A/N:

Post-"Immortality" (16). The next days aboard the Ishmael.

Warning for strong fluff. đź’•

In both this chapter and the next, I am including an element (a different element in each) about which I am not super confident. I don't want to spoil the first one now, so I will explain more in the end notes, below. đź’›

Fall 2015. Elsewhere, on the California Coast.

Oh, dream maker, you heart breaker
Wherever you're goin', I'm goin' your way

Two drifters, off to see the world
There's such a lot of world to see.

– Henry Mancini, "Moon River."

For nobody else gave me a thrill
With all your faults, I love you still
It had to be you
Wonderful you
It had to be you

– Gus Kahn, "It Had to Be You."

Breakfast at Tiffany's

Sara and Grissom had decided to start their new life together by taking a trip up the coast. From her ocean voyage many years ago, when she'd gone in search of peace for herself (and unsuccessfully tried to set Grissom free), Sara already knew she was good on boats, but before straying too far from shore they wanted to spend some time figuring out what changes needed to be made for the Ishmael better to accommodate two people.

For their first destination, they had decided to head immediately north to San Francisco, where it had all begun. This was all well and good, until Grissom opened his big mouth and accidentally revealed to Sara that he had promised his mother he'd stop in for a visit the next time he passed by Marina del Rey.

After an initially rocky start, Sara and her former mother-in-law had become genuinely good friends, and they'd both regretted the inevitable waning of that relationship when Grissom had divorced Sara, though they had stayed in contact moderately often (more often than Grissom himself had been in contact with Sara). Thus, at that point in time, Sara was very much in Betty's good graces; Grissom, however, was not.

His mother couldn't believe what her blockheaded (though still very much beloved) son had done. She blamed him entirely for the divorce and still hadn't forgiven him for it. This made their visits awkward and, on Grissom's side, regrettably something generally to be avoided. Betty, of course, still wanted to see her son, even though she was deeply disappointed in him.

Sara had every intention of staying in Betty's good graces. So, when she learned Grissom had promised to visit his mother (and had been deliberately staying south of Marina del Rey to avoid it), she insisted they stop to see Betty before proceeding north to San Francisco. Grissom wouldn't have considered this his top priority in the circumstances, but, as much as Sara was keen to stay in Betty's good graces, Grissom was even keener to stay in Sara's. So he reluctantly agreed.

Of course, Grissom also knew how excited Sara would be by the extra treat that awaited them at Betty's, and this tempered his reluctance somewhat. Sara had at least conceded that maybe they should spend another couple days in the waters south of Marina del Rey before stopping in to see Betty. Grissom messaged his mother to tell her he would soon be visiting, but he didn't mention his surprise guest.

Sara and Grissom spent their second and third full days back together much as they'd spent the first. On the afternoon of their second full day together, while Grissom was up top steering the boat toward shore, he asked Sara if she'd go down to the Ishmael's very small living quarters to try to locate something for him.

After some time spent fruitlessly searching the Ishmael's cupboards, Sara opened an old tackle box that had been shoved in one of the bottom cupboards. She thought she'd seen the tackle box before, her first day on the boat. She wondered whether Grissom might have tucked the missing item inside, but when she opened it she found it crammed full of folded pieces of paper covered in Grissom's handwriting.

Before Sara could close the tackle box, one of the folded pieces of paper fell out. As she picked it up, she noticed her name written on the top. She pulled two more folded pieces of paper from the many in the box, and they too had her name on the top of the page.

Sara felt uncomfortable. She realized she was looking at something personal, but the letters all seemed to be addressed to her. This wasn't the first time she'd found an unsent letter from Grissom, and the last time had ended quite happily for both. Unable to help herself, Sara sank to the floor and started reading.

The first letter Sara read simply recounted a day of adventures Grissom had had at sea, in the second he waxed philosophical, and in the third he wrote about how much he loved and missed her—how meaningless his life was without her filling in his empty crossword boxes. All were signed off with the signature "Peace" he'd used ever since his first email to her in 1998. Sara didn't know quite what to do. She didn't notice the boat was no longer moving forward or hear Grissom walking about on the lower deck.

"Oh," Grissom said when he found her sitting there with his tackle box full of letters. She hadn't returned, so he'd gone to her.

Sara looked up guiltily.

"You can read those if you want. Or not." He slid down and sat on the floor beside her. "I had to share my thoughts somehow while I was out there. There were so many things I wished I could tell you, so many stories I wished I could share." He sighed. He then looked over at her and took the three letters from her hand; after shuffling through them, he read the first page of the third letter to her:

April 24, 2015

Sara,

"Love…. is an ever-fixed mark, That looks on tempests and is never shaken; It is the star to every wandering bark, Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken."

