Stealing Time
Perhaps the most puzzling thing of all was how blindsided she was.
After all, Sara Sidle was nothing if not a realist. She'd graduated from the school of hard knocks several times over, and she knew the only place in Vegas with a happy ending was on a generous tipper's massage table.
There'd been thirty-four years filled with varying levels of heartbreak, followed by two years of near-constant. well, it wasn't quite happiness, but it was certainly contentment. And contentment was something that still felt new and fragile, still had her grabbing handfuls of his sheets as she slept, as if someone might try to pull her away in the night.
And so it was surprising to her, the ease with which the tears fell. The fluttering of her heart in her chest, the way her breaths came fast and shallow. "What?"
Grissom sighed, that irritated sort of sigh he used to use with her. Before the contentment, before the sheets. "I just don't see this working out between us."
"But why?" She nearly cringed at the needy tone in her voice (Sara Sidle wasn't needy), but he didn't seem to notice.
"It's been fun, but I have my career to worry about. This isn't worth losing my job over."
"But everyone knows already."
"Doesn't mean it won't have repercussions."
She stared at him, taking in the telltale signs. The purse of his lips, the way his eyes were focused on the bookshelf behind her head. The slow flick of each of his fingernails against his knee. "I'm sorry, is this conversation boring you?"
There was the sigh again, the one that made her feel about five years old. "I just don't see why we have to discuss it, that's all. You always want to discuss everything."
"No I-"
"And quite frankly, if I say I don't want to date you anymore, then that's that. You should respect me enough not to try and talk me out of it."
"Respect?" The hurt was quickly being replaced by something stronger, something baser. "I should respect you?"
"Yes, you should."
"Then you'll have to explain to me what it is that I'm respecting. The fact that you could string me along for two years, take me shopping for engagement rings two months ago, screw me twice this morning and now be breaking up with me?"
"No, you should respect me because I'm your boss."
It was like a punch, a physical punch to her chest. And all she could say, all she could manage to get her lips to form, was a soft "oh."
He finally shrugged and left. Walked out the door, leaving his spare toothbrush and his bathrobe, and a gaping hole in Sara's heart.
But she'd get through it. Sara Sidle was a fighter. Sara Sidle didn't rely on anyone.
And so she came to work two hours later, looking cool and collected. She accepted her assignment slip from Grissom with a professional nod, and even let Greg drive to the scene. She lifted prints and fibers, and it almost felt like a normal day. She could do this. She could be a Sara shell for a while. Operate on external power until she found a way to refuel the internal.
After work, she bought a package of extra-large garbage bags. There went his sneakers, his sweatpants, his blue silk tie. His shampoo, his shaving cream, his toenail clippers. There went the dried roses from their first Valentine's Day, and that ugly orange thing he'd won her at a carnival game. Theater ticket stubs, and Christmas cards, and the set of mixing bowls he'd stashed in her cabinet.
She'd filled two trash bags before she reached the envelope. The stupid American Express gold card offer, still unopened. And only then did her shoulders sag in defeat.
He'd come over unexpectedly that day, and her first thought had been that she'd done something to piss off Ecklie again. He'd sat on her couch, staring at his hands while she waved apologetically and tried to get off the phone with an old friend. But the friend wouldn't stop talking, and Grissom was looking more and more restless. She knew, just knew he was about to get up and leave, until finally he sifted through the mail on her coffee table, picked up the Amex envelope, and scribbled a note to her.
She wasn't even sure she'd said goodbye before hanging up on her friend.
She'd just stood there, clutching the envelope, reading the words "I'm in love w/you," and finding it all the more charming because of the shorthand. It was like he didn't want to waste any more time than necessary to start things.
Of course, he'd ended things just as quickly. And now she was left with two bags of trash, and a stupid credit card envelope that she couldn't quite bring herself to throw away.
She tossed the bags into the apartment dumpster, crawled into bed, and tried to ignore the fact that the sheets still smelled like him. She'd throw them out tomorrow.
The next day, Grissom didn't come to work. Nor the day after that.
