Title: I Bequeath to You
Fandom: CSI LV
Characters: Sara Sidle, Warrick Brown, Gil Grissom
Rating: PG
Story Type: Gen mostly with a dash of slash. Sara/Grissom, Warrick/Grissom implied
Summary: Sara goes back to Las Vegas to commiserate on the death of Warrick Brown. Story takes place during “For Warrick” episode. Warning: none really because we all know this was Warrick Brown last episode.
She couldn’t say she expected ever to go back to Las Vegas, especially to the lab. Then she heard the news from Catherine who’d called and was greatly bothered by not hearing from the one person who she would’ve expected to call, to say the least, the news left her trembling with shock.
It took her all of five minutes to convince herself she must go. Another five minutes to pick up the phone and schedule a flight to Vegas. By mid-morning, she had half of her clothes packed in two large luggages. Unwilling to think why she would need so much when her trip wasn’t anything about going home, but more about a dreadful visit she would rather not take.
The shock still left her numbed, almost senseless. If surrounded by friends and family, she wouldn’t have been able to tell them what this meant to her. So how very wrong it was. She did have the presence of mind to call her job for an emergency leave.
Mentioned the word death and that grabbed her supervisor’s undivided attention. She explained the reason for the emergency leave and gave him a quick update on her five open cases. Word had gotten around the new lab that she was anal and a workaholic. Her work habits stirred up a bone of contention among the other forensic scientists because the supervisor assigned her cases of magnitude. She laughed when she heard them called her the newbie.
“Give my condolences to Gil Grissom,” her supervisor said.
Bunched shoulders relaxed in relief. It helped that he’d known Grissom for some years now, Grissom being famous among the top elite forensic scientists. Two months into her 90-day probation, and already her life disrupted by the past. She didn’t care how long her new boss had known her former boss and lover. All she knew permission or not, she was on the next flight to Vegas.
On the plane, grief didn’t deny her trained mind to observe her surrounding. A young lady sat next to her. Pale skin, dark hair, fae-like face, simply beautiful, and full of youth and energy. The girl wanted to talk. She wanted to tell her to shut up. She grunted a reply or two and then turned away to stare at nothing in particular. The girl caught on and dug out an iPod from the backpack in her lap. She sort of wanted to apologize to the girl, acknowledging her own proclivity for rudeness. People had said that about her, sarcastic and cold, and their opinions confused her. But today on this flight, she just didn’t have the energy to care.
She practiced saying words of comfort inside her head and on paper. Sometimes glanced out the small rounded window. Wisplike clouds floated through the clear blue sky, a sad reminder of why she was in flight. His lightness to his darkness, his tendency to laughter to his tendency to brood, his humor to his serious. The light was gone. Snuffed out by a horrifying act of murder. Something that touched them every single day.
Grissom, will he survive without the light of his life? Will Warrick end up there with the angels? She sure hoped so. He deserved so much more.
Her feelings toward him hadn’t always been favorable. At first glance she despised him. Thought he was a criminal hiding behind a badge and the respectable position as a scientist. Who he appeared and what he did for living didn’t gel well for her. So she did something out of the ordinary and jumped to a bad conclusion. And learned a powerful lesson, a picture wasn’t necessarily worth the stroke of the paint.
Life hadn’t been easy for Warrick just as it hadn’t been easy for Catherine or for herself. She had the misfortune of meeting Warrick at one of his low points, when he’d been struggling to gain acceptance at the lab and fighting a gambling habit. Abused by a judge because his superior had refused to play fair.
Grissom had shown her the difference. Trusted her ability to analyze details objectively, to rise above her own emotional shortcomings.
Never did she ask for this. Not this way. Even now as the plane jetted her across the sky, there was a spot of hope that shouldn’t be borne. Do not think. The time was not now.
Her mind played tricks on her. She tried letting the exhaustion force her eyes to close, but her mind alive and disinclined to obey her. She could not sleep. She fidgeted in her seat as she tried her best to think about the most important case that required quick analysis. A child found murdered in a back alley. Her mind failed her and it was to either think about him or think about the other.
Struck down in the prime of his life. So much love to give. The fatherless boys he’d worked with lost a champion to their cause. Wished she had told him how she admired his energy and his ability to give when he himself never had a father to hold him, guide him, to be the role model most young boys like him yearned for.
