In A Song: All I Ask Of You

All I Ask of You pt 2

The next day Sara woke up to rain and Grissom cursing in the living room. “Damn it! Why is it every time I make plans for something outdoors it rains?”

“Come on Grissom you live in Vegas. It can’t happen all the time.”

Grissom turned around to see Sara standing in the doorway to her bedroom in her tank top and shorts; her hair still tussled from sleep. He had never seen anything more beautiful. “You’d be surprised. Why don’t you get dressed and I’ll see what I can find for plan B.”

“As long as it’s not bugs or bodies, anything is fine with me.”

Grissom gave her a mocked shocked look. “What? Workaholic Sara Sidle doesn’t want to do anything that reminds her of work?”

“No I don’t. I was told once to get a distraction, and I’m trying. This is a day off, so no work stuff.”

Grissom logged on to his laptop and started searching through websites that he had bookmarked earlier. One site caught his eye and he made a phone call for tickets. Unfortunately the earliest show he could get was for the following night, but it would do. Sara was just coming out of her room when he finished making the arrangements. “Well I have our reservations for tomorrow night set. What would you like to do today?”

Sara almost choked on her coffee. “Reservations? Grissom a couple of co-workers on a layover after a conference do not make reservations.”

He started to blush as he grinned and looked back to the laptop. “No I guess they don’t. So I guess we’ll have to say it’s a date then.”

Sara was quiet and closed her eyes. “Please don’t let me read too much into this. He’s just being nice because we’re stuck here. It doesn’t mean anything.” “A date?”

Grissom took his glasses off and looked up at her. “Yes, a date. You are familiar with the concept aren’t you? An occasion when one meets and goes out with a potential lover or future spouse, the purpose of which is for the people dating to get to know each other and decide whether they want to have a relationship.”

Sara’s mind was reeling and she was speechless. “A date? Relationship? With Grissom? I’m dreaming. That’s the only explanation.” Grissom leaned back on the sofa and watched her. “Sara if you don’t want to go out with me, I understand. I’ve sent you mixed signals for so long I wouldn’t blame you. That was never my intention but unfortunately, it happened.”

“So why did you?”

“I was afraid I guess. I’m not good with relationships. The few times I’ve really opened up to people, it’s never ended well. After the worst one I tried to move on, but I could never quite open up enough. So after a date or two it ended.”

Sara sat down on the sofa beside him. “Griss everyone’s been hurt at some point. You just move past it.”

“I know that, and I could do that. But after you came to work with us in Vegas, it didn’t matter who I was out with anymore. They weren’t you.”

Sara looked at him and was stunned. “They weren’t me? You wanted to go out with me? Then why did you turn me down when I asked you out?”

Grissom sat back on the sofa and turned so he was facing her. “I didn’t want to. Honestly as soon as I said it, I wanted to take it back. Things were just complicated right then. I was on my way to talk to my doctor about surgery that day you asked me.”

“Surgery? That long vacation you took was for surgery?”

Grissom explained to her all about his hearing, his mother, and the surgery. “I couldn’t tell anyone. I didn’t want to deal with it actually. Catherine knew only because we were working a case together and I was bailing on her. My hearing and my feelings for you ran parallel. For a while I hoped if I ignored them, I wouldn’t have to deal with them. But in both cases the longer I tried to avoid it, the worse it got. Caring about you and wanting to be with you, it makes working together complicated. Forget the age difference, can you imagine what people would say if they found out I was dating someone who works for me?”

“So caring about me is a bad thing? Something you would have to hide from everyone because you can’t take the risk.”

He froze when he heard the words. “You heard about that.” Sara looked at him with tears in her eyes. “No Griss, I didn’t hear about it. I was there when you when you said it. So what is this Griss? Play with Sara’s feelings once more, pull me back in to push me away once we get back to the lab?”

“No! Oh God Sara no, that’s not what this is at all. This is me finally not fighting myself, finally not giving a shit about what anyone thinks, and asking a woman out on a date. A woman who means more to me than anyone ever has. Sara do you remember when you came to me after Ecklie broke the team up? Right up until you admitted that I was always more than a boss to you, I always wondered if you were flirting just to be nice or if you were really attracted to me. When you interrupted me and said that it was ok and left, do you have any idea what I was trying to say? I was trying to find the right words to ask you out that didn’t make me sound like a complete idiot.”
Sara’s mind raced as she tried to process it all. The man she had wanted for years was right in front of her, and she could have him. She came up with ‘what if’ situations for later and always reached the same conclusion. “If he’s playing with me, he won’t have to worry about moving on after he gets hurt. He won’t have the equipment to move on with.” She looked over at him and saw his eyes for the first time since he started his little revelation. Those deep blue eyes she loved so well were full of hope, fear, and uncertainty. “Well at least he’s as scared as I am.”

“So find anything good to do today?”

He smirked at her and turned the laptop to her. “I guess it depends on what you’re in the mood for.”

“Honestly after the last few days, I really want to do something fun. With the weather that has to be indoors, hmmm. Hey the science center across the river has an Omnimax theatre.”

