DATE: February 2008
TITLE: Mourning, Mornings & Mimosas
AUTHOR: losingntrnslatn (Jennifer, LosingInTranslation)
DISCLAIMER: Don’t own anything associated with
the show… I just like playing with the characters in it from time to time.
Dance Monkeys! Dance!
RATING: M for Mature (adult situations)
SPOILERS: Through the
PAIRINGS: GSR
SUMMARY: From the glimmers of grief,
Grissom begins to see a possible light in the worst darkness of his life.
A/N: Okay, this started out as a baby
bunny, but it has now worked up into a surly goth teenager bunny cutting it’s teeth on my brain.
However, it still isn’t reaching epic proportions. A 4 chapter treatment on
something I wouldn’t mind seeing on the screen.
GRATITUDE: With everyone writing or busy
with life (including myself), I have gone back to read-only beta requests. And
thankfully neither of them has killed me for the way I keep leaving the story
when I send it to them in a fit of writer’s neuroses. Oh, there have been death
threats, questions about my parentage, and exclamations about my temperament,
but so far the Grim Reaper has not darkened my door. Heaps of thanks and
cyber-hugs to these lovely ladies for keeping me as sane as possible while the
bunnies nibble on my gray matter!
REVIEWS: Reviews are the way I know if
people are enjoying the work or not. So, if you leave one, THANKS! And if not,
I hope you found at least a little something to brighten your day, and thanks
for taking the time to read.
Mourning,
Mornings & Mimosas
Chapter 1
The drive
home after shift had become his least favorite activity since the day Sara walked
away from him. He dreaded it in so many ways, not the least of which was the
look on Hank’s face as he entered the door alone. While the dog was always
happy to see him, he would quickly get over it to stand watch at the door in
the hopes that Sara would soon follow. She never did.
For two
years, mornings were his favorite time of day. The shift was over, and work was
put away for another day. But most importantly, in the morning, the charades
were put away and his life was full of the warm comfort offered by his
relationship with Sara. For the first time in his life, he did everything in
his power to walk out of that lab when the work day was done, because life was
waiting for him at home. When Sara left, she took all of that with her.
No matter
how much she tried to assure him that she had not left him, he was still alone,
and she was nowhere to be found. He got quick phone calls, brief emails, and
the occasional letter, but they were not Sara, only the trail she left behind.
Regardless of how many scenarios he ran through his mind, hoping to prepare
himself for the inevitable day she would walk away, he never once imagined that
it would be so very difficult to survive without her. And he had an excellent
imagination.
His
greatest frustration came from the fact that there seemed to have been nothing
he could have done to prevent it, that it was through no real fault of his own.
Or at least, that’s what Sara kept telling him. He still had his doubts about
the veracity of that argument, and he always would. There simply had to be
something he could have done to prevent her from leaving that way, but the
answer continued to elude him.
As he
turned the last corner onto his street, he decided he was in no mood to pull
into the garage and once again see her car there gathering dust. Settling the
car into the visitor parking out front, he slowly climbed out. Feeling every
year of his life as he stiffly walked to the door, he wondered if this was what
it felt like to carry the weight of the world.
After stopping
to grab the mail, he ambled toward the door, becoming preoccupied with the list
of articles on the front cover of a psychology magazine Sara subscribed to, and
tried to take comfort in the fact that she had yet to change her mailing
address. After several months, the stack of unread magazines and journals was
mounting. He had been forced to put them, and her other mail, into boxes; one
for each month, but he kept them waiting at the front door, stacked in a
corner. It was almost like an altar for his hope that she would someday return
to him. Every time he opened the lid to place the mail inside, he said a prayer
that the next time he would be placing the mail in her hands instead.
Still
looking at the mail, he withdrew his keys and prepared to unlock the door. The
moment the keys jangled from his pocket he could hear the huffs and sniffs of a
very anxious boxer on the other side of the door. A barely visible smile lifted
the corner of his mouth as he looked away from the magazine and he thought about
his trusted and faithful companion. However, as his gaze focused on the door in
front of him, he found an envelope from an off-strip hotel taped to the center
of it.
Instantly
dropping the keys, he reached out and pulled the envelope down to tear it open.
His haste came from the recognition of the handwriting on the paper; it was
Sara’s. Ripping it open, he quickly scanned his surroundings, hoping to catch a
glimpse of her, a sign that she was there, somewhere. When he found none, his
eyes zeroed in on the note contained within.
Gil-
Can you take Hank to
the sitter’s and meet me at The Apple Martini?
I’ll wait there
until 1PM. I don’t have my phone with me.
-Sara
His
breath was firmly lodged in his chest, as though his lungs had suddenly filled
with concrete. He dared not move a muscle, fearing that the whole thing was
only a mirage, or a carefully crafted hallucination brought on by too many
doubles and not enough sleep. Not until Hank’s deep and distinctive bark broke
through his consciousness was he able to tear his focus away from the note.
