Part Twenty-Two - Enduring

The day after the funeral, she went back to work.

A week after the funeral, she solved her case, and with that first hurdle over her, she walked into Grissom's office and asked for some time off. "It's not a leave of absence," she told him. "And I don't know how long I'll need… " She was in the middle of her explanation when he stopped her by placing a sheet of paper and pen in front of her.

"You need to sign here," he said simply, and she was startled to see that his signature was already there. She looked at him, stupefied, and he shrugged. "I prepared it just in case."

A ghost of a smile made its way across her face, but she didn't say anything as she picked up the pen and signed her name with a flourish. "Thank you," she said, a suspicious lump in her throat, and he just nodded once.

"Take all the time you need," he told her simply. "And come back when you're ready."

A month after the funeral, she was back in the lab.

She could have taken more time; indeed Grissom tried to talk her into it when she called him to say that she was coming back. She stood firm though, wanting, needing to go back to work, knowing that the time off had done her good.

She'd spent some time in Las Vegas, getting to know Kim a little, helping her pack up Cyrus's apartment, a job that had facilitated their bonding, as well as necessitating large amounts of tissues. Sara had heard more stories about him over those few days, stories that had made her laugh as well as cry, and though Kim had told her that she was welcome to have anything to remember him by, she'd only taken a CD of Billy Joel songs that she wasn't sure she'd ever listen to. She'd got to know Stephanie as well, though the child had been mostly left with neighbours after the first day when she'd spent the afternoon wandering through the apartment, calling her uncle's name.

That much done, she'd gone back to San Francisco and on to Tomales Bay for a little while. She'd caught up with old friends, with her parents, but hadn't told them what had brought her there after so long away, not sure if she could put her feelings into words without bursting into tears. She couldn't help but think about how things could have been different, how it could have been the two of them there, her showing him all her childhood haunts, making him a part of her past as well as her present. The carnival had been in town when she'd been there, and she'd sworn to herself that she wouldn't go, but had gone there anyway, spent an evening walking like a ghost through the laughing, smiling people, pausing at the milk can throw and the Ferris wheel. She didn't linger at those, but she did at the Cups and Saucers, and when she watched the cars whirr around, slowly coming to a stop, she smiled.

That was when she knew it was time to go back to Vegas.

She'd been sure of it at the time, but when she was standing in her locker, staring at her ID badge, she found herself swept away in a tidal wave of déjà vu, remembering a time not so long ago that she'd done exactly the same thing. She could almost feel the dust under her fingers again, but she didn't zone out, didn't space out, nor did she remember the man who had dragged her back to sanity with tears in her eyes. A pang in her heart, yes, but her eyes were dry.

She ran a finger over the picture on the badge, at the smiling face she saw there, just like she'd done a little over a month ago. She'd been amazed then as now at the turns her life had taken, recalling the day that that photograph had been taken, when she'd first arrived in Las Vegas, when she'd felt as if the world was alive with possibilities.

She'd lost that girl somewhere in the three years between then and now, and it happened a little bit at a time, when she felt like Grissom didn't respect her, like he didn't value her opinion. And not just Grissom, but in the times when she clashed with Warrick, and especially when she clashed with Catherine over the investigation of Eddie's death. She'd been dying a little bit at a time, right up until the day that blast pressure pushed her to the ground amid a shower of glass, and she'd looked up to see Greg, lively ebullient Greg, prone on the ground, still as death.

She'd known that could have been her, and she'd felt the shock of that knowledge course through her body, even as it dulled her senses under a weight of what-ifs, a questioning of everything in her life.

She'd been in the middle of the bomb scene chaos when he arrived, insisting on taking her home, not taking no for an answer. And it had only been when they were standing in her apartment that things had become clear to her suddenly, and when he touched her, when he kissed her, she felt as if she was alive again.

She'd stood at her locker that day, looking at the girl in the picture on her badge, that happy girl who felt as if the world was her oyster, like she could finally have everything that she'd wanted, and for the first time in too long, she'd felt like that again. She'd taken her heckling from Warrick and Lea, had known that they only had her best interests at heart, and when she'd gone off the deep end a little during the investigation, then all that he'd had to do when he got to her place was take her in his arms for her head to clear. And when he'd kissed her, when he'd touched her, she'd remembered who she was again.

She hadn't realised what she was missing until he helped her find it.

