pastries for his bride.
When he came back, he would climb back into bed and whisper in her ear, "Je t'aime, ma petite puce," at which Sara would laugh; the French really had created the perfect term of endearment for her eminent entomologist's use.
Then, in return, Sara would whisper coyly, "Je t'aime, aussi, mon amour."
Grissom might spend some time preparing for his upcoming course, while Sara would review journal articles and consider possible topics for her contemplated renewed doctoral studies. Otherwise they would simply spend the day in bed, reading, or doing more crosswords, or involved in other marvelous endeavors they both very much enjoyed.
On days when they wandered the city, Sara would often stop to admire pretty necklaces in boutique windows, and Grissom would buy her as many as she would allow. On several occasions he bought her very expensive, very, very lacy lingerie from fancy French shops. When his overly amorous ways required it, he bought her fancy silk scarves as well. When he saw a silk robe covered in a pattern of tropical rainforest vegetation in one of the fancy shops, he bought that for her, too.
At the end of each day, once they had returned to their cozy apartment overlooking the back of Notre-Dame, she didn't have to work very hard to seduce him. She didn't have to work at all. He was already seduced, this new husband of hers. He had been for years. When finally they slept, they were always intertwined. They had been invading each other's personal space in public for years, so it was only fitting that they continued to do so in private.
After they'd been in Paris for several weeks, Sara and Grissom took the train to Amsterdam for a few days' stay. On the ride there, they joked between themselves that Amsterdam was basically Europe's own sin city, so they'd feel right at home; of course, they didn't dare offend the Dutch with this assessment. Once they'd spent time wandering the narrow streets along the city's famed canals, they realized how wrong the comparison was, even as a joke.
They enjoyed a boat cruise through the city's canals, as well as sitting at the terraces of its canal-side cafés, enjoying selections of local beers. They sampled giant Dutch pancakes topped with strawberries and whipped cream and snacked on mini Dutch pancakes, poffertjes. They ate stroopwafels with their morning coffees, and fries with mayonnaise and peanut sauce as their late-night, after-the-café treats.
In addition to their general wanderings of the city, they visited the Rijksmuseum (the national museum dedicated to Dutch arts and history) and the Van Gogh Museum, and Grissom insisted on using the proper Dutch pronunciation of Van Gogh. Sara was amused at the latter, so it really must have been love.
Some weeks after that, in August, Sara and Grissom took the train to Luxembourg (the city) for another few days' escape. They spent their nights at a lovely old hotel on the Place d'Armes.
During the day they wandered the streets of the Old Town and the nearby garden areas. They took the stairs down to Grund, one of the city's oldest neighborhoods, located in the valley below the center of the city; over the course of their stay, they drank beer and ate at more than one of the establishments along the banks of the Alzette river. They were enchanted.
Later in August, Grissom returned to the cozy apartment one rainy morning, croissants, coffee, and chocolat chaud in hand, to find Sara lying on her back in bed holding two books: one, their Compact Oxford-Hachette French Dictionary; the other, a small red and white volume he didn't recall seeing before.
Grissom put the drinks and croissant bag down on the bedside table on his side of the bed. He looked over at Sara. "What are you reading?"
"Book."
"Thank you, dearest." He narrowed his eyes at her as she looked over at him. "You know, you're lucky you're so cute."
"I know."
Having removed his outerwear while he was speaking with her, he slid into bed close beside her. Then he reached an arm across her half-bare stomach as he leaned in and kissed her neck. "So what book are you reading, Sara?"
Now that she had her man back in bed with her, Sara slipped a bookmark into the small red and white volume and placed both books beside her on the bed.
"I found it in the bookshelves in the living room. I thought it might be nice to practice my French by reading an actual book. Most of the books in there are… I don't know… Proust and Balzac and things like that, which I think might be just a little bit above my French reading comprehension levels. But I found a few more recent novels that seemed a bit more manageable."
