Chapter Text
Sara's eyes snapped open on a sharp intake of breath as she yanked herself from her dream. She was lying on her back in bed. She blinked into the darkness as her heart continued beating rapidly. Gil's left hand was gently wrapped around her right hand as he lay beside her, and Sara tried not to make a sound as she extracted her left hand from beneath the quilt and sheet. She covered her face with that free hand and took a deep breath. She closed her eyes beneath her palm and tried to push the bad dream back into its box. Her breath was shaking and her cheeks were clammy.
After so many years of bad dreams, Sara still did not understand how she could have such active dreams that involved running and searching and hiding and fighting for her life, and yet she could wake up on her back in the same dignified position in which she had fallen asleep hours ago.
She hadn't moved at all; she was in bed with her husband.
In their suite at the Eclipse. In Las Vegas, Nevada.
Sara decided she should think about recent events in Vegas to distract herself from the remnants of her dream and the panic that still sat coiled in her stomach. When she was much younger, she might have had to rush to the toilet to vomit, but not anymore. Progress, right?
They had come full circle here in Vegas, she thought as she took another breath. She and Gil had returned to the lab where their working life together had begun. David Hodges was now safe, he was free, Anson Wicks was behind bars where he belonged, and the thousands of criminals that Sara and Gil and countless others had put in prison over the years would remain there; the reputation and legacy of the crime lab was intact. Sara felt like the seven years spent periodically ensuring her credentials were current had paid off, she had done some good in the world again, and so had Gil.
Gil's grip on her hand in the bed suddenly changed. He let go of the top of her hand and slid his palm underneath her palm. His fingers wrapped around hers from below and he held on, anchoring Sara and possibly himself to the mattress. It was not the action of a man who was asleep.
"What's the time?" she asked into the darkness, glad her voice sounded normal, not shaky or weak or stressed, just husky from sleep. She moved her free hand from her clammy face, up over her forehead and into her hair, where she combed her straight brown hair back into the pillow. It was a self-soothing technique, or a tell for her anxiety depending on the moment and the day.
"One-thirty-eight," Gil said after he found his phone and clicked the screen on and off again.
"God," Sara whispered on a defeated sigh. She had been hoping it was closer to four a.m., because at least then she wouldn't have felt guilty if she decided it was too much effort to try to get back to sleep. However, she had only been asleep two hours. Two hours? Now she had to try again.
Gil gave her hand a squeeze and sighed with her, as though he understood.
"Nightmare?" he asked.
Sara shut her eyes and nodded against her pillow. She wrapped her fingers more tightly around Gil's hand beneath hers. That was enough of an answer. They had been together for so many years and he knew this happened no matter where in the world they were, no matter what sort of bed they slept in or whether they were on land or in the middle of the Pacific Ocean on the Ishmael.
"Sorry," she said anyway. "Did I wake you?"
"No," Gil mumbled. "Your hand didn't even twitch, but I heard you wake up, upset."
Sara heard him rub his beard and cheek. She realised he was also lying on his back. He sounded upset too, but Sara knew his was a different kind of nightmare, the waking kind. If it had only been two hours since they turned the lights out, Gil likely hadn't even made it to sleep yet.
"Are you okay?" she asked tenderly.
"Trying to stay calm and not be so pissed off," he said in a huff. He softened briefly and rubbed her hand as it rested in his palm. "Holding your hand was helping," he admitted.
"I'm glad," she whispered. So, he had been anchoring himself after all. "How bad is it?"
It was a daring question for the hour, but they'd had a wonderful night, and Sara always felt a little bold when she woke up and realised she was alive and she didn't need to run or hide or fight.
"If I close my eyes, I'm still moving."
"Shit, Gil," she sighed. She covered her eyes with her hand again and pressed her fingers in around the bridge of her nose to stop tears from gathering in her eyes. He had been doing so well.
Gil sounded angry, but that was just a mask.
"Don't, Sara," he warned her. "It's okay." He hesitated, then quipped, "Ironically I know that rollercoaster in my sleep. I loved it. It was worth it to go around a second time, darlin'."
Sara agreed. She had loved riding the rollercoaster too, and she had felt the earth tilting as she got into bed that night, but that rolling motion had stopped for her quickly as she fell asleep.
"Do you want to take the Klonopin?" she asked. The clonazepam would help him sleep, but the pharmacy's paper bag was still by his suitcase and sealed with tape.
"No," he said, in a tone that made it clear it was not a negotiation.