Finally
taking a deep breath, filling his lungs until his ribs painfully expanded, Gil
shook his head and tried to make sense of what he was about to do. In his hands
were the mail and the note. His keys were lying on the ground at his feet, and
a few inches from his right foot was the envelope. He stared at those items on
the stoop, as though he willed them to give him the answers he needed to decide
his next move.
Taking
another deep breath, he played through a dozen scenarios in his head, but
Hank’s insistent howl on the other side of the door gave him the only answer
that mattered. In a flash, he gathered up the keys, tucked all of the mail
under his arm and reached for his cellphone as he
struggled to open the door.
“Yeah, Cindy? It’s Gil Grissom… Do you have room for Hank this morning?” Pushing
through the door, he fought to hold onto the mail and the phone when his canine
housemate jumped up and tried to greet him. “Thank you. The relief poured out with
his expression of gratitude. “I ah, need to take a shower, but then I can drop
him off… See you in about an hour?”
Sighing
as he bid the woman goodbye, Grissom let Hank out the back door and leapt into
action for the first time in months.
Chapter 2
After
running through no fewer than six yellow lights, dropping Hank at the dog
sitter’s, and then proceeding to blast through a couple more yellow lights,
Grissom finally arrived at the bar where Sara asked to meet him. When he got
there, he remembered why he knew the place, and as with most of his life, it
related to a case. However, his more common use of the place was spent with far
better company.
The Apple
Martini was an out of the way lounge frequented by locals. It was not a
He
desperately tried not to focus on that, or the implications it made about the
status of their relationship, instead he concentrated on the fact that Sara was
back in
On his
second trip around the block he finally found a parking space. He also noticed
that the hotel listed on the stationary was just down the street from the bar.
With those additional pieces of information, his suspicions had been confirmed;
Sara had checked into a hotel instead of coming home to him. His ability to
continue thinking positively was greatly reduced with this newest realization.
Searching
his mind, he tried to find an answer to the question that would not break his
heart into a million tiny, irreparable fragments spread out across the vast
universe, never to be whole again. Even thinking about it made his chest
tighten, and he was sure that he could feel pain radiating down his left arm.
His logical mind told him it was only the anxiety, but the rest of it screamed
at him to run away from the heartbreak waiting for him inside that lounge.
Though
fear and logic were at war within his mind, his overwhelming curiosity won out
over them all, and he continued to put one foot in front of the other until he
reached the doors to the bar. Taking a deep breath, his eyes closed, he
struggled for the courage to walk through the door. One more breath and he said
a silent prayer that the world would once more be set right before finally
opening the door to enter the lounge.
Outside,
the bright light of a late
Once he
was able to make out the shape of the bar, he looked to his right and found the
first table, thus preventing himself from falling over it as he stepped
forward. With his eyesight properly adjusted, he quickly began to scan the room
for that painfully familiar face; the one he saw whenever he closed his eyes.
At eleven
in the morning, there were few people in the bar, but he still found it
difficult to find her there. Moving to the back of the room, he continued to
search for her, but she seemed to be missing.
He must
have appeared out of place and desperate, because the bartender looked up from
the glasses she had been washing and noticed him standing there. “Hey there…
Didn’t see you come in. Can I get you-” She stopped as he moved closer to the
bar itself and into the faint light emanating from behind it. “Boy, she sure
wasn’t kiddin’, honey… Those have got be the bluest
eyes ever created on earth, sweet stuff.”
Completely
taken aback by the woman’s forwardness, he could only sputter and fidget under
her gaze.
She chuckled
at his difficulty and started fishing around through a bunch of paper at the
register. “Well, I guess she only got it
half right… You got the ocean blues, but you’re fallin’
short on the silver tongue thing, sweets. But that’s all right, you’re still
pretty cute.” Shaking her head, she kept trying to find something as she
continued to speak, “Now if I can just find that damn note, you’ll be able to
get the hell out of this dive.”
Slowly he
struggled to regain his composure and tried to find out what was going on. “Ah,
I’m sorry… I was here to mee-”
“Right, honey. But she finally got a call from those numbskulls at the airline. Poor
thing’s been waiting since last night with no luggage, and no wallet.
Thankfully she had enough cash to make it here, and that ole Manny was tending
bar last night. Been sweet on that kid since she got that
lowlife attacked his baby girl a while back.”
She
stopped her rapid-fire delivery to exclaim as she found the card, “Ah Ha! I
knew it was over here.” She handed him the card and kept going, “Anyways, Manny
knows the guy over at the Double Diamond, and he keeps a clean place, so Manny
got the guy to set her up with a room. Poor thing was fallin’
down tired by the time she got here. But when she woke up, the kid at the desk
said she couldn’t have any phone calls unless she had a credit card, so she
came over here to be able talk to the idiots at the airline, and wait for them
to call back when they found her bags.”
