Work Text:
The White case had consumed all his energy: a week with the sheriff and the media on his back, and time passing too quickly. Once the case was closed, Grissom lay supine on his bed, exhausted, his feet touching the floor.
Sara arrived home about half an hour later and found him still there, lying on the bed in a bleak silence, made even darker by the dull light of the bedside lamp. She did not comment. She took off his shoes and lay down supine on the bed as well, next to him but on the other side, her face even with Grissom's. For a few moments she said nothing.
"It was hard, huh?" she asked then, in a low voice.
He sighed. In an atonal voice, he told her of the initial hope he had felt and had given the mother, a girl not even thirty, only to find her son killed instead, and having to tell her that the uncle, her brother, had done the killing aided by their mother, Mrs. White.
"I should have realized sooner that the mother was involved," he finally murmured.
That sentence was immediately followed by the rustle Sara's head made as it turned on the blanket.
"Hey," she whispered as she looked at him. Grissom wearily turned his head toward her. "Do you remember when I told you why I decided to come to Vegas?" He hinted an affirmative movement of his head. "You know, it wasn't just for the reason you probably thought at the time." Her eyes didn't move from Grissom's. "You're the best at this job."
He returned his gaze to the ceiling. "That's why I say I should have figured it out sooner," he sighed.
Sara smiled, full of tenderness at a statement that showed at once, in equal measure, so much arrogance and so much disappointment. Many times Grissom had patiently tried to explain to Sara how to come to terms with the cruel and bloody events that their work brought them into contact with. Every so often, however, it happened that she had to be the one to cure the pains that Grissom cleverly hid from the outside world.
She sat down on the bed, cross-legged, and brought Grissom to lie on her lap and in her arms, his back resting against her chest.
She told him about the first comment she found enlightening that she had heard him make, years before, and other small details that over the years had spurred her on to better herself at work, and about his intellectual honesty. While speaking she would occasionally rock, as if the newly revived memory gave her an immediate energy so irrepressible that she had to somehow discharge it. He listened in silence, on his face a sort of pout, every now and then caressing Sara's right hand resting on his chest.
"Besides, and this is a side note," Sara concluded in a lighter tone, "you know how to build a house from scratch. And that's no small feat. In case you're no longer interested in forensics, you can always take up carpentry."
Saying this last thing, she gave Grissom's hand a couple of affectionate squeezes. She let her light banter settle over Grissom's heart like a balm. She placed a kiss on his head and watched him for a few moments. His discontent lingered.
"You know what we're going to do now?" she said then.
They would have a bath, she proposed in a loving voice, "so the helplessness will melt away," and then they would play some poker.
At the mention of poker, Grissom had a flicker of life and looked up in puzzlement. Sara was glad to have finally caught his attention.
"As usual I'm going to let you win, so you'll feel a little better," she told him, rocking her head like the Cheshire Cat.
A half-smile, somewhat mischievous in character, appeared on Grissom's lips, and it was Sara's greatest gift.
"Actually, I'm usually the one who lets you win," he wanted to make it clear.
Sara laughed. "I know. But at least I made you smile," she whispered in his ear.
The look Grissom gave her was full of candor. He kissed her palm.
"Do you think we could do the two at the same time?" he asked, as he followed the life line on Sara's hand with his finger and gaze.
She became puzzled. "You want to play poker in the tub?" He nodded, "Uh, okay. We just need to find a board to lean against the edges of the tub."