The Pieces of my Life
August 1995
Rating: PG
Fandom: CSI/West Wing
Pairing: Greg Sanders/Ellie Bartlet
Feedback: Makes my day
Disclaimer: If it was in the show, it's not mine.
Archive: At my site Checkmate (http://helsinkibaby.ahkay.net) , Fanfiction.net; anywhere else, please ask.
Summary: Ellie spends a week with Greg in San Francisco
It is August
1995, and Greg feels like he has the world at his feet. His summer job, a gofer
at the
He’s had
to, because he knows what’s at stake, and today is the day that he gets his
reward for being all grown-up and responsible for the last number of weeks.
Because
today is the day that his girlfriend is coming into town, and he can’t wait to
see her.
He was
lucky enough to have work and family in
The main
reason is that this summer is the longest he’s gone without seeing her since
they first met, and he doesn’t like it one little bit. He’s missing her, more
than he thought it possible to miss anyone, and all he wants is to see her
face, talk to her, hold her hand. Right here, right now, that would be enough
for him, though he knows that no-one believes that. He also doesn’t care,
especially not now, when he’s standing in the airport arrivals hall, waiting
for her to appear. She’s staying for a week, and he’s got everything planned,
has even inveigled his boss into giving him the week off, just so he doesn’t
have to spend a second away from her.
When the
little computer screens tell him that her plane has touched down, he moves
closer to the barrier, closer to the door, so that he will be able to see her
the instant he appears. Some dim little part of his mind that’s capable of
rational thought realises that he’s literally bouncing up and down on the balls
of his feet in anticipation, and there’s a little voice in the back of his mind
that sounds very like John that’s making fun of him, but he doesn’t care about
that either.
Because
she’s just walked right into his field of vision, and he swears she looks
better than he remembers. Her long brown hair is tied back in a loose ponytail
that straight away has his fingers itching to set it free, and she’s wearing a
pale blue t-shirt and jeans, a jacket over one arm, carries a suitcase in the
other. She doesn’t look any older than she did the first day he met her, almost
a year ago now; which is to say that she still looks younger than the college
student she really is. But she looks pretty damn close to perfect for him, and
he finds himself calling out her name, just in case she missed him, not able to
keep still and grinning like an idiot.
He’s always
thought she was gorgeous, thought so when he first saw her today. But when she
looks over at him, when she smiles, the effect is almost enough to knock him
off his feet. She’s got a hell of a smile he’s found, and she doesn’t use it
nearly enough, though he takes great delight in making her smile any and every
chance he gets. He’s not doing anything special now though, unless you count
moving towards her, and when they’re literally arms’ length away from one
another, she drops jacket and suitcase both, and fairly throws herself into his
arms. He was ready for it though, lifting her off her feet, spinning her around
and around. He delights in hearing her laughter in his ears, because it sounds
so much better in person than over the phone, and when he sets her down again,
he’d swear that the rest of the terminal has simply faded away into
nothingness. It might as well have, because all he can see is her, and all
either of them can do for a long moment is smile at one another.
Characteristically
enough, he’s the first to speak. “Man, have I missed you.”
It’s not
the most eloquent of phrases, nor is it at all romantic, but she seems to like
it well enough, grinning up at him. “Me too,” she says simply, and that’s all
he gives her a chance to say before he leans forwards, pressing his lips to
hers.
It’s a quick kiss, purposely so, because he
doesn’t think that throwing her to the ground and kissing her the way he really
wants to would be approved of by anyone who knows them, or anyone who doesn’t
for that matter. It’s the sensible thing to do, but he knows it’s not what
she’s expecting, her slight look of surprise being more than enough to clue him
in on that. Any confusion vanishes when one hand slides down, his fingers
entwining with hers, while his other moves to grab her suitcase. “Let’s get you
home,” is all he says, and that’s all she needs to hear to be beaming again.
“I thought
you’d never ask.”
>*<*>*<
He drives
her back to Mike’s place, for once thankful that he’s going to be on bathroom
duty for the rest of his stay with his uncle, because that was the price Mike
exacted from him as payment for lending him his car that day. She teases him
that she could get used to being chauffeured around like his; he counters with
the fact that she might as well enjoy it, because she’s going to be walking for
the rest of the week. That’s when Ellie pouts at him, runs her finger up his
arm, rather suggestively he thinks, and he damn near crashes the car. He gives her a look that’s part annoyance,
part save it for later, and she just gives him that little grin of hers, not
the full wattage smile he saw at the airport, but that devilish little smirk
that’s only ever for his eyes.