He looked
down at the card, trying to understand any of what was happening. On the card
he found Sara’s handwriting, but before he could read the words, the woman
behind the bar started talking again. “So, I let her borrow my car to head out
to McCarran and pick up her bags, because those cheap bastards wouldn’t deliver
‘em. Even using that bus thing, she’d already gone
through the cash she had on her, and I wasn’t goin’
anywhere, so I just let her take my car again. But she said to give you that if
ya came by to see her. Told me I wouldn’t be able to
miss you, ‘deep ocean blue eyes’ she said… Said you’d be a sweet talkin’ thing, too, but I guess it’s a little early for
that one, huh?” She ended her rambling speech with a well placed wink, which
forced a little more color into his cheeks.
The words
were still not coming to him, but he did manage to say, “Um, thank you?” It
came out more like a question than the expression of gratitude he had intended.
“Don’t
worry about it, sweets. You just go and take care of that poor girl now. She
looks as lost as you do, honey.” She tossed the towel over her shoulder and
left him with a knowing smile as she walked into the backroom.
Still
gripping the card in his hands, the darkness made it impossible to actually
read, so he slowly walked back out of the bar. He was desperately impatient for
his eyes to readjust to the harsh light of day, and he kept squinting at the
note until he began to see Sara’s barely legible scrawl once more.
Gil-
Sorry, had to run.
Meet me at the hotel. Be back soon.
-Sara
Double Diamond, Room
4242
He walked
back to the car in a daze. not completely sure about what had happened in the
bar, other than Sara had to leave, possibly to go to McCarran for her bags, and
she seemed to be having some kind of money trouble as a result. The rest was
nothing but a blur of fast talking, gum smacking barroom banter that became
lost in his mind as he tried to understand where he needed to go to find her.
The card explained it all, and yet nothing at the same time.
Perhaps
the answers could be found at the Double Diamond. Knowing that it was just
around the corner, it seemed pointless to waste a perfectly good parking space,
Gil began the walk to the hotel. In reality, it was not far, but in the realm
of his anticipation and fear, it was an interminable distance of time and
space. His entire future was waiting for him at the end of this walk, and he
still had no idea what that future might hold. He only knew who held the keys.
Chapter 3
The walk to
the hotel was uneventful, which did not help to alleviate his anxiety. It was
over far too soon, and he still had not come up with a single thing to say to
Sara when he met her.
He wanted
to be smooth, he wanted to be calm, and more than anything, he did not want to
sound pathetic and desperate. However, those were the two things he felt more
strongly than any other. His mouth was dry, his hands were clammy and he was
fairly certain that his face was flushed as he felt his pulse quicken with each
step closer to the Double Diamond.
Before he
reached out for the door handle that would take him inside, he took a few deep
breaths in the hopes that he could calm some of the nerves that were standing
on end. It never worked, and today was no different.
Blowing
out the last breath, he pushed through the doors and walked into the dark cool
of the hotel’s lobby. He quickly found the front desk and made his way through
the simple entry to the hotel. As he looked around, he noted that it was
nothing to write home about, but the bartender had been right; it was clean.
There were no fancy trimmings in this hotel, but it was well kept, and Grissom
imagined that it was probably one of the few affordable, independent hotels in
Vegas that did not leave him feeling slightly dirty just walking into the
place.
Approaching
the front desk, he saw the young man behind the desk dutifully sorting through
the paperwork for the day. Once he reached it, he was forced to clear his
throat to disturb the man’s concentration.
“I’m sorry,
Sir…” He quickly jumped to his feet and Grissom was nearly convinced the person
facing him from behind the desk could not have been more than sixteen. “Welcome
to the Double Diamond. How may I help you today?”
Before he
could answer the boy, a beep sounded from behind him and the boy instantly spun
around to view the security map to determine where the beep had been triggered.
The desk clerk sighed and turned back to face Grissom. “Sorry about that. I’m
trying to make sure some lady doesn’t stiff the hotel. The night guy made some
kind of sweetheart deal with the woman, but I don’t care what he says, I am not
losing my job when the boss comes in and finds out she’s here without paying.”
The boy
held up a plastic card in his tight fist and continued to explain, “I made her
leave her driver’s license when she tried to duck out on me first thing this
morning after I wouldn’t release the block on her phone. Boss always says, ‘no
credit card, no phone.’ No matter what kind of arrangement the night guy had, I
am not about to pay for his mistakes.”
Grissom
was finally beginning to put some of the pieces together. Removing his badge
from his jacket pocket, he flashed it at the clerk and asked, “May I see that
license?”
The boy’s
face practically went ashen with his question. “Look, Mister, ah… I-I’m not
pressing any charges or anything. I just um-”
Nodding
at the boy and gesturing for him to hand over the ID, Grissom explained, “I’m
actually looking for someone, and I have a feeling that license belongs to her.
Do you mind?”
With a
trembling hand, the young man passed him the driver’s license. “I don’t want
any trouble, Sir. Honest.”