Sara sighed. She did not disagree with that decision either. Clonazepam was a drug of dependency, a sedative with its own list of potentially serious side effects, and there was a real risk of withdrawal symptoms if it was stopped. It wasn't a cure for his lingering land-sickness, so taking that first tablet was akin to establishing a lifelong habit or a commitment. Gil was committed for life to science, to Sara, and to his boat. In his mind that was enough and no drug factored into the equation. Sara understood, and she was scared too, but they needed to talk about what to do next.
It just wasn't the time.
Gil sighed deeply beside her, and it broke Sara's heart. All those years getting on and off the boat without a problem, all those years without a hint of motion sickness at sea even when Sara was doubled over. Then one treacherous week to get to Peru and then to Vegas and to her, and now this.
If Gil hadn't taken the boat through those awful conditions to come to Vegas to help her, if he had stayed in the Panama Basin for their research, what were the chances he would have been fine? Sara could have done this work on Hodges' case alone, she could have been spending the night packing her bags for her flight to Ecuador instead of lying in bed, awake, worrying about the future.
She sighed too, but suddenly she had an idea. She turned to Gil, let go of his hand, and propped herself up on her elbow. Gil looked up at her in the dark and smiled curiously.
"Have you only been trying to fall asleep on your back?" Sara asked.
"Tonight? Yes," he said. "I didn't want to disturb you."
"From my nightmare?" she asked. She grinned and her eyes sparkled. "How selfless of you."
Gil chuckled. Yes, he thought so, he replied in silence. He was teasing her with his eyes too.
"Have you tried lying on your stomach?" Sara asked. "I know you don't normally fall asleep that way but you do roll over sometimes, and I've seen you fall asleep face-down when you're sick."
"I could try," he said.
Sara nodded. She climbed out of bed to go to the bathroom, and when she got back Gil turned his bedside lamp on and did the same. As she waited for him to return, Sara opened a bottle of water and took a few sips. She pulled the two layers of bedroom curtain aside – one thick curtain and one sheer curtain – and looked out over the Las Vegas Strip. Even at two in the morning the Strip was fully lit up with neon lights that sparkled and illuminated the buildings and streets and the man-made lake and fountain below. The sky was still dark, but the lights of the Strip obscured any stars, and even relegated the distant moon to the least bright attraction in Vegas. Sad, she thought.
"Here," Sara said when Gil returned to the bedroom and she held the bottle out to him. The curtains dropped closed as she left them, and suddenly they could have been anywhere but Vegas. Gil sat on the edge of their bed and Sara smiled softly at him as he took the water bottle. He had a drink from it and replaced the cap, and she watched him. She cast her eyes over his silver-white hair and tanned skin, the lines around his eyes and scruffy facial hair, his strong shoulders and arms, and his grey t-shirt and shorts. Gil's normally alert, clever, deep blue eyes were not looking at her. He was frowning and staring into a dark corner of the room. Sara assumed he was trying to control it.
It.
Sara knew that rollercoaster was one of Gil's old favourites, and it had been such a special thing for them to do together and they'd both had fun going around, twice. Was it worth it though?
Really?
"Is the sense of motion more of bobbing up and down or rocking side to side?" she asked.
"Up and down," he said. He gestured with his hand, and the gesture reminded Sara of a caterpillar or a wave. Thankfully it seemed nowhere near as fast as their rollercoaster had travelled.
"Is that the tempo of it?" she asked as she watched the slow and steady rise and fall of his hand in the space between them. She quickly began breathing in time with it, it was almost hypnotic.
Gil nodded and glanced at her curiously when Sara sucked in a breath. Her eyes sparkled.
"I have an idea," she declared. She climbed back into their large bed and started stacking pillows up against the headboard, as Gil turned around to watch her.
"This doesn't look like me trying to sleep flat on my stomach," he said obviously.
"It's not," she said matter-of-factly. "Mal de Debarquement is thought to be neurological, right? Your brain makes these adjustments to the motion and then struggles to readjust, but what makes it different from acute land-sickness is that symptoms often go away during passive motion-"
"Like driving," Gil said. "Or riding a rollercoaster."
"Right," Sara agreed. She remembered the way he had smiled on that rollercoaster, and the look of freedom in his eyes, and the way he had held her hand and shared that joy with her. "That up and down movement you describe," she said. "At that speed, that's my breathing. Passive motion." She sat up against the pillows, stretched her legs out, and gestured for him to move over to her.