It never fails
to make him want to grab her and never let her go, and he knows then and there
that it’s going to be a long trip home.
It’s made
longer by the fact that he really does take the long way home, the better to
show her some of the sights of the city, so by the time they get home, they’re
both starving. He does the gentlemanly thing, shows her to her room, which is
really his room for the summer, but he’s going to sleep on the couch while
she’s here, and he leaves her there to freshen up while he goes to take care of
food.
When she
emerges a few minutes later, having washed up and changed her clothes, his idea
of culinary expertise - take-out pizza and Diet Coke – has arrived, and when he
apologises for not having anything better prepared, she orders him not to worry
about it, pulling up a chair at the kitchen table, digging into the pizza like
she hasn’t seen food for a month. He must look surprised at her reaction,
because she giggles, explains to him somewhat sheepishly that her mother has a
strict ban on junk food in the house, one that her father tries to flout at
every opportunity. “But she’s been cracking down this summer,” she finishes,
before taking another huge bite out of her pizza slice, and he lifts an
eyebrow, regards her curiously.
“So that’s
why you wanted to come out here,” he teases. “You only want me for my junk
food.”
Ellie looks
at the pizza box on the table, then back to him, her face perfectly impassive.
“Yep,” is all she says, and he can’t help himself; he bursts out laughing.
>*<*>*<
When
they’re done eating, he takes her out for a walk. He knows that this is yet
another surprise for her, because she can’t hide anything from him, not with
those expressive eyes of hers. He’s pretty sure she wanted to curl up on the
couch with him and forget the rest of the world exists, which is pretty high on
his to-do list as well. There’s just one thing that’s higher.
Which is
why he fairly drags her along to their destination, leading the way with long
strides as she tries to keep up with him. “Would you please tell me where we’re
going?” she laughs as they get near it, and because they’re near it, this time,
he deigns to answer her.
“Almost
there,” he tells her. “Just a little more.”
Ellie’s
regarding him suspiciously, is looking up at the sky, at the position of the
sun, and he remembers too late that her father fancies himself as a bit of an
outdoorsman, used to love to take the whole family camping, then give
wilderness survival lectures around the campfire. “Are we just going in a circle?”
she asks, and he schools his features into passivity, because they more or less
are.
“Kind of,”
is all he will admit to her. “I’m more taking you along the back roads.”
“But we’re
going to end up on the same street as your uncle’s house, right?”
“No.” That
much surprises her. “But we are going to be on the next street over.”
She shakes
her head, completely mystified, which, after all, is exactly the way that Greg
wanted her. “Greg, what-?”
But that’s as
far as she gets because he turns around, gives her his biggest grin. “We’re
here,” he announces. “You just need to do one thing.” Her only response is to
cross her arms over her chest, one hip thrust out expectantly, and if he looked
down, he’d bet that she’d be tapping her foot. “Close your eyes,” he tells her,
but she opens them wide instead.
“Greg…” Her
tone is one of warning, and he steps forward at his most beseechingly charming,
taking her hands in his, holding them up between them.
“Ellie, I promise,
this is worth it,” he tells her. “Just trust me.”
She holds
his gaze for a moment, before sighing, rolling her eyes. “OK, ok, I trust you,”
she says, closing her eyes. “What do I do now?”
“Just trust
me a little bit more,” he says, coming around behind her, putting his hands
over her eyes. At her little gasp, he says, “It’s ok… you just need to take a
couple steps forward… that’s right…” He guides her completely, not loosening
his grasp over her eyes, and he can feel her shoulders shaking with laughter.
At least, he hopes it’s laughter. “OK… stop here,” he tells her after a couple
more steps. “Don’t open your eyes.”
He takes
his hands away, moves to stand beside her as she’s saying, “Well, when can I
open my eyes?”
“Now,” he
says, not taking his eyes off her face as she looks, first at him, then at the
view before her. The street is running downhill, as so many of San Francisco’s
streets do, and while it’s not one of the steepest streets by a long shot, it’s
made remarkable by the series of S-shaped curves that mark it out, emphasised
by the greenery of the hedgerows, the carefully-maintained gardens. She laughs, the sound emerging in a
kind of shocked little gasp, her hands going to her mouth. “Lombard Street,” he
tells her, though he knows that she knows what she’s looking at, knows equally
well that it’s a sight that she’s always wanted to see, though she can’t
explain why. Some people when they go to
She turns
to him, eyes shining. “You never told me your uncle lived on Lombard Street,”
she tells him, and he shrugs.