She appreciated his protection. It came a time she had begun to trust Warrick with her life. He once saved her from shattering into tiny bits of skin and bone because she had been stubborn as hell investigating a crime scene. Being tenacious and oblivious were not good qualities to have when a rigged bomb hang overhead in a doorframe. “Sara,” she remembered him saying. Just how he sounded out the syllables in her name in a certain tone spoke volumes to her. Be careful, Sara. You’re being reckless. She would become alert, as she trusted that deep, calming voice. As for his physical presence, it was nothing to joke about. She understood the attraction even though her heart belonged to Grissom.
He had a whole lot of love to give and he never quite gave it to the right person. The children felt it. The babies adored him. Some adult associates, fools like she had been when she didn’t know the arrogance, the cockiness, the tough guy attitude was a facade for a big, old softy underneath who wanted to be respected and loved.
But Grissom knew. He knew Warrick well in every sense of the word.
The thought of Grissom made her want to hang her head and cover her eyes. She can’t do this. She was going to Vegas for a purpose. Her needs, her wants, her quiet persistence treading on the obstacles that got in the way. She had left, so why did she feel partly the blame. No, she thought fiercely as the corner of her eyes filled with moisture. Didn’t she have a responsibility to grab some happiness? Maybe he should have thought the same when he married Tina.
“You know why, Sara. We can’t keep twisting him up. You and me, he doesn’t know how to handle us. You can see it in his eyes. We’re wearing him down.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she had said, lying to him and to herself.
“We’re friends. I’m amazed. I get that. I’ve known how you felt about Grissom from the first time I met you.”
“Are you saying you don’t love your wife?”
“I love Tina. This isn’t about her,” he said.
Warrick was lying. She could see it in his eyes what it cost him. The price he’d been paying. Grissom was not an easy person to love. “So the story is true. About Nick almost dying and you seeing the light,” she smiled, trying to lighten up a tense discussion.
He smiled a very tired smile. “Something like that. Life is too short to complain about what could happen and wishing it would happen, you know.”
So Warrick opted out what felt like years of contest between them, of fighting for Grissom’s undivided affection. He paved the way for her without ever saying, “Sara, I bequeath to you a chance of a lifetime.” She knew his sacrifice broke him down and the lost contributed to a bad marriage. She knew, despite his efforts to make their relationship work, Grissom hid his sadness at Warrick’s marriage to Tina. Something was missing from his life and it was not her. It was Warrick, who worked within reach but Grissom would never touch him again. He didn’t have the right. He lost some of the light.
The moment he saw her waiting at the door, he quickens his steps to the office. His strides brought him straight into her arms. She held him, feeling the grief he tried to hide but she knew him like no other except the man resting at the county morgue.
“Grissom. I…,” the words of sorrow balled up in her throat.
“Sara. I’m glad you’re here,” he said and she felt his heartfelt sincerity by the tightening of the arms holding her.
“I have something to show you.”
“Not now, Sara.”
“You must,” and she gently pulled Grissom into the office, closing the door behind her.
He gasped at learning Warrick was a father. He stared blankly at the monitor, captivated by Warrick’s words of love and admiration. Warrick didn’t name the person he spoke about to the Psychologist. It wasn’t necessary.
“He loved you, Grissom,” she said.
“I know. I loved him, too,” he said so softly she almost missed hearing the words.
To others his statement would be interpreted as love for a longstanding colleague fallen in the line of duty. To her the acknowledgment would be treasured, as his way of telling her there was much more between Warrick and Grissom than a working relationship. Even though she doubted Grissom knew that she knew. The point, he said the words out loud. She wished he’d said them as he held Warrick dying in his arms. Do you hear, Warrick.
“He has a son.” The wonderment overshadowing the grief. Grissom reached out and touched Warrick’s face through the monitor.
“Perhaps you could introduce yourself.”
He looked at her and made a grab for her hand. They turned toward the monitor to see and to hear more of Warrick’s last words to them. “I think that can be arranged,” Grissom said. He squeezed her hand and drew her closer to his side.
She may not be his shining bright light. She may still have issues on her relationship with Grissom. Right now, she felt keenly the words Warrick hadn’t said but the meaning of his compassion clear. “I bequeath to you, Grissom.”
End
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