The Lyrids peaked two nights ago, and I watched the showers out at sea. You would have loved it, sweetheart. The moon was a slender waxing crescent that had set by midnight, so the view of the show was spectacular. Of course I thought of you—you, and that first night—that Sunday morning—we spent together under the stars, ten years ago now.

It felt like we had so much potential then, Sara—so much promise. I knew I wasn't good enough for you, but somehow I'd let myself believe someday I could be. I remember you looking up at me, right before you kissed me. In that moment, it felt like we could do anything.

Sometimes I wish I could go back and spend my whole lifetime in that moment—just you, me, and nothing but promise. I'd give anything for one more day like that, Sara; I'd give anything to feel that way again; I'd give anything just to see you once more.

I remember the song you put on that Sunday morning, of course: "I love you like the stars above; I'll love you till I die." Always, Sara. I will love you always….

After he'd finished, he said, "You can read more of them if you want. I don't mind. They're all addressed to you. Total honesty, right?" He gave her a bashful smile.

Sara almost didn't know what to say—but, being Sara, she proceeded. "Did you ever regret it?"

"Hmm?"

"You know, you once told me you were afraid of what being with me would cost you. You said you were afraid you would risk it all for me and end up with nothing. You were afraid being with me might cost you everything. So after the divorce… did you ever regret having taken a chance on me?"

"No, Sara." He shook his head and smiled again. "It's true—I used to think my life was about the bugs or the science or the search for justice. But eventually I realized it was about you. Even when I thought we didn't have the ending I wanted for us, I still knew it was all about you. I could never regret any of it."

"Me, neither." She rested her head on his shoulder.

He took her hand, and they sat there for some time before both went back out on the deck. They never did find what Sara had been sent to locate. But for many days (and weeks, and months…) to come, when they were on the boat, he would read her a new letter from the tackle box each night, until at last the box was empty—at which point Sara returned to it all the read letters, which of course she had been saving, for safekeeping.

On the evening of that same day, they went ashore for dinner at an oceanfront French restaurant Grissom had wanted to try. They sat out on the patio overlooking the water, while little white lights twinkled around them.

They stayed there for hours, recounting events of the past few years and enjoying each other's company; if they'd closed their eyes, they might have believed they were back many years ago at a Mexican restaurant in San Francisco, sipping margaritas. As it was, Sara ate tomato and mozzarella salad with baguette and frites with bearnaise sauce, so instead she pictured them back in Paris.

At the end of the meal, their server came to their table carrying a bowl of chocolate mousse with a lit candle in it and placed it in front of Sara.

"What's this?" she asked Grissom, with surprise.

"I figured I'm only about two weeks late for a birthday dinner—that's got to be in the window, right? I know I still have some catching up to do for the others." He'd not exactly had the chance to pick up a gift to go with the dinner, but he had time for that.

Neither Sara nor Grissom could help blushing a little as at the thought of how much they were going to enjoy catching up on everything they'd missed.

Once they had shared Sara's chocolate mousse and Grissom had paid their bill (he had made it into a birthday dinner, after all), they walked out in the light of the waning gibbous moon to the end of the dock. Frank Sinatra's "It Had to Be You" was playing on one of the nearby boats, and the sound carried across the water. Though the ocean was in front of them and the twinkling lights were back on the shore, Sara and Grissom were looking at each other. Grissom still couldn't believe his luck at being together with this woman again, and his sentiment was not unrequited.

"So you'd never been there before?" Sara asked him.

"No."

"Why not? The food was really good, and the view out to the ocean was amazing, especially at sunset," she said before realizing, "although I suppose that's not as important when you're living on a boat."

"I guess… it just seemed like the kind of place you want to bring somebody. And I only had one somebody I would have wanted to bring. I would sometimes imagine, in another lifetime, though…." He shrugged.

"So I guess this is another lifetime." She smiled.

"Yeah, I guess it is." He paused. "I meant what I said earlier, Sara. Even at my worst, even when I thought I'd never see you again, let alone be with you again, I wouldn't have given up the time we had together—the life we'd had together—for anything."

"I meant it, too. I couldn't regret it. Not for a minute."

Grissom looked out at the ocean, thinking for a moment, then intently back at her. "You're so beautiful, Sara," he told her softly as he sighed. He couldn't regret their time together for anything, but he regretted their time apart. He regretted that he'd hurt her. He stroked her face for a moment with his thumb. "I know I don't deserve you."

