Disclaimer: I don't own anything related to CSI
Chapter 3
"So?" Catherine repeats a few hours later when Sara comes into the living room.
After the birthday party ended, Catherine offered to clean up while Sara put Shelby to bed. It took two bedtime stories to calm the birthday girl down after all the excitement and sugar, but she's finally asleep, hugging her new best friend tightly.
"I guess you want an explanation?" Sara says with a sigh, sitting down on the couch next to the spot Catherine has claimed.
"I always figured something must have happened, for you to up and leave out of the blue like that. I even tried asking Gil about it one time, but he practically bit my head off." She chuckles a little at the memory.
"He's not one to talk about personal stuff, is he?" Sara notes.
"Far from it," Catherine agrees. "So, what did happen? I don't need the details; I still remember how it works. But what made him change his mind?"
"He didn't." Sara sighs, trying to ignore the feelings of rejection that bubble to the surface by just thinking about it. "I guess you could call it a spur of the moment kind of thing. Or maybe heat of the moment."
"OK." Catherine nods.
"It was when I got suspended, remember, when I blew up at you and Ecklie after that case with mail-order brides?" Sara continues.
Catherine chuckles. "How could I forget? Man, you pissed me off." She takes some of the edge of her words by smiling.
"You were right, though. I did take a personal interest in that case, and all cases where there was even a hint of domestic abuse," Sara says. "I shouldn't have said the things I said, and I'm sorry."
"It was a long time ago." Catherine shrugs. "And you were probably right, anyway."
Sara acknowledges the sort-of apology with a smile of her own. "So, he came by, after shift, wanting to 'check up on me'. That's the way he put it, like he was worried or something." She looks down at her hands, trying to figure out how much she wants to reveal. Grissom is still the only person she's ever told about her past, and considering how that ended, she's not sure she wants to open up that much again. Not that the situations are at all comparable, but still.
"You don't have to tell me anything you don't want to," Catherine tells her gently, probably sensing her hesitance and discomfort.
"I know." Sara gives her a grateful smile. "Thanks. Anyway, we were talking, and suddenly I found myself telling him about my past, my childhood, my parents, everything I had kept bottled up inside for years. And it felt good to be able to talk about it, you know. Just… let all of it out."
"It usually does," Catherine notes, and Sara thinks she really does understand, even without her having to come out and say it. That feels nice too.
"I guess I was really more emotionally exhausted than I thought, because I started crying. And he just held me and let me cry." Smiling a little at the memory, she continues. "Eventually, I pulled myself together. I apologized for, you know, crying all over him, and, well…" Leaving the rest up to Catherine's imagination, Sara gets up from the couch and goes into the kitchen, getting a pitcher of iced tea from the fridge before returning to the living room. She hands a glass to Catherine and pours them both some tea before reclaiming her seat on the couch, pulling her legs up under her body.
"I'm guessing he doesn't know?" It's not so much a question as a statement, and Sara shakes her head. "Why didn't you tell him?" Catherine asks.
"You must think I'm a horrible person, keeping the fact that he has a child from him for years," Sara replies.
"No, I think you were pushed to extremes," Catherine corrects gently, surprising her. She was sure the other woman would jump instantly to accusations. She and Grissom are old friends, after all, and she and Sara were never exactly close, even when they weren't at each other's throats. "I still think he has the right to know, but I know you must have had your reasons for not telling him."
She doesn't come out and ask, but she doesn't have to.
"When I woke up, later that day, he was gone," Sara says. "No message, not even a 'sorry' note. Nothing. I know I should have expected it, but I guess I somehow managed to convince myself that he really had changed his mind and wanted to give things a try, you know?"
"Maybe he just got nervous?" Catherine suggests. "The morning after can be pretty uncomfortable, especially if you haven't talked about the change in the relationship before, and we both know Gil's not great with emotions or relationships to start with."
"He said it was a mistake," Sara's voice is little more than a whisper, the words painful even now, more than three years later. "I didn't hear a word from him the whole week I was suspended, and my first night back, he avoided me. When I finally cornered him in his office at the end of shift, he told me that it shouldn't have happened, that it was a mistake."
"Oh, hon, I'm sorry." The sympathy is evident in Catherine's voice as she puts an arm around Sara's shoulders, and she lets herself relax for a moment. "I knew he could be insensitive, but I didn't think even he could be that much of an idiot."
"Yeah." Sara takes a couple of deep breaths, trying to keep her voice steady. "I figured I'd avoid him for a while, get my emotions back in control, you know, and I'd be able to go back to the way things had been before. And then I found out I was pregnant."
"You were afraid he'd reject you again," Catherine assumes.
"Not just me, that I could deal with. After all, I'd been doing it for years." Sara shakes her head. "No, it was the fact that he would call what we had created together, our child, a mistake. Or worse, tell me to…" She pauses, unable to finish the sentence even now. "That's what I was afraid of. I honestly don't know what I would have done, if I'd told him and he…"
"Are you sure he would have reacted that way?" Catherine asks after a moment.
"Honestly, no. Not anymore, anyway. I was back then, and I still don't think he would have been happy about it." Sara sighs. "I've decided that I was going to tell him every single day since I left. I've started dialing the number thousands of times, written so many emails… but I've never been able to actually do it."
"Do you want my opinion?" Catherine asks and Sara nods. "I understand why you did what you did. If I was in your position, I might have done the same thing, I have no idea. Was it the right decision at the time? I can't tell you that, you're the only one who can decide. And I don't think he would have been exactly thrilled about the situation. Not at first, but I really do believe that he would have come around eventually."
