Title: Clearing
Author: vegawriters
Fandom: CSI
Pairing: Grissom/Sara
Rating: Teen
A/N: This is part of the Looking Glass universe.
Timeframe: One to Go...
Disclaimer: CBS owns Sara Sidle and Gilbert Grissom and I make no money from them. But, if TPTB are reading this, I am a starving writer who would not mind making money from them.

Summary: Broken described them better. Pieces of a priceless vase scattered across a living room floor, and all the super glue in the world wouldn’t put it completely back together again. Even if they fixed things, how many holes would remain in the final piece?



It wasn’t uncommon for Sara Sidle to wake reaching for someone who was no longer there. He haunted her dreams, as he had for over a decade; his bright blue eyes, his curly hair, the half smile that so mirrored her own. She would come to consciousness, her arm across the bed, her hand expecting to find him. Instead, it was always empty air, a cold pillow, and a reminder of what she’d given him.

His freedom.

His freedom from her, from her need to … whatever. To be loved, to be needed, to need him. She wasn’t sure.

What was she asking of him? To follow her now? Tit for tat? She’d left San Francisco so now he needed to leave Vegas? She might have left San Francisco because he asked her to, but she also left to save herself. If she’d stayed, Dan would have eventually killed her. And what the hell had she been doing telling him not to worry? It was her code to him, that he did need to worry. What kind of subliminal bullshit had she been using against him?

The truth was that she was happy. She loved the research team. She loved studying the physical effects of urban development on jungle life. But more than the practical applications, she loved the peace. She loved sitting alone under a tree and snapping pictures of the fauna around her. She was happy, but lonely. It wasn’t that she didn’t have the chance to bed any of the team, quite the opposite she knew. But she only wanted one man, and he was thousands of miles away, locked in the lab, and as far as she knew, happily so.

Only one email from him since her own message back home. Since she’d stood in front of the camera on her computer and told him that she didn’t need him anymore.

Had he been able to tell what was real and what wasn’t in that message?

His own response had been vague.

I realize now you were right, that I was right. We were stagnant even while dancing around each other. I do not believe, however, that it is something we could not have fixed. For this I take full credit. You were speaking, Sara. I chose not to listen.

What the hell did he mean by that?

Sara sighed and rose from bed. Her tent was small, but comfortable. Tucked away at the outskirts of the camp, enough space for her equipment, a trunk of clothes and supplies, piles of notebooks and textbooks, and a few pictures. Mostly of her and Grissom, a few of the guys back at the lab. One of her and Greg during training for the relay two years before. She missed Greg. He was the little brother she’d never had.

She sighed and tugged into lightweight cargo pants and a matching vest. It was already hot and the black t-shirt she’d worn to bed was a suitable option to wear during the day. Everything was sticking to her anyway.

Her bed was made, tightly, and covered with netting. Her truck locked up tight. Sara settled down with her laptop and logged into the minimal access they had. They each were allowed 20 minutes of personal time a day. The rest of the bandwidth energy went to uploading research and managing data.

She’d read the email from Gil a hundred times and still, it was the first message she clicked on.

Sara,

Is it fair to either of us to begin this email with “my beloved”? I sit here, surrounded by poetry, hopeless, wondering what I could have done different. What I should have done different. If anything, it was not hold a grudge against your need to leave.

You had to go. You had to save yourself. I understand that. I was too wrapped in my need to be your savior to realize the only way for you to save yourself was to leave. I didn’t stop to think about your needs. It was foolish.

I realize now you were right, that I was right. We were stagnant and dancing around each other. I do not believe, however, that it is something we could not have fixed. For this I take full credit. You were speaking, Sara. I chose not to listen.

She sighed and rubbed her neck. His apology rambled on, but gave no answer as to what he wanted to do about them, if anything. She’d put the ball in his court, told him not to worry, and for all intents and purposes considered them broken up.

Broken up.

Such a high school term.

Broken described them better. Pieces of a priceless vase scattered across a living room floor, and all the super glue in the world wouldn’t put it completely back together again. Even if they fixed things, how many holes would remain in the final piece?

What made it worse was that they loved each other, but they couldn’t get past her need to fly and his need to stay grounded.

She sighed and ran a hand through her hair. She’d yet to reply to him, unsure of what to say. Thank you for apologizing but it isn’t your fault alone so please stop taking it on yourself? or If you really loved me, you’d leave Vegas?

She wasn’t in a place to be fair to him.

The team was assembled for breakfast and she knew she should join them, but her stomach churned. Today, she needed to be alone. So it was granola and tepid water from a half empty bottle. Grabbing her camera, she moved to the edge of camp, needing time to think. She needed to respond to Gil. His email had left some sense of hope that maybe, someday, they could work it out.

She wasn’t sure if she wanted to. Did working it out mean going back to Vegas? Did it mean living by his time table? She loved her life in the jungle; she missed Gil. She could eventually move on, even if she never stopped loving him.

What about him?

She sighed and tried to focus on the world before her. But her fiancé – ex-fiancé’s – words kept running over and over through her mind.