Looking
down at Sara’s very serious expression on her driver’s license, Grissom was
unable to stop the grin that turned the corner of his mouth. “This would be
her. And there’s no trouble.” He reached into his back pocket and retrieved his
wallet, withdrawing a credit card. As he handed it over to the desk clerk, he
said, “Go ahead and put her room on this card, please?”
The young
man cautiously took the card and asked, “Are you sure? I mean, wouldn’t that
look bad for you? I thought she was like one those escort people, or
something.”
He nearly
choked on his own breath with the boy’s assumption. “Hardly!”
Without a doubt, if Sara had heard the young man, she would have come
completely unglued. He handed the clerk the card Sara left for him at the bar.
As the boy read the note he laid out the conclusions he had come to. “My fiancé
came in late last night, didn’t have her wallet, phone or bags, and I was out
in the field. Thankfully an old acquaintance was able to make arrangements for
her until I returned. If you would be so kind as to put the room on my card,
and activate a second card key, I can leave you to your work.”
Carefully
considering his options, the clerk struggled to come up with the right
decision. “Since you are a cop and she did give you the room number and
everything...” He finally brought the card over to the reader, but stopped to
ask a timid question, “You wouldn’t mind if I write down your badge number and
call to verify who you are, would you?”
Grissom
smiled and pushed the badge closer to the boy so that he could read the numbers
on it. “Not at all, and that is a very responsible request to make. Thank you
for that.”
Once all
of the business was attended to, Grissom took the card key and made his way to
the fourth floor via the elevator. He was somewhat apprehensive about letting
himself into Sara’s hotel room without her knowledge. It was an especially
daunting assumption, given the fact that he was still unsure about the status
of their relationship. His only hope was that she would simply be grateful to
be done with the overeager young man at the desk.
As he
approached room 4242, his pulse had quickened once again and as he reached out
with the card key he felt the slickness of his sweaty palms. Fumbling with the
card, he took another of those pointless breaths and tried to steady his hand
to operate the lock. When the light finally flashed green he turned the handle
pushed open the door.
The room
was just as unremarkable as the rest of the hotel, but also seemed to be just
as clean. When he saw the bedspread on the floor, and the disturbed sheets, he
took comfort in the fact that at least Sara had gotten a little rest while she
was there.
He walked
around the room and found not a single trace of Sara in the room. The only
thing to indicate that it was her room was the hand towel on the bathroom
vanity. It was folded over lengthwise in half, and then folded again at the two
thirds mark from the right side where a disposable toothbrush rested. It was a
strange habit, but he recognized it as distinctly Sara, and it made him smile.
The
waiting soon became unbearable. He watched the time slowly tick away, first
from the chair with the footrest beside it, and then at the desk chair as he
fiddled with the pen and papers there on the table. Several times he tried to
sit on the bed and appear comfortable, but it never worked. He felt like it was
a violation of personal space each and every time.
After his
last attempt at sitting on the bed failed, he nervously paced around the room
until something on the incredibly short balcony caught his eye. As he moved to
open the sliding glass door, he finally recognized the item. It was an ashtray
sitting on the rail, and there were a couple of recently extinguished butts in
the tray. When he flicked at the evidence of Sara’s relapse in her quest to
give up the habit, he realized that he was not alone in the frustration with
their separation.
Out on
the excuse for a balcony, he became lost in the view and his memories. From his
vantage point he could see the edge of the Hotel Monaco, and just the sight of
it sent him back in time. He remembered his mind being in twenty places at once
as he attempted to deal with a battlefield promotion, the assault on one of his
CSI’s, possibly losing Warrick because of the
incident, and investigating a suspicious death at a major hotel.
After
breaking the news to the team, he felt like he was flying solo, as though there
was no one there for him and he had no idea who to trust. As he tried to lose
himself in the science of the jumper case, he just wanted to push everything
else out for a little while, and the trajectory experiment with the dummies
seemed like just the thing. But each time a dummy crashed into the ground he
flinched inside. It was almost as though each impact represented one of the
burdens being heaped upon him as a result of the Gribbs
case.
The
weight of those burdens was heavy on his shoulders as he recorded the positions
of each dummy. There was only one thing, in the very back of his mind, that was
providing him any comfort, and when he heard the amused lilt of her voice
behind him, he knew where that comfort came from; “I don't even have to turn around. Sara Sidle.” And with those
words, he felt his heart beat with something infinitely better than pain and
regret. However, it was the broad and vibrant smile he found on her face as he turned
around that gave him joy.
Unfortunately,
that joy was short-lived. He quickly realized what a selfish and wholly unfair
request he had made of her. His new position kept him from even continuing
their friendship, and he was left with nothing to offer her other than a job.
If he was honest with himself, he had known from the beginning that he was
asking her there for his benefit and not hers. And it was that truth he spent
the next five years punishing Sara for.
