Chapter Text
Let's see what happens.
Grissom stood on the doorstep to Sara's apartment. The last time he was here, she confided in him about her troubled past. As he prepared to knock on her door, he prayed he wasn't too late to ask that she be a part of his future.
"Grissom," Sara stood in her doorway, wrapped in a silken, pale pink robe, her chestnut hair in soft ringlets. She looked perfect, like an angel, except for her flushed cheeks and glistening, red eyes. Before she could ask what he was doing there, his hand was on her cheek, brushing the tears with his thumb.
"Sara, what's wrong? Are you okay?"
Sara closed her eyes, pressing her face into Grissom's warm palm. "I'm tired," she whispered. "I'm so tired." With that, Sara crumbled and started to sob.
Grissom scooped her up before she sunk to the floor, encircling his arms around her willowy frame. He guided her to her couch, where he held her as she got swept up in her emotions. He stroked her velvety curls, peppering the top of her head with light kisses.
"Honey, it's okay." Grissom held her close as Sara's tears seeped into his shirt. When her tears began to ebb, the cloud of emotion dissipated and Sara looked up at Grissom, suddenly realizing she had no idea why he was here holding her.
"What are you doing here, Grissom?"
Grissom looked at her gently. "I'm worried about you." Sitting here with her now, he was still having trouble finding the words to tell her why he raced over. He was worried about her, but he was stalling.
Sara was indeed tired of many things, but at the top of that list was Gil Grissom, and his constant emotional tango. A shard of pottery and Adam Trent made her realize that maybe she was wasting her time. Seeing her life flash before her eyes, she wasn't sure what she was doing anymore. Her exhaustion morphed into anger. "Is that all you have to say?"
Grissom looked at her, his brows furrowed in confusion. "What?"
"Now you're worried about me? First, you were just concerned. Then, you could care about me, but apparently I'm not worth the risk? Which one is it?"
Grissom shifted his jaw, the look of confusion still etched into his features. "Sara, I…I don't know what you're talking about." At the back of his mind, words to Vincent Lurie started to drift into his consciousness.
Somebody young and beautiful shows up. Somebody…we could care about…
But how could she have known about that?
"I heard you, Grissom. I heard you when you were talking to Vincent Lurie. All this time, you couldn't talk to me, but you could confide in a murder suspect?"
Grissom's heart sank. Once he started talking to Lurie, he found it hard to stop. It was almost like confessing to a priest, a third party that might be able to absolve him from his guilt. He had never meant for her to hear those words. "Sara…"
"You know, I knew you were confused, but I didn't know you had finally made a decision."
"Sara, it's not like that…"
"It's fine, Grissom. At least I know the truth." Sara's eyes were blank. She was Debbie Marlin, her life stolen from her because of a man she once loved. He was Lurie, draining the life from the person he loved.
"No, Sara, you don't know the truth. You don't know why I said that, or what I have been thinking about it since."
Sara sighed heavily, as if the weight of the conversation was more than she could bear. "Then why don't you tell me, Grissom, because I'm tired of playing games and I'm tired of making assumptions as to why I wasn't worth the risk."
"When you asked me to dinner, I didn't know what to do. I wasn't really in a good place, and I thought you were only asking because of the accident, and I thought you were still with Hank."
Sara looked confused for a moment. She never took Hank into consideration. She remembered the day Grissom found out about the relationship with Hank that she tried to deny. She remembered the crestfallen look on his face that he tried to hide, but his eyes had betrayed him. "I never was with Hank," she said softly. "And even still, the whole time he had a girlfriend and he never mentioned it. I found out when I happened to end up at her house during the investigation."
Grissom furrowed his brows in compassion. Even though he was disappointed by founding out from someone else, he didn't think Sara should have been deceived either.
Hank aside, there was still tension between them, and they continued to dance around the subject with words and looks and innuendos. And she still wanted an explanation for what she overheard. "What about Lurie?"
Grissom looked thoughtful for a moment, trying to figure out how to explain how he ended up making a confession to a murderer. But moreover, it was the confession itself he needed to explain.
"Ever since the case with Lurie, I wrestled with what could happen if I let you into my life. I realized that I could be him one day, that you'd realize you'd want someone younger and that you'd leave, and…I saw what it did to him…I didn't want that to be me." Averting his eyes, Grissom reached for Sara's hands. "Even though I'd never hold it against you...or do anything to hurt you...I never wanted to chance losing you forever."
"But you never even gave me a chance." Her voice was quiet, yet heavy with sadness.
"I convinced myself that never having you was better than having you and losing you. But then at the hospital…Sara, I haven't been able to sleep at night without images of you trapped in that room, and me not being able to do anything from behind the glass." Grissom brought up a hand to cup Sara's face, his thumb stroking the delicate skin of her cheek.
"How do I know that you won't change your mind tomorrow? This is what you do, Grissom, you pull me in and make me think I have a chance, I can see it in your eyes that you feel something, and even when I heard you talking to Lurie, I knew you felt something, but then you deny it over and over and you push me away again." Sara began to tremble as her eyes filled with tears. "I can't keep doing this, Grissom, I can't keep getting my hopes up just to have you crush them. Every time you put up that wall, it kills me. Do you get that? This is killing me."
With both hands, Grissom seized her, capturing her in a searing kiss. He heard the small gasp that escaped her as she returned all the intensity in that breathless moment. Her lips were soft and warm, and he was lost in the taste of her. Before he succumbed to the passion overtaking him, he had one more thing to tell her.
He pulled away to look deep into her eyes, her brown eyes glistening with tears that were now gently lacing through his fingers. "Sara, I get it now. When I saw you with Adam Trent, I…I realized something could happen and I'd lose you forever, even with my best intentions. It doesn't matter the repercussions anymore. I can't lose you because I was too afraid to try. Not now, not ever, and I will regret it for the rest of my life if I let even one more day go by without telling you."
Their lips met again, this time Sara bringing him back with slender fingers tangled in his curls. "I've wanted this for so long…" she whispered into Grissom's mouth, not wanting to break the unbridled union.
As Grissom slipped the robe from Sara's shoulders, relishing in the softness that far exceeded his imagination, he whispered back, "As have I."