"So what's this one about? Or do you not know yet?"
"I do. I looked it up. I figured I could use all the advantages I could get. It's about a woman who gets in a car accident and ends up haunting her old apartment. The only person who can see her is the guy who's moved into the apartment."
"Do you really think you need more ghosts in your life?"
"Hey! I'm dealing with my ghosts just fine now. And it turns out the woman's not dead anyway. Plus this is a modern fantasy-romance. It's sure to be less potentially traumatizing than all the sad Hemingway and Fitzgerald stories we've been reading lately."
"Fair point."
"Also, the author is French, but he lived in San Francisco for several years, and that's where the novel is set." She rubbed her hand over his chest. "We all like a San Francisco love story, don't we, Gilbert?"
"That we do, Sara."
"They even made it into a movie a few years ago—an American movie, I mean. I realized after I started reading. I actually watched it while I was in San Francisco last year. It has Reese Witherspoon in it."
Grissom appeared to be drawing a blank on the name.
"You know, cute blonde girl—I mean, woman?"
Grissom shook his head. "Maybe I'd recognize her if I saw her."
"Okay, well it has Reese Witherspoon and… oh, that guy from…. Oh, he's been in a bunch of stuff. He was in the Zodiac killer movie—I think it was just called Zodiac. That's set in San Francisco, too, of course. We watched it together over the phone while I was in San Francisco, remember? I'm trying to think of who the lead was. It had a bunch of people in it you'd recognize. Brian Cox?"
Grissom shook his head.
"Dermot Mulroney?"
Grissom shook his head again.
"Oh, Jake Gyllenhaal was the lead, that's right! Plus Robert Downey Jr."
"Yeah…. I remember now. Anthony Edwards was in it, too, right?"
Sara shook her head; she couldn't place the name. "I'm not sure…. Oh, but Mark Ruffalo—that's the guy in the movie based on the book I'm reading. I'll see if I can download the movie, and we can watch it one night, check out some more of that San Francisco scenery."
"Okay, sounds good. We have already gone through all the Audrey Hepburn movies filmed in Paris."
"And in Rome."
"And in Rome." Grissom kissed her neck again. "So do you want to read me a few paragraphs of the book, so you can practice your sexy French accent?" He raised his eyebrows suggestively at her.
"I think we both know what's going to happen if I do that."
"And…?"
"And… you just brought back breakfast and, by the looks of it, hot beverages."
"We do have a microwave."
"So you're telling me you'd like to experience la petite mort avant ton café?"
Grissom ran his tongue along his teeth as he tried to obscure the extent of his amusement—and the extent to which, now that he was cuddled up in bed beside his wife, he did very much indeed want to experience la petite mort before his café au lait.
"In that case, and since it is raining, maybe we should just skip the reading…." Sara placed the books on her bedside table and then turned back to Grissom. She raised a hand and cupped his face on one side. She kissed him once on the other cheek before starting to move her gentle kisses toward his parted lips. "And move on directly to some more…." Sara puckered her lips. "Heavenly encounters…."
"If you insist, darling." He tried in vain to control the grin that was now spreading fully across his face. "If you insist…."
On a sunny day in early September, Sara and Grissom took a day trip from Paris to Versailles. Sara wasn't all that interested in the palace, but she had wanted to experience the vast gardens.
Sara and Grissom spent many hours exploring the UNESCO World Heritage Site, and Sara appreciated getting to see the meticulously manicured lawns, parterres, sculptures, and fountains of the mostly classic French formal gardens (though, truth be told, she usually preferred her vegetation a little on the wilder side). In fact, whilst she kissed her husband—kissed her husband in that classic French style—before the Belvedere pavilion of Marie Antoinette's Petit Trianon château, Sara felt this had been a more than worthwhile excursion.
As they rode back in the train to Paris at the end of the day, Grissom again put his arm around her, and Sara again leaned against him and looked out at the passing countryside.