His shoulders
sagged as he admitted that in his thoughts. It was a knowledge that he always
kept tucked away in the darkest recesses of his mind. For years he told himself
that he was protecting her from the gossip, from wasting her youth on him, from
him. But he had always known that he was really protecting himself from the
reality of her. If he kept her at arm’s length he never had to feel the sting
of her rejection, he never had to know a world without her again, and he never
had to watch her walk away because of him.
In the
end, it was not his pain or his fear that moved him from his long standing
position. It was watching Sara spiral downward, cutting herself off from
everyone and everything, and then seeing how she was able to pull herself back
up and become an even stronger and more capable investigator. But it was the
peace she seemed to find after her ordeals that told him he had done her a
disservice. And when everyone was given a horrifying dose of mortality in the
course of Nick’s abduction, he was finally able to break out of the fear and
risked the pain of rejection. He knew then that the pain of never knowing the
truth was worse than anything else.
Life
since that day was a new era in his world. He had found the light. It was the
same light that made Sara his only choice when Holly Gribbs
was attacked. It was the light that guided him through the Debbie Marlin case.
It was the light that helped him to survive the horror of Nick’s abduction. It
was the light that he wanted to protect when he left on sabbatical. It was the
light he was desperate to find out in that desert when someone tried to steal
it from him. Feeling the warm sun on his face, he closed his eyes to the
daytime view and tried to see that light again. The image of her bright shining
smile, and that amused lilt in her voice sang in his ears.
“That’s
me.”
His heart
lifted with the memory, because it was so vivid in his mind that he could feel
it tickling his ears.
“Yeah,
Mom, it’s gone. I went through the bag at the airport and there’s nothing
there.” He spun around when he realized the sound was actually coming from
behind him. He could hear someone fumbling at the door, but he was frozen in
place, staring at the closed door.
“No, I’m
serious. My wallet is not in the bag, and I’ve still gotta
deal with that desk clerk before I can get out of here.” The sound of a heavy
bag dropping to the floor interrupted his thoughts. “Well, I wasn’t planning on
checking the bag, but since I was late getting to the airport, there wasn’t any
room for my carryon and they took it from me at the plane.” He heard the card
key slide in and fail to disengage the lock. “Yeah, if
only that wonderful flight attendant had actually gotten my bag on the plane…
Yeah, they left it in the gangway, which is why I didn’t have my bag when I got
here. Or my wallet, or my cellphone.”
The card
was pushed into the slot again and he could hear the lock release. “A huge mess
is an understatement… No, I just barely got my phone charged enough to call
you…” The handle turned and the door barely clicked open, but she stayed on the
other side. “I don’t know yet… I need to finish charging my phone, and figuring
out how I’m gonna deal with the hotel, and then I’ll
worry about what a mess I’ve made of the rest of my life. Is that okay with
you, Mom?”
The door
opened a few inches and he could hear her grunt as she picked up the suitcase.
“No, I’m sorry. It’s just-… Yeah, thanks, Mom. I will… As soon as I know what’s
up, I’ll call, okay?” Her exasperated sigh was the next thing he heard. “No, I
do not have a cigarette in my mouth… I sound like that because I’m trying to
get in the door with my bags and my phone is pressed to my ear, that’s why.”
Sara
shuffled into the room and the heavy door closed with a thud behind her. His
eyes drank in the sight of her the instant she appeared through the doorway;
her wild hair pulled loosely into a very messy ponytail, her clothes rumpled
and obviously slept in, and still she was beautiful to the point that he was
absolutely captivated by her appearance.
Continuing
to talk on the phone, she dropped the heaviest bag and stepped forward. “Mom, I
said I would quit again and I will, but you’ve gotta
cut me a break right now okay? I’m trying to-” She looked up and found him
staring straight into her eyes and it stopped her cold. He could hear the
harried voice of the woman on the other end of the line, but there was nothing
else in his world in that moment. And the moment seemed to go on forever.
When Sara
finally blinked, she shook her head and tried to re-engage the woman on the
phone. Her voice was different when she spoke, “Ah, Mom… I need to go. I’ll ah,
explain later… Yeah, I love you, too. Bye.”
Still
frozen in place, he could only stare at her face as he fought to find the
breath to speak. He watched as she closed the phone and swallowed an unseen
lump in her throat.
The
stalemate was finally broken when she pushed a strand of hair from her eyes and
simply said, “Hi.”
Chapter 4
Time seemed
to stand still, and it took several intensely silent moments before he was able
to process that Sara had spoken. Eventually, he managed to get his mouth and
his vocal chords to function again. “Hello.”
He
watched her head turn slightly to the side, but her eyes never left his as she
tried to gesture at the door. “How’d you-”
With the
presence of something tangible to apply his thoughts to his faculties quickly
returned. “Front desk. I ah, took care of the bill and the clerk gave me a key
card.”
