BLACK CLARITY

Summary: Sara knows that no one would understand her need to be out here, in the middle of the desert, sitting on the hard ground beneath a black canopy. Sara POV, GSR.

Disclaimer: CSI belongs to CBS.

Rating: K+

--

When the fire burns out here
It's brighter than the city lights
Warmer than a heart of gold
And dingo's howl just to break the silence

The sun comes up just to break the cold
Last night I woke
With the stars looking back at me
Swallowing the sky
I felt no anger, I felt no shame
I felt no reason to cry

--

Once the sun goes down, the desert becomes cold. A bitter chill descends alongside the blackened night sky. The sky is a black blanket dotted with brilliant yellow-white stars but the beauty is deceptive. The night desert air is something to avoid, a lethal air if exposure is prolonged. People aren’t supposed to spend time in the desert during the night. It’s too dangerous.

Sara knows that no one would understand her need to be out here, in the middle of the desert, sitting on the hard ground beneath a black canopy. Having spent hours trapped underneath a car in this very desert should have made the desert something to avoid, like the plague, at least until she fully ‘recovered’.

But for some strange reason the desert comforts her. Its emptiness welcomes her with loving arms. The desert is lonely and abandoned, and Sara can relate intimately to this.

The desert is hollow and silent. The silence may be an illusion but as Sara sits on the blanket she brought from her now-empty apartment she thinks that she has never heard anything so silent. There is an absence of sound, of life, of everything that Sara knew but now doesn’t know.

A silent wind whispers around her, its song floating in the air. The words are invisible but Sara feels as if she knows what the wind is saying. The wind is talking to her, agreeing with her decision. The wind touches her cheek like a caress and tells her that everything will be all right.

Sara smiles against the wind as the breeze picks up her hair and flings it around her face, making her unrecognizable, just what the desert wants.

--

Sara remembers the first time she met Gil Grissom.

It had been in Boston, on a cold January day. He had been teaching a seminar and Sara had been restless enough to attend, even though at the time she had no interest in forensic science.

Most of the people attending Gil’s seminar had fallen into a dazed state as they listened to Gil go on and on about the just exactly what forensic science was. He wanted to debunk the myths surrounding crime labs, wanted to convince people of the neutrality of science and how it could be used to overcome human bias. For the vast majority of students attending the seminar, Gil’s words had floated in one ear and out of the other.

Sara, on the other hand, had found Gil fascinating. The way he spoke, the passion in his voice that she alone seemed to be able to feel, all worked to captivate her. She listened riveted to the man standing at the front of the room, even as her neighbors’ kept having to jerk awake as their bodies tried to fall into sleep as a result of Gil’s admittedly at the time poor lecture skills.

It hadn’t mattered to Sara that Gil must have been nearing middle-aged when she was only twenty-two. She hadn’t even considered the age difference as she skipped down the stairs to the front of the room at the end of the lecture. A few others had gathered around Gil and she waited for them to finish and depart before springing upon Gil with an excitement that had even surprised her.

For one brief moment, Sara remembers, Gil had looked slightly taken aback. Then he had regained his composure and allowed her to assist him in taking his materials back to his car. He hadn’t had much but the flimsy excuse had been fine for Sara.

As she walked Gil to his car, she had learned that he was spending the next term teaching a fourth-year seminar. He encouraged her to sign up but Sara had informed him that the class was probably full by now. Gil had smiled and said he would make an exception for her.

Sara remembers that her skin had gone hot as she blushed at Gil’s comment. It hadn’t been a compliment yet it felt like one. Gil never complimented on shoes or hair or clothing, as Sara would learn, but he would compliment on qualities that he felt important. And in that brief second, when he said that he could make an exception for her, Sara knew that she had been complimented in a way that she had never been complimented before.

The class had been full but Gil really had made the expectation for her. She enrolled, bought the textbook and sat down to read it two nights before class began so that she wouldn’t make a fool out of herself when she attended the seminar.

Most of her fellow classmates had enrolled in Gil’s seminar because they thought the subject matter would be interesting. Most had been avid fans of Quincy and obviously thought the class would just be like the TV show. They had been wrong.

