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Grissom, two vodka cranberries deep on a Tuesday morning, sprawled comfortably on his couch.
Sara was unused to seeing him so dressed down: his hair was a little unruly, his shoes off, the top two buttons of his shirt undone. With his head lolling against the back of his couch, she could see his collarbone.
Feeling like she was acting in a play she didn’t know the lines to, Sara said, “I still can’t believe he was having sex with his mom.”
Grissom winced, lifting his head and opening his eyes to stare without focus at his coffee table.
“I mean, we’ve seen some shit over the years, don’t get me wrong. But that’s… wow. I know you’re open-minded about things though.”
Grissom’s eyebrows crept up his forehead, and he looked up at Sara with an expression of incredulous amusement. “Sara, I think I can comfortably draw the line at mothers having sex with their sons.”
Sara lifted one shoulder. She could never be sure with him. She turned to his bookcase, perusing his not inconsiderable library. It was strange to be in his home, but a nice kind of strange. A year ago it would have been torment to be so close to what she wanted and so far away, but her love for Grissom had lost the painful edge it had had, and she could almost envision it mellowing organically into a deep, abiding friendship. Sara was glad to see him so relaxed around her, particularly in regards to alcohol; although he’d stated confidently enough that he didn’t think she was an alcoholic, she knew that there could be a wide distance between saying and believing.
Sara spotted a favorite title of hers on his shelf, and extended her forefinger to rest against the spine of the book. “Kazuo Ishiguro. One of my favorites. I wouldn’t have pegged you for a fan.” She glanced speculatively over her shoulder at her supervisor; he was watching her with slightly hooded eyes, his expression inscrutable. “Have you read The Remains of the Day ? You’ve got some Mr. Stephens about you.”
His mouth curled into a slow smile, and Sara felt that familiar pull of longing, so well known to her now that it hardly registered in her awareness. “I’d say you’re a bit Miss Kenton yourself.”
Sara blinked. Was he aware of the implication? But of course he was - Grissom was not one to misunderstand his literary references. Was he toying with her? Or maybe it was the vodka talking.
Sara could think of nothing to say in reply, so she made her way instead to the glass terrarium where he kept Robert Frost, his iguana. The reptile was perched on a tree branch, and stared at Sara as she approached with a look of profound skepticism. “So,” Sara drawled, struggling for conversation, “how’s the new team feeling to you?”
She heard him get up and turned to find him refilling his vodka screwdriver. This would be his third; he really was cutting loose. “Greg is coming along.” He pivoted to face her, smiling behind his glass. “Thanks largely to you, I should add. I’m glad to have Sofia. It’s amazing she’s as good as she is, considering Ecklie trained her.”
Sara smirked, though inwardly she felt a spike of pain in her gut at his casual praise of her coworker. She wished she didn’t: Grissom had already rejected her, there was no point in her feeling jealous or wishing he would remain loyal to her. It was only that he had been single all these years, and Sara had been able to avoid facing the reality of him falling in love with someone who wasn’t her. Maybe it would help, in a way - the final nail in the coffin. But it felt only like heartbreak. “Sofia is great. A good match for you, too.”
She saw Grissom’s eyebrow tick up in question, and shrugged.
“She’s… like you,” Sara explained. “Level-headed. Collected. She has… poise.”
Sara hoped desperately the words didn’t sound as bitter as they felt. She was fairly sure they didn’t. She was not so small a person that she could not acknowledge the strengths of the woman who was winning the heart of the man she loved. Sara knew she herself was a firecracker, a passionate and emotional person. She burned hot where Grissom was cool. It crushed her, knowing how many times she had fallen to pieces around him or lost her head, but she could not hate that part of herself - it was her greatest strength, her brilliance, the driving force that had helped her survive in a chaotic and dangerous world.
Grissom was staring at her with a completely unreadable expression. All at once he smiled - the silly, playful smile that meant he was pleased with his own good joke. “Sofia’s smart, too,” he said, tilting his head and raising his eyebrows at her. “And very beautiful.”
Sara narrowed her eyes at her supervisor. He was teasing her - it was obvious - but about what? Had he sensed her jealousy? She knew he was not cruel enough to mock her feelings for him, but maybe he didn’t realize that was the root of her envy. Sara considered the man before her, feeling like a chess player stuck on her next move. “She may be just the kind of woman you need,” Sara said.
