Smoldering Desires

Yeah I made the disease up. It’s my soap opera and I can do what I want. Yeah that was petulant but you love me for it. The Olivier governor is based on a real person. Brass is back calling Sara, Cookie.

Hope you enjoy.


Smoldering Desires-Part Four
Ashes Too

“How long?” Gil wanted to now. He wondered how many times those words had been uttered in this cozy little office, with it’s coral walls and soothing music designed to soothe troubled souls.

“You don’t even know what you have yet Gil.”

“I know that I am dying. How long?”

March looked at his old friend, the brilliant, misunderstood Dr. Grissom who had come to find a measure of peace in Las Vegas.

“On the outside, six months.”

Gil nodded.

“I sent your blood work to a rare disease specialist.”

Gil raised an eyebrow. “Let me guess. Tall, about the color of a strong cup of coffee, not a kid, but not your age either.” he said with amusement.

“You think I would use your illness to pick up women?” March said with self-deprecation. His fondness for all women brown was notorious, just like Gil’s thing for brunettes, and Brass’s penchant for red heads.

“In a word, yes. If you hadn’t, I’d know that I was for sure a goner.”

March broke into a wide grin. “She knows her stuff, Gil. She’s an expert in diseases related to African American and Mediterranean heritage.”

“Diseases related to tropical environments?”

He nodded. “Like sickle cell anemia, which was a blood mutation protecting people from malaria.”

Gil opened and closed his mouth wetting his lips as he did it. “Dad….”

March nodded. “Process of elimination.”

“What do I have March?”

“Olivier’s Disease.”

Gil searched his photographic memory. “Colin Powell has that right?”

March shook his head. “No. He has the trait. Son of Jamaican immigrants.”

Gil sighed softly.

“You said your father was English but he grew up in Jamaica? Am I right?”

“What is it? What does it do?”

“It twists the cells the same way sickle cell does. That’s just the beginning of it. It compromises the immune system in a particularly vigilant, virulent way. There is also a great deal of muscular break down.”

Gil leaned back and sighed. “So IF I live, it will be with a great deal of pain, decreased mobility and plagued with various contagious ailments.”

March drew Gil back to the present with his low drawl. “If we don’t get you into remission and eventually cured, you won’t live Gil. Too many of your major systems will be under attack. You are dealing with walking pneumonia right now. The blood you coughed up had to do with some tracheal distress.”

March continued with the specifics of the disease. Gil Grissom would be comforted by the scientific and historical jargon.

“I would venture to say that your father’s family was English but had not actually lived in England for any period of time for at least a full generation. While Jamaica was an English colony there were a number of settlers from other equatorial and tropical regions. It conspired to create Olivier’s Disease, so named for the first man known to have it. Robert Olivier, a royal governor who lived there in the early 20th century whose parents owned a sugar plantation. It was rumored that his biological father was a Mulatto slave. That might be true but there were Spanish, Africans, and others from the Islands. Any combination could have conspired to create this disease. Besides, it’s doubtful that he was the first. He was the first one that was documented. Because of his position, he had access to doctors and treatment.”

Gil looked at his hands. “I found some paper’s when Mom died. There were pictures of people with the last name Olivier.” Gil muttered the next words with a distracted whisper. “Cousins or something.”

He struggled to get his wits about him. He wasn’t doomed, not yet. “Do I have any options?”

March’s mood lightened a bit. “You have one, a very good one in my estimation.”

They all sat around Jim’s huge oak dining room table. Everyone clung to something alcoholic, be it a bottle, a glass or can. Jim cleared his throat. He took turns looking in each pair of eyes as he spoke.

“We have got to think like Gil. We have got to tell one another the truth. We must do this quickly and with efficiency the likes of which we have never seen. We are looking for Gil Grissom. He has lost more brain cells than we have combined.”

Warrick snorted. Gris would have liked the comparison, though he would have never admitted it.

Jim Brass took out a silver pen, a gift from his last girlfriend. Gil had said she was no good for him. He had not listened. Apparently he wasn’t the only one not listening to Gil Grissom.

Brass cleared his throat again to pull the group from their melancholy thought. “What do we know?”

Catherine poured a bit of cognac in a tumbler designed for water, not for drink. “Our reliable and predictable boss slash friend has quit his job without telling any of us. It appears that he has left town.”

Brass added what he’d learned earlier in the day. “There has been no credit card activity. The mail has not been forwarded. I went to his place. There were no notes. Looks like he took a week’s worth of clothes for a warm climate. The refrigerator was cleaned out. The bugs were gone. He plans to be away for some time.”

Warrick said what no one wanted to. “So we know he’s not suicidal. You don’t take clothes and clean out your refrigerator if you plan on doing it.”