Gil hesitated, and Sara smirked and narrowed her eyes to playfully challenge his hesitation.
"I'm sorry, are you afraid of me now?" she asked. "Gilbert."
Gil rubbed his face and looked adorably self-conscious despite his sixty-seven years.
"Honey," Sara said more softly as she reached for him. "It's okay, come on."
Gil turned the lamp off and then moved to her in the bed. Sara wrapped one hand around his back and the other around the back of his head. She silently urged him down against her breast and stomach, so he would feel the rise and fall of her chest with each breath. If that was the motion in his brain and he could connect that sensation to something real and solid beneath him, then she thought that might just work to put him to sleep. At the very least it would be a comfort to him. She knew he was distressed because she was feeling distressed and it wasn't even happening to her.
He turned is face into her breast and almost did lie face-down across her. His body was warm and solid. One of his arms wound around her back, which she appreciated because the high-end casino pillows were not firm enough to offer a great deal of lower back support in her position.
A moment later, Sara was startled by Gil's sharp intake of breath against her and she held his back firmly. Her fingers combed through his short hair around the back of his head and neck. She suspected he had almost just sobbed and she didn't want him to cry, she just wanted him to rest.
"Better?" she asked quietly after several more minutes.
Gil nodded and kissed the curve of her breast through her shirt, and Sara sighed with relief.
"Tell me about your dream," he mumbled.
"You don't want to hear about my dream," Sara said. She focused on her own breathing. Deep and steady, up and down. Up, and down. Gil's head and upper torso rose and fell with her.
"Yes I do," he mumbled. "Am I too heavy?"
"No, sweetheart," she whispered. His warm hand rubbed up her back beneath her shirt and Sara felt her own eyes close. She rested her head back and to the side, against the very tops of the pillows. Her neck would be sore later in the day but that was all right, she reasoned. Worth it. Really.
"Tell me," he said again.
"I don't remember all of it now," she lied. "It was the one where I'm being chased through a house, not our house, and I know there are others hiding but I can't find anyone else, I can't even remember who I was looking for, and I end up in the desert, but it's like it's a room I'm still trying to get out of. I'm being hunted in the desert, and I'm found and they kill me, and I wake up. It's stupid."
"It's not stupid," he muttered.
"It sounds stupid. I suppose it's fitting, though; both our brains are imperfect, distorted."
"Little fly, thy summer's play, my thoughtless hand has brushed away," he recited poetically against her chest. "Am not I, a fly like thee? Or art not thou, a man like me? For I dance and drink and sing, 'til some blind hand shall brush my wing. If thought is life and strength and breath, and the want of thought is death, then am I, a happy fly, if I live, or if I die. Blake. One of my favourites."
"Because it involves a deep appreciation for the life of the fly?" Sara asked.
Dr Gil Grissom, entomologist. Sara had never met a person with a greater respect for flies.
"Because it reminds us all life is fragile, even our lives, but honey your brain isn't imperfect."
"Neither is yours," Sara promised him softly.
There was certainly nothing wrong with his memory.
Gil hummed and kissed her stomach. He shuffled around to hold onto her a different way, and it allowed Sara to slide down to rest against the pillows more comfortably. She kept a hand around Gil's head to keep him close to her, and they were suddenly lying more like they did on the boat, with Sara sort of upright on her back and Gil on his side with his arms around her. This time he was just nestled in lower and more tightly against her torso. Often she would roll onto her side but not that night, not when he needed to be as close to her slow, steady breathing as humanly possible.
Gil soon settled heavily in Sara's arms and against her slender body. She lifted her chin to her chest when she heard and felt him relax and his breathing deepen. She could only see the top of his head, but his hand at her back had slid limply to the waistband of her shorts and the mattress.
I did it, she told herself, stunned. She looked at Gil's body, finally at rest, on her. I did it!
Sara blinked back tears and still focused on her breathing because she was so grateful this had worked, and she wanted it to keep working. She wanted him in a deep sleep, hopefully with no nightmares, just a feeling of safety. Her research into Mal de Debarquement Syndrome had done nothing to quell her worries, and she understood better now the worry she had briefly seen in Gil's eyes when he first told her what was happening to him. He would have done his research on it too.
First, there was the persistent sensation of motion, like bobbing, rocking, or swaying. Then the inability to focus or rest, excessive sleepiness, no sleep or too much sleep, cognitive fog, fatigue. Changes in mood, stress, anxiety, and depression. Sensitivity to light, difficulty navigating in the dark, unsteadiness, sensitivity to loud sounds or fast movements or computers, or changes in temperature and air pressure. And it fluctuated, so one day could be normal and another could be anything but.