Grissom’s smile faded slightly before shifting into a smirk. “You sound like Catherine,” he said, turning away to collect the dishes they’d used to eat the omelets he’d made for them.
The mention of that name made Sara frown, a withering dislike rising up in her. She knew that Grissom and Catherine were very close and shared many years of history; hell, Sara had liked and respected the woman at one time herself. But knowing that Catherine plotted against her was hard to forgive. “I’m sure she’s less than thrilled to hear you won’t be firing me.”
She saw Grissom pause in his reach to turn on his faucet. “Oh,” he said dismissively, “I’m sure she’s over all of that.”
Sara stepped up behind him, brushing her hand over his back as she went to stand by the sink. He passed her a clean dish and she began to dry. “I’m sure she’s not,” Sara replied irritably. Seeing Grissom’s frown, Sara drew in a slow breath. She needed to not be like this - emotional, angry. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I know you and Catherine are close. I don’t mean to speak ill of her. You know how I am.” Sara set the dish down, feeling a flash of frustration and hot shame. “Sometimes I don’t get why you deal with it.”
She could feel Grissom’s puzzled eyes on her. “With what?”
“ Me ,” Sara said, more vehement than she intended. “I get so… upset. And you’re always this cool customer.” Sara leaned against the counter, studying her boss. He was blinking rapidly, looking completely thrown. “Doesn’t it drive you crazy? How often I lose my head?”
He gave her a very Grissomesque shrug, saying, “Sometimes.”
“Don’t you hate it, though?”
Grissom looked at her with an expression of utter incredulity. “Hate it?” he asked, sounding amazed. “I don’t hate it, Sara! It’s - it’s you. You’re…” He trailed off, gesturing vaguely at her body. “You’re you. You’re passionate. Emotional. Sometimes you get angry.” He tilted his head, staring over her shoulder with one of his philosophical looks. “It’s one of the things I love about you - you’re… fully alive. Open-hearted. You help me remember what the point of all this is.” Grissom leaned over to collect the dry bowls and put them back in his cabinet.
Sara rocked back against the countertop, stunned. As her boss casually tidied his kitchen, she attempted to restart the beating of her heart. Had he -? Was she going crazy? Had he just said it was something he loved about her?
Grissom dried his hands on a dishrag and shot her a look of mild concern. “Are you okay, Sara?”
Sara forced herself to look at him. He blinked. “Yeah,” she croaked, bending her rubbery legs and making her way back towards his couch. “I, um. I should probably get going. It’s almost 10am.”
“Okay,” said Grissom. “Want me to make you some coffee before you head home?”
Sara shook her head, raking her fingers through her hair. As she turned, she saw Grissom’s eyes tracing the movement before he turned his head sharply. “No,” she said. “Thank you. This was… nice.”
His mouth twitched, but he didn’t look very happy. “Yeah. Thank you for coming by.”
Sara made it to the door before he spoke again.
“Sara - want to, um, come by again Friday?”
Sara looked over her shoulder at his boss. He was standing in the middle of the living room, working his dish towel anxiously through his fingers. A little disheveled, a little drunk, a lot sincere. She loved him so much it hurt. “Yeah,” said Sara, smiling. “This time I’ll cook.”
~*~
“I have a confession to make.”
Grissom paused in lifting his fork to his mouth, his chilaquiles dripping sauce onto his plate. He looked up at her with raised eyebrows. “I’m eager to hear it,” he replied.
Sara sipped at her orange juice. Things had been going well lately; they’d made a regular… occurrence… of after-shift breakfasts where they discussed cases they were working and books they had read and, well, just about anything that was on their minds. It was beginning to feel like a close and lovely friendship.
So naturally Sara had to ruin it.
“I saw Dr. Lurie. In the hospital.” She looked down at her plate, staring without seeing. “I was going to process a vic at the ER and it was his patient. He didn’t know me, obviously. But he stopped dead in his tracks when he saw me. Like he’d seen a ghost.”
Grissom was silent; it was this that made Sara turn her eyes to him. He had sat back in his chair, looking serious, thoughtful, deliberately unperturbed. “You recognized his name?”
Sara set down her orange juice and gave Grissom a tremulous smile. “And his face. I was in the obs deck. When you and Brass interviewed him.”