Sara’s
brow furrowed and he could tell she was not entirely happy with the situation,
but he was fairly certain he knew why. “It’s not what you think… I showed him
my badge and the note you left for me at the bar, told him I was your fiancé
and waited for him to verify who I was before he would give me the key.” She
was still looking at him with some confusion, and he began to question his
actions. “I hope I wasn’t being presumptu-”
“No, it’s
not that.” He could see that she was trying to relax her posture, but there was
still an unease that worried him enough to keep him fixed to his spot at the
window. “It just worries me that it could happen to anyone. Someone should
probably talk to the manager abou-” She stopped
herself and shook her head, as though she was attempting to clear the thought
physically. “Sorry…didn’t mean to go off on a tangent.” Her smile returned and
she said, “I’m glad you came.”
He basked
in the warmth from her smile for a moment, letting it soothe his haggard soul.
Wanting the moment to last as long as possible, he simply nodded his head.
However, the spell seemed to have been broken as he watched Sara nervously
glance around the room.
For some
unknown reason his brain chose curiosity to break the painful stalemate.
“Though I’m not really sure why I’m here.” He knew the instant he saw her hurt
expression that it had come out wrong. “Why we’re here, at this hotel, and not
at home?”
Sara
seemed to accept his qualifying questions as she slumped
her shoulders “That was my plan.” Dropping her purse to the floor in a heap,
she went on, “But I had shoved my purse into my carryon after paying the
cabbie, because I didn’t want any trouble getting through screening since I was
already late getting to the airport. And when I got to the gate the jackass
flight attendant told me the overhead bins were full so I’d have to check my
bag. There just wasn’t time to pull everything out again, and I assumed they
would load it straight onto the plane from there.”
She
paused for a moment, trying to get a handle on her obvious irritation, so he
gave her a chance to regroup. “And I take it that was not the case?”
“Hardly!
However,
he was still confused by her actions. “But the notes…why
didn’t you just call me? I could have taken care of all of this last
night.”
Sara
began to fidget as she spoke, “The only thing I had was my ID and some cash.
How was I supposed to call you?”
“Go to a
pay phone and dial the number?” It seemed like a logical process to him, so it
eluded him as to why she failed to make the connection.
Sara
shook her head and chuckled anxiously, “I didn’t have my cellphone
or my day planner. And while I realize that in all other situations relating to
numbers that I am extremely proficient, I haven’t actually seen your phone
number in the last ten years, so there’s no chance I’d remember what it is.”
He could
see Sara’s frustration in the way she chewed on her finger, and the gawky
gestures she made while talking. He wanted nothing more than to go to her and
end all of this talking with a kiss, but the part of him that was hurt would
not allow him to move.
The hurt
made him spit out, “But you knew the number to that bar?” It was not his
intention to sound defensive, but that was exactly how it came out.
“No… But
I could look it up in the phone book.”
“And you
couldn’t find the lab’s number that way?”
She
laughed outright with that question. “Right! Like I
didn’t create enough of a scene when I left, I’m gonna
call the lab so that the entire department knows about it before the
receptionist even gets the transfer call from PD? No way. I think I’ve done
enough damage already, Gil. I certainly don’t want to screw things up anymore
than I have. I never want to do that to you again.”
“They
don’t list the lab’s direct number?” He was surprised by that piece of
information.
“No, and
I double checked, just in case, because I do actually remember your extension.”
“Okay…”
He was still trying to process everything, and the best way to accomplish that
was to ask questions. “Then why didn’t you just wait at the house?”
“On the front step? With the dog barking at me? In the middle of the night? I didn’t have my keys either. If
I had tried that, I’d have gotten picked up by patrol for sure, and that sure
as hell would’ve created a huge stink. Brass is pissed at me
enough as it is.” As she explained, it all started to make sense, even if he
had not been able to see it upon first inspection. But her last comment puzzled
him and once again he was frozen by doubt and confusion.
“Why is
Brass upset?”
“Besides the obvious?” She seemed to try and shrug off his question, nervously
pacing back and forth, but he held firm. “He’s not happy with the way I left.
And he thinks I’ve been unfair to you.”
“I don’t
understand… Why would he say that?’
“He’s
your friend, and I guess he thinks it’s his place to defend you.” Despite the
uncertainty he felt with her revelation, Gil decided it was best to discuss
that business with the source than to continue questioning Sara about it. There
were other questions he needed answered.
Forcing
his trembling hands into his pockets, he took a steeling breath. “What was your
plan?”
Stopped dead
in her tracks by his question, he watched her whole body tense up before she
turned to look at him. In her eyes, he was positive that he saw proof of her
infinite sorrow. “My plan?”
More from
fear than any other emotion, he remained as stoic as possible in the face of
such sorrow. “You said that going to the house was in your plans… What plans?”
When she
failed to answer him right away, his nerves got the better of him and he
clumsily asked, “Was I in any of those plans?”
As he
watched the hurt filling her eyes, he cursed himself for letting his anger and
doubt lash out in that way. He could see her burying that pain as she tried to
answer him, and it only made him feel worse.