Throughout the term Sara had heard numerous complaints regarding Gil’s teaching method. They found him dull and insipid. He spent most of the time talking, allowing for questions only during the brief periods of time he entitled, aptly enough, ‘Question Period’. The students felt like they were taking a lecture course and not a seminar, and what they had signed up for had been a seminar.

In contrast, Sara couldn’t help but enjoy Gil’s seminar. He took the textbook and made it come alive with his real-life experience. He illustrated everything he talked about with examples that had really happened, often complete with photographs and diagrams. Sara, who had never considered forensic science, found herself deeply interested, and not just because of Gil.

Still, Gil had a lot to do with her interest.

Every week she went to his office hours, usually the only one to do so. They would spend the hour talking as Sara subtly pursued Gil. Just how subtle she was Sara would never know but at the time she felt that she was being subtle. Given how oblivious Gil could be to the real world, it wouldn’t surprise her to learn that he probably never even realized she was flirting with him.

The end of the term came.

After marks were submitted and all the i’s dotted and all the t’s crossed, Sara asked Gil to dinner. She used the excuse that she wanted to discuss with him her graduate studies, which she was planning to begin in the fall. Gil readily agreed and they went to a nice restaurant Sara had heard about from a classmate. She had even worn a dress for the occasion.

They really hadn’t discussed her graduate studies. Instead they had spent the dinner discussing laws and forensic science and a billion other things that Sara had never even considered before she had met Gil.

A bottle of wine was consumed between the two of them. At the end of the night, when Gil pulled into the apartment complex Sara lived in, she had invited him up to her apartment. Giddy with wine, she had led Gil to her apartment, opening the door before kissing him just as her front door closed.

She can still remember that night, even though she was tipsy with alcohol. She remembers how it felt, how wonderful Gil was, and how it was everything she hadn’t expected it to be.

Morning came and the sun rose. Sara had woken before Gil and she had just lain in the bed next to him, studying in like he was one of his insects underneath a microscope. Gil had just smiled when he had opened his blue eyes to find her watching him, studying him.

What Sara remembers most, though, is how comfortable Gil had been with the turn of events. And then she remembers how she had broken his heart, and hers in the process, by leaving.

It was only in the bright morning light, as Gil offered her everything she had thought she would never be offered, that Sara realized just what a mistake she had made.

If the news ever got out that she had slept with her teacher just days after the term was over there would be no way to deny the accusations that Gil had pressured her to have sex with him in exchange for the ‘A’ Sara had received in the class. His reputation would be tarnished and hers as well. Everyone would just see her as some slut, some loose girl who would sleep with her professor just to get a good mark. It would call into question her entire academic career. It would forever hang over her head and she wasn’t willing to let that happen.

Gil hadn’t seemed worried about the repercussions of a relationship but Sara had been consumed with worry. She had also been consumed with guilt. While she didn’t want her reputation ruined, Gil had even more to lose and she couldn’t, no, wouldn’t, be the reason for his downfall. Sara had vowed to herself a long time ago that she would never be anyone’s downfall.

Suddenly the decision that had been plaguing her for months was clear. She had been debating whether she wanted to return to California and begin her graduate studies at Berkley. In the aftermath of sleeping with Gil, the decision became obvious and she sent in her acceptance letter that morning, as Gil sipped coffee in his boxers at her kitchen table.

Sara knows she shocked Gil when she announced, two days after they slept together as they ate dinner at a family restaurant, that she had chosen Berkley. Gil had told her that he was returning to Las Vegas, where he had spent the previous two years working. He also knew that she had been accepted into the Master’s Program at UNLV. And by that very knowledge Gil knew that she was saying goodbye.

She had left him at the restaurant in stunned silence. Following her announcement all Sara had wanted to do was escape and so she had just left him there at the restaurant, mumbling something about wanting to be friends.

Gil had stopped by her apartment the next night, wanting to confirm that she was indeed going to be attending Berkley. She had told him that she had already sent in her confirmation letter. Gil had just nodded.

Then Sara had told him that she’d like to remain friends. She asked for his address in Las Vegas and Gil had given it to her, probably expecting that Sara would never ever write him.

Write him was what she had done.

Fear had made her chose Berkley but it was something akin to love that made it impossible for Sara to break all ties with Gil. She never wanted to be his downfall but she still desperately wanted him. Wanting him was what had made her ultimately abandon her decision to get her PhD in Physics upon completion of her Master’s degree. She had instead joined the coroner’s office, repeating what Gil had done when he had been around her age.