"No!" she responded forcefully, evidently quite surprising him, though she liked when he stroked her face like that; it always made her shiver a little inside. "Gil, I'm not having any of that. I have wanted you from the day I met you, over seventeen years ago. And I'm pretty sure you've wanted me practically ever since that day, too, try as you might have done to deny it."

Grissom nodded in agreement.

"So we're not doing this anymore. We're both flawed people. Trying to figure out which of us does or doesn't deserve the other is a waste of time. It gets us nowhere." She amended her statement. "No, actually it gets us bad places—it gets us into trouble. We both have exactly what we want, and that's what matters. We both need to learn to be satisfied with that. We have belonged to each other since the day we met. We are not wasting any more time on who deserves whom."

She was right, this beautiful woman of his. Of course she was. He belonged to her, and she belonged to him, and really that was all that mattered in the end. He wanted to tell her that he agreed with her, but he started by quoting Paul Varjak, George Peppard's character in Breakfast at Tiffany's, speaking to the brunette woman he loved.

"'Okay, life's a fact, people do fall in love, people do belong to each other, because that's the only chance anybody's got for real happiness.'"

This time, Sara nodded in agreement.

"I'd tell you I try not to disagree with you when you're right, darling, but we both know I spent a lot of years doing that."

"I love you, Gil. I have always loved you. I will always love you." As she spoke, she cupped his face in her hands. She lightly stroked his left cheek with her right thumb.

It was quite a nice declaration, coming from the only woman he'd ever loved. "I love you, Sara. Always," he promised again, as he leaned in slightly and kissed her.

With that, after their kiss (eventually) ended, they returned to the boat. Grissom got out a bottle of Scotch, some ice, and two glasses, and he and Sara sat out on the deck for a moonlit nightcap.

They sat in silence, but it was a comfortable silence. It was a very comfortable silence. Eventually someone spoke. For once, that someone was Grissom.

"Did you mean what you said in the video?" As long as they were talking, they might as well talk. He'd always been too scared before to ask her the question.

"Uh…." She'd watched a video of him and Heather. She hadn't been in the video. She hadn't been in any videos.

"In the video you sent me, you said it was better that way. It was better that we didn't end up together, I guess. Did you mean that?" He'd always been a bit haunted by that video. He could still feel the tightness in his chest whenever he thought about it, the heartache he'd felt when he first watched it. He'd always tried not to think about it.

"Oh…." She knew the video he meant now, at least, but she was surprised he didn't already know the answer to his question. "You remember I married you after I sent that video, right?" She was pretty sure marrying him should have answered that question.

"Yes, I have some faint memories that we were married," he said, trying to keep the conversation lighthearted—well, relatively lighthearted. He wasn't sure how far down that road she was prepared to venture just yet. "But, at the time you said it, at the time you sent the video, did you mean it?"

Okay, Sara realized that was a legitimate question, one they'd never discussed. There were so many things they'd never discussed, like they'd been afraid of what they'd uncover. They should have realized sunlight can be the best disinfectant; in their case, greater openness would have helped keep the doubts from festering.

She was going to make sure they didn't make that mistake again. They'd already discussed the need for better communication and more honesty, and Sara was going to keep them to it, if it was the last thing she did.

"No," she answered honestly. "Never." Sara took a deep breath. "I missed you with every beat of my heart." She tried to smile. "It just seemed like the kindest thing I could do at the time."

"Yeah." It was a relief to hear her say it. He paused to think about what he needed to say next. "You know, I never…." He kept thinking. "I mean, I didn't…. I never wanted…." He shook his head. "I just thought…." How did you tell the love of your life you'd never actually wanted to be divorced from her? He assumed she knew that already, from all the conversations they'd already had over the few days they'd spent together on the boat, but assumptions had led them down bad paths before.

"It's okay, Gil. I know you were trying to do the right thing—the kind thing. I know you didn't really want the divorce, not for yourself." She elaborated, "I'm not saying I knew it at the time. I definitely didn't know it at the time. But I know now. I know you were trying to be kind." She smiled at him.

He tried to smile back at her, but he was only somewhat successful. It would take more than a few days together for him not to feel miserable at the thought of the divorce, of all the unnecessary pain he'd inflicted on both of them—not that they hadn't already been in pain, spending all that time apart. That had been foolish, too.

