A/N:
This chapter includes Sara and Grissom reminiscing over that Sunday in 2005 when they first got together in Vegas, which was the subject of my second story: "No, I Never Meant to Break Your Heart: This Area Was Always a Good Place for Stargazing: A How They Got Together Story" (title shortened to "No, I Never Meant to Break Your Heart: A Good Place for Stargazing" on FFN due to character limits).
Spring 2009. Las Vegas, Nevada and Elsewhere, in a Canoe.
And I have to speculate
That God Himself did make
Us into corresponding shapes
Like puzzle pieces from the clay
– Ben Gibbard and Jimmy Tamborello [The Postal Service], "Such Great Heights."
I remember your honeymoon quite well. You and she on a little sail boat, the "True Love," wasn't it?
– Elizabeth "Liz" Imbrie (Ruth Hussey), in The Philadelphia Story.
Wedding Present: Viva Las Vegas
After Nicaragua, Sara and Grissom returned for Las Vegas, not for good (Sara was certainly still not prepared for that) but as a stopover to see their old friends and to finalize their new plans.
When she had learned Sara and Grissom would be back in Vegas, Catherine Willows had arranged a private room at a restaurant for them all—Sara and Grissom and their former work family and friends—to share a meal somewhere a little more private (and a little bit nicer) than the diner.
Sara and Grissom, despite having no other fixed agenda for the day, arrived last, and, when the two walked in, hand in hand and rings on fingers, the room first went quiet, then very, very loud. Once the noise had died down, all present agreed the newlyweds had never looked better; all agreed the newlyweds had never looked happier.
Individually, both Sara and Grissom might have been overwhelmed by the attention they received at the event, but together they withstood it. No one else saw the looks they initially shot each other indicating they might possibly prefer to be anywhere else than in that room as the centers of attention, and, as that attention died down a bit, they felt again quite comfortable with their old friends. No one saw the five $20 bills that passed between Catherine and Brass, apparently the result of a long-standing bet about whether anyone would ever see Grissom again once he left the lab.
Eventually the festivities came to an end, and Sara and Grissom somewhat gratefully went home, again hand in hand.
Once Upon a Honeymoon: Dip, Dip, and Swing
Following their brief stopover in Vegas, Sara and Grissom went off on a bug-finding mission Grissom had always wanted to undertake in some far-flung corner of the country (their own country, this time). She had chosen the Corn Islands, so she thought it only fair he choose a honeymoon destination, too.
Before Grissom had made his choice, Sara had assumed it would involve either bugs or baseball, and she had been right, and as a very obliging wife she had not minded. They went out each day by canoe. Of course, each night, after they returned to the small cluster of rustic wood cabins where they were staying, they watched baseball brought in by satellite to the compound's one TV, so ultimately the trip involved both bugs and baseball.
Sara and Grissom had taken canoe trips before, but always with Hank, and as newlyweds and scientists they felt they finally had to test the logistics of sex in a canoe. Unfortunately they got so cocky (pun intended, because Grissom) with their initial successes that near the end of their trip they managed to put a hole in the canoe.
When they returned to shore that day and had to explain how exactly they had managed to put that hole in the canoe… well, they were still very private people, and they could not quite manage to look anyone in the eye. They also could not look each other in the eye, for fear they would burst out laughing.
And, when they took the canoe out at night and looked up at the Milky Way above, they both thought back to a spring night just over four years earlier, when finally their stars had aligned.
They'd both managed to scoot carefully into the middle of the canoe. (They really didn't want any more mishaps.) Grissom was reclined against the rear seat, and Sara was reclined against Grissom, with his arms around her; the fingers of one of her hands were interlaced with the fingers of one of his, and with the other hand she tenderly ran a finger up and down over the scar on his left forearm. Together they half sat and half lay, under a blanket, looking up at the stars.
"This would have been a pretty good place to watch the Lyrids," he observed.
"Yeah. The view in Nicaragua wasn't bad either, though."
"True."
"I can't believe it was four years ago when we first did this."
"Does it feel more or less recent?"
"Honestly, I don't even know." Sara laughed as she reflected on the first night they'd spent together under the Lyrid meteor shower. "You know I was really impressed by your meal choice that night—all vegetarian. That's such a good spot, the deli; I'm glad you noticed it."
"I like to think I can learn from my mistakes."
"Mmm, yes." She paused for thought. "You know, you kept going on about how the sky conditions that night weren't quite right for 'optimal viewing.'"
"Okay, I didn't 'keep going on.'"
She laughed again. "Like I really gave a crap about the meteors."
"Wait, you didn't like—"
"Can you honestly tell me meteors were your top priority that night?"
"Uh, no. Not exactly."
"I wouldn't have thought so." At the time, of course, she'd been considerably less certain.