Relief coursed through everyone.

Under the table Nick held Sara’s shaking hand. She had barely said a word since Gil had disappeared. “He’s been acting weird for awhile.”

“Weird, Nicky?” Brass asked.

“Well, at least with me and Warrick.” Nick said. He didn’t know if they should tell the story in front of Sara.

“Honesty,” Brass reminded. His eyes landed on Sara.

Nick looked around. “Okay. Me, Greg, Warrick, Brass and Gris have been hanging out. We have gone to bars, watched some games here.” Nick mumbled the next words. “We even went to a few strip clubs.”

He nearly crushed Sara’s hand. He didn’t know what had gone on between the two but he knew something had happened.

Sara laughed softly. “I asked about the glitter.”

“The glitter?” Catherine said.

Sara rubbed absently at her face. “He came home once with silver glitter in is beard. I didn’t ask. The next time it was gold. He said that he went to a strip club with the guys. I thought he was joking.”

“You two were….” Brass spoke the words gently

“Together.” Sara said vacantly. She was slipping into her thoughts again. She lived there most days now, walking through the lab like a zombie, trying not to think about Gil and where he had gone, but unable to help herself.

Brass pulled her from the foggy images. “How long?”

“About six weeks.”

Catherine sipped the brown liquid. She longed for the fog that Sara had found. “The days you were both out?”

“He took me to Paris. He heard me tell Nick that I always wanted to go. I came home and he’d packed my things and requested the time off. We did everything hokey and touristy. He’s been so…full of life lately.”

“Cookie, did he say anything to you?”

“We broke up a week ago. The day he turned in his resignation.” Sara’s voice was laced with something not quite anger.

“He broke up with you?” Greg ventured to speak.

Sara nodded. Nicky’s hand softened a bit.

Warrick this time. “What did he say, Sara?”

“He said there was someone else. Maybe he ran off with her.”

The men all looked at Sara. It was Greg who finally spoke. “That was complete bullshit. You should have seen through that, Sara.”

“What?” Sara looked up again, this time finding Greg’s face. He seemed angry with her for some reason. Her thoughts were too muddled to figure out why.

“He started seeing you. A woman he has loved from afar for years. He takes you to Paris. He starts hanging out like he’s one of the guys.” Greg thought of something. “What about you, Cath?”

She blinked several times. “He’s been doing stuff for Lindsey. He went to Dad’s Night at school. He came to some of her soccer games. He called her all the time. She’s like herself again, before Eddie died.”

Greg continued. “My point is that Gil Grissom is a lot of things. He’s difficult and brilliant but he’s not shady. Come on people. He’s the most stand-up guy we know. His morality is unfailing. Leaving Sara for another woman is completely out of character. We knew that if they ever got together it was a done deal. He would never, ever hurt Sara unless he was protecting her from something. Stop pussyfooting around, people, and think.”

Brass watched Greg. The kid was on to something.

Sara shook her head confident in her ability to tell reality from a lie, especially where Gil was concerned. “He was not lying,” she protested with a surprisingly harsh voice.

Catherine spoke now. “Sara, you are clouded. You can’t rely on your judgment when it comes to the man you love.”

Sara protested. “You think I don’t know when Gil is lying?”

“He lied. He lied to protect you from something. What exactly did he say, Sara?”

Sara tapped a nail nervously on the table, not wanting to respond to Brass’ prodding. “I don’t want…”

Nick spoke softly. “Can you just give us the gist?”

“He said there was someone else and he basically implied that he only slept with me for…for our adventurous sex life.”

Warrick spoke. “I don’t mean to be crass, Sara, but that’s a damn lie. He could have nailed you years ago.”

Sara dropped her head again. It was all too much.

“Warrick,” Nick warned.

“Sorry.” Warrick’s dropped his head. He reached across the table and touched Sara’s free hand.

“I never had anybody but you guys and my grandmother. I am not thinking straight.”

Nick put an arm around her shoulder.

Greg looked at all of his friends. They were all too close. None of them could see. Greg wasn’t sure what made him different. Maybe the fact that he was the newest CSI.

“He’s sick. He’s living his life like he’s dying.” Greg sucked in air as his momentum continued. “He’s jetting Sara all over the world. He’s having fun with boys. He’s making sure Lindsey gets back on track. He lied to Sara. He lied to the woman he lives and breaths for. Has he ever lied to any of us?”

They all stared at Sara. Gil had never lied to any of them about anything.

“If we asked him something and he didn’t want to tell us, he told us so. Come on people. He came home and told the love of his life that he had been to a strip club. Does that man go out and cheat on this woman? No. It’s like Catherine said. He lied to Sara to protect her and the only thing he’s ever tried to protect Sara from was himself.”