Sara thought about how lucky she was to be there with this man—this man she loved; this brilliant, kind, gentle man; this man who made her laugh, every day; this man who made her feel safe, every day; this man who made her feel loved, every day; this man who made her feel that someone cared for her, every single solitary day.
He was her prince, she thought, then laughed at herself for having such a silly idea. He was an ordinary man, not a prince, but he was her man, and he made her happy.
As if on cue, her man started singing "La Vie en rose" softly in her ear, changing the lyrics slightly so the song was for her: "Quand tu me prends dans tes bras / Que tu me parles tout bas / Je vois la vie en rose / Tu me dis des mots d'amour / Des mots de tous les jours / Et ça m'fait quelque chose." Sara laughed again; sometimes she really felt he could read her mind.
When Grissom had finished his song, he looked down at her—in fact trying to read her mind. "Everything okay?" he asked, with a gently knit brow.
Sara turned her head to look up at his bright blue eyes. "Yes, my love." She smiled. "Everything's perfect."
UP NEXT: NEXT CHAPTER: FALL 2009 TO WINTER 2013. PARIS, FRANCE; LAS VEGAS, NEVADA; AND ELSEWHERE, IN THE WORLD.
NOTES
On orange dust:
Sara's craving for some junk food is nothing more and nothing less than a reflection of my own previous desperate yearning for some Kraft Dinner (Kraft macaroni & cheese) while travelling somewhere remote (and very, very far from home).
On "ma petite puce":
"Ma petite puce" translates idiomatically to "my little sweetie" but literally to "my little flea." Honestly, it's a little bit tragic that CSI never took advantage of this.
On other translations:
"Je t'aime, aussi, mon amour." = "I love you, too, my love."
"Quand tu me prends dans tes bras / Que tu me parles tout bas / Je vois la vie en rose / Tu me dis des mots d'amour / Des mots de tous les jours / Et ça m'fait quelque chose." = "When you take me in your arms / You speak to me softly / I see life in rosy hues / You tell me words of love / Everyday words / And that does something to me."
"La petite mort" = "the little death" (euphemism for orgasm).
On the proper pronunciation of Van Gogh:
I have a (completely Anglophone) family member who insists on trying to use the more guttural Dutch pronunciation of Van Gogh, and to my ear this sounds a bit odd coming from an Anglophone. Absolutely no offence is intended here, to Dutch or English speakers! 💛
SOUNDTRACK LISTING
Louis Armstrong. "La Vie en rose."
The Cure. "Just Like Heaven."
The Cure. "Lovesong."
Edith Piaf. "La Vie en rose."
(You can listen to this song in my playlist for this series, which can be found by searching my username on Spotify.)
For last chapter's soundtrack listing, I was unable to find a cover of "California" that did justice to Joni Mitchell's voice/sound, so for the Spotify playlist I subbed in a live version of "Both Sides Now" (one of the few Joni Mitchell-performed tracks available on Spotify).
A/N:
I will be taking a week off from updating this story because I have written a story for ficwip's 5k AU challenge that I will be posting next. It's a pre-canon divergent, canon-convergent story called "One Life Stand" that asks:
What if the San Francisco lecture where Sara Sidle and Gil Grissom first met ("Toe Tags," 07x03) did not take place at the 1998 AAFS conference where Sara had a ponytail and too many questions about anthropology ("A La Cart," 08x02)? What if they had an (intimate) encounter five years earlier?
I'm calling it a variation on a coffee-shop AU—not that I've ever read a coffee-shop AU, to the best of my recollection! It's set in June 1993, and I feel like it has some nice summer vibes; I've even done up an early '90s playlist for it. I hope you'll check it out!
In the meantime, for this story, I hope you will continue imagining our beautiful science nerds together, happily exploring Paris (and each other)! 💕 Thank you so very much for reading, and I hope you have a wonderful week! 💛