She saw it clearly on his face, though it was swift: the splintering rush of utter shame. Grissom pursed his lips, lingering for a moment before he rose slowly and carried his nearly-untouched breakfast to the kitchen. “Did he say anything to you at the hospital?”
“No.” Sara watched Grissom make his way slowly to his living room, where he leaned against his window frame, hands in his pocket, staring out into the early dawn. “I wasn’t sure whether to tell you. But it feels like too much has gone unsaid between us.”
She could see his watery reflection in the windowpane. Grissom’s eyes were shadowed, but she saw the thin line of his mouth, the knot of his brows. “I can hardly begrudge you for having heard that, given what trust you’ve put in me.” But somehow his tone belied his words - maybe he did not begrudge her, but the knowledge of what she had heard gouged him.
Sara rose and crossed the room to him. She felt sturdy with him these days - like she knew him, like he was no longer just the prince she had been promised but a flesh and blood man with fears and sorrows all his own. She was therefore surprised to see how her hands trembled as she laid them on his shoulders. “Gris,” she said softly. His trapezius muscles were rocks under her palms. “You can trust me.” Sara noticed the downy hairs growing on the nape of his neck as he leaned his forehead against the window. “You know, Grissom… you should know, at this point… that no matter what happens - no matter what you say, or what part of, of yourself that you show me… or don’t say, or don’t show me - my love for you won’t change.”
Silence. Utter silence. Sara couldn’t say exactly what possessed her to tell him that: but somehow she knew it was right. He was trying, she suddenly understood; he was trying, and he needed her help to succeed.
Grissom turned beneath her hands. His face was unreadable; his eyes as blue as glaciers as he studied her. His hand on her cheek faintly surprised her; warm and dry, his thumb sweeping beneath her eye. “You’re right,” he sighed finally. “I do trust you, Sara. I’m sorry. I’m…” He dropped his hand, and suddenly looked like an old and tired man. “I’m a work in progress.”
Sara laughed, and leaned forward impulsively to press a kiss to his cheek. Grissom looked at her in wonder as she pulled away. “You and me both, pal,” she said, making her way back to her breakfast. “Now are you really not going to eat the chilaquiles I just spent all that time making you?”
Grissom smiled faintly and obediently retrieved his plate. When he thought she wasn’t looking, she saw him lift his fingers and touch the place where she had kissed him.
~*~
“I’ve been reading War and Peace,” Sara announced.
Grissom came up next to her, leaning on the counter, his eyes sweeping over her face thoughtfully. “ ‘The whole world is divided for me into two parts: one is she, and there is all happiness, hope, light; the other is where she is not, and there is dejection and darkness…’ ”
Sara pressed her lips but could not quite disguise the smile. She felt her face heating and wondered if he could see it. God, why did he have to do this to her? “ ‘We are asleep until we fall in love,’ ” she replied.
Grissom hummed approvingly, accepting the wet clean dish she handed him and drying it with the sort of meticulous thoroughness she expected of him. He replaced the dish in his cupboard and sighed whimsically. “How’re you finding the book?”
Sara handed him the second dish. “I love it, actually. I thought it might be boring. I picked it to help me fall asleep at night.” Grissom laughed, a short, surprised sound of delight. “But it’s been keeping me up.”
He shook his head, smirking. “You still don’t sleep, do you?”
Sara pursed her lips, shaking her head at him in faux-seriousness, pleased he remembered a conversation they’d had almost three years ago.
It felt nice, this easy rapport with him. Dangerously nice, perhaps, standing here in his kitchen with him, so comfortable, so warm. Being close to him was a balm, like lotion on dry skin, like cool water on a parched throat. Grissom’s silly humor and his eyes and his strange, wonderful mind enveloped Sara, as it always had, in that calm joy she had not previously known to exist in the world before she knew him. Since when had she been interested in joy? Since she met him.
Sara drew in a quiet breath, trying to pull herself back. She sincerely wanted to master this new puzzle: friendship with Grissom. Falling more in love with him wouldn’t help. He was only letting his guard down because he believed himself safe from her pushing the boundaries. “So,” she said casually, pulling herself up to sit on his countertop. “Am I here picking up Catherine’s slack?”
Grissom looked at her blankly, not understanding.
“Since she’s moved to Swing,” Sara explained. “So now I’m your breakfast-after-shift buddy.”
Grissom tilted his head at her, like she’d said something in a language he was only semi-fluent in. “Catherine and I haven’t done breakfast together in years,” he said.