Gil had supported her, given her advice through the emails they had exchanged once Sara had bought a personal computer. And through all of this Sara found herself wanting a second chance, thinking that maybe she had been hasty in her belief that she would be Gil’s downfall if they got together.

When Gil called her and requested that she leave San Francisco and come to Las Vegas it had been a dream come true. And she hadn’t hesitated to abandon her life in San Francisco.

If anything, Sara knows she has always been good at leaving.

--

It took years to convince Gil that he could trust her again.

Sara always knew Gil was attracted to her. She had known that fact since college. The attraction was always there, and she could play on that. Attraction was something that Gil couldn’t avoid. Attraction happened and that was that.

Trust was a whole other ballpark.

While Gil could admit that he was attracted to her, that attraction didn’t mean he trusted her. Sara knew he could look at her, flirt with her, feel the sexual tension so thick that it was practically its own separate entity, but what Gil couldn’t do was trust her. He wouldn’t trust her. He had trusted her once, Sara knew, and she had shown her true colors. She had run, hard and fast.

Trust is a tricky thing. It’s easy to lose and hard to regain. Sara knows this intimately.

Initially, Sara came to Las Vegas at Gil’s call because she wanted a second chance. The years apart had given her time to grow and she believed that she was a different person than the girl Gil had known at Harvard. There were, of course, numerous similarities between that Sara and this Sara but the main difference, as Sara liked to believed, was that she was no longer afraid of commitment.

The same thing couldn’t be said of Gil.

At first Sara had been careful not to overwhelm Gil with her newfound belief that they should be together. Despite the fact that he had been the one to call her and give her a job, Sara knew that Gil hadn’t been prepared to hear any spiel about how she thought it could work now. What he needed was time to adjust to having her physically back into his life. She’d start slow and increase her pace when she felt that Gil was ready.

Unfortunately, patience was never Sara’s strong suit.

For the first year or so, Sara was content to just be friends with Gil. She was happy to be colleagues and nothing more. Having broken his heart once, Gil was entitled to be a little slow in welcoming her back into the non-professional and personal part of his life.

After a couple of years, Sara got restless. She could understand Gil’s reluctance to a point but there came a point when enough was enough. So Sara decided to make a move, which backfired just wonderfully.

Asking Gil out on a date proved to be the wrong strategy. He said no and that he didn’t know what to do about them. Sara had been able to read between the lines.

In just a few short words, Gil told her that he was undecided about what to do about his feelings for her. And from those words, Sara got the impression that it was unlikely that anything would change in the near future. In Boston she had been given a chance and she had rejected it, so now Gil wasn’t willing to risk his heart. He could be attracted to her but he wasn’t going to give into that attraction.

The whole experience had been disheartening, to say the least.

Sara blamed the failure on her impatience. She chided herself for pressuring Gil at a time when he was already being tugged on from a dozen different hands. Her impatience had cost her the one thing that she wanted

--

If I'm not here in the morning
I'll cry a river of tears
But I'll learn to live in a new town
But my heart is staying here

--

By the time Gil finally trusted her enough to let him back into his life romantically, Sara had all but given up hope on this happening. She had been in Las Vegas for years already. She had pursued Gil and hadn’t made any headway into winning back that trust she had destroyed at twenty-two.

Sara still doesn’t know what made Gil decide to throw caution to the wind and trust her again. Trusting her meant he had to have faith that she wouldn’t break his heart again. After she broke his heart all those years ago, Gil had lost whatever faith he had processed at that time and became a man that could only believe in the tangible. Faith wasn’t a tangible entity Gil could quantify and so faith was something Gil never had. Yet somehow he had found enough faith to trust her again, undoubtedly digging around in the recesses of his heart and mind to find enough find to grant her a second chance.

The offer had been extended, a dinner invitation, and Sara had taken it without thinking. Sometimes she wonders if her ability to think rationally around Gil meant that she was a love-sick girl. A naïve and foolish girl with no self-esteem and no confidence. When she thinks these things she has to push those thoughts forcefully from her mind but the taste of those thoughts still linger, like the bad aftertaste of alcohol.