Her
response was like a dagger in his heart. “I deserved that.” He was about to
step forward and apologize, but she held up her hand and stopped him. “It’s
okay. I know what I did hurt you, and you have every right to be angry with
me.”
“I’m not
angry at you…” He choked on his words, almost questioning if he believed them.
“I’m angry with this whole screwed up situation. And I hate what it’s done to
us.”
There was
a solemn silence that followed his admission; he with his head bowed in sorrow,
and Sara with her arms wrapped tightly around her middle. It was as though they
both needed some time to grieve for all that they had lost.
Eventually,
the silence became too much to bear, and with more pain than he had ever felt
before he asked, “Is this it? Are we really done?”
There was
no answer, and so he finally worked up the courage to raise his head and look
for one. What he saw would stay with him for the rest of his days.
Sara
quietly wiped the streams of tears from her face and fought to put on a brave
face when she softly offered, “If that’s what you want.” Before the façade
could break, she turned and went to retrieve her bags from the floor.
His mind
was reeling from her magnitude of her words. He was practically destroyed by
her hushed acceptance of a fate he was sure neither of them wanted, and before
he could return to his senses she was preparing to walk out the door. “I’ll
make all the arrangements, so you won’t have to.” He watched her hand rest on
the door handle as she said, “I’ll be at my mother’s if anything comes up in
the meantime… Just keep whatever you want-”
In an
instant he had crossed the room to cover Sara’s hand with his and stopped her
from going any further. “What if what I want is…you?”
She
leaned forward with a sigh and rested her head against the door. Her voice
seemed so much smaller when she cautiously whispered, “Then don’t let go.”
If he had
not been so close to her, he might not have heard the words. He gently took her
hand from the door and turned her around to face him. Any lingering doubt he
might have had was washed away in the glassy pools of her eyes.
Reaching
into his pocket, he retrieved a handkerchief and tenderly wiped the tears from
her face. Her eyes closed with the feeling of his touch on her face, and he was
able to catch a few more of those tears as they escaped.
When his hand
cupped the side of her head, as his thumb absently stroked her face, Sara
finally opened her eyes again to see him staring into her soul. “I don’t want
to let go. I never did.”
“But…”
There was a crack in her voice as she spoke. “I messed up, didn’t I?”
He wanted
to wish it all away, pretend like nothing else mattered, but he knew in his
heart that doing just that was probably what had gotten them to this point in
the first place. With a gentle shake of his head he spoke the truth of the
matter for the first time, “In this case, I think we’ve both messed up.”
Her
confusion was plainly shown in her puzzled brow. “But I’m the one who left.”
Smoothing
out the expression with his thumb, he simply offered, “And I’m the one who let
you.” He ended the statement with a gentle touch of his lips to her forehead.
“How about we call it a draw…go home and start over?”
Sara
looked up with a start. “Really?” She quickly put a
damper on her rising tide of hope, and he could see that she was struggling
with his request, but then she asked, “Is that really what you want?”
Shaking
his head he admitted, “What I really want is irrelevant, because it would only
end us up right back in the same place again. But what I need is for you and I to make this thing work, together. Because I don’t know
about you, but I am completely miserable without you around, and I hate the
person I become when you aren’t there to pester me. I hate the fact that I
can’t smell your strange feminine concoctions in the bathroom. I hate that I don’t
find your slippers under the coffee table, or that my dog doesn’t seem to think
my coming home every day is enough anymore. But most of all, do you know what I
really hate?” Without even trying, he had managed to ramp himself up into
furious frenzy with his explanation.
As though
she knew the answer to his question, Sara dropped her bags to the floor once
more and wrapped her arms around his middle as she buried her face in his
chest. He felt her warm moist tears staining his shirt as she held onto him for
dear life. At first he was caught off-guard by her choice of action, but
thankfully his subconscious mind took over and brought his own arms up to wrap
around her, holding her even closer to his body.
After
several minutes of just enjoying the feeling of her in his arms again, he
finally finished his list. “I hated that you weren’t right here when I needed
you, or vice versa.”
Without
letting go, she turned her head so that she could speak. “I’m sorry. I know
that doesn’t fix anything, and I’ve got a long way to go before making any of
this up to you, but I need you to know how very sorry I am for the hurt I’ve
caused you.”
A long
held gush of air escaped his lungs as he sighed. He was again filled with a
desire to just forget everything and walk into the sunset, but to her credit,
even Sara seemed to understand the flaw in that logic. “I know we won’t solve
anything today, and there’s still so much we need to talk about, but do you
think-”
When she
stopped in the middle of her sentence, he looked down to find her chewing on
her bottom lip. At another time he would have passed it off as merely an
endearing habit, but he knew that she was struggling to find the strength to
ask for help. It was her greatest weakness in life, and one that they shared. However,
both were always very willing to offer it to another, and so he did. “I’m not
terribly fond of life altering conversations in hotel rooms…so how about we get
out of here and go home?” As she looked up at him, there were the beginnings of
a smile at the edges of her mouth. “Besides, we’ll only have the house to
ourselves until five, and I know I won’t be allowed to get this close once the
master of the house returns.”
