Grissom stood on the dais, the eulagey he'd written for Warrick in his hands. The church pews were lined with somber, pale faces. Lab colleagues, department friends, family friends, work family. Grissom's eyes caught Tina's briefly, then the small bundle in her arms sleeping soundly. A few rows ahead of her sat the team. Sara, Catherine, Nick and Greg clustered together, tears falling freely down Catherine's cheeks already.
"As Crime Scene Investigators, we meet people on the worst days of their lives." Grissom began to project his voice to crowd. "We meet the family, who just lost someone they love. Often in a horrible way. A piece of their heart is gone. And it will never be replaced. The phrase we're trained to offer, 'I'm sorry for your loss,' as we know now, doesn't offer much."
Grissom glanced down at the paper in his hand, the words began to blur together as emotion overtook him. He closed his eyes briefly before returning his attention to the audience, his eyes resting on Sara's face as she gave him a subtle, encouraging nod.
"I first met Warrick in the early 90's. I had just wrapped a particularly grueling case and went to a card game to shake it. Warrick was working the door and as I was leaving later that morning, he approached me, having heard of my background. He wanted to learn more about becoming an investigator. He was in his final year of his Chemistry degree at UNLV, working four sometimes five jobs at a time to pay his way through. I was drawn to that level of commitment that I saw in him. And learned quickly that Warrick was the kind of man who dedicated himself deeply to everything he did. We had kept in touch, and when he finished his degree, he joined the lab on days before I was able to pull him to grave."
Grissom relived those moments in his mind for a moment, how young they both were. How much he had enjoyed teaching the very green new hire. How he admired Warrick's quest for justice in every space of his life.
"Warrick Brown was a young boy when his parents died. Much too young to learn that life can be cut so tragically short. But I think it taught him just how precious life is. And so he lived his life to the fullest. Each day as if it were his last day... until...it was."
He worked hard to push the emotion down, but despite his best efforts it was bubbling up. The crowd became a soft blur, "I was with Warrick on his last day. All the qualities that define him, his tenaciousness, his deep sense of loyalty, his courage to rist his life for what he knew was right. All those traits were with him on his last day. Just before he died, we were all having breakfast together. Our team. His friends. His family. And Warrick was... he wass..."
He couldn't hold it back any longer, the lump in his throat, the tears stinging his eyes.
"I'm just going to miss him so much." He finally sputtered. His heart constricting tightly in his chest. Sara watched Grissom closely as he began to shake in small movements. Tears streaming from her own eyes at seeing his pain. He made his way back to the pew, sitting next to her. She placed his hand in hers and held tightly. Her other hand on his back stroked small circles to comfort him.
After the funeral was over Sara made her way to Tina.
"Tina." She spoke softly to get her attention, "I'm so sorry." Tina smiled sadly in return, bouncing the small bundle in her arms. "You know if you and Eli ever need anything, we're here for you. I'm here for you." She placed a gentle hand on her shoulder.
"Thank you, Sara." She nodded.
Grissom found his way beside Sara now. His eyes glued to the small child.
"Gil," Sara placed a gentle hand on his back, "This is Eli, Warrick's son."
He stayed silent. Unable to speak or move. He stared at the small child and marveled at the ways in which he could already see Warrick's resemblance. The shape of his lips, his hair, his green eyes.
"I'm sorry, Tina." He finally spoke, "I uh—I know things were contentious for the last few months, but I know he cared deeply for you."
Everyone was filtering out of the church now, only a few staggering behind. Tina let a tear fall, the first of the day.
"Would you like to hold him?" Tina asked Grissom to his surprise. His eyes wide with nervousness as he glanced at Sara. Tina held the child out and placed him in Grissom's arms. "You saw the court custody tapes?" She asked, "He was the man he was because of you." Emotion layered her voice as she watched the man before her holding her son, looking down at him with wonder.
Grissom looked down at Eli in his arms, feeling the weight of this small child, his rhythmic breathing and soft coos. His green eyes staring back at him. A complex swirl of emotions began to overtake him in an intensity he'd never known before. Holding this child, he felt a contradictory mix of deep, profound sadness and hope. He stroked the child's hand and felt as the tiny fingers grasped tightly around Grissom's finger.
He looked back up finally to see Sara's eyes on him, taking in every inch of this beautiful moment.
After the funeral, the team went over to Grissom's place. They sat around, drinks in hand and talked about fond memories of their fallen colleague. Allowing themselves the small reprieve from grief in the form of gentle laughter.
"I never knew how you and Warrick met." Greg spoke as Catherine finished a story of how she and Warrick first met, only Greg was directing his statement to Grissom, "So you helped him become a CSI?"
"He was thinking of working for a pharma company at first." Grissom confirmed.
"What did you say to convince him?" Nick pipped up.
