Disclaimer: I do not own CSI!! Not making money with any of this either ;)
AN: Wow, it's been almost 8 months since I wrote ANYTHING!!!!! So happy that I finally found the time to write again :D it feels so good :D But yeah, it's been a while so I hope my writing is still okay :)
Thousand Thanks to Rhee for beta reading!
Spoilers: Mild spoilers for 8x01 (really very very mild, I mean we don't really know anything, right?)
Summary: post finding Sara, "What would you have done if you hadn't found me in time?"
As he passes the living room he sees her standing by the glass door to the back porch, leaning against the frame. He enters quietly and just watches her for a moment. Absentmindedly she is staring into the darkness of the night, her arms wrapped protectively around her. She is pale and you can easily tell that she is still worn out from what happened. "Honey," he sighs. "Aren't you supposed to be in bed?"
She shrugs, then gives him a soft smile. "Aren't you supposed to be at work?"
He smirks and carefully pulls her into his arms. He closes his eyes and inhales the scent of her hair. Feeling her heart beating against his chest he can't believe that two days ago he almost lost her. She leans into him and gives him a soft squeeze when she wraps her arms around him. "So, are you here to check up on me?"
"Can you blame me for caring too much?"
"I just think you shouldn't be so worried. I'll be fine. And I have Dex here to keep me company." She pulls away and tries to meet his gaze, her hands resting on the back of his neck.
"You almost died two days ago." It's so difficult for him to hide how worried he is.
She sighs and lets one of her hands slip to his cheek, running her thumb over his lips for a moment she seems to be lost in thoughts. After a while she breaks the silence between them. "What would you have done if you hadn't found me in time?"
He shakes his head. "I don't want to think about that." He pulls her closer again.
She leans her forehead against his. "Just hypothetically. I mean..."
"Sara, I don't want to picture you being dead," He interrupts her. "I cannot even stand to think of it, how do you think I'd deal with it if it was real?" He swallows hard, trying to suppress the tears that are rising up in his eyes. "Sara if I'd lose you, I don't think I could go on."
"Don't say that." She kisses him softly. "Now you scared me."
"Well what did you expect to hear?" He tilts his head to meet her eyes. "That I'd move on with someone else?"
She shrugs. "I don't know... I just... I think I'd want you to be happy."
"It took me almost fifty years of my life to find happiness with you, you think after I lost the love of my life I'd ever be able to be happy again?" He's able to keep his voice calm but he cannot stop the tears that are running down his cheeks. "Sara, you're my life and if I'd ever lose you it would kill me."
She starts shaking and then she breaks out in tears as well. She couldn't tell if it's because the shock of almost dying is fading and the realization settles in that she really almost lost her life or if it's because never before he told her that she means all this to him. She had been able to tell that he loved her from the way he looked at her, from the way he held her, from the way he touched her but he had never said it, had never told her.
Standing there in their living room they cling on to each other, holding each other until all their tears are cried. It takes a long time before they are able to speak again.
"I didn't mean to make you cry." She whispers, wiping away the tears from his cheeks.
"Neither did I." He slips his thumb over her right cheek, catching the last tears that are rolling down her face.
She purses her lips. "You know, when I saw you there in the desert, I thought you had to be a fata Morgana. I didn't think anyone would ever find me."
"When we got to the car and you weren't there, I didn't know whether I should panic or be relieved." He confesses. "I mean on the one hand I knew you had to be alive because you made it out of there, on the other hand I didn't know where you were or if you were okay."
She gives him a reassuring smile. "I was pretty fine, at least until the midday heat set in. Going from almost drowning and almost freezing to death to almost suffering from a heat stroke in less than 24 hours. I don't think I want to go through that again any time soon."
"I will make sure no one ever does something like that to you again. I should have taken better care of you in the first place, I..."
"Hey," She interrupts him. "We already discussed that. This was not your fault."
He sighs. "It takes some time for that to settle in." She kisses him softly until a smile begins to form on his lips. "You know, this really works."
"What works?" She asks innocently.
"You trying to distract me from sending you back to bed to get some rest." He slips his hands over her back.
She leans into his embrace and kisses him more passionately. He wants this to go on forever but his conscience gets the best of him. "Honey, you need to get some rest." He breaks the kiss and gives her a serious look.
She lets her head fall back and sighs. "I don't like lying in bed all by myself."
"Are you having nightmares?" He asks concerned.
She shakes her head. "I don't know, for that I'd have to fall asleep first."
He nods and squeezes her softly. He knows she had trouble falling asleep, she is thinking too much about what happened, it's haunting her when she has time to think. She doesn't admit it but he knows her. "I took the rest of the night off." He tells her softly. "I'll lie down with you." He takes her hand and leads the way to their bedroom.
Carefully he helps her into the bed, then slips under the sheets with her, protectively wrapping his arms around her. She snuggles up against him, her head resting on his chest. "Thank you." She whispers and closes her eyes, finally able to relax she falls asleep.
He stays awake for a long time, wondering how he is supposed to learn how to deal with this. He almost lost the one person that meant everything to him, the one woman that he had ever been able to love. He knows that he has to be strong for her because even if she does everything she can to hide how much she is still shaken up inside, he knows how she feels. And he knows that she needs him to be there for her, she would never ask him to take time off in order to be with her but he knows how much it helps her if he's just there, they don't even have to talk, it's enough if he just holds her.
He knows that he'll probably lose it the next time that she doesn't come home on time, the next time she doesn't show up at the lab on time, the next time that she misses one of his phone calls and doesn't call him back in the very next second... never in his life he had been so scared, nothing had ever scared him more than the possibility of losing her, it had been his worst nightmare coming true.
The only good thing about everything that had happened was that he had finally found the strength to put his feelings for her into words, it hadn't been that difficult after all and he was so incredibly thankful that she was still around to hear him say them.
THE END
thanks for reading! -Kristy