“Oh,” said Sara, furrowing her brow and glancing awkwardly around the room. “Why not?”
Grissom shrugged, and, studying him for a moment, Sara realized he didn’t know; it was out of his depth. There was a flicker of vulnerability on his face, maybe sorrow. Sara clenched her teeth. “Well, I’m glad you and I are doing it,” she offered.
The entomologist straightened a little, glowing with a subtle happiness. She saw then her favorite part of Grissom: the sweet, open-hearted man, aware of his own awkwardness, who desired only what he wished to give: acceptance without judgment.
“You’ve always been a wonderful friend to Catherine.”
Sara wasn’t sure what compelled her to say it, but Grissom fixed her with an electric look, and she knew that he knew - that she had read him rightly; that she had seen, in that small moment, what his heart had ached for. He drew in a slow breath. “Sara…”
He stopped. She saw his jaw shifting, as though he was chewing on words he couldn’t quite swallow. She watched him struggle for a moment before a look of resignation came over him, and he only shook his head.
Sara hopped down from the counter, circling back towards his living room. She went up to inspect his butterfly case. “Do you ever feel bad for them?” she asked. “That you have to kill them in order to have them up here like this.”
She heard him sigh, and jumped a little; she hadn’t realized he’d gotten that close. Turning, Grissom was just behind her, the heat of his body ghosting against her shoulder blades almost like a touch. “Yes,” he admitted. “It’s… It’s the only way I have to get close to them.” He grimaced a little, like he’d said more than he intended to.
Sara, feeling bold, set a hand on his shoulder and squeezed lightly. He was warm and solid under her palm. He looked at her curiously. “It’s okay,” she said. “You know how I am about defending non-human life. But I…” She paused, gathering her thoughts. “I know you love the insects. And you only kill them for a purpose.” Sara cocked her head at him. “I’ve been reading this scholar lately, Donna Harraway. She writes about human and animal relationships. She posits that human belief in our speciest superiority, or that animals are passive receptacles of our will, is totally false,” Sara explained, warming to the topic. “Humans and animals co-create relationships and reality. Animals are equal partners; they influence the humans they know just as much as humans influence them. It’s a dialogue, not a monologue.”
Grissom stared at Sara with such intensity that she broke off, wondering for a moment if she was sounding crazy. “Sara, I…” He trailed off, shaking his head slightly. “I love your mind,” he finished at length. “I love how you think. You always surprise me.”
Sara felt her heart thump in her chest, and she backed up a step until she hit the wall. “Careful, boss,” she said, not sure what her face held at that moment, “a girl could get the wrong idea.”
Grissom gave a short laugh, arching his eyebrows. “Oh?” he said, a little sarcastic. “Get the idea, say, that I’m in love with you?”
Sara stared. She was, for once, speechless.
Grissom gave a smile she couldn’t quite interpret - a little rueful, a little nervous, maybe. “You know,” he said, and it wasn’t a question, though he didn’t sound very certain. “You must… you must know, Sara.”
She was silent. What could she say? She did know. Of course she knew. And equally, she had no idea.
Grissom backed away, looking towards the kitchen, his face shifting from anxious to carefully blank. “I’m sorry, Sara,” he said softly. “I’m - I didn’t mean to put you in an awkward position.” He shook his head. “It was unprofessional. I’m sorry.”
“No,” said Sara, holding up her hands in a placating gesture. “No. Don’t do that. I - I just - why now?” She shook her head at him. “It’s been… years.”
Grissom was still staring off towards the kitchen, expressionless. He shrugged again, and she saw, again, that she had asked a question for which he had no answer.
“Grissom,” she chastised. “You must have some idea.”
He lifted his hands helplessly, and then ran one palm over his beard. “I don’t know,” he said, finally looking at her. He appeared as wrecked as she felt. “Lots of reasons, I guess. I’m having trouble remembering them right now.”
Sara crossed the few steps to stand right in front of him, close enough that she could see the wild fear in his eyes, feel his unsteady breath on her lips.
“I don’t know what to do about this,” he murmured, and this time it was a confession, not a rejection.
“Well,” said Sara, hoping to be helpful, “what do you want to do?”
His gaze flicked to her mouth, and back to her eyes. Sara smiled.
“Go on then,” she said.
So he kissed her.
~*~