"He seemed invigorated by the ins and outs of being an investigator but uh—he was still unsure. So I told him to go where he could do the most good. And then I saw his application come across Ecklie's desk on days a week later."
"I can't imagine him working well under Ecklie back then." Sara shook her head at the thought.
"That's why I pulled him to grave as soon as we had the opening."
"Do you think..." Catherine glanced between Sara and Grissom, seated closely together on their couch, "Do you think you two would have gotten together if it weren't for Warrick?"
Grissom's brows squinted in confusion, "What do you mean?"
"Well, you did bring Sara in to avoid an IA investigation after Holly..."
He nodded in understanding now and glanced at Sara before he spoke, "In truth, I had been looking for an excuse to get Sara to Vegas for over a year at that point. But the under sheriff kept blocking me with his own hires." He admitted in a rare moment of candor.
"That's a long play." Nick laughed.
"Tell me about it." Sara added with a soft smile and classic eye roll.
"So how many hoops did you have to go through to bring an out of state CSI in on that?" Catherine's all knowing smirk danced across her face. She'd thought about it at the time too, a decade earlier.
Grissom shrugged as his only response and focused on hank who's head was now resting in his lap.
There was a long silence before Greg pipped up, "But you two didn't get together until years later I thought."
"It depends who you ask." Sara joked, alluding to the time that Grissom had told Ecklie they'd been together since San Fransisco.
"So?" Catherine asked looking at Grissom.
"Nick's abduction." Grissom provided without follow up, but it was clear what he meant.
"You and Warrick both." Nick offered, "He jumped into that marriage with Tina far too fast. You on the other hand," Nick let out a soft laugh.
"Slow as molasses." Catherine grinned. "So Sara, how long are you staying for?"
Sara squirmed a bit at the question, she hadn't thought about it really, nor had she asked Grissom what he wanted. "I'm not sure."
The answer broke Grissom's heart a little. Insult to the injury that was already throbbing in his chest.
"Warrick was lucky to have you all those years." Catherine moved the conversation along quickly, sensing the changing tides, "You really did keep him in line."
"It's what I was brought here to do, wasn't it?" Sara smiled sadly through a sigh. "For Warrick." Sara offered as she lifted her glass, the others follwed,
"For Warrick."
"You know, there was one time that I really thought Warrick was onto us." Sara spoke, directing her statement to Grissom, "You had brought me a veggie burger when Warrick and I were working late on a case. When he asked why you didn't pick up anything for him, you said you didn't know he was there." She smiled at the memory, "He went on for nearly ten minutes about how you had personally called him in earlier that night. I had to split my meal with him just to shut him up."
The team continued to share stories of Warrick. Some somber, some happy. Grissom sat back and quietly listened. Observing his team together again. Seeing Sara laugh with everyone. He wanted to bottle up this moment in his mind. To keep it forever. Because he knew, soon enough, it would fade away, just like everything else in his life lately.
Grissom and Sara laid in bed together on top of the covers. Resting in silence. He stared up at the ceiling. His world felt small and heavy. Even in Sara's presence. The shrill of his phone continued to cut through his numb mind. It was the forth call in half an hour but Grissom made no attempt to move.
Sara pushed herself up on her forearms and peered over him to his phone on the nightstand. "It's the lab again." Her voice was soft as the phone continued to ring, "Do you want to get it?"
"No." He answered simply, continuing his intense staring contest with the ceiling.
She lifted his hand into hers and began to play with his fingers, stroking him softly. "Maybe we should go away for a while." She spoke. She'd been thinking about it the whole time they were laying there, unsure how to broach the topic. She could see the depression seeping from his pores. The complete and utter sadness engulfing every breath he took. She understood how he felt. And she wanted desperately to help him through it, but she could feel his distance, even now as their bodies laid close together.
"I can't." His tone was short and monotone, "We're so short." They had never replaced Sara after she moved to swing. And with Warrick's death, Grissom taking time off would leave Catherine, Nick and Greg to pick up the workload of six people by themselves. Grissom thought the idea to be ungrounded in reality and selfish.
"He turned his head to her, letting his eyes leave the safety of the ceiling and instead resting on her face. Then he watched as she laced her fingers through his, "Why don't you stay." His voice hinted at a plea.
"I can't stay here." Her voice was thickly layered with immense sadness and regret. She looked back at him finally, her eyes apologizing for her words, for her truth. She laid down, nuzzling her head into the spot between his chest and shoulder where she could feel his heart beat against her ear. "It'd be nice to take a trip." She tried again, "I don't know, get on a Sea Shepard, go to the Galapagos. We could literally walk in the footsteps of Darwin."
She rubbed small, comforting circles on his chest as he lifted his hand to cover hers with his. He was fighting back the ragging sadness that was consuming every cell in his body. And her words were leaving him irritated. Had he not just told her how short they were? How he couldn't leave?