Sometimes it pains Sara to think about how she grasped Gil’s invitation like it was a lifeline being thrown from shore. While she always wanted Gil to give her a second chance, another part of her is unwilling to believe that she was just in Las Vegas to wait that invitation. That meant something disturbing and it didn’t seem to bode well for their future. It meant she was entirely dependent on Gil and Sara associated dependency with downfall.

So she told herself that any woman would have taken Gil’s invitation without thinking too much. It might be a lie but it comforts her.

--

Their (second) romantic relationship began with dinner at Gil’s house. Initially Sara had thought the whole home-cooked dinner to be an entirely romantic gesture she had never suspected Gil to be capable of. It was only after Gil outlined the constraints of their relationship that Sara realized there was it was practicability that drove Gil’s choice to cook.

Years ago Gil had been prepared to make sacrifices for their relationship. When they renewed their physical relationship, he made it subtly clear that he wasn’t prepared to make the same sacrifices. He liked his position as supervisor. He liked where he was professionally and there was a fair bit of reluctance on his part to give it all up, even if he now trusted her.

To console herself, Sara told herself that Gil’s decision was only temporary. One day soon he would no longer want to hide behind a wall of secrecy and then their relationship would be out in the open. There was of course the risk that they would lose their jobs but Sara was willing to sacrifice her career for love, something she hadn’t been ready to do at twenty-two. When she thinks about it now, though, she realizes that while she contemplated this reality, she never would have been able to handle it.

It’s beautiful to think that love can conquer all but Sara’s no longer sure of this. She isn’t quite sure she ever truly believed this or if she just bought into it precisely because of the beauty the words evoked.

Beauty was a thing Gil valued. English poetry possessed a beauty that Gil adored. He read it, almost obsessively, and she loved the sonnets and couplets he would recite. The words would evoke images of beauty and of love so grand and passionate that it was nearly impossible to capture with words. Gil would read the words and they would intoxicate her. She herself began to read that genre of poetry despite the fact that before Gil classical poetry had held very little interest for her. She had read poetry but her tastes back there had ran towards more new-age material that never possessed the lyrical beauty Gil adored. Somewhere all the way Sara stopped reading this poetry and allowed Gil’s poetry to take over her life. She isn’t sure what to make of that so she tries not to think about it too often.

Their relationship was both easy and hard. It was easy because there was a familiarity that years of working together had created. It was hard because their relationship was a huge secret. It was a secret that weighed heavily on her heart and Sara knows it weighed heavily on Gil’s. He had always instructed his co-workers to be honest but then he had betrayed his own advice and lived a lie.

Living a lie didn’t help Gil when miniature killer kept taunting them. Both events helped propelled Gil into a depression that eventually culminated with him leaving.

It had hurt her to see Gil leave but Sara had told herself that Gil would be back. While others may have doubted this, Nick in particular, Sara had never thought that not returning was an option for Gil. Once he committed himself to something he never changed his course. Gil wasn’t like her. He didn’t run. That was her forte.

The cocoon was an example of how Gil committed to things. The cocoon bridges the transformation of a caterpillar to a butterfly, a natural evolution. It symbolized to Sara how Gil was committed to their changing relationship. The gift was meant to reinforce her belief that Gil wasn’t about to abandon this natural evolution of their relationship. It had taken her a while to figure out this mystery but was she had the cocoon had become a prized possession.

Evolution was par for the course of their relationship. They went from co-workers to friends to lovers in a natural feeling succession. Soon they were essentially living together, her apartment merely a storage room for the vast majority of her things. Gil’s dog Locard, a somewhat nervous but still sweet dog, became used to her presence and accepted her in Gil’s bed after a period of time. They were engaged in a co-living lifestyle without any of their co-workers being the wiser.

Hiding, though, is hard. It was hard to keep quiet when Gil was away because even if she knew rationally that Gil would return, what she felt emotionally was a different thing. She felt insecure and hadn’t been able to help the feeling of dread that would creep up her spine without her awareness. The cocoon was nice but it wasn’t until Gil came home that she understood the true meaning behind the gift. It would have been nice to air some of her concerns to Nick or Greg. Even Warrick or Catherine would have been preferable to the journal Sara had instead poured her soul into. The journal didn’t talk back and it couldn’t give advice so it was really a useless exercise.