Showing him once again that she willing to sacrifice herself for him,
she tried one last time to give him an out. “Are you su-”
“Of nothing in my life more than this. Come home with me, Sara?”
With a
genuine smile, she nodded her head before bringing it to rest on his shoulder. After
a few more moments of quiet comfort, she pulled away from him and bent down to
get the bags.
He
stopped her by clearing his throat and reached for the bags himself. Handing
her the purse he said, “Some things won’t be changing, I’m afraid.” Taking her
suitcase in one hand, he opened the hotel room door with the other and gestured
for her to precede him.
The blush
on her cheeks was a welcome sight. Once in the hallway, she took his arm and
softly said, “Yes, dear.” And it was his turn to smile, as he enjoyed the
warmth of her touch.
In the
elevator down to the lobby, Sara looked restlessly around the confined space.
At first he was concerned the claustrophobia had returned, but then he noticed
that she kept fishing her cellphone out of her
pocket.
He was
puzzled by her dilemma. “What’s wrong?”
As the
doors opened up she asked, “Did you bring the Mercedes or the
“The Mercedes, why?” Walking through the lobby, he was growing more confused
by the moment.
“Oh… I’ll
just have to deal with it later.” Sara shoved the phone into her purse as they
exited onto the street.
Not
willing to walk any further until he understood what the problem was Gil
stopped in his tracks and asked, “Deal with what? What’s going on?”
“My mother.”
Shaking
his head, he asked, “What about her?”
“She’s
been freaking out all night because I didn’t call her when I landed.”
He failed
to see what the concern was about. “Freaking out how?”
“Oh,
after I charged my phone enough to get it turned on, it popped up with like fifty
messages. The last of which she was threatening to have me reported missing or
abducted.” Shaking her head, she went on, “And then I couldn’t get her off the
phone once I did call back. Tell me again why it’s a good thing we’re talking
now?”
As understanding
finally came over him, he reached out and put his arm around her shoulders,
holding her to his side for comfort.
“All I
wanted to do was get home and talk to you, and nothing
worked the way I planned. What I ended up with was an
hysterical mother, a nightmare with my luggage, my wallet and my camera stolen,
and a pain in the ass desk clerk that probably wasn’t even born before I
finished high school.” Her head immediately found a soft spot to rest on as the
last of her rant began. “I’m tired, I look like hell, and I can only imagine
how bad I smell right now. And a dollar to a nickel my mother is about to call
the National Guard to come looking for me.” Sara wrapped her arms around him
and pitifully asked, “Can this day get much worse?”
Nudging
her forward along the walk, he casually offered another scenario, “I could’ve
been out of town and not gotten your note.”
She
swatted his belly and exclaimed, “Bite your tongue!”
On the
drive home, Sara used his phone to call her mother, and the National Guard was
placed on a stand down. With the midday traffic, it was a long drive. When he
noticed she was quiet for far too long, Gil turned to find her head lolled to
the side and sleeping soundly.
With the
relative peace in the car, Gil’s thoughts turned inward. He would never be able
to adequately express his intense and boundless relief at Sara’s return, but he
also knew that it would not be without its problems. They still had a great
deal of work to do, and a lot of pain to heal, but he was certain that they
could survive anything, just so long as they were together.
He
doubted that he could ever understand why Sara felt she had to leave the way
she did, but he honestly believed it was not important to their relationship.
The fact that she came home, the fact that he was waiting for her when she did,
and their ability to find humor and comfort even in the bleakest of times,
those were the things that were important now.
As he
waited for the garage door to open, he looked over at Sara once more and saw a
peace in her expression that had been missing for some time. It was not until
that very moment that he realized just how much he had missed that little
comfort; that when they were together, she felt safe and at peace. It was a
mutual feeling, because at his darkest moments, she was always in his thoughts.
She truly was the light that guided his life. And now he wanted to be that
light for her.
Once the
car was shut off, he turned in his seat and leaned over into the passenger
side. He pulled a strand of hair out of her eyes and laid a gentle kiss on her
forehead. Watching her eyelids softly flutter open, he felt an ache in his
chest as her eyes came to life before him.
“Hi.”
Such a
simple word, not even a real word, but hearing it in her voice was greater than
any symphony he had ever enjoyed.
“I fell
asleep, huh?” There was a shyness in her words that
touched him. He knew that she was still unsure about her status in this grand
scheme, and it was to be his pleasure to wipe away any and all lingering doubt
for her.
He
stroked his thumb along her cheekbone and nodded. Before she could say anything
else, Gil leaned down and delicately kissed her barely trembling lips. As he
pulled back to see her closed eyes, he felt Sara’s relieved and contented sigh
pass from her lips to his and he simply said, “Welcome home.”