Her head rose and fell with each small breath he took. And despite the joy of familiarity he felt as he breathed in her scent, he found himself getting a little angry too. How long would she be here? Long enough for him to get used to her presence? Before she'd leave and leave him alone? Again? He already told her he couldn't leave the lab. And she'd just confirmed, again, that she won't come back. So what were they doing? The stalemate was at a stronghold and he didn't have much room for more grief. And while he knew he loved her, he couldn't feel it's depths in the moment. He just felt sad and lonely. Love just wasn't enough, he realized.
Over the next week, her presence in their home began to hurt more than it helped. For while having her with him felt comforting on the surface, he knew it was fleeting. The idea of feeling that pain again, the pain he felt after reading her goodbye letter, the pain he felt for the months that followed until they saw each other again, the pain that had been so crippling, rivaling only the pain he felt in losing Warrick. He was certain he couldn't handle that again. And so, without consciously deciding to, his heart began to build it's walls back up to protect himself. Distancing himself from her little by little.
He found himself needing to get away from her. He was working incredible amounts of overtime, and blaming it on the staffing issues.
"Hey Greg." Sara answer the phone upon seeing his name on the caller ID. Grissom had been out of the house for a shift and a half now. She had been busying herself by taking Hank out for a run and tidying up a bit.
"Have you kept in touch with Tom... Adler?"
"Not since I left Vegas..."
Greg proceeded to fill her in on the details he'd learned upon arriving at the long term care facility. Pam's lifes upport had been unplugged and Tom refused to leave her side. Sara arrived at the facility a short while later.
"Thanks, Greg." She smiled sadly, touching his shoulder as she walked into the room. "Tom."
"Sara." He spoke, he didn't have to turn around, he knew her voice well. "I thought you'd been away."
"I know how much you loved her, Tom. Look, I um... I'm no longer a CSI but I will help you through this. I won't leave you."
Sara sat opposite Grissom at his desk as he reviewed Pam Adler's case file.
"There's no trace of him on her, in her, or in the room." He missed her eye roll as he continued to read, "And Doc Robbins found no sign of sexual assault."
"Yeah but we don't know when that happened. And we both know that seamen deteriorates within 12 to 24 hours." She rebutted.
"Sara," He looked up at her now as he placed the file on the desk, his reading glasses too. "You have to consider the possibility that the husband made up the story to justify his actions."
"No." She spoke sternly, "Absolutely not."
"I'm not saying he didn't love her. I think he loved her so much that he kept her alive for eight years. You're still a scientist. You know that after that many years of atrophy she wasn't coming back to him. I mean..." He paused a moment, but his words began to spill from his lips before he really thought them through, "Sooner or later a relationship in stasis withers. You get angry. You need more then the safety of knowing you're not alone."
"Then he should have just walked away." Her tone was a stark and detailed contrast to his. Angry and sharp.
"Maybe he couldn't," He mused aloud, "Maybe he needed her to leave him."
There was a heavy silence in the room as their eyes locked, "Who are we talking about right now?"
He looked down briefly, almost ashamed before looking back up at her. He didn't know what to say. He could feel her anger though, as clearly as he could see it in her eyes. He wondered if she his own emotion resting behind his eyes. How desperate he was for a different outcome. For life to return to even a sliver of what it once was not so long ago.
"If you need me to walk away, I will." Anger was fueling her words, not truth. But they were spoken all the same.
"You already have, Sara." His voice continued to contrast hers. Soft and sad and resigned.
"I'm here now." She offered. She scanned him again, feeling the rift so evident between them now. This was not the relationship she remembered. This was not the safe space it once felt like.
"Your inevitable departure hanging over my head is worse then having you here." His words were surprisingly uncrypitic. So overt and simple.
She nodded for a moment as he saw the water pooling in her eyes. She bit them back, "I'll take a flight out tonight." She pushed to her feet and turned to leave.
"Sara." He called out after her but she didn't turn back around.
Sara sat across from Tom Adler in the interrogation room. She was sad and angry. Sad that Tom had lied, that he did what he did. Sad that she'd thought she'd known him better then this after eight years of time spent together. And she was angry that Grissom had been right. That Tom wanted a different life but didn't know how to leave her without killing her. Angry at the parallels she felt between Tom and Grissom now.
"Why did you lie to me, Tom?"
"I can't win for losing." He finally spoke. "People told me I was being selfish for keeping her alive so long. And now look at me. After a while I realized the only one who was feeling any suffering was me."
"You could have asked the doctors to help you."
"And say what? That I was tired . That I wanted to kill my wife so I could have a weekend to myself?"
"At least that would have been honest."
