A/N: Thank you to everyone for all of the wonderful reviews/follows and favorites. Apologies that we have not been able to reply individually but know it is very much appreciated. Here is chapter 3 and we are back to 3rd person POV. Enjoy and please drop us a line and let us know what you think :)
Grissom flicked at a dial, watching the little red needle rock back and forth before coming to a standstill. He gave it a satisfied smile and rose from his crouch, stretching stiff limbs.
He found he had to check gauges and knots less and less frequently these days. Sara had quickly got the hang of things, and he'd found an extra pair of hands to be quite useful around the boat- especially ones so elegant. Though it had taken her a while to adapt to life on the high seas, she'd come to be more and more comfortable aboard the Ishmael.
Before their reunion, it had only been a place for him to sleep, to think and to work. The only reminder that there had ever been anything else to his life was a worn photograph of him and Sara tacked over his bed- one his eyes had worn down far more than time. But when he'd held her in his arms again, Grissom had no idea how he'd survived on a mere image as it in no way compared to the warmth that had spread through his entire being. In the few days Sara had been aboard, she'd made what was once a place of solitude into a true home for them both.
As his mind drifted from the photograph, his eyes brushed over another poking out between the pages of an Atlas perched on the dashboard. This one was even older, it was of his and his father at a baseball game when he was seven years old. He smiled.
His father had been a kind man. His memories of him had faded over the years, but he did remember spending hours outside in the garden with him as he told him the name of every flower they could find. His father's passion had bred his own; that he knew. Even years after his passing he would still crouch in the grass watching bees and ants critter around his mother's California Poppies.
But Grissom had never pictured himself a father, nor had he ever really seen a need for children- or a family for that matter. For companionship he had Hank and- as much as Catherine might give him hell for it- he had found his tarantula's company to be of some comfort over the years. But then he'd found Sara, and everything changed. Suddenly he'd found someone he truly thought would be impossible to live without, someone to love and to miss, someone who completed him.
The night he had found her again in Costa Rica was the first time, as her dozing head rested on his chest, that he had truly thought about having children. He had realized then that he wanted them. With Sara. His Sara. He caught himself grinning at the thought of a curly brown-haired little girl with her mother's smile, or a blue-eyed boy with her perfect dimples. A perfect weave of the best of them both, a melding of their souls- Sara's passionate fire igniting his ocean of equanimity to create a new soul, the best of both of them. Her arm had tightened its hold on him and his heart had fluttered at the image that soul nestled between them both.
Grissom knew Sara would be an amazing mother, even though she seemed intent on the opposite. He couldn't blame her for that insecurity, he couldn't begin to imagine the weight her childhood still bore on her shoulders, the ghosts she had yet to bury. But he wished he could show her how truly caring and kind she was, that she would be nothing like her own mother. She was compassionate, devoted, had the most beautiful mind and purest heart he'd ever known. He knew their child would be the very same and he couldn't help but picture crouching down in the garden and teaching a little Sidle-Grissom the different names of ants and beetles that crawled along.
Feeling a warmth spread through his limbs from his chest he brought his attention back to the present, opening the cabin door to step out onto the deck into the midnight sky.
Miles from any non-cetacean civilization, the stars twinkled like nowhere else, piercing through an endless pitch-black sky. A breathtaking view, but true beauty he found under the stars. Sara stood against the railing, glass of wine in hand and gaze lost in the horizon as the soft nocturnal breeze fluttered though her curls, whisking them around her sharp jaw.
His eyes slowly traced her figure before stopping on her face, taking in her chin, her lips, her eyes, her cheeks, every single perfect detail of her face that had governed his lone mind and soul for the past six years. He stood in awe before her and still in disbelief that somehow after it all, she had come back to him. Children or not, she was all he ever needed.
Grissom urged his thumping heart to pump blood to his frozen legs and walked over to her, resting his forearms against the cool metal railing.
"Hi." He said softly.
Sara turned her head to him, surprised to see him at her side.
"Hey." She looked up with a sigh, "You don't get a view like this in Vegas. It's beautiful."
"Yeah," his hand reached out to softly graze her cheek, eyes never leaving her face, "it is."
Her gaze snapped back to his, a hint of a smile quickly replacing her surprise at his meaning.
She closed her eyes and took in a deep breath of salty air, reveling in the feel of his thumb caressing the nape of her neck.
"Sara… Would you marry me again?"
Her eyes shot open and he winced when he felt her tense beneath his touch.
This was it, the phrase they'd both been avoiding like the plague, too lost in their newfound bliss to think of the past. But seeing her there in the silver hues of the moonlight, he knew he had never loved her more, and the thought of losing her again felt like a knife to the chest.
