A/N:

I will tell you in advance that, if you were hoping for more details of a certain event that takes place during this chapter, rest assured that the second of these events will be explored in considerably more detail.

Winter 2009. Central America.

You said 'I love you like the stars above, I'll love you 'til I die'

– Mark Knopfler [for Dire Straits], "Romeo and Juliet."

God knows I had not wanted to fall in love with her. I had not wanted to fall in love with anyone. But God knows I had….

– Ernest Hemingway, A Farewell to Arms.

Well, everything has changed
And now it's only you that matters
I will find any way to your wild heart

– Jack Antonoff and John Hill [for Bleachers], "Wild Heart."

When You're in Love: Costa Rica

In December 2008, Gil Grissom had decided to up the ante. He had his bugs, his work, his friends, his work family…. But none of it was enough anymore. He wanted her. No, he needed her. He needed Sara. She was everything to him.

So he'd managed to find out where Sara was, and he'd contacted the head of her research team in Costa Rica. The woman had agreed not to tell Sara he was coming.

Grissom wanted to surprise Sara. Part of him probably thought it would be harder for her to reject him in the flesh. He recognized, though, that it would also be more humiliating if she did so, after he'd retired from the lab, sent their dog to stay with his mother, and essentially given up his whole life. The risk was worth it, though. For Sara, it was worth it.

Grissom had promised the head of the research team he would leave immediately if Sara did not want him there. He'd never been so grateful for his reputation amongst certain academic and forensics circles, because he was convinced this was what led the woman, after some inquiries, to conclude he would be non-threatening and true to his word.

The trek into the rainforest in January 2009 had seemed like the longest journey of his life. When he finally saw her in the clearing, he felt his whole life rested on that one moment. Would she still want him? When she turned around and saw him, though, he recognized immediately the answer to his unspoken question.

That day in the rainforest when he'd reunited with Sara had been the happiest of his life. Of course, he'd said that about a lot of days, but they'd all been with her, and he'd meant it every time.

This could have been it. This could have been the end of the story. This could have been their happily ever after. (Maybe you'd prefer to imagine it was.) But we're not quite there yet—not there by a long shot, actually.

After that initial embrace, Sara and Grissom took quite some time to pull apart. Despite having imagined such a scenario more times than she would ever want to admit (no matter how she had tried, she had not been able to stop imaging such a scenario, even though she considered the chance of it occurring to be approaching zero), Sara did not initially know his intentions. Did he think he could persuade her to return to Vegas? As much as she wanted and missed him, she still was not prepared for that.

"You're here," she said, almost a whisper.

"I'm here," he replied, in a slightly uncertain but also somewhat matter of fact fashion. Even though he'd seen the answer in her eyes, he hoped she wouldn't change her mind and reject him.

Part of her wanted to put off the inevitable. Maybe she could just go back to kissing him and never have to know the answer. But there was too much turmoil inside her. She had to know. She had to rip off the band-aid. To delay would have been to remain again in a state of limbo she could no longer bear.

"How much time off do you have?" she asked.

"What?"

"When does the lab need you back?"

"I'm not going back, Sara."

"What?"

"I left the lab. I'm here. I'm here to be with you." He brushed the back of his fingers lightly down the side of her face. "Sara…."

He had said her name again in a way she loved, like it held all his most cherished hopes and dreams—which it did.

She stood there silent, still somewhat disbelieving.

"If you still want me, I'll do whatever you want to do."

And she knew in that moment that what he said was true, and she kissed him, hard, even harder this time, and their second embrace was even longer, and Sara felt somewhat as though her heart would burst, and she too would swear she had never been so happy.

Grissom had wondered whether things would initially be awkward in Costa Rica. He needn't have. He and Sara had felt like old friends from that first day they'd met back at the AAFS conference in San Francisco; how could they feel like anything else now that they'd been desperately, hopelessly in love with each other for so many years; lived together; been engaged; and survived so much.

As soon as they could get the logistics sorted, they married, and their partnership was secured. They didn't really tell anyone, either there or back in the States. They wanted to share the news in person.

The wedding had been short. The vows had been brief and by the book. But the bride and groom had still been ecstatic. They were spending the three nights following their wedding in a small local hotel. Neither had thought it worthwhile to procure any special clothes for the very private affair, so they had worn what they already had with them in Costa Rica to the wedding.

When he'd arrived in Costa Rica, however, Grissom had optimistically smuggled into the rainforest some very expensive, very, very lacy lingerie for just such an occasion, which at the time he was still only hoping would be the outcome of his journey. On the night of their wedding, Sara put on the very, very lacy white lingerie. When she looked in the mirror, she still somewhat regretted the short haircut she'd gotten for convenience before heading into the rainforest; it wasn't exactly the sort of thing she'd have pictured for her wedding, if Sara had been inclined to picture such things, but she had managed to twist it into something a little more romantic for her wedding day.

Before heading into the bathroom to change, Sara had told her new husband to strip, and when she emerged he was sitting on the side of the bed waiting for her. She walked up and stood between his bare legs. As he looked up at her, he started to slip the straps of the lacy white open-back number down her shoulders, kissing each shoulder as he did so, and again told her, quite reverentially, just how beautiful she was.

Sara smiled, but then she had a moment of pause. "Will you still love me when I'm not your young and beautiful new wife anymore?" she asked him. Sara's parents had been young and beautiful once. She knew these things could take you only so far in life. "Will you love me when I'm your old and haggard wife?" She stroked his beard with her thumbs.