“Technically,
it’s just off
She rolls
her eyes, but she is beaming, and she turns her gaze back to the street, but
only for a moment. Then she’s looking back at him, slipping her arms around his
waist, smiling up at him. “Have I told you how much I missed you?” she wonders,
and he shrugs as he slides his arms around her.
“Yeah,” he
says, lowering his face to hers. “But I could stand to hear it again.”
Her lips
meet his halfway, and this time, the kiss is nothing like the airport. This
kiss is passionate, and explosive, and all those other things that they’ve been
feeling since this all began on a beach in
>*<*>*<
As it
happens, the week isn’t nearly as long as Greg thought it was going to be. Oh,
it might be hard every night to watch Ellie walk into the bedroom while he beds
down on the couch, but aside from that, the days seem to literally fly by. They
go out to dinner with Mike on her first night there, his uncle insisting on
treating the two of them, and to Greg’s great delight, the two of them get
along well. Ellie did meet his parents when they picked him up at Stanford to
go home for summer break, but that was only a brief encounter. This is her
first protracted exposure to any of his family, and he knew that she was
nervous about it, hid his own nerves behind his customary over-cheerfulness.
All their fears seem to be coming to naught however, and he’s sure that when
his mom asks Mike about Ellie, as she no doubt will, the report will be a good
one.
For the rest
of the week, they busy themselves with either doing the typical tourist things
or doing nothing at all, lying stretched out on the grass in various parks,
watching the rest of the world go by without them. He introduces her to some
people that he’s been working with all summer, and she surprises him by proving
to be deadly accurate when a group of them go bowling. She’s less adept at pool
he discovers, though he enjoys the close proximity involved in trying to teach
her, and he has a vague suspicion in his mind that she’s not really as bad as
she’s supposed to be, that she’s just pretending to avail of that same
proximity, not that he’s going to call her on that.
But the
highlight comes when they go to the Pekinpah concert, where they dance the
night away, and Greg feels like life is perfect, listening to the music of one
of his favourite bands, playing just feet away, with Ellie in his arms.
He thinks
life can’t get any better, but he is proven wrong later that night.
He calls
out Mike’s name when they get home, because his uncle is as much a night owl as
he is, and there’s no way he’d be in bed so early. Silence greets them though,
and every light in the house is off, and he finds himself glancing at Ellie,
vaguely confused. “Doesn’t look like he’s home,” he says needlessly, a look at
the board in the kitchen showing no note from Mike to say where he is.
“Check the
machine,” Ellie suggests, pointing at the flashing red display, showing that
they have three messages. Taking her at her word, Greg presses the button,
listens to one of Mike’s friends calling about plans for the weekend, listens
to his mother calling to check in on the two of them. The third message,
however, has Mike’s voice filling the room, sounding more stressed and harried
than Greg can ever remember his uncle sounding.
“Greg, it’s
Mike. I’m just calling to let you know that the bottom’s dropped out of this
proposal we’re working on, and we have to rework most of it… looks like it’s
gonna be an all-nighter, so don’t wait up, and I’ll see you in the morning.”
With that,
the machine beeps, and all around Greg is silence, the only sound he can hear
the pounding of his heart. Because that message means something that has never
happened to him and Ellie before since they’ve been dating; it means that they
will be here, in this house, alone, all night.
Which isn’t
something that he would normally have a problem with per se. After all, Greg’s
hardly lived a monk-like existence at Stanford, nor even before then. There
have been the problems of parents and chaperones and room-mates to overcome,
but they’ve always been overcome, or at least, they always had been. But with
Ellie, things have been different, because he’s been very aware that her
experience with guys was limited, to say the least, and he’s never wanted to
rush her, make her uncomfortable, has never treated her like any of the other
girls that he’s been involved with. Hence, the walking her to her dorm room
door, but never going in, his sleeping on the couch all this week. It’s not the
choice that he personally would make, but he’s doing it for Ellie, so he
perseveres.
The last
thing that he wants is for her to think that just because his uncle’s not
coming home, just because they have the house to themselves, that he expects
her to sleep with him. The fact of the matter is though, he’s a red-blooded,
college-aged male, who is madly in love with his girlfriend, and that was the
first place that his mind headed on hearing that message. He’s very afraid that
that will show in his face, so he stares at the answering machine for what
seems like a very long time, running the periodic table of elements through his
head in an effort to stave off other, more amorous, images.
