October 2001
Sara had been in Vegas for a year now. And it had been a good year, filled with interesting cases where she'd been able to flex her chops while also learning a lot. She missed San Fransisco every now and then but it became a distant thought after a short while. She would talk to Dave a hand full of times. But she'd lost contact with her previous team members, and hadn't kept up much with anyone else from her life there. And Doug, to her great surprise, had eloped with a yoga teacher he'd met on his flight back from Boston during that work trip he'd been assigned to around the same time Sara moved to Vegas.
Candy, she recalled her name and shook her head. She couldn't quite imagine Doug with the character that was described to her.
Sara watched as Grissom's stormed out of the apartment they'd been searching all shift. They knew a body was somewhere close, but after hours of dismantling the room, inch by inch, they'd still come up empty.
She could seem him through the window, pacing back and forth, his fingers pressed to his neck.
"You okay?" Her soft, empathetic tone caught his ears. He looked up at her and exhaled.
"95."
Excuse me?"
"Normally my pulse is 70. When it gets up to 95 I realize how mad I am."
"You're too hard on yourself." She offered, concern in her eyes.
"No. I'm not made at me! There's a body in there at that guy knows where it is!" His voice raising with irritation and anger.
"What's your pulse out now?" She pursed her lips to pull back a small smile. "You want to take a walk around the block? Get some air?"
"No." His voice softened.
"Clear your head."
"I'm fine." He shook his head and looked down again. The urge to touch and soothe him overtook her. Her hand found its way to his cheek before she even really realized what she was doing. She cupped his face with a soft gentle touch. The electricity and warmth of which caused his eyes to flicker up and catch hers. His breath caught in his throat, confusion riddled across his face. Her touch not unwelcome, but it was deeply surprising. And while the moment was fleeting, time stood still for him while her hand remained in contact with his face.
"Chalk." She offered as she slowly pulled back her hand. "From plaster." A smile tugged at the corners of her lips as she shrugged. But she knew what she was doing. And it had worked. Her compassionate touch had comforted him instantly. His heart beat began to slow back to normal as his hand raised to his face to touch the spot on his cheek where she'd just been. Perhaps trying to hold onto that feeling for just a moment longer.
He looked into her eyes again and saw her looking at him. Really looking at him. He couldn't remember anyone looking at him like that, ever. Or touching him like that.
"Better get washed up." She sidestepped to leave, feeling his eyes on her as she did.
"You're good—" He softly called after her, "Thanks."
"Can't have you having a heart attack in the middle of a case. Bad for business." She watched as his features softened more. She even detected the slightest laugh from him.
Later that shift, once the case had wrapped and they'd found the body in the boiler tank, Grissom sat in his car and exhaled the days stress. He could still feel Sara's warmth on his cheek. He tried to rid himself of the thought, but the moment looped and replayed again in his head.
Sara is off limits. He reminded himself. He couldn't even begin to entertain the idea that she saw anything in him anyway. She was so young and beautiful. Quick and witty. He'd known from the get go that there was a thick layer of infatuation he felt toward her, an infatuation he'd been sure was one sided. But every now and then, a moment like the one today would unfold, and he'd begin to question how true those statements were. Was he willfully blind to the evidence before him? Unable to engage in observing what was transpiring due to the crushing fear he felt? Fear of rejection, of loss, of heartache and break? Fear of mess.
Regardless, it did not matter if it were one sided or not. He'd committed himself to his job, his work, his science. He'd continue to bury himself within that role to ensure that he not forget this. That he not lead her on. He was her supervisor, nothing could happen between them. Ever. He told himself.
He decided in that moment that he couldn't trust himself to work with her anymore. Catherine would be a fine mentor, he mused. And maybe without Sara around, he could think more clearly on his cases. He would have noticed Kate Sheldon's blanket sooner, surely. He would have considered the boiler tank originally, too.
At first, he did so sparingly. Pairing Sara up with he and Nick together. But over time, he found it increasingly easy to pass her off to Catherine or pair her up with Warrick. Admittedly, he missed working side-by-side with her. Their paths only meaningfully crossed during administrative issues. And before he knew it, it had been months since they'd worked together.