"I used to think about our last time… our last time together. I'd think that, if only I'd known it was going to be the last time…. If only I'd known it was going to be the last time; if only I could go back and memorize every moment of it; if only I could go back, so I could remember every second of what it was like to hold you that one last time… I'd…." He shook his head. What would he have done? "But then, if I could actually have gone back, wouldn't I stop it? I used to wonder whether there was anything I could have done at that point to stop it…." Any trace of a smile had vanished from his face.

"But we're here now. We're here now, and it's going to be okay," she told him, and she meant it. As she said it, she reached over and put her hand over his heart, and she again smiled at him.

He could tell she meant it, so he believed her. He covered her hand with his, then he smiled back; smiled properly this time; smiled with the knowledge that, once more, their stars were aligned.

They were together again, but with a greater awareness. They knew what they'd had, and they knew what they'd lost, and neither of them was about to let themselves lose each other again. With this shared knowledge, they continued sitting under the stars, leaning against each other and holding hands in comfortable silence, until Sara pulled Grissom to his feet.

"Come on. Let's go." She nodded toward the berth.

And, well, I'm sure you can imagine how the night went from there, for these our two lovely science nerds; you don't need me to tell you about that. I can tell you, though, that later she fell asleep in his arms, with him whispering in her ear how much he loved her, and this resembled all their nights together, for all the years to come, in this new adventure of theirs. That much, I'm guessing, you'll want to know.

UP NEXT: NEXT CHAPTER: FALL 2015. THE SOUTHERN COAST AND MARINA DEL REY, CALIFORNIA.

NOTES

On what he could have done to stop it:

Obviously Grissom could literally have stopped the divorce himself; it's more of an issue of whether he could have gotten them back on a path where they were happy—more importantly, where Sara was happy—and that's what he's questioning. (They could of course have gotten back on that path by communicating properly—openly and without fear—but communication with the one he loves has not historically been our Gilbert's strength, and sadly neither he nor Sara manages that during the breakdown of their first marriage.)

On knowing what they'd had and what they'd lost and not letting themselves lose each other again:

To me, by CSI: Vegas, Sara and Grissom have reached something of a relationship nirvana. They're confident and relaxed and open with each other in a way they never are during the original series; there are no more barriers between them. In the original series, Grissom is always worried he isn't enough—isn't good enough—to make Sara happy, whereas Sara is more worried she'll lose Grissom to himself—that he'll backslide. But each realizing that, even after divorcing and spending two and a half years apart, the other is still madly in love with them… well, I think that's got to do something positive to get rid of those lingering doubts they've always had. I think that, after "Immortality" (16), they both see that and are kind of like, "Oh, we fucked up. We fucked up baaad."

Sara has always been prepared to take charge (e.g., "Play with Fire," 03x22), but some of the events of the original series certainly have to undermine her confidence in this respect and make her less likely to do so. I see her really deciding to take charge after "Immortality" (16), though—like, Grissom can steer the boat, but she's going to steer this 'ship. To continue the metaphor, once they're in calmer waters (once their post-"Immortality" (16) relationship is in a more stable place), they can together work on the more basic maintenance needed to keep a relationship on course. But I think Sara's always ready to step up if choppy waters unexpectedly return and some more deliberate intervention is required.

SOUNDTRACK LISTING

Frank Sinatra. "It Had to Be You."

Audrey Hepburn (or Henry Mancini). "Moon River."

(Rufus Wainwright covering) Joni Mitchell. "All I Want" [Live].

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

A/N:

I made a Tumblr post "On Sara's feelings in 'Immortality,'" which can also be found under #my thoughts and feelings on the two lovely science nerds. (Me getting emotional about "Immortality" (16) again! Who'd have thought it!)

Above, I mentioned two elements about which I feel some uncertainty. The first is the letter from Grissom to Sara that he read aloud in this chapter. Initially I didn't include an actual excerpt from a letter, but that felt terribly unsatisfying. Still, that one letter in season 7 didn't give much to go on in establishing his letter-writing voice. I tell myself that that voice would have evolved along with his relationship with Sara anyway, though, so I guess *insert shrug emoji.*

The second element shows up in the next chapter. I mentioned previously that I would eventually be trying to give our two lovely science nerds some (more mature) "on-screen" satisfaction—which is really not something I ever would have imagined myself doing, before I started this project. Anyway, I'll give some more information at the start of the next chapter, so you can avoid that if it's not your cup of tea (or look out for it if it is!).

Thank you so very much for reading! I hope you enjoyed this chapter; the next should be up in about a week. Happy September! đź’›