They decided to go to the science center for the morning and watch the early movie at the Omnimax. Grissom stood back and watched Sara as she laughed with the kids at the center that day. She was always beautiful, but when she was relaxed and laughing she was breathtaking. After the movie they took the advice of one of the mothers at the science center and went to a fairly quiet Italian restaurant nearby. Grissom took Sara’s vegetarian status into consideration and ordered mushroom ravioli while Sara ordered Melenzane Romano. Seeing Grissom almost shudder when he saw the description made Sara laugh.

“Alright Dr. Grissom, now what is so horrible about eggplant?”

“Just a thing from childhood.”

“Ok now you can’t just tell me that and expect me to drop it. Start explaining.”

Grissom chuckled and looked across the table at her. Her eyes were sparkling with curiosity and she was smiling with that mega watt smile that made him melt inside. “I was about nine and my Aunt Jane came to stay with us for the summer. She was nice enough, but she seemed to have this opinion that a divorced deaf woman couldn’t properly care for a child. Actually most of my mother’s family had that opinion, so during the summers they alternated coming to stay for a while.

Aunt Jane decided that I was too thin and I was obviously not eating right, so she started cooking dishes where she put vegetables into everything. Most of it wasn’t bad, even though she really wasn’t a good cook. But any time she put eggplant in anything, it was terrible. I don’t know if she didn’t prepare it right, or if her recipes were just really bad. But it was horrid and I couldn’t eat it. Then she would get upset and force me to eat. If I didn’t, then she would smack me around. Of course all of it was going on behind my mother’s back, literally, so she had no idea her sister was so horrible. My aunt was a forensics nightmare. She could hit and leave no visible marks at all. Unless you saw her do it, there was no evidence. At least then there wasn’t. Now we’d be checking for epithelials and DNA, but that was unheard of then.”

Sara sipped her wine and shook her head. “So you’ve been harboring a hatred of a defenseless vegetable because of a nasty relative. That hardly seems fair.”

Grissom shrugged. “No I guess it doesn’t. But after that summer I couldn’t even attempt to develop a taste for the stuff. It’s kind of like getting really drunk and sick on cheap wine. After that even mentioning the brand turns your stomach.”

Sara laughed. “Now that sounds like a story.” Grissom smiled. “Not much of one. Sophomore year at college and I had a jock roommate who loved to haze the science nerd with his buddies. They were having a party in our room and I tried to take some advice I had gotten and tried to fit in. They kept pouring this cheap wine that tasted more like Kool Aid with battery acid and I kept drinking it. I had never been so sick in my life. Fortunately, so was everyone else so at least that didn’t add to their hazing.”

Their waiter left their check and Sara’s eyebrow shot up as Grissom automatically grabbed it but she refrained from saying anything. While they waited for the waiter to return she grinned at him. “Kool Aid with battery acid huh? It had to be Mad Dog.” Then she laughed out loud when Grissom shuttered and shook his head at the memory. “I know what you mean Griss. God I don’t think I know anyone at college who didn’t do the same thing once.”

They had a few hours before Pittsburgh’s nightlife kicked off, so they decided to go back to the hotel for a while to change before going out. Sara watched him as he drove and saw something she hadn’t seen since their time at Berkley: she saw a very relaxed Grissom. “Grissom. I just…thank you. For talking to me. I never expected you to actually answer me when I started asking about your past.”

“You’re welcome. Sara I don’t mean to be seen as a mystery or anything. It’s just difficult for me to open up. I grew up for most of my life with my deaf mother, so understandably we didn’t talk much. We were so in tune to each other that it wasn’t necessary. But I’d like to try. I really would like a chance for us, and I know that won’t happen if I can’t open up to you.”

The rain had stopped by the time the reached their hotel with the sun was breaking through the clouds. At the hotel they checked on what was going on in the city that night, and found that unlike Vegas, Pittsburgh was pretty laid back on a Monday night. They decided to take a walk around Station Square and eventually decided to go on a sunset river tour of the city. Sara stood on the deck watching the lights of the city and sighed. This really was a beautiful city even though it was nothing like she was used to. Grissom looked her and was overwhelmed with his feelings for her. She was so beautiful standing there with the wind blowing through her hair. He couldn’t fight the feelings any longer as he reached out to take her hand.
She was a little startled by the contact, but didn’t pull away. Glancing over at him, she smiled as he held her hand tighter and then turned to her. Her heart skipped a beat as his free hand came up and caressed her face before slowly pulling her toward him. He was giving her all the time in the world to pull away or stop him, but she knew that was the last thing she wanted to do. She felt his breath whisper across her lips and leaned forward to meet him. Grissom began the kiss soft and slightly hesitant, but quickly increased the pressure and held her tightly to him when he felt her hand in his hair. The need to breathe broke them apart and Grissom rested his forehead against hers. He opened his eyes as he pulled back from her and saw her smile that lit up her eyes. He smiled back and pulled her into his arms with her head on his shoulder. He now knew he had a chance to make things right, and he had eight days to prove himself to her.