Grissom, too, had been pondering the night in question—and Sara's cross-examination of him on his (non-existent) relationship with Sofia. "You know, I still can't believe you thought I could have been interested in anyone but you." He looked down at their intertwined fingers and rubbed his thumb along the back of her hand.
Sara nestled her head in even closer to his. "Mmm."
"Especially after I'd driven you out alone to the middle of the desert on a Saturday night…."
"True—I mean, in retrospect, clearly you either wanted to sleep with me or to dispose of my body."
Grissom snorted.
"But at the time… well, five years of waiting will do that to a girl…."
He took a deep breath then released it. "Yeah…. Sorry about that." He knew he would always regret the time he'd kept her waiting—the time he'd wasted, not going home every day to the only person he'd ever loved, not doing everything in his power to make her happy.
"Oh, I think it all turned out pretty okay in the end."
"Yeah," he said again, as he chuckled into her hair.
Sara continued thinking back to that night in April for another minute—contemplating, reflecting, musing, as she gazed up at the many, many stars. She laughed as another memory surfaced. "You remember how you told me your type was tall, brown-haired Harvard graduates who chased too many rabbits?"
"And asked too many questions."
"I thought you liked my questions."
"I told you it was my type."
"Fair."
Grissom turned his head and kissed the side of her head, through her hair. "That's still my type."
Sara laughed again. "I should hope so!"
They then lay in comfortable silence for several more minutes before Sara resumed speaking. "I've been thinking about the story, though, the story you told me about Zhinü and Niulang, representing Vega and Altair."
"Oh, yeah?"
"Yeah. It seemed like such a sad tale when I first heard it, but I've decided I don't see it that way anymore. I think it's kind of nice."
"Explain yourself, Ms. Sidle."
"Okay, well…. Zhinü was a goddess, right, so presumably she could have lived… what… forever? But Niulang was just a farm boy, so he would have been a mere mortal like the rest of us. But as stars…. Well, how long do stars live?"
"Large stars live shorter lives than smaller stars. A blue supergiant has a mass of around 100 times that of our sun. They can burn through their fuel so quickly that they last as little as 10 million years.
"The smallest stars…. Well, they have masses about 10% of our sun's mass. They can manage to survive for hundreds of billions of years.
"But if we want to talk about intermediate-mass stars…. They have lifetimes between 50 million and 20 billion years.
"Vega specifically is about twice the size of our sun, with a main-sequence lifetime of roughly one billion years. I think Altair has a similar lifespan, but I don't know the specifics off the top of my head."
"You really didn't come prepared for this trip at all, did you?" Sara teased him.
Grissom laughed. "No, I guess not."
"Anyway, okay, so they both have lifespans of about one billion years. It's not forever, but, from the perspective of us mere mortals, it might as well be, right?"
"Right."
"And they get to reunite every year. They spend some time on their own out in the sky, but then once per year they get to reunite. And they get to keep doing this for a billion years. Just think about how wonderful it is to reunite with someone you love after an extended absence."
"Yeah," Grissom whispered into her hair. He didn't have to think very hard to conjure up that feeling.
"So I think it's nice… or maybe I choose to think it's nice…. It's nice that they're up there together in the night's sky, forever linked, always reconnecting. They belong up there together."
"Yeah." This time he smiled into her hair. "They belong together."
And, when Sara and Grissom returned to their cabin after each night's stargazing, they both very much enjoyed the marvels of reconnecting.
UP NEXT: NEXT CHAPTER: SPRING 2009. THE CALIFORNIA COAST. BROWN EYES: HAPPY TRAILS + AN AFFAIR TO REMEMBER: I LEFT MY HEART IN SAN FRANCISCO.
NOTES
On sex in a canoe:
If you need more information (or inspiration), apparently the NYT has you covered; see: Malia Wollan, "How to Have Sex in a Canoe."
SOUNDTRACK LISTING
Corinne Bailey Rae. "Like a Star."
Iron & Wine. "Such Great Heights."
(You can listen to these songs in my playlist for this series, which can be found by searching my username on Spotify.)
A/N:
So, I know last week I admitted poetry has traditionally never been my favourite (though I want to try to read more of it), but this weekend on Twitter someone posted a poem that made me think of our two lovely science nerds: Liam Rector, "The Night the Lightning Bugs Lit Last in the Field Then Went Their Way." (Okay, to be fair, pretty much everything makes me think of our two lovely science nerds.) Of course I can't link it here, but, if you do a google image search of the author and title, I think you'll find an image of the text that someone shared in a Tumblr post. 💕
Thank you so much for reading! I hope you enjoyed this chapter, and I would love to hear from you! The next chapter should be up toward the end of next week, and in the meantime I hope you are having a wonderful start to summer (or whichever season you are currently enjoying)! 💛