A Lesson Learned
Rating: PG
Word Count: 734
Spoilers: Obliquely for up to Viva Las Vegas
Notes: For the LiveJournal warricksara challenge #6, ice cream
When Sara was a child, she loved ice-cream. Until, that is, she got her tonsils out. She was told by the doctors that she could eat as much ice-cream as she liked, an instruction that had caused her no end of glee, one that she took to heart.
At first, it was enjoyable.
But then, she had the ice cream headache to end all ice cream headaches, and her stomach literally churned from the sweetness, not to mention the aching in her teeth worse than any toothache she’d ever had before.
She’s never looked at ice cream in quite the same way since then, and the whole experience taught her a valuable lesson; be careful what you wish for, because it just might come true.
When Sara was an adult, she loved Gil Grissom. She fell for him the first moment that she saw him, instantly recognising him as a kindred spirit, someone who would understand her implicitly, who would respect her, treat her as an equal. Never given to daydream, she used to imagine what it would be like for the two of them to work together, side by side, wondered what, if anything, would happen between them.
Then there was a late-night phone call, three simple words, “I need you,” that had her turning her whole life upside down. For a time, it was all she could have hoped for, and she found herself falling deeper and deeper in love with him.
She’s not sure if she can pinpoint the exact time that things began to sour. When Donna Marks’s life held a mirror to her own? When she began dating Hank and Grissom acted so grouchily? When she found out about Hank and Elaine? When the lab blew up around her, and Grissom blew her out of the water with his refusal to go to dinner with her?
She knows things were far, far out of control when she found herself drinking more than she should, without even noticing how bad things were until Brass called her on it. And when she wasn’t recommended for promotion, when she got pulled over for DUI, certainly the bloom had, by then, fallen far from the rose.
Vacation gave her time to think, which was needed, because all she knew was that all she’d ever wanted was to work with Gil Grissom, to be his equal.
And then she remembered the childhood lesson that ice cream taught her.
When Sara came back from her vacation, she set about moving on with her life, concentrated on finding out who she’d become, if that was a person that she could live with being. It was harder than she might have realised, and, to her considerable surprise, Warrick, the person she’d once have said was the last person she’d ever trust, had turned out to be her staunchest ally, her best friend. He was the one person she could talk to, about anything, the one person that she knew would always be there for her. He never talked down to her, never treated her as anything less than an equal, and one day, when he came to her, looking for her advice, she realised just how far they’d come.
A month later, she realised that they’d gone even farther than she’d thought.
That was when she found herself sitting on a park bench, Warrick beside her. It was late in the morning, shift running well over time, with the sun already blazing high in the sky, and they’d been chasing down a lead that had come to nothing. They were tired, they were frazzled, and to cheer themselves up, Warrick had pointed out the ice cream vendor, had offered to treat her.
She’d laughed, had told him what happened when she got her tonsils out, but she’d accepted the ice cream, and they’d stolen a few moments from the day, trading childhood stories, laughing over their reminiscences.
Then somehow, some way, Warrick was kissing her, and she was kissing him back.
The ice-cream-cold of his lips and tongue made her shiver, but the warmth in his eyes when he pulled back ignited a blaze inside her, and all she could do was smile at him.
Sara learned a long time ago to be careful what she wished for.
But she never wished for this, and maybe, she thought, that meant that everything would work out just fine.