Grissom took a deep breath and focused on the feel of her skin beneath his, hoping his voice wouldn't betray the sheer terror he felt. "I want to be with you Sara, for the rest of my life. I don't want to have to miss you ever again."
What little confidence he still held washed away at her silence. She stood still, shock and something else he couldn't quite read plastered across her face.
Grissom dropped his hand to his side, "Sorry, I, uh, I didn't mean to spring it on you. If…If you don't want to-"
"Grissom- Gil, I do. Of course I do. I'm just… I'm scared."
"Of what?"
"Of how it ends."
Guilt crashed into him like waves on the boat's hull in a windstorm at the weight of her words. The only thing he despised more than the pain behind them was knowing he had caused it. He had caused the fear in her eyes, the fear in her voice; it was his fault. She was afraid that he would walk away from her, because he did.
His hand reached for hers and held it gently. "Sara, sweetheart, this isn't ending. I won't let it. Whatever you do, wherever you go- Costa Rica, Vegas, the damned North Pole, I'm with you every step of the way."
"But you weren't." She snapped.
Grissom's stomach dropped like an anvil and regret instantly gnawed at Sara as she watched his face fall.
"I didn't-"
"You're right." He said quietly and defeatedly, his arm once again dropping to his side.
"No, no I'm not Gil, that wasn't fair." Sara insisted.
When he didn't react she slid her fingers under his chin to bring his eyes back to hers.
"Gil, listen to me, this- us- was not your fault. I'm sorry, I shouldn't have said that, I just-"
She shook her head to rid it of the flashing memories of Basderic's smirk, of the gleaming knife in her dishwasher, of the rough feel of the synthetic orange jumpsuit against her skin.
"... I needed you. I needed you and I missed you, but this is not your fault Gil. You don't get to carry that burden alone. We both made our own decisions and dealt with their consequences."
She paused to cup his scruffy cheek, "I should never have taken the job. I should have stayed with you, in Paris, in that tiny appartment on that tiny balcony. I shouldn't have come back to Vegas."
His palm covered hers on the side of his face, "Sara, you came back because you wanted to, because you missed the team and you missed the job. You did it because it made you happy, and that's all I wanted-that's all I've ever wanted."
She paused to look out towards the waves, taking in his words. Gray clouds had veiled the moon, turning the ocean from a shimmering silver to an inky black.
She was happy at first, working side by side with Catherine and Nick, laughing at Greg's antics and watching them grow as a team, as a family- despite the gap it had held for 7 years now. Sara hadn't realized how much she'd missed them. But it was supposed to be a few weeks, months at the most, to help cover a few shifts. It wasn't meant to last that long, none of it should have happened.
When Sara turned back to him, she couldn't hide the rising quiver in her voice.
"Is that why you sent me the papers?"
Grissom's eyes darted away from hers, locking onto her ring finger still gripping the cold metal railing.
"I didn't want to hold you back anymore, Sara."
Her eyes brimming with tears she made to speak, but he answered her question before it left her lips.
"The phone calls were never at the right time; when they were, you sounded sad. When we met over a day, a night, a weekend, a few hours in flight transit… it's like you weren't even there because you knew you'd have to leave again in the morning. We both did. And if you felt anything like I did, every time you left, every time I got back on my boat, it tore a hole in your heart."
"You moved back to Vegas to rebuild your family and your career, and I kept tearing it away from you. I kept hurting you, with every missed birthday and every missed phone call. I could see it. I was holding you back, so I chose to let you go. So you could heal, so you could finally be happy…God Sara, it was the hardest thing I've ever done."
His voice cracked on his last words and he almost fell apart as he watched a tear roll down her cheek. He had done it for her; it had made a broken man of him, but he had done it for Sara. And he would shatter himself all over again for her.
"Grissom," she cradled his face in her hands, much as she had on that perfect evening on the docks only a few days earlier, "did you ever consider the only thing I ever wanted, needed, to be happy was you? Did you ever think to ask before you made the decision for me? I'd have gone back to Paris on the first flight out if you had only asked. If you'd spoken to me, if we'd just talked for once..."
"I'm sorry, Sara, I know… I know it's pointless to say it so late. But I'm sorry, for every scar and every tear, I'm sorry I wasn't there when you needed me. I love you, God I love you so much and I'm so sorry."
Her thumbs wiped the tears off his cheeks as he poured his soul into every word. She leaned her forehead into his with a choked sob as he wound his arms around her back and pulled her tightly to his chest.
She held him tighter than ever, her knuckles white as the last of her tears soaked his shirt.
"Yes." She whispered almost imperceptibly, her voice still wavering.
"Yes?"
"Yes I'll marry you."
