Chapter Text
I.
They expected their friends would be angry with them, in the first place, for keeping their engagement a secret and, in the second, for eloping. However, to their surprise, the most common sentiment expressed when, after the deed is done, they rock up to work that night wearing their new wedding rings is simply incredulity.
Their friends are incredulous not only of the fact they would get married in itself—though everyone has known since the time of Sara’s abduction they were together and deeply committed, not all of them had realized they were, in that particular way, traditional—but also, more specifically, they would get married and then work their usual shift ten hours later.
Catherine frames the issue most bluntly: “What the hell are you two doing here? You should be drinking mojitos on a beach somewhere! Haven’t you ever heard of a honeymoon?”
Nick is the one who makes the suggestion: “Man, since y’all didn’t register, at least take next weekend off and let us cover for you so you can go someplace nice.”
They take the weekend, but they don’t go anywhere.
Just stay in their condo from Friday morning through Monday evening.
Maybe at some other time of year, even on short notice, they could have driven up to Tahoe or flown to San Francisco, but not in late November. This impromptu honeymoon has coincided with a holiday weekend. With Thanksgiving travelers everywhere, hotel rooms are scarce, and airfare is expensive.
“It’s not like we would have been focused on the sightseeing anyway,” Sara notes, smirking.
The only time they go out is to walk the dog and grocery shop, so Grissom can get ingredients to cook them a nice meal. Otherwise, they just stay in their condo from Friday through Sunday. They have sex on almost every piece of furniture they own. Spend almost three straight days naked. Making love. Wrapped up in each other. In the scheme of things, so much uninterrupted time together is probably the best wedding gift their friends could have given them. Grissom enjoys himself so much, for the first time in his adult life, he actually dreads going back to work come Monday night.
Of course, once they do go back to work, it’s almost as if they never took any time off at all. They’re immediately slammed with two different double-homicide cases, and Grissom has to start working on his final budget report for the year to be submitted before the calendar turns over. Life very much goes back to normal, except now their teammates constantly tease them about being newlyweds, which is something they pretend to be annoyed by but secretly adore.
Only in the third week of December, eight days before Christmas—on the one-month anniversary of their wedding—does anything change.
Usually nowadays they drive to work together, but on the days when Grissom has department meetings after shift, they still sometimes take separate cars. While he spends these mornings tied up with the other shift supervisors, listening to Conrad Ecklie blather, Sara picks up Hank from daycare, runs whatever errands they have on their to-do list, and still manages to get home long before he does. Typically, she greets him at the door.
Not today, though.
Though her coat is hung on its hook and Hank is in the kitchen—he lifts his head from his food bowl and wags his tail when Grissom steps inside the condo—she’s not waiting for him, per their routine.
“Hey, buddy,” Grissom says to Hank, closing the door behind him, removing his jacket, and setting his attaché down beside the mat. “Sara?” he calls down the stairs. No answer. He hasn’t eaten in hours and wonders if she might like to go out to brunch with him to celebrate the day. “Sara?” he calls again. No answer.
Their condo is spacious enough she might not be able to hear him from the bedroom or the den, especially if she has headphones on or water running. Maybe she’s drawn a bath. When he descends the steps and sees the bedroom dark, blackout curtains closed tight, he suspects she probably has.
He enters the bedroom and flips on the light. “Sar—!” he starts to call toward the bathroom but stops immediately when he sees her, sitting directly in front of him, cross-legged, in the center of the bed. She wears pajama bottoms and a tank top, as if she were already ready for sleep, despite the early hour. Holds her hands clasped tight in her lap. Her hair is pulled back into a ponytail. Her expression is unreadable, though something about her whole bearing—her face and her posture—causes her to look somehow younger than she is.
“Sweetheart,” Grissom says, “why are you sitting in the dark? Did I wake you?”
But Grissom can already tell Sara probably wasn’t asleep. The bed is made, the comforter unrumpled beneath her. The pillows aren’t even indented, suggesting she has been sitting straight-backed in the center of the bed for as long as she’s been on it. There’s something strange in her behavior, in her waiting silently in the dark. Immediately, Grissom worries.
“I’m, uh, ten days late,” Sara says, her words tumbling out in a rush. “My period. It’s ten days late. I’m late.”
For the last few days, Sara had seemed quietly antsy and frenetic. Now Grissom understands why. The shock hits him somewhere high in his chest, though he has enough presence of mind not to visibly react. He knows he needs to remain calm and even for her sake; he can tell now what he could not read before in her is fear. She’s terrified, and she needs him not to be. He’s terrified, but he reaches for something helpful to say.
After two and a half years of them being together, he knows her menstrual cycle is irregular—her periods are sometimes less but often more than twenty-eight days apart. Never consistent. Oligomenorrhea, it’s called. While taking birth control injections has shortened the amount of time between her periods generally, even with the shots, she still doesn’t menstruate on a set, clockwork schedule like many women do.