"When you stoped coming around I realized how long I had been doing this. That even you had moved passed her, us. Eight years, Sara. I sat by her bedside every free moment I had for eight years."
Sara left the interrogation room, her head hung low.
"I'm sorry, Sara." Greg's voice came closer as she looked up.
"Look, Greg..." She smiled sadly at her friend, "I'm um—I'm going to head out. Will you tell Nick and Catherine I say goodbye?"
"Can I see you tomorrow?"
"I'm going back to California."
"I see." Greg's sadness leached from his voice to his face.
"I'm not ready to be here." She confided. "I'm afraid I'm undoing all the work I've done to get better. So, It's best I go now." She hugged him tightly then walked off down the hallway. Greg stood and watched as she disappeared out the double doors.
Sara stood in their bedroom, her bag slung over her shoulder. She took a look around sadly. Scanning the residence, realizing this would probably be her final time there. She looked at the framed photos, the pinned insects, the trinkets from their life together.
Before booking her flight to San Fransisco, she had secured her spot on the Sea Sheppard that would leave port in three weeks. A new adventure to leave any semblance of this life behind her. She took a small note pad and scrawled the Sea Shepherd information on it. Sara walked into the study and located his large book of Shakespearian Sonnets and flipped through the pages until she found the sonnet she was looking for. Sonnet 30.
When to the sessions of sweet silent thought
I summon up remembrance of things past,
I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought,
And with old woes new wail my dear time's waste:
Then can I drown an eye, unused to flow,
For precious friends hid in death's dateless night,
And weep afresh love's long-since-cancelled woe,
And moan the expense of many a vanished sight:
Then can I grieve at grievances foregone,
And heavily from woe to woe tell o'er
The sad account of forebemoaned moan,
Which I new pay as if not paid before.
But if the while I think on thee, dear friend, All losses are restored, and sorrows end.
She smiled sadly, her fingers running over the text. Then she placed the paper with the Sea Sheppard's departure itinerary into the spine's crease. She thought a moment before adding at the bottom of the paper, If you want to find me, you know where to look.
She knelt down and kissed Hank between his as he whimpered at her feet. Then, she stood and brusquely walked out of the house, knowing if she didn't leave soon it would be too hard.
Grissom sat opposite the 18 year old boy and watched as he cried through his confession.
"Have you ever loved someone so much that you would kill for them?" Grissom's brows raised at the boy's words. He could have killed Natalie when they were looking for Sara. He remembered that rage in his bones. The sheer thought made him cold suddenly.
"I do." The boy continued, "And even if Lexi can't be with me, she's better off without her." He paused, tears swelling and falling, "She promised me everything! And then she took it all away!" The boy sobbed through his words as Grissom sat and watched. The boy's words echoing through him. Sara had promised him everything and then she took it all away.
He could feel the numbing sensation spreading through his body. What had he done?
He left the interrogation room and walked the halls. His world felt smaller with each step he took.
"Where's Sara?" He heard Catherine in the distance followed by Greg's response, "She left."
There was no avoiding them. They were standing just in front of his office door. Grissom walked passed them without acknowledgement and sat behind his desk. Catherine followed him in.
"Do you know where Sara is?"
"Didn't Greg just say she left?" Grissom snapped at her, annoyed.
"What do you mean she left? She just got here."
"Well, now she's not." He looked up at her allowing her to see the depths of his exhaustion and sadness pooling in his eyes. "Look, I've got a lot of paperwork to catch up on so if there's nothing else—" Grissom motioned for her to leave.
"Start with this." She handed him a card, "Everyone else has signed it."
Grissom took the paper from Catherine, a photo of the team fell out onto his desk as he did. He looked at the picture, his arm wrapped around Sara's waist despite being taken at a time when they were still hiding their relationship. His eyes rested on Warrick momentarily.
"What is this?"
"Sara set up a college fund for Eli. He'll gain access to the funds and the card when he graduates high school."
Grissom looked at the card more closely now, seeing Sara's best attempt at legible handwriting inside,
Eli,
Your father was a great man. He was so full of life and love and it is a shame you were robbed of the opportunity to know him. He was a man who valued integrity, justice, loyalty, and education. We, his team, were his family and as such, we are your family too. You will never be alone, for you will always have us if you need anything. Starting with your funds for tuition, room and board, and books. We know your father loved you and would have wanted to see the fine young man we're sure you have grown up to be.
We do not learn for school, but for life.
Congratulations on graduating high school. We can't wait to see what you do next.
With love and encouragement,
Sara, Nick, Greg, Catherine,
Grissom took his pen to the card and stroked his name in next to Catherine's.
"Sara was going to take it to the bank later today."
"I'll uh— I can take care of it."
Catherine nodded, "Okay." She looked him over once more, "Gil." She spoke causing him to look back up at her, "Grief is a bitch. Don't let it consume you."