Judy swore he was calling out sick, but Ecklie and Catherine were having too many closed-door meetings for that to be believed. By Thursday, it was formally announced that Catherine was taking over the night shift.
Grissom had resigned.
And with that one announcement, Sara let go of him. He hadn't left her because of the job, as he'd claimed. He just hadn't been in love with her anymore.
Or w/her, even.
She spent the next week relearning what the crime lab was like without him. Catherine was a sharper-tongued boss than Grissom, and quicker to criticize, but she and Sara got along well enough. The change in supervisor wasn't the hard part. The hard part was seeing the sympathetic looks on her coworkers' faces.
"How's Grissom doing?" Warrick asked one night, and Sara's expression told the team all they needed to know.
Nick debated setting Sara up with a friend of his, and Greg debated asking her out himself. But in the end, they let her be.
A broken heart needed time to heal.
One morning, just before the end of shift, Doc Robbins asked the question too. His gaze was fixed intently on the stomach contents of a Jane Doe, so he didn't catch Sara's dark expression.
"He's fine," she said flatly.
"And you?" he asked. "Are you dealing with everything okay?"
"Doing my best."
"It's tough," he said, glancing at her briefly. "One of the toughest things to face, in my experience."
She felt her façade start to slip in spite of herself, and nodded, swallowing hard.
"Have you considered counseling? It can help, sometimes."
"We'll see. Maybe."
He sighed. "Well, I'm glad to hear he's doing okay. Last I talked to him, he was pretty shaken up about the whole thing."
"Oh really?" she asked dubiously. "When was that?"
"Hmm. a week and a half, two weeks ago. I tried talking to him about his options, but he said he already knew. Something about his mother, maybe?"
When Doc turned around, Sara was already gone.
She found him at home, on his couch. Judging by his clothing and his odor, he hadn't bathed since she'd last seen him.
"Grissom?"
He didn't lift his head from the armrest, just kept staring at the ceiling with bloodshot eyes.
"Grissom, have you been drinking?"
"No." His voice was hoarse, and there was a weak tone to it. (Gil Grissom wasn't weak...)
She sat down on the coffee table, facing him. "Did you really think I wouldn't find out?"
"I said I haven't been drinking."
"I'm not talking about that. I talked to Doc."
The only indication that he'd heard her was that his gaze slipped to the back of the couch.
"How long have you known?" she asked softly.
"Final diagnosis was made two weeks ago. Saw five different doctors, they all say it's early Alzheimer's."
She nodded. "So why'd you wait four days to break up with me?"
"Didn't mean to." He rubbed at his forehead with the back of his hand. "Just took longer than I expected."
"To figure out the cruelest way to do it?"
"Yes." He turned to look at her, and she caught her breath at the raw agony in his eyes. "I had to make sure you wouldn't want me back."
She couldn't help it. Her hands cupped his head before she knew she'd lifted them, and the soft press of her lips to his was too familiar. She kissed him over and over, through his protests, through his frustrated tears, until he pushed her back.
"You need to leave," he rasped.
"No."
"I don't want you here."
"I don't care."
"Damn it, Sara," he snapped, sitting up and glaring at her. "You have no idea what's ahead. I went through this with Mom, and by the end she didn't know who I was. I can't make you go through that."
"You can't make me do anything, Grissom."
"I can't even work," he choked out miserably. "I went to testify in court last month and couldn't remember the defendant's name. What happens when it's you I can't remember? Is that what you want? To be saddled with an old man who doesn't even recognize the one person he-" He broke off, shaking his head and swallowing. "It's better to end it now."
She got up and sat next to him, letting their knees touch. "No."
"Why on earth would you want to deal with all of this, Sara?"
Taking the American Express envelope out of her jacket, she handed it to him and watched as he read the note she'd scrawled beneath his own:
I'm in love w/you 2.
He sighed again, loudly. But this time it was a sigh born not of irritation, but profound relief.
She slipped her arm around him, and lay her head on his shoulder.
"Why'd you write yours in shorthand too?" he asked, managing a watery smile.
"Because," she whispered. "We need all the time we can get."