Thanks to their irregularity, tracking Sara’s periods is difficult—an act of educated guesswork rather than hard science. Typically, she has a week-long window during which she can be fairly certain at any point her period will start. Several days ago, she told Grissom she was due for a period soon and had mentioned experiencing some symptoms of PMS, or at least so they had both assumed.
He supposes now, at ten days past time, the window is closed.
Of course, symptoms of PMS and early pregnancy can sometimes be indistinguishable.
Horripilation on the back of his neck.
“Have you ever been ten days late before?”
Sara shrugs but doesn’t unclasp her hands. If anything, she knots them more tightly together in her lap. “In college,” she says. “When I was younger. But, uh, not recently. Not for a few years, no.”
Grissom nods. He and Sara have always been so careful. They double-up on their contraceptives, a practice they started back when they needed to keep their relationship a secret—an extra layer of precaution—but which they’ve continued since their relationship became public knowledge; even since they’ve gotten married. She undergoes tri-monthly hormonal birth control injections, and he wears condoms. Statistically, he knows there is a slight possibility for failure with any contraceptive product, but it strains credulity to suppose two contraceptives could have failed at once.
“Have you, um, taken a test yet?” he asks, suddenly feeling awkward and useless standing in the doorway to their bedroom, his hands in his pockets and her on the bed in front of him, so much space between them. He takes a few steps forward and starts to sit down on the edge of the mattress just as she answers.
“No,” she says, shaking her head. “I, uh, wanted to wait until you were here. I wanted to tell you.”
He nods, grateful to her. The mattress dips under his weight. “Well,” he says, “do you w—?” but he can’t finish his question before Sara reaches behind her and produces a box.
A pregnancy test.
“I stole it from the lab,” she confesses. “I’ll, uh, replace it later.”
Grissom wants to tell her not to worry about making the replacement, but the test in the box has him transfixed. He feels strangely irresponsible, seeing it. There are so many questions he has never even thought to ask her. They had decided from the beginning to use birth control, but they have never discussed what they would do in a situation like this one. What will happen if the test comes up positive? What will she want to do? What will she want from him? The only thing he is sure of in this moment is he is willing to follow as she leads, honoring whatever she decides. But what will she decide? He feels remiss, not knowing. Like he neglected to study for his most important exam.
“Should I?” Sara asks, fidgeting. Then, quickly, “You’re not mad, are you?”
Grissom knows the answer to these questions at least. “No, I’m not mad,” he assures her, “and, yes, you should take it.”
“Okay,” Sara says, a twinge in her voice. She picks up the test in its box and slides off the bed, headed in the direction of the bathroom. Then she pauses, facing Grissom. “I’ve, uh, never taken one of these before,” she admits.
“Never?” Grissom asks, curious. He wonders about the statistical probability of a woman in her late thirties who has been sexually active since her teenage years never having had a reason to take a pregnancy test. But then he realizes. “Me, either. I mean, uh, you’re my first partner who—” He trails off. Shrugs.
His admission causes Sara to smile her first smile since he found her sitting alone in the dark. She doesn’t say anything else before disappearing into the bathroom. He waits a strange waiting on the bed, all things equally possible and impossible. Schrödingeresque. In this moment, the test is both negative and positive, their lives both unchanged and changed. The only constant is he would follow her anywhere, do anything for her. Everything else is variable.
Hank plods into the bedroom and lies down on the floor with a sigh. On the few occasions when little children have asked to pet him in the park, he has been incredibly patient with them, Grissom thinks, but then stops himself.
Minutes pass. The toilet flushes, and water runs. More strange, strange waiting. Then Sara appears in the doorframe, the unwrapped pregnancy test in hand. She doesn’t seem to be able to look at it.
“About two more minutes,” she says. “If it’s positive, there’ll be two blue lines.”
“Two blue lines,” Grissom repeats, considering for a moment the insane semiotics—how so much meaning can be contained in such a simple symbol.
“Yeah,” Sara says, voice flighty. She walks to the bed and places the test on the comforter, then clambers back up, retaking her same spot from before. Once she’s settled, she turns the test facedown. Checks the clock on the nightstand. “Thank you,” she says suddenly, looking up at him with wide eyes, “for doing this with me.” Then, even more abruptly. “Sorry.”
For someone who seldom does wrong, Sara apologizes far too often. The trait is one she developed in childhood, the result of her being the careful child of uncareful drunks. At this point in her life, it’s vestigial, unneeded. Certainly now.
“You don’t have to be sorry,” he tells her gently.
He reaches across the bedspread and curls his right hand over her left, his fingers stroking her wrist. They meet eyes but only momentarily before Sara glances back at the clock. The second minute turns over, and suddenly it’s time. He wants to tell her once more no matter what the test says, he’s with her—he loves her and would follow her down any path—but his voice and intentions fail him, and instead he can only meet her eyes. She exhales through her teeth and reaches to turn over the test.