Debilitating, the scarce research concluded. A strong negative impact on quality of life.
No cure, either. Some people got better in time, within months to a year, and some people didn't get better. If a person was young, maybe they had more chance of a full recovery, but in any case the advice was clear: avoid doing the thing that brought it on. Even if it temporarily alleviated the symptoms, they would come back when the activity was again stopped, and they could worsen.
So, don't do it. Stop it.
That meant the boat, and the rollercoasters; the vehicles that brought Gil the most joy. Joy.
Hot tears slipped onto Sara's cheeks and slid sideways down her face to her ears, but Sara did not dare move her hands from Gil's head and back to wipe them away. She stared at the ceiling of their hotel suite in the dark and tried not to feed into her own anxiety and sadness. It wouldn't help Gil to wake up and see her like that, and there was nothing they could do other than to wait and observe his recovery, and to take small steps to test his recovery. But if it didn't get better, or if it got worse, they were talking about so much more than just turning on a light to go to the toilet in the middle of the night. Sara and Gil had optimistically tiptoed around the meaning of it all, but their time at the crime lab was over and there were no cases left that they could use as a distraction.
Just like in her dream, there was nowhere left to hide. There they both were, in the desert.
*
Come morning, Sara took her time getting ready in the bathroom after her shower. She felt apathetic toward the process. She spent a few minutes staring at her small bag of makeup before deciding, 'eh'; moisturiser and sunscreen were enough. She stared at her hair straightener while it warmed up, then at her reflection in the mirror, and she sighed at the sight of herself. She looked positively non-plussed with the routine she had carried on quite happily in recent weeks, but that was over now, so, no point. She switched off the hot straightener and braced herself on the vanity.
In a stark contrast, Gil was in the large walk-in shower to her right, singing. Sara watched him in silence. She could see the outline of his masculine figure through the steamy, wet glass. He seemed relaxed and balanced after a good night's sleep. He was clearly happier than Sara, but that was almost always true. Sara was tempted to strip her clothes off again and join him, but she let him have his time. She quickly packed a few more things into her toiletry bags and left the bathroom.
Gil found her at the window in the living room a few minutes later, staring at the Strip, bathed in warm sunshine. It looked quiet out there, but the casinos never shut. Gil wrapped his arms around her from behind. It didn't take Sara long to figure out he was naked but for the towel tied around his hips, and his hands drifted down her forearms to grasp her hands. He wrapped their joined hands and arms around her waist and pulled her back against his warm, damp chest.
Sara sighed and closed her eyes. She tilted her head to one side and he nudged her hair aside with his nose and pressed his lips to her skin in a series of kisses. Sara held his hands tightly and relaxed into him, allowing him to take some of her weight. She had spent several hours holding Gil that morning, and it felt nice to be held in return. He was strong and secure and she was deeply attracted to the feeling of him surrounding her. He smelt amazing; that freshly showered Gil Grissom smell she was still in love with. He chuckled against her as she moaned softly beneath his touch.
"I'm feeling better," he assured her in a low voice that rumbled along her skin.
"I can tell," she said. She smirked, then sighed. "I'm not feeling so well, Gil."
"Oh honey," he whispered tenderly and suddenly. He hadn't realised. He stopped kissing her and instead nuzzled his face against her neck. His secure hold on her remained the same, however, and Sara squeezed her eyes shut as a sob rose in her throat. She didn't fight it, and they seamlessly rearranged themselves as she turned in his arms and cried into his neck. Gil's palms settled on her back and he whispered intimately into her ear to soothe her. Sara's hands slid desperately on his damp back at first, but she dug her fingertips and bitten-down nails into his skin and held on.
Gil let her get this out of her system, he always did, but this wasn't one of her standard panic attacks. The aching feeling in her chest felt nearer to grief, she felt sick, and it wasn't just because of Gil's condition. Her career in forensics was ending. It had ended, just one day ago. It had ended on a high, and Sara was nearly fifty-three and she had been in and out of the job for more than twenty-five years, and so it was time, but the knowledge that she had made a definitive decision still stung.
Gil pressed his lips to her cheek as she stopped crying. She lifted her face to rest against his. They stood in their hug for a long, quiet moment once Sara was composed. She breathed deeply.
"I'm sorry," Gil whispered.