And now he was gone.

Setting her jaw, she clipped the badge to her belt, ruthlessly pushing back the thoughts, the memories, sure that if she embraced them, let them take a hold, that she'd never get through the day. She could be strong, tough, she knew that. She'd made it in Boston on her own at eighteen, she'd lived on her own in Vegas for three years. She didn't need anyone, didn't have to rely on anyone. She was fine.

A mocking whisper in the back of her head called her a liar even as a voice at the door said her name softly, causing her to jump. Whirling, she found herself looking at a vaguely concerned, but mostly apologetic Archie, who gave her a quick grin before saying, "I didn't mean to frighten you."

She shook her head quickly, pasting a smile to her face. "I'm fine Archie," she said dismissively. "I should be going anyway-"

"Just wait a minute." The words, uttered so quickly, cut across whatever else she was going to say, and she looked curiously at him as he shut the door quickly. "Is Grissom around?" he asked when he turned back to her, and she gave him an incredulous look, before glancing pointedly around the locker room. Unless Grissom was hiding in one of the lockers, there was nowhere for him to be, and she wondered if Archie wasn't suffering belatedly from the after-effects of shock from the explosion. Stranger things had surely happened. "Good point," he said, nodding, taking a couple of steps closer to her. "It's just… I mean, I'm pretty sure he wouldn't mind, it's just not exactly the most official use of lab equipment if you know what I mean… "

"Archie." Babbling wasn't something that Sara would ever associate with the young lab tech, that was more Greg's bailiwick, but it was the only word that would describe Archie's patter at that moment. That, and the fact that he was radiating discomfort, made her want to get to the heart of the matter as soon as possible. "What?" Her tone was gentler than her words might have indicated, and her gave her a sheepish smile.

"Sorry. It's just… I don't want to upset you Sara." He looked so concerned, so worried by whatever it was that was on his mind, that Sara tilted her head, curious, and when he seemed assured that his worst fears, whatever they might be, was going to happen, he reached into the pocket of his lab coat, pulling out a small envelope. "It's just… I was going through some stuff at home… and I thought you might like to have these."

He held out the envelope to her, and Sara took it, noting that her hand was unaccountably shaking. Opening the flap, she pulled out a set of photographs, her breath catching in her throat as she saw the first one. It was from Nick's Christmas party, the night that Lea had grilled her about her relationship with Cyrus, before seeking permission to pursue him herself. In it, she was standing beside Cyrus, Nick on the other side of her, all three of them smiling at the camera. She remembered Archie taking it, remembered him flitting hither and yon with the digital camera his parents had sent him for Christmas, but she'd never seen the photographs before.

"It's from Nick's party," Archie told her, his voice filling the silence of the room, and she nodded, willing herself not to cry.

"I remember." Her hand shaking even more now, she looked to the next photo, and she frowned, because she didn't remember it being taken at all. She was sitting on the edge of Nick's couch, facing Cyrus, who was standing, looking down at her, and they were deep in conversation. Even to her admittedly now jaundiced eye, they looked every inch a couple, and she suddenly realised just what everyone else had been seeing all that time, realised just how much she'd been missing.

"I had to use the lab machines to clean them up," Archie was telling her. "You guys were in the background… it was just a matter of refocusing some pixels… "

She nodded, as if she knew what he was technobabbling about, but her concentration was on separating the pictures without dropping them, and the next picture must have been taken fairly near to the last, except that this time, she and Cyrus were both standing, both looking in the same direction and laughing. She was pretty sure she knew when this was taken, that it was when Greg was trying to teach everyone the Time Warp, and they'd agreed they were staying well out of it. He'd told her that he didn't dance, and she'd believed him, right up until the time that they danced in his living room to Billy Joel.

She remembered when she'd paraphrased that song back to him, the night that he'd come to her apartment, the first night that they'd made love, and she flipped to the next photograph quickly, hoping that it would stave off the memories.

It did nothing of the sort.

If the third photo was taken near the time of the second, then the fourth must have been taken directly after the third, because they were standing in the same positions, and Sara could have sworn that her expression hadn't changed in the slightest. What had changed was Cyrus. No longer was he following her gaze, laughing at Greg and his antics. Now he was looking at her, at her laughter, and while he was still smiling, the smile was no longer the grin of a fellow amused spectator. Instead it was the tender smile of a would-be lover, his gaze the gaze of a man completely smitten with the woman at his side.

