It's not Goodbye

She had never kissed him at work. They had rarely touched and yet she had purposely sought him out and kissed him in front of Hodges and the others without caring who might see the longing and the need poured into that single kiss. It would be her last and she knew it. She held nothing back when her lips met his needing to feel him just once more before she stepped out of the lab and out of their life.

With each step she felt the pieces of her past mingle with the present. The pieces were sharp and jagged cutting her with each step she made toward the door. She counted every step that led her away from him. There were thirty four. It was a distraction of sorts much like she had done that day in the desert. She opened the door of the taxi and slipped into the back seat.

She had done it.

She had left.

She rolled down the window and gulped in the air. The small gulps would soon be sobs as she told herself she had done the right thing. When she arrived at the townhouse, the second part of the plan was already waiting for her. The car was packed with her suitcase and a few treasures she could not seem to leave behind. The treasures consisted of photos. There was the photo of Grissom sitting at his desk with his book of poetry. There was also the photo of Hank taken one afternoon in the park. Her most prized possession was a photo of them that had been taken on a weekend excursion.

She swallowed hard and then took the final step closing the door of the townhouse after placing the final things into the car. As she looked in the rearview mirror she saw the lights of Vegas and felt as if she would not be back.

It was final.

It was done.

It was over.

Her heart sank.

The kiss had unnerved him. He stood there and watched as she walked away not knowing that she would be gone in a few minutes. A strange sensation came over him and he longed to find her and ask her once more if she was okay. His single objective at that moment was her.

He told himself she would be just around the corner. She rarely left without telling him but these days she had been forgetting to do things and he wondered if it was just one of those times. He would go home and find her but then he remembered no one was ever home these days. When he was at work she was there. When she was at the lab he was at home. It was an endless cycle that somehow began that neither wanted but it had become their life.

There had been times in the last few months where they had felt like strangers and yet they shared the same house and even the same bed. Days would lapse before they would see one another. Their communication became notes. It was simple one or two sentences but it kept a line open between them. The fridge became their source of contact with one another as they missed one another coming and going between the different shifts. When the notes began to pile up he realized that either she was too tired to notice them on the fridge or that she did not eat when she came home.

After checking the contents of the fridge he told himself she was either not eating or getting something before she came home. As the weight dropped, he knew the answer to that question. He considered leaving the notes on the bed but knew that sleep was becoming an issue as well. She had gone through periods like this before. It had taken him months to notice but then they were not a couple during that time and he reconciled his conscious by telling himself he did not have her in the same house so he could notice the subtle changes and warn her. There were no excuses this time. She was there in his house and in his bed.

He began leaving the notes on the door knowing that she could not leave without seeing them. It seemed to work but as the things were left undone she found herself apologizing all the time blaming herself for not doing the simplest of tasks. They meant nothing to him. He could easily do it himself. It was just a means of communicating with her, to let her know they still lived together in the same house and functioned as one but now he found himself withholding the notes because he did not want to receive another apology.

He wasn't prepared for the note she left with Judy. He thought it was a grocery list or a few lines telling him she was sorry for yelling at him earlier. Her apologies had reached an all time high. She would promise to pick up dry cleaning but it would still be there the next day. The grocery list became a wish list. Hank was the one task she did. She walked him and fed him and watered him and cried on him. Hank was there when he was not.

She wore her melancholy like a shroud. He could feel it when he held her and yet he said nothing, not sure how to make things right. He handled it by avoiding it. He blamed it on the case but she blamed herself. In the end he would blame himself. He knew she was in trouble the moment he found the sleeping pills. They were there in plain view in the medicine cabinet. He had opened the cabinet one day and there they were. They were prescription sleeping pills which meant she had seen someone but he had no further information and he did not seek it out. The pills left the medicine cabinet and found their way to the kitchen counter. Looking back now, he wondered if she displayed them as a call for help especially when the contents disappeared but the sleep deprivation continued.