It broke her heart again that he blamed himself in some way, that he thought she was crying about him, or because of him, or that he had upset her with the way he had just held and kissed her.
"It's not you," she assured him.
"Your dreams?" he asked. He combed his fingers tenderly through her loose hair.
"I guess," she said. Both the conscious and unconscious ones, she reasoned. "Low in energy," she added as she tried to explain. She had poured everything into her work at the lab to exonerate Hodges, then to find Hodges after he was abducted. They had only just found him in time. Another day, perhaps just another few hours without water and he would have died. Sara had come to Las Vegas straight off another stressful month at the San Diego lab, and she was just done.
She wasn't sure she had anything left, and the rollercoaster had been so great, but the rush of adrenaline from the ride had only drained the last of her reserves, as though someone had tipped a near-empty ketchup bottle upside-down and had given it a good shake to extract one final spurt.
Hell, she had lost so much weight from the stress of the past couple of months in San Diego and Las Vegas that she had lost her precious gold wedding ring in a vat of decomposing human fluid. It was only back on her finger thanks to Gil's tenacity and his strong stomach, but it was still too loose, and Sara was tempted to take it off and put it on a chain until she could, oh, what was it?
Eat a sandwich, as Gil had recently implied in his droll, huffy way.
Ever hear of a sandwich?
Sara had glared at him and they had laughed about it later, they had both been stressed, but there was a seriousness to the exchange because Sara didn't eat well when she was stressed, and it affected her mental health and Gil knew that, and she could still feel the effects of the past few months tugging on her soul from the inside. She was going to make this easy for him, she realised.
"Gil," she began. She wrapped her arms tightly around him and pressed her forehead into the side of his head so she didn't have to look into his eyes. "I'd like some more time off the boat."
The Ishmael was somewhere obscure in Peru now anyway. Gil had initially docked it in a perfectly reputable marina not far from Lima, but he had quickly identified that the dock had termites, and management hadn't taken too kindly to him making a big deal about that before he left. They had been evicted, and they had miraculously gotten the boat moved from afar, but who knew what condition it would be in by the time they got back to it, or even if it would be where the company said they put it. Sara was just glad that Gil had brought the last of their valuables to Vegas.
Gil sighed as he heard what she said to him. He rubbed her back and reluctantly nodded.
"I just need…" she continued, but she trailed off as she thought about what to say. More food? That sounded too simplistic. More rest? She wasn't an invalid, she was strong and fit, just tired. More certainty? She did want to be surer of Gil's response to motion before they committed to another months-long trip across the Pacific, as much as she dearly wanted to do that with him.
"What, Sara?" Gil asked in a gentle way. "What do you need?"
"Something different," she said. "I want to be with you, I just need to…decompress."
"Do you want to stay?" Gil asked.
Sara laughed and shook her head. She leant back into his arms and their eyes met. Gil's blue eyes danced with playfulness only because of her reaction; she knew the question had been sincere.
"No," Sara said. She relaxed her arms over his shoulders and shook her head again. "No."
She stared at him seriously then, because she wanted to give him the opportunity to talk about his least favourite subject: himself. Their eyes locked, and Sara waited. She was trying to face her hard truths and Gil needed to do the same. He would, he just needed time and her patience.
"Do you have any ideas?" he asked, deflecting, but Sara knew they were on the right track.
"How about a drive?" she replied. Her fingers gently tickled across the back of his neck.
Gil licked his lips thoughtfully. Sara levelled him with another serious, patient look. This was yet another invitation to talk about how he was feeling about their next steps, and his hard truths.
The boat. The rollercoasters.
"Okay," Gil agreed. He nodded, and he smiled to himself as he tucked Sara's hair behind one of her ears. The sweet, loving look on his face as he tended to her made Sara smile, and she felt her heart soften. Her mood lifted. "A drive is fine," he continued. "I just don't want to be immobilised."
"I won't let that happen," she promised him. "But we might need to experiment, and we need to take our time. Everything I've read about Mal de Debarquement says symptoms could take months to a year to fully subside, and if you don't want to take the drugs that's fine, I understand there's really nothing we can do to fix this, but that just means we need to be more careful before we get back on the boat. We can't mess around with this, Gil. The last thing I want is for us to get off the boat in Fiji or Vanuatu or New Zealand after months at sea, and for you to crash so badly you end up flat on your back the rest of the trip, and possibly for a long time after that. And it's not just you, I promise this idea to take a drive isn't just about you. I'm worried I'm not strong enough right now to support you, physically or, or emotionally. I will be, but I need some chill-out time too. I need to…drive to someplace beautiful and take long walks outdoors and sit by a fire with a cup of tea."