In the back of her head, she heard Nick's broken whisper. "He was so crazy about you Sara… you have no idea… "

She heard as well her own reply.

"Yeah Nicky… I do."

Except that she hadn't really. She knew that now. She hadn't found out until it was too late, until she'd lost the most precious thing that she'd never even known she'd had.

But he'd known. He'd known it all along, and he'd waited for her, trusted in them. And, looking down at his face, she knew that he'd been right to, that what they'd had, no matter how brief, no matter how painful, had been worth it.

Archie was talking again, and she made herself look up at him. "… if I upset you," he was saying. "I just thought you'd like them… "

She gave him a smile, a smile that while tearful, was by far more genuine than the rictus that she'd plastered on when he first came in. "They're great Archie," she whispered, her voice thick with loss and gratitude. "Thank you."

He nodded once, and his hand looked as if it wanted to reach out to her, but he checked the impulse, choosing instead to nod once more. "I have them on disk… if you want any more." She nodded her acknowledgement, gaze returning to the pictures again, and she was only dimly aware of him continuing after a second. "I'll um… I'll leave you to it."

She heard the door open, but she was looking back down at the picture, at the way Cyrus had looked at her, and of the one before it, and his smile. That was the smile that she'd seen during their lingering goodbye before he'd left her apartment for the last time, when he'd made promises of cooking dinner with her, when she'd tried to convince him in action if not in words not to leave. She didn't have to concentrate hard to be able to remember the feel of his lips on hers, his hands against the skin of her back, and every hair in her body stood erect at the memories, a tingle running down her spine.

That was her Cyrus, the one that she wanted to remember.

Sliding the photographs back into the envelope, she turned to put them onto the top shelf of her locker, intending to keep them safe there during the shift. On impulse though, she stopped, opening the envelope again, taking out the second picture Archie had given her, the one where she was sitting and he was standing, the one where they looked every inch the couple lost in their own private world. Looking up and down the back of her locker, her gaze fell on the picture of her on her own, taken during a hill walk during her time in San Francisco. Glancing from that to the picture she held in her hand, she didn't think twice, taking down the older photo, sticking the new one up in its place. It looked good there she decided, like it belonged there, and she trailed a finger slowly across his figure, remembering how his skin had felt under her touch.

For the second time that day, a voice saying her name made her jump. "You ok?" it continued, and she turned to see Warrick standing at the door, green eyes narrowed into slits of concern.

It was easier than she might have thought possible to smile at him, to nod. To say, "I'm fine," and mean it.

It was easier for her to say it than it was for him to believe it, if the look on his face was anything to go by. "You sure you're up for this?" he wanted to know, and once again she nodded, looking at the photograph one more time as she put the precious envelope into her locker.

"I'm ready," she said quietly, closing the locker door gently, metal against metal barely making a sound. Her hand lingered on the cold metal for just a second longer than necessary before she turned to him, squaring her shoulders. "Let's go."

Fin

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Author's Endnotes

22 chapters, 92000 words plus change, and I'm done - my aim was to get this posted before season four began airing in the States, so I just made it!

I said a few thank yous in the notes at the start, but I can't thank Heidi and Bekki enough for going above and beyond the call of friendly duty with the tape trading, and Bronagh for beta-reading, having heard me whinge about this more than is good for any one person!

In the interests of giving credit where it's due, it should also be pointed out here that the nickname "Detective Hot" is not my invention - to the best of my knowledge, it started, as so many things have, with Sobell at Television Without Pity, though I've seen it used at Under the Bridge as well.

To everyone who's sent feedback, thank you so much - I was so nervous about posting this because it's as unconventional as unconventional gets, so every kind word made a world of difference. Apologies to those who expected me to defy canon, and to those who knew I wouldn't.

Beth and Mags also listened to me whinging about this, and sent feedback accordingly - I hope you both enjoyed it!

Everyone from fanfiction.net who left a review, especially Joey des Ange, Grav and MissyJane who near the end reviewed every chapter, some of them twice! (looking at no-one in particular) Francyne, whose sleep I interrupted, sorry about that, and Ria, I'd apologise to you and everyone else for making you cry if I hadn't meant to do so! If I list everyone else who left feedback, I know I'll leave someone out, but you guys all rock and every word is really, really appreciated.