He left her alone to work things out. It was what she did. It was what he did. He had been good at avoidance especially when it came to humans and emotions. It was part of the reason he sought solitude. He dealt with others by not dealing at all. He was a master in his field but the body had to be dead before he could work his magic. It was the living that baffled him. He had lived a life as a recluse not by choice but by nature. At least it had been that way for years until he met Sara Sidle.

She had turned his life upside down with just a single smile. He had been hooked the moment he had seen her. He had been intrigued the moment her intellect matched his. He had fallen helplessly for her the moment she gave him a glimpse of what was there for the taking if he would only try. He did try. For years he tried and tried. He had finally accepted what she offered and it had been worth the risk. Now, the past threatened their existence and he watched as she struggled to work things out on her own. She was a recluse when it came to that not wishing to share her inner most demons.

He told himself she had done it for years and now was no different despite the fact that she had recently been abducted and left to die in the desert. There was the small matter of the change in shifts. She had worked graveyard ever since she came to Vegas and suddenly was forced to work another shift placing more pressure on her to adjust to yet another change. She was forced from the darkness into the light and she was not prepared for that. The darkness placed a different light on death. Now it was in plain view and it taunted her even more.

He had offered to make the change even though he wasn't sure he would have been able to after working so many years at night but then she had removed that problem by insisting to make the move rather than taking him away from the unit he had grown to consider as family whether he would admit it or not. She felt it was a small price to pay for loving Gil Grissom.

The change however took her from the others and she missed them. Her absence was felt by all of them as they slowly tried to deal with the changes in their own way. He thought she would handle it because Sara was strong. She was much stronger than he would ever be and he had told her that once while they lay in bed. She had said nothing and he took the silence to mean that he was right. He was wrong.

He opened the letter and felt his world imploding as he read it again and again. He glanced at it once more before sitting down in his chair and told himself this could not be happening. The letter described the Sara he had failed to see until that night. Her desperation, the haunting eyes and the mournful expression told him she was burning out but it was too late. He could say it was just burnout but they both knew there was something more.

There had always been more that she kept hidden deep down until now. He sat there now holding the letter and wondered what he was supposed to do. She would be long gone by now. He could follow the evidence. He could track her. It was what he did best, finding those that did not wish to be found. He could start with the letter and then the crime scene, the townhouse. He was sure to find something there.

An almost empty prescription bottle…

Countless unread messages…

A slightly slept in bed…

A box of Kleenex that was almost empty…

Uneaten vegetarian food…

There was a tap on the door as Nick stood there holding up her name tag he had found in the trash can. To Grissom it meant another piece of the horrid tale but to Nick he wondered if they had gotten married and Sara was now sporting her new name, Grissom. The look on his face made Nick back away. It was soon replaced with Brass as he came inside and shut the door.

"Nick said he was worried about you," he said.

Grissom said nothing.

Brass came closer to the desk and scowled when there was another knock at the door. It was Ronnie. She held up the jacket and Grissom recognized the handwriting on the make shift name tag as Sara's. She was asked to leave by Brass as he shut the door once more and looked at his friend.

"Where's Sara?" he asked.

"I don't know," said Grissom.

"Did she quit?" he asked.

"I don't know," replied Grissom.

"Gil?"

He turned and looked at Brass.

"Is she in trouble?" asked Brass.

"Yes….yes she is."

He uttered those words and yet he still did nothing. He sat there with note in hand and for once in his life he could not think. There was not a single rational thought. Brass could sense the shock and he waited a few minutes before offering assistance. He wanted to take immediate action but Grissom did not. Brass had wanted to put out an APB but he refused citing that there was no reason.

She had left.

She had left a note.

She had said goodbye.

He fielded questions from his staff giving little information as he tried to go on as if nothing had happened but it did. Sara was gone. He forced his lungs to take in air despite the urge to stop breathing. None of it made sense and yet every action made sense at that moment. He cursed at himself for not seeing the obvious. She had been struggling for months and he had done nothing to try to help except pretend that everything was fine.

It wasn't.

She wasn't.

He wasn't.

He knew it and now everyone knew.