Grissom looked his new wife in the eyes and took her hands in his. "Sara, you are wise beyond your years." Starting at such a young age, she'd experienced horrors most people wouldn't have to suffer in a lifetime. She'd been on her own in the foster care system after her mother killed her father. She'd had no choice but to grow up quickly. He was still in awe of everything she'd achieved despite what she'd had to endure.

"But your spirit is young." He kissed the palm of one hand then turned his gaze back to her eyes. "Your soul is beautiful." He kissed the other then again met her big brown eyes with his baby blues. "And, in answer to your question, no matter what life has in store for us, I'll love you till I die."

He wasn't always speechless. He knew how he felt about his new bride, knew well enough to be able to tell her that much.

"Always?" she asked.

"Always," he confirmed, as he lightly swept his thumb across her lower lip. "Forever."

That was all she wanted—in truth, it was probably even more than she'd expected. She didn't really know what to say in return; of course, she would love him until she died, too. So she just kissed him, and he got the message. Then she pushed him back on the bed, and she kissed him again, and again, and then some more, and they spent the next two days marvelously happy.

They only had three days of leave from their research activities. So they just went back to work at the research camp afterward, the only real difference being the gold bands on their fingers, which Grissom had also trekked in with him in his backpack that first day he found Sara in the rainforest.

It wasn't lost on him, when they returned to the research camp, that she had dragged him back to the rainforest, the very place he had told her he would like to visit once more—he had told her so the very night she had finally agreed to move in with him, in fact, the night they had all been so very grateful their friend Jim Brass had made it out of surgery alive after being shot. Carpe diem.

Dream Wife: Nicaragua

Sara and Grissom had decided that, after their time with the research team was complete, they would travel north to Nicaragua. Sara had previously read about some islands on the east coast of the country she wanted to visit, and Grissom would do anything to please his new bride.

To be honest, Grissom sounded pretty proud of himself whenever he got to introduce her as his wife; Sara had to stop herself from laughing every time. This was made easier by the fact that she was equally proud whenever she got to introduce him as her husband. They were two newlywed science nerds in love, and, while neither had ever really expected this for themselves, it was everything they wanted it to be; it was glorious.

So they traveled north to the Nicaraguan capital, Managua, and from there they got on a tiny plane headed to Big Corn Island. From the big island they took the boat to Little Corn Island, the (this should be no surprise) smaller island, with one cobblestone path and no roads or cars.

Sara and Grissom sat on the beach, reading and enjoying the sunshine. They snorkeled to the reef. They watched the locals play their big island rivals at baseball. Grissom feasted on the fresh local Caribbean fish and lobster as well as rondón ("rundown" stew with tubers and fresh seafood in a slightly sweet coconut milk broth), while Sara enjoyed the islands' traditional gallo pinto (rice and beans) with coconut, pan de coco (coconut bread), and gaubul (a drink of cooked and mashed green plantains, milk, coconut water, and sugar). The experience was everything Sara had hoped it would be, and they were sad to leave their Caribbean paradise to fly back to Managua but otherwise still just ridiculously, undeniably happy.

From Managua, they headed first up to Leon, the country's second largest city, then back down to Granada, the historical city on the shores of Lake Nicaragua. They spent a day and swam at Laguna de Apoyo, the nearby volcano crater lake. They then traveled farther south and took the ferry to Isla de Ometepe in Lake Nicaragua.

On the island, they climbed the local volcano one day, and another they rented bikes then spent time relaxing at Ojo de Agua, the large natural spring pools surrounded closely by lush vegetation. Sara thought she was doing an excellent job of keeping her handsome new husband in good shape. She didn't think he'd been this fit since they first met. Clearly she was a good wife. Sara was again proud.

After leaving Isla de Ometepe, they traveled to San Juan del Sur, a beach town on Nicaragua's southwest coast. Sara rented a surfboard, and Grissom watched her while reading on the beach. He was still wearing, of course, that terrible straw hat, the same one he had worn when he came for her in the rainforest (but luckily had not worn later that same day in her tent in Costa Rica when, several times, he came for her in the rainforest). It was a good thing she loved him, because it really was pretty awful, her terribly handsome husband in that terribly terrible hat.

When she returned from the surf, though, she stood over him and dripped her water on him, then she knelt and kissed him. He tasted again of sunscreen and salt (okay, maybe that was still her) and the realization of all those promises, all that potential, from the year they had first met and first visited the beach together. She liked the taste. She kept kissing him. They got very sandy that day.

UP NEXT: NEXT CHAPTER: SPRING 2009. LAS VEGAS, NEVADA AND ELSEWHERE, IN A CANOE.

SOUNDTRACK LISTING

Bleachers. "Wild Heart."

John M. Keane. "The GSR [Score/Suite]."*

Lana Del Rey. "Young and Beautiful."

*This is not in the playlist because it does not exist commercially outside of "One to Go" (09x10).

(You can listen to these songs in my playlist for this series, which can be found by searching my username on Spotify.)

EPISODE REFERENCE(S)

09x08. "Young Man with a Horn." Original air date: December 4, 2008.

09x10. "One to Go." Original air date: January 15, 2009.

A/N:

As I indicated in the author's note above, in my terribly unsubtle way, I will be going into considerably more detail in describing the events of our two lovely second nerds' second wedding. Honestly, that's the one that stuck, so that's the one that engages me the most. But I hope you found this chapter sufficiently fluffy and romantic nonetheless. 💕 The next chapter will be posted in a week, and I hope you'll enjoy it!