It works
for about a second, because he gets only as far as sodium before Ellie’s hand
slides into his, squeezes gently, and the gesture makes him turn his head to
look at her. He sees something in her eyes that he’s never seen in there
before, and it makes him swallow hard, grinning at her. “Wow, that’s a bummer,”
he says, and even he can hear the insincerity in his voice. Ellie doesn’t seem
upset though, just smiles, and while that would normally make Greg relax, now
it has the opposite effect. To cover it up, he tries to step away from her,
towards the kitchen, talking all the while. “You want something to drink?” he
offers. “We still have some hot chocolate I think…”
“Greg.”
He’s not sure if it’s her voice that stops him, or the fact that she hasn’t let
go of his hand, but he stops either way, turns ever so slowly to look at her.
That look is still in her eyes, that small little smile, and she steps close to
him, laying her free hand over his chest. He seems to be having trouble
speaking, but that’s ok, because she’s not, tilting her head to one side as she
looks at him. “What if I don’t want something to drink?” she asks, not the
slightest tremor of doubt in her voice. “What if I can think of other things to
do?”
There can
be no doubt in Greg’s mind as to her meaning, not when she’s looking at him
like that, and he swallows hard again, willing himself not to simply sweep her
up in his arms and carry her to the bedroom. “Ellie…” is all he can say, all
she lets him say.
“Greg.” Her
voice is as firm as ever he’s heard it, and his hand reaches up of its own accord,
brushing back her hair, lingering there. She reaches up, covers it with her
own, all the while, her eyes never leaving his. “This is what I want.”
Time seems
to be suspended around them, and Greg draws in a deep breath, lets it out
slowly. “Are you sure?” he asks her, hardly able to believe that he is, in
fact, asking the question, but knowing that it has to be asked.
Before she
answers, Ellie, for the first time in this whole conversation, breaks eye
contact with him, looking off to one side. It only lasts for a minute, and were
it anyone else, Greg would have taken that as a no, or at least as a
hesitation. But a split second after her eyes leave his, the corners of Ellie’s
lips turn up in a smile and Greg recognises the gesture for what it is; that
little subconscious thing that Ellie does when she’s thought about something
and made up her mind to do it, full speed ahead and damn the torpedoes. So he
barely needs to hear her words, is already smiling when she says, “Yes. I’m
sure.”
She leans over
then, brushes her lips over his, probably intending it to be a chaste kiss, but
Greg has other ideas, pulling her tight against him and deepening the kiss. She
responds by slipping her arms around his waist, and when he breaks the kiss,
taking her hand in his and leading her to the bedroom, there is no further need
for words.
>*<*>*<
“You all
right?”
He asks the
question much later, when they are curled up against one another, bodies
entwined, her head on his shoulder, one of her arms across his chest. One of
his hands traces patterns on that arm, the other is curled around her
shoulders, reaching up to play aimlessly with the ends of her hair. Her eyes
are closed, but at his question, they open, and she smiles up at him, a slow
smile as she stretches languorously against him. “I’m fine,” she tells him, and
looking at her, he believes her. “You, on the other hand,” she decides,
propping herself up to press a kiss to his cheek, “Look decidedly perplexed.”
He smiles,
chuckles slightly, because the last thing he is is perplexed; in fact, he can’t
remember a time that he’s felt more relaxed, or indeed, more at rights with the
world. “Can’t imagine why,” he tells her, and she chuckles too, lying back
down. He moves his hand down her arm, covers hers with his, twining their
fingers together, raising them to his lips for a second. “I’m just… I just
don’t want you thinking that I took advantage of you…”
He stops
talking when that pronouncement elicits a snort of laughter from her, one that
turns into peals of giggles. “And there I was,” she forces out between them,
“Afraid that you were going to think that I’d thrown myself at you.”
“Which you
did,” he points out, and she looks up at him, shrugging one shoulder, looking
as unconcerned as it’s possible for a person to look.
“Which I
did,” she agrees happily. “Are you sorry?”
His arm
tightens around her shoulders, and he kisses the top of her head. “Never.”
There’s a pause, as he tries to decide whether to ask the question, then asks
it anyway. “What about you? Any regrets?”
To his
paranoid mind, it takes her forever to reply; in reality, it’s only as long as
it takes for her to raise herself up again, to press her lips against his
quickly. “Not one,” she tells him, certainty ringing in her tone, and then she
kisses him again, and again, and this time when he rolls her over onto her
back, he doesn’t ask any questions, just loves her until they fall asleep in
one another’s arms.
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