I love you. I’ve realized now you didn’t leave me, you left Vegas. I was the one who took what you were saying and twisted it in selfish ways. We both could have communicated better, perhaps, but I know I could have listened. I didn’t, Sara.

Forgive me.

Didn’t he realize she already understood everything he’d told her? It was why she’d tried to get him to leave with her. She wanted him to understand that leaving Vegas didn’t mean she was leaving him.

Clearly, he didn’t get it.

That was his issue, not hers.

Ani Difranco echoed in her head.

Fuck him. And his untouchable face.

She snapped a picture, shook away the image of the man she loved, and focused on her work.

Humid morning turned into almost unbearable afternoon. Sara donned a hat, more to collect the sweat from her forehead than to shade from the sun. Each layer of clothing was oppressive, pressing on her, and she wanted nothing more than to strip naked and dive into the nearby spring, but they needed to update the photographs from the data sets collected two weeks ago.

Her attention was wobbly at best and she was more interested in the monkey who had been hanging out at their camp since the beginning than she was the specimens she was supposed to be photographing.

The air in the clearing changed. Even the monkey looked up, startled by something. She’d heard footsteps, but figured it was simply camp traffic. But the footsteps had stopped.

For a moment, she hesitated, her imagination conjuring up some drug or weapon smuggler. In the second it took for her to look over her shoulder, she’d crafted a whole scenario that took her into witness protection after she’d managed to escape the drug runner who she was sure now stood behind her, a gun pointed at the back of her head.

But the monkey wasn’t running, so it couldn’t be too dangerous.

Slowly, she turned.

And stopped.

She’d dreamed of a moment like this. Dreamed of him appearing next to the tent, looking every bit her prince charming. She’d hoped he’d come to his senses and leave the same situation that had been stifling her, but Gil Grissom was not a risk taker. He rode roller coasters. That was it. He didn’t leave his life and trek into the jungle after a lost love.

Did he?

Was this the man she’d fallen in love with?

He stood there, sweaty and overheated, tiredly dropping his pack from his shoulders. He’d trekked rain forests before, but it had been years ago, before age had started to catch up to him. But in loose fitting pants and hiking boots, Sara saw him as he’d been, young and full of hope.

Yes. This was him. The man who had flirted with her at the seminar, who had taken her to bed the first night they met. The man who didn’t so much protect her from Dan but who helped her find her feet so she could stand on her own. This was the man who broke both their hearts when he told her they couldn’t be together because he was her supervisor and who twisted the knife when he showed up at her door over and over because he couldn’t stay away anymore than she could. This was the man who sent her plants at the office and who was there to hold her hand when she hit rock bottom. This was Gil Grissom, the man who courted her with textbooks and proposed over a bee colony. The man who was as broken as she in so many ways, but their broken pieces fit together and it didn’t matter if there would always be holes in whatever they fixed, they still belonged together.

When he stretched out his arms for her, before he even said a word, she went, willingly, crashing her lips against his. Ignoring the tears that flowed from her eyes.

It felt right. It felt like they hadn’t been separated for months, that he’d just come back from a hike into base camp. It felt like it had the day he’d proposed, when they’d snuck back to the house and made love until she had to go in for her shift, when everything had come together perfectly and the world was laid bare and for once, nothing was confusing. Nothing.

***

She woke alone. Midnight chirped around the tent, but she was alone. Sure the past twelve hours had been a dream, save for the indentation in the pillow and the smell of sex in the air.

Kicking aside the sleeping bag they'd spread across her small bed, Sara shrugged into one of her longer t-shirts and pulled on a pair of shorts. Slipping her feet into a pair of sandals, she stepped out of the tent and found her lover (still fiancé?) standing alone in the clearing, staring up at the stars.

“Miss Vegas already?” She was sleepy, not used to late night wanderings. Life now was lived in the sunlight.

“Hardly.” His voice was soft, full of sleep and sex. “Just thinking how much I missed while the lights of the strip were blinding me.”

Sara slipped her arms around his waist and pressed a kiss into his back. “I had the same reaction after I left. I went down to the beach, not too far from the old bed and breakfast in Tamales Bay. And I went out one night and stared at the stars and just myself feel again.”

“What happened?”

“I cried.”

She felt his breath leave his body and stepped back as he turned to wrap his arms around her. “Sara, I’m sorry.”

“I don’t want to dwell in sorry.”

“I just want to say it so you understand. I don’t think I’m sorry we had this time apart. I think we both needed it. I’m sorry I wasn’t listening to you.”

“Thank you.” She touched his cheek. “But we’re listening to each other now.”

“Yes.”

“It isn’t going to be easy, Gil.”

“I don’t care about easy. I want to be happy. And I’m happy with you.”

The simple statement brought tears to her eyes. She leaned in and kissed him and his arms tightened around her. “I’m happy with you too,” she whispered when they broke for air.

“Marry me.”

She smiled and rested her hand against his heart. “When I said yes before, I meant it. Let’s do it.”

He laughed, a sound she hadn’t heard from him in close to a year, picked her up, and spun her around.

Freedom, Sara realized, was for both of them.

~fin~