"Yeah," Gil admitted on a whisper. "Yeah, we need to do that. It's okay, Sara." He looked young and forlorn and a little lost. Vulnerable. Guilty. He still thought what she needed was his fault. "You've done reading?" he asked. He put his hands around her waist as she took a small step back.
Sara smiled at him wisely.
"Are you really surprised by that?" she asked. She squeezed his shoulders. "If you weren't ready to talk to me, what other option did I have?"
"I know, I-"
"Thank you, though-" Sara began, cutting him off quickly before he could apologise. He did not need to apologise for needing time to process the implications of the condition for himself, all while they had been working and focused on exonerating Hodges. Sara did not hold his quietness against him, she loved it. She smiled at the surprised look on his face and she touched his cheek sincerely. "-for being honest with me whenever I've asked how you're feeling. I know it's hard, Gil."
"Not as hard as it used to be," he said in earnest.
Sara hesitated. She let his words linger in the air between them, and she pressed her lips together tightly to try to stop the amused grin threatening to split her face. It didn't work. Sara suddenly covered her mouth with her hand and burst out laughing as she turned away from him.
"Sara!" Gil exclaimed when he realised where her mind had gone. Straight into the gutter.
"I'm sorry," she said, blurting her words out as she laughed. She took a few steps away, still cackling and wiping tears of laughter from her eyes. When she looked over her shoulder at him, he put his hands on his hips and raised his brow expectantly, defiantly. He was also trying not to laugh. Sara realised Gil was still only in a towel too; she had utterly forgotten that amid the seriousness of their conversation. She was relieved to see the bright playfulness in his lovely old eyes and his smile.
"That is not what I meant," he insisted.
"Oh, believe me, I know," she assured him. She pressed her lips together again in another attempt at self-control, but after half a second of peace she lost it. She could not stop laughing. She braced a hand on the nearby dining chair and leant over to catch her breath between fits of laughter. It was good for her though, so she didn't try hard to stop. Why should she? Why should they need to try so hard to stop anything they enjoyed in life? The boat, or the rollercoasters?
Gil was laughing softly behind her, he hadn't taken offence, and Sara suspected he was just as keen to prove himself as he had been when he first got out of the shower and found her at the window. Sara bit her bottom lip as her laughter subsided, and she grinned at the thought. She turned around to look at him again and felt her eyes shining with a mix of complex emotions that she had stopped trying to hide from Gil many years ago. He wasn't laughing anymore either. His eyes tracked across her face and he smiled. When their eyes locked, Sara felt the intensity of his gaze.
"Beautiful," he said. He was talking about her, not to her, and Sara nodded because she just as easily could have said the same about him. He looked quietly confident and relaxed and happy. She crossed the floor to close the distance between them, took his face in her hands, and kissed him.
Gil saw her coming. He wrapped his arms around her and pressed his soft lips to hers. Sara welcomed him into her mouth as their tongues met in familiar, passionate strokes. Her hands rubbed across his smooth, bare skin and tracked the length of his spine, then around his waist and up his firm chest, then back down again to settle on his hips. His arms tightened around her then.
They had not had a lot of sex since Gil returned to Vegas. That first night, yes, but then his symptoms had worsened, though Sara had not fully understood that at the time, and then they had gotten caught up in casework that often stretched into the night. They had been tired and stressed and at times tetchy with each other, and they had fallen into the routine of just going to bed to sleep. A little cuddle, a quick kiss and exchange of goodnight pleasantries, and no sex. When Sara tried to get him interested he had been working, then at times when he was more interested she had been exhausted. They had noticed and appreciated one another's advances, but they just hadn't found that mutual space in which they could relax well enough to truly want any more than that.
It reminded Sara why she hated Vegas. Their sex life – in fact their entire relationship – in Vegas had often not been as passionate or as fulfilling as it had been in other parts of the world, in Costa Rica, in New Zealand, on the boat in the middle of the ocean, in the Galapagos. If the quality of their sex was the only measure, there were a dozen other places in the world they should be.
Fuck the Strip, she thought. She kissed her husband hopefully and with passionate fearlessness. She untied the towel around his hips. Fuck those casino lights on the other side of the window that were still on even though it was daytime. Fuck the desert that still tried to kill her in her dreams. Fuck Las Vegas. She and Gil were leaving, just as soon as they did this one important thing.