February 2002
By February he'd nearly forgotten why he'd distanced himself from her. They worked a case of a victim dumped at a body farm and their working relationship flowed back easily. He was having fun with her, bouncing theories and ideas off one another. Until his reclusive behaviors began to creep in. Half way though shift he'd begun to realize why he'd distance himself from her.
"You know, this case reminds me of when we met... well, of the case you helped Crow out with while we weren't at the conference. The woman at the body farm."
"Hmm." Was all she was awarded with as his response.
"So this is your experiment, hu?" Sara walked in closer to Grissom who was hunched over the table with a magnifying glass as he studied the flies on ground beef.
"Did the fly find the beef in the mound and lay its eggs? Or did it bring the beef with it?" He mused, not looking up.
"I did an experiment similar to this in San Fransisco, except the cross contamination was blood. It wasn't a murder case but it was instructional."
"None of these beef particles are as big as the beef we found in Mike Kimble's wound track." Grissom straightened himself out and made some notes in the case folder. Sara followed, moving a little closer to him, not even really realizing she was.
"And…" Grissom continued, "I found out the ex-husband is the proud owner of a registered handgun."
"What does that mean?"
"It means I need to see that gun." Grissom turned to walk away, only stopping in his tracks as she spoke.
"Um, Grissom? Aren't you going to tell me anything?"
"About?"
"The case, the meat, what you found?"
"I'm working it." His speech was short and a bit impatient. Grissom had his nose so far down his metaphorical microscope that he hadn't noticed how distancing himself from Sara over the last year was effecting her, and effecting their working relationship. Their once flawless and energetic teamwork was a shell of what it was. Nearly unrecognizable.
"I thought I was working it with you." The hurt in her voice was evident. Even to him. But he couldn't stop to think about it.
"Yes, You're right." He paused, unsure where to leave things. So he gestured to the experiment, "Why don't you take some photos of the experiment for the DA and then, uh, get rid of that stuff."
"That meat? The raw meat? Me?"
"Yes." What's the problem now, he wondered, itching to leave and continue following the clues.
"How many meals have we shared together?" She was smiling but he knew it was just to mask whatever pain he'd apparently just caused. Grissom shrugged. "Take a guess, over a year of working together."
Had it already been a year? He wondered in amazement. "30." He shot off, playing along.
"I'm a vegetarian. Everyone here knows I'm a vegetarian. I haven't eaten meat since we stayed up that night with the pig. It pains me to see ground beef, forget about cleaning it up."
"Okay, so have Nick do it!" He thought his suggestion would let this interaction come to a close, but the look on her face told him otherwise. Still, he left anyway.
Sara was left alone in the room, the sound of flies swarming around the ground beef. A deep anger sparked within her. What was she doing here? She began to race through her thoughts, It had been over a year and she realized that she could have climbed the ranks quicker and learned more if she'd stayed put in San Fransisco under Dave. Did she really uproot her life to go on this adventure with a man she clearly barely knew. She felt stupid in that moment, realizing that she'd become one of those girls she'd always laughed at. A girl who put herself and her ambitions second to an infatuation.
That was it. She'd decided. She couldn't continue on this way. In the end, she'd decided to clean up Grissom's experiment for him, all the while writing and rewriting her resignation in her head.
Once she was through sanitizing the station, she made her way to an empty lab and logged onto a department computer. She clicked through files and forms until she'd come across what she was looking for.
She filled out the paperwork with ease. No hesitation left. She'd request a leave of absence for now, it would help streamline her ability to seek other government employment.
She'd thought about returning to San Fransisco, but felt too proud. She didn't want to go backward, just forward. And this was the best way should could think to do just that.
"What is this?" Grissom's voice was layered with confusion as he looked up from behind his desk, Sara in his office doorway.
"It's uh—just what it says." She took a deep breath and a couple steps toward him, "It's a request for a leave of absence. Six months, a year maybe."
"Why." His tone was cold and short, a complete contrast to her current soft and gentle one. She was clearly at peace with this decision but Grissom couldn't comprehend what was going on.