Still, despite all the hardships, Sara had firmly believed that being with Gil was better than not being with Gil. Afterall, they loved each other. Who cared if they had to hide that love? Being in love was enough to sustain them, at least that was what Sara told herself when she had her doubts. And she had her doubts. Sometimes they constantly plagued her, most often when Gil was consumed with work and away from her. She told herself it was human nature to have doubts and left it at that.

Everything was going fine, or so she told herself, until Natalie came and abducted her from the parking lot of the CSI building. Natalie had targeted her because of what she meant to Gil, or at least that was the reasoning Gil gave her in the hospital. Laying there in the hospital, having just survived her whole desert ordeal, Sara couldn’t help but feel that was a stupid reason for all that she had endured. A deep sympathy for what Nick must have felt after he was buried alive for the stupid reason of being the unlucky CSI to respond to a call built inside her. She wanted to scream at Gil when he said those things to her. Those words made it sound like she was merely an extension of Gil, a real person no longer.

She couldn’t live with that and so she made her decision.

--

There’s a part of her that knows leaving is the wrong decision. But the larger part, the part that is ruling both her head and her mind, is saying that she needs to leave.

Sara approaches this decision level-headedly. It hurts to leave, no doubt about that, but she’s sure this is the right decision, even if there’s a part of her that says it’s the wrong decision.

There’s a poetic injustice to the whole thing, she thinks, and Sara wonders if Gil will get that. Years ago Sara would have been convinced that Gil would see it but now she’s not sure. Still, the whole poetic injustice element is there.

It’s poetic injustice that she got the second chance she wanted, only to now leave it. It’s crumpling up that second chance and discarding it, like it is garbage instead of the precious treasure Sara had originally believed it to be.

There should have been a happy ending. There should have been a fairytale sort of ending, a happily-ever-after for the princess who was never a real princess. There isn’t, though, and that’s poetically unjust. Or maybe it isn’t and she just wants it to be.

Most people will blame her leaving on the actions of Natalie. Most people will be sympathetic to her plight because, afterall, she was left buried underneath a car for nearly twenty hours. Most people will find it unsurprising that she left, that she abandoned Las Vegas and Gil in much the same manner as she abandoned Boston and Gil.

Sara knows the truth.

That happy ending that should have been was never in the cards. That was never her and Gil’s ending and this is what Sara realizes now. As much as she hates that truth, it is the truth.

The truth was that she loved Gil but that love wasn’t enough. Love didn’t conquer all, like the poetry Gil adored suggested. Sometimes love faltered. Sometimes love lead to downfall. Sometimes it was necessary to abandon love because that was the only option. She wanted love to be one thing and it wasn’t and because of her foolish naiveté that she apparently hadn’t escaped she had sealed her fate and closed the door on the fairytale ending she never knew she wanted until she lost it.

That fact is a sad, sad thing. Sara wishes it wasn’t true but she knows it is. It’s a truth she must live with.

--

Leaving has always been something Sara does well.

So she rises from the hard desert ground, ready to head to the car that is already packed. That car will take her away from Las Vegas, away from the life that has been hers for the past eight years.

Whether it was really her life is debatable. She’s still leaving it though.

Sara doubts that Gil will ever truly understand why she gave up on the second chance it took so long for her to obtain. He won’t listen to the spectators, who will tell him that it was the stress resulting from everything that had happened that made Sara pack up and abandon her life in Las Vegas. He’ll just be perplexed and hurt and a million other things that Sara doesn’t want to think about because, in the long run, Gil is better off without her.

In Boston, Sara had feared that she would be Gil’s downfall. In San Francisco, Sara had come to believe that she wouldn’t be Gil’s downfall. In Las Vegas, Sara had pursued Gil and had eventually been granted the prize for such steadfast pursuit.

What Sara now knows, what she thinks she has always known, is that her relationship with Gil would cause a downfall, just not in the way she had expected.

Her belief had been that she would cost Gil, and herself, everything that they had worked so hard for professionally. Sara had never even considered that her relationship would come at the price of herself.

That was way she was leaving. The cost of having Gil was too high. She loved him but she couldn’t lose herself just because of love. She needed to be a person and right now she wasn’t a person. Loving Gil had turned her into a ghost. Sara had never wanted that and so she can’t stay even if that means she loses Gil.