"You're probably right," Sara agrees.
"Well, there's not much to do about it now," Catherine says pragmatically. "You're here and he's back in Vegas, hiding from everyone and everything."
"Nick said something like that too," Sara says, frowning. "What's been going on?"
"Ever since you left, Gil's been shutting everyone out," Catherine starts with a sigh. "He hands out assignments and every now and then he processes evidence back at the lab, but he's hardly ever out in the field anymore. He only goes out when he has to, to be able to keep his credentials current, or when there's a high-profile case and the sheriff gets on his case, but apart from that he hardly ever leaves his office anymore, I've even caught him sleeping in there a couple of times. I've tried talking to him, Nick's tried, Warrick's tried, even Jim, but he won't let anyone in. It's like he… got lost when you left. And he's too stubborn to do anything about it."
Sara lets out a half-hearted laugh.
"You don't have to tell me that."
"I guess you're the one who's had to suffer the most from his pig-headedness, huh?" Catherine notes. "Except for himself, that is."
"I guess," Sara agrees with a sigh.
"OK, I'm getting depressed now. Let's move on to happier topics," Catherine declares. "I want to know absolutely everything about Shelby!"
"I wouldn't know where to start," Sara says with a smile.
"She looks just like you, you know," Catherine notes.
"Everyone says that."
"Is that a relief?" Catherine asks curiously.
"I honestly thought it would be," Sara replies truthfully. "I dreaded her looking like him, reminding me every day. But this is almost worse. I see so much of him in her, but to everyone else, she's just a copy of me."
"Like what?"
"She has a thing for bugs," Sara starts, her smile widening. "Especially butterflies. Only she calls them 'buddyflies'." They both laugh at that. "And she's so smart, sometimes it scares me. Her daycare manager tells me to stimulate her development, so I've been teaching her sign language, because of the hearing thing."
"She has trouble hearing?" Catherine asks.
"No, but she might in the future," Sara explains. "Since otosclerosis could be genetic, it may or may not cause hearing issues for her later in life. She might never have a problem, and even if she does, she would most likely be able to have surgery to fix it, but I wanted to prepare her just in case."
"That's probably a good idea," Catherine agrees with a nod.
"What else?" Sara thinks for a moment. "She loves Dora the Explorer and Winnie the Pooh, her favorite is Eeyore, in case the giant plushy earlier didn't make that clear. I have no idea why, I've always found him a little too depressing, myself…"
"Sara, there's someone at the front desk for you." Sara looks up as Paula, one of the lab techs, sticks her head into the break room. She got back from a scene a few minutes ago and was just grabbing a cup of coffee on her way to log and process the evidence.
"I'll be there in a minute," she says, taking a long drink of the hot liquid before leaving the room. Finding Catherine at the front desk, she smiles. "What brings you to my neck of the woods?" she jokes.
"I was just wondering if you and Shelby were free for dinner tonight? I thought I could come by with Chinese or something," Catherine suggests. "We're leaving tomorrow morning, and I want to give Shelby her birthday present."
"You didn't have to get her anything."
"I have three years of birthdays and Christmases to make up for, so yes, I did." She smiles. "So, dinner? I also have something I want to discuss with you."
"We don't have anything planned, so sure," Sara agrees, even though the mention of something to discuss doesn't exactly sound fun. She did know it was coming, might as well take the bull by the horns. "Six thirty OK for you?"
"That's great, gives me time to pack. I'll see you two then."
"Do you want to say thank you to Catherine again before you go to bed?" Sara asks, running her hand through her daughter's soft hair.
"Thank you for my doll," Shelby says obediently, hugging the doll in question to her chest and burying her face against Sara's leg. She's very tired, and when she's tired, she gets shy.
"You're welcome, I'm glad you like her," Catherine replies with an understanding smile.
"Go brush your teeth, OK, I'll be there in a minute," Sara tells her daughter and Shelby nods. Before leaving the room, she makes a sign with her right hand and Sara returns it.
"What did she say?" Catherine asks curiously when she's gone.
"She said 'I love you'," Sara translates with a smile. "She thinks of sign language as our own secret language, sort of, since she's never actually met anyone else who can speak it. She uses it to tell me things she thinks are important but doesn't want anyone else to know."
"That's really sweet. She's a great kid."
"Yeah, she is," Sara agrees. "I'd better get her to bed, be back in a moment."
While Catherine waits on the couch, she thinks about what she's about to suggest to Sara. Looking around the cozy room, full of photos and so much evidence of a happy life, she realizes that it might not be as easy as she figured it would be when the idea first occurred to her, before she and Nick even left for the conference. It's not like when Gil asked Sara to come to Vegas all those years ago. She can't just drop everything this time around, she has someone else to think about, aside from herself. But Catherine still hopes she'll at least consider it, because if anything, there are more reasons than she realized.
"She's out like a light," Sara says ten minutes later, coming back into the living room. "So, what did you want to talk about?" She slumps down on the couch next to Catherine.
"You coming back to Vegas."
AN: About Sara knowing about Grissom's hearing issues – I know Catherine's the onlyone to 'officially' find out, but I figure she told the rest of the team when he was away from the lab during and after the surgery, since Greg makes a comment in the season 6 episode Spellbound that indicates the fact is common knowledge at that point, at least