"I was thinking of checking out the federal government system, FBI, NTSB,"
Grissom laughed her comment off, "We have the best lab in the country." The idea of leaving such a role seemed untenable. And his high horse attitude was evidently unwelcome by Sara.
"I need a different work environment."
"What does that mean?"
"One with um, communication. Respect."
"Everyone here respects you."
"You don't." Sara retorted before he'd even finished his sentence.
"Is this about that hamburger thing?" But with her next words, he'd come to regret having spoken so off the cuff.
"No Grissom." His name in that harsh tone perked his attention, surprised and confused. "This is not about that hamburger thing. I can't believe you. How can you reduce everything I've said to some kind of single quirk. You think the problem here is just about me?" Her irritation was high and patience was low. It was coming through loud and clear finally, "If you don't sign my leave…" She softened before her next words, "I'm going to have to quit."
She waited for him to respond. To give any inclination that he'd processed her words. She watched as he battled with what to say, opening and closing his mouth a couple of times. Unsure where to go from here.
Hurt was cast like a shadow on her face, and knowing it was his fault made his heart sink a little. She turned to leave, realizing she'd be waiting there all night before he'd find a way to reply.
"Hey Sara," He called after her, causing her to turn on her heels just as she reached the threshold of his office. He took a deep breath before continuing, "The lab needs you here." But her face and subsequent absence in his doorway told him not to be so proud of the words he'd conjured up. It clearly wasn't what she wanted to hear.
Later that evening he found himself in his townhome accompanied by Catherine. He watched as she poured some vodka into her orange juice and stirred it with her finger. He continued to chop an onion as they chatted.
"I heard about you and Sara." Catherine watched as his features changed slightly at the sound of her name.
"Sara. You know—" He let out a resigned half laugh, "She gets very emotional." He was surprised to see Catherine's reaction written across her features at his words.
"Are you in denial?" She finally spoke causing him to pause his task at hand and look up at her. His eyes darted for a moment processing. Had he misread Sara's outburst today?
"No, that's way too analytical." She continued. "Wow, you got burned bad huh? Welcome to the club, I got third degree burns from my marriage. It happens to everybody. Everybody just moves on."
Was she insinuating that there was something between he and Sara?
"Good. Let's move on." He naively thought that'd be the end of that.
"You've got to deal with it first," She nearly pleaded for him to hear her, "you've got to deal with it before… before it goes away. You are the supervisor. You have responsibilities and people are making a family around you whether you like it or not. Whether you give them permission or not…" She paused to look at her friend standing before her.
How many times had she chastised him for being a hermit crab, for being unable to rise to a social occasion. For never taking a chance. She wasn't telling him to go after Sara—no. She wasn't even sure that's what either of them wanted. But she knew his reclusive behaviors were pushing people away. Sara would just be the latest victim of that behavior and she'd wanted desperately to help her friend before he'd alienate himself forever.
"She's the longest lasting new hire on our team in... years. And the most competent one. For her to leave like this... it would be a huge loss." She watched as he processed her words, his face stoic and somber. "We don't have to go through it all together, but every now and then, you've got to lift your head out of that microscope."
"Yeah." He agreed reluctantly.
"She moved here at your request. You owe her a little more courtesy."
He nodded in agreement again.
"Weren't you two friends?" Catherine probed a bit but she wasn't getting any signs and she knew how tightly shut some of those doors were for him. She'd never get a real answer.
She laid on his couch, looking at the framed pinned up butterflies covering each inch of his living room walls as she heard him call a florist. She smiled, she'd gotten though to him.
"Hi, I'd like to order some flowers for a girl. Not flowers, a plant. A living plant. " He amended, "She likes vegetation." He paused a moment in thought, "An African Violet.
Sara had received the African Violet. The card had just said "From Grissom" Something that may have irritated any rational person in her shoes. It could easily read as a less than genuine effort. But the choice of plant was not lost on her. She could see the symbolism as the thoughtful gesture it really was.
African Violets symbolize devotion, commitment and faithfulness. She knew this was his way of recommitting respect toward her. It was such a very Grissom thing to do. Speak with gestures not words. It brought her enough resolve for her to retract her request for leave of absence. They didn't speak a word of it though.