He found himself drowning in guilt and he knew that soon the others would point the finger as well. He had let this happen. He had done this. As the news slowly spread throughout the lab, the whispers and the sadness enveloped the entire unit. There was a sense of mourning. They had been successful at finding her in the desert and rescuing her only to lose her anyway.

It wasn't fair.

He needed her.

They needed her.

She had slowly immersed herself into their lives letting them lean on her when the time arose and now that she was gone they felt the absence and it was unpleasant. There would no longer be that person who would sit there and listen. Sara was their listener. She had been for years. She comforted them when things got rough but never felt the desire for the same to be reciprocated.

He kept to himself the first twenty four hours as he drifted from one shift to another thankful for the double that would keep his mind busy. He focused on the job as he looked for fingerprints on a door.

I left messages on the door but missed the writing on the wall…

There were dark blotches on the floor and he tested it for blood.

Lost weight, dark circles, prescribed medication…..

He stood there and stared at the body.

Post traumatic syndrome….depression….shit….

He slipped hair, fibers and dirt into each evidence packet.

She's alone…I'm alone….she's alone…I'm alone…shit…

He slowly made his way across the floor on his knees collecting evidence.

Her leaving has brought me to my knees just like I thought it would if she ever left…

He swallowed hardtrying to catch his breath with each piece of evidence he was forced to face. He stared at the body once more.

We meet people on the worst day of their lives….

This is mine…

He felt their eyes on him and he knew he should be the one to set the example as he swiped his brow, his eyes and gulped through the mess. His life was a mess. He was not used to messes.

A place for everything and everything in its place….

He was a scientist. Scientist needed organization and without organization, chaos was certain. His life was now in a chaotic state as he struggled to maintain his balance once more. He knew they were expecting him to do something. He did. He went on with his routine. It was necessary if he hoped to survive himself but now as he stood collecting his kit for the first time in his life he did not know how to exist anymore.

When the job was done, he returned to the lab and focused on paperwork but then there was the questions from others as to Sara's whereabouts and he had no answers.

He wanted answers.

He needed them.

He needed them more than the others.

He loved her.

She was the only person he had ever loved and now she was gone.

He felt empty and it hurt.

He expected to hear from her when he came home. He checked the messages on the phone and found there were several from the others but none from her. He checked his messages on his cell phone and found several left there months ago but none from her. As he fed the dog and grabbed his medicine he had hoped she would have left an email but once again he found none. There was no contact.

No note on the door…

No note on the fridge…

Nothing…

He pulled out the letter placing it on the counter and stared at it.

Goodbye…

He could understand every word she had written except that single word. It made him angry. She had never uttered those words to him before. He had never expected to hear those words come from her lips. It was the reason he had proposed. For years she had waited patiently for him to trust her and over time he did. She showed him that there was very little that he could do that she could or would not forgive.

He had been cruel at times.

He knew it.

She knew it.

She remained strong through it all.

There were painful times. There was a time when he told her to get a life and she almost did but then he pulled her back and made her feel guilty for doing so. There was a time when he sought the affections of someone else as she stood by silently. There was no anger or even a harsh word but simply an understanding that she was there waiting for him to accept her.

And he did finally.

He accepted her.

He loved her.

He was not the best partner. He could be insensitive at times taking for granted that she was there at home waiting for him and not bothering to call to let her know that he would be late or that he would not be home at all. Sara accepted all of this without a single complaint. She loved him faults and all choosing to see only the fact that now he had let her in and he was willing to share his life with her. It was all she ever wanted.

She had Gil Grissom.

They were a couple.

He swallowed hard as he felt his knees hit the floor.

Sometimes, even a man could cry.

Note from author:

I am giving you a glimpse into my next story. It will mirror the current series to some extent but of course I am going to attempt to cover the back story…you know the real reason we watch CSI….GSR. We miss them. We need them back….even if it is to ride off into the sunset. We've been waiting eight years. We got to see the relationship exposed, their feelings expressed, the proposal and then the kiss. We didn't ask for the kiss to be attached to a goodbye…that's not the way GSR should end….will end.

Let's begin the rest of the story.

Take care!

Penny