Being in love is an easy thing but living in love in a hard thing. There are too many variables and sometimes it just doesn’t work. Sometimes love wasn’t enough. Love can change a person and not always for the better.

Sara knows she could stay with Gil and be moderately happy. But if she did then someday down the road she would hate Gil and she loves him too much to do that to him. It hurts to leave but in the end it will save both her and Gil. She won’t cease to be a person and Gil won’t become someone she hates.

She could stay and believe that things would change but then she would just be a fool. She can’t be the fool and so she has to accept the hard truth. She and Gil were never destined to live happily-ever-happy, not now. Love does happen but she thinks that their love failed because she was too naïve, too ready to believe in the beauty love possessed instead of thinking about what love should mean to herself personally. She let herself become deluded by Gil’s conception of love and in the process committed the series of errors that would lead to her having to leave to save herself.

It’s too bad that she had realized this earlier because if she had then she and Gil might have gotten that fairytale ending. Now that’s not in the cards, will never be in the cards, and that’s just her fate. There are only so many chances to get love right before there are no more. This was her last chance with Gil and she screwed it up colossally.

The wind whips her hair around her face as Sara walks to the car. As she walks, she considers the possibility that her decision is the coward’s decision, justified however thinly by an excuse that allows her to leave without feeling guilt. She never discussed her decision with Gil and made it thinking it was the best for both of them. Perhaps because of that she is a coward but the decision has been made and there’s no turning back.

Gil has probably already found the letter Sara left saying goodbye. It wasn’t a descriptive letter, just a mere note telling him that she was gone. Another example of how she chose the coward’s route out but Sara tells herself that she hasn’t made the coward’s decision. She tells herself that she made the lover’s decision and for the most part Sara believes that she made the right decision.

--

The miles zip by as Sara drives along the desert highway, away from Las Vegas. Road markers announce how far she’s come since leaving Las Vegas and with each mile she becomes a little lighter, a little freer.

Gil remains in Las Vegas and it pains her to leave but as the miles get swept by Sara feels something akin to relief. She’s freeing herself from the bonds that prevented her growth. Her heart feels heavy right now but a time will come when her heart feels fine. She’s saving herself, and Gil in the process, and she knows she’ll be all right. Gil will be too, even if he does feel hurt for a while. At least he’ll have Catherine and Warrick and Nick and Greg to help him out.

The open window brings in the dry desert smell and Sara gulps in mouthfuls because soon she won’t be anywhere near the desert anymore. She’ll need these last moments of driving on the desert road to last a lifetime because she had no plans to ever go back to the desert.

Even if one day she finally learns to love without losing herself, she’ll never return to Las Vegas. She never does—her leavings are always permanent.

She knows Gil won’t chase her. It isn’t his style and she asked him not to in her letter. It’s their final break and the finality of it is strangely comforting to Sara as she passes the Welcome to Arizona sign. She’ll always love Gil but she needed to leave and she feels light as the miles continue to put distance between her and Las Vegas. It’s a feeling she hasn’t felt in a while and it feels good.

Leaving is what Sara does best. It is her curse and her salvation.

--

When it's quiet out here
A hundred miles away
You can hear the train on the line
The whistle blows just to break the silence
I wave just to break the time
I close my eyes
I think of runnin' water
I think of runnin' away
But the fires burnt to ashes
And it's darker than before
But I can see as clear as day

--

THE END

Author’s Note: I know a lot of people love GSR but I’m afraid I’m just not one of those people. But I don’t condone bashing so I hope everything came out all right. For the record, I think I could like GSR if the show hadn’t had several instances where Sara asked the guy out and he said no. I mean, come on, after a couple of years, move on girl. So, I kind of feel like Sara’s character became one of those hopeless, naïve types and so I just can’t see to like GSR as a result. Maybe if they had shown Gil trying to undo his previous actions but all the show gave was a woman falling into a (secret) relationship with a guy who hadn’t been willing to give her that before. Okay, long rant, sorry.

Anyways, let me know what you guys think.

Oh, one last thing. I know the show stated that Sara met Gil in San Francisco but I started writing this without having seen that episode. Saw the episode and went, oh well. The writers are always messing with continuity anyways. Who cares, really?