A Good Day

Title: A Good Day
Rating: G
Spoilers: 8x02, "A La Carte"
Focus: Sara, team, mentions of GSR
Words: 373

Author's Note: This is very short, and probably a bit rough, but I just watched "A La Carte" and...well, I just needed to get this written and posted. It's also quite angsty for me, the queen of fluff (don't worry, more fluff is coming!).




It was a good day.

After a few rounds, Catherine came and watched with her. The men insisted that they divide up the cheering equally, so Sara yelled herself hoarse for Grissom and Greg, and Catherine took Warrick and Nick, screaming madly each time they came around the bend.

“He loves you,” Catherine said suddenly, as they watched the men whiz around the track.

Sara laughed as Grissom neatly cut Nick off, grinning like a kid in a candy shop. “And I love him,” she said.

*

It was a good day.

The guys hugged her carefully and fussed over her and refused to let her carry anything.

This for some reason included napkins, which involved an amusing incident where she got up to get some, and Greg, attempting to beat her to it, somehow ended up stretched out on the floor with french fries all over him.

Normally she hated being treated like a porcelain doll, but these were her guys, and they had been scared for her. And she loved them, so she let them fight over who got to fetch her pizza, move her chair, and refill her drink.

That was how they showed love.

*

It was a good day.

They argued and teased and laughed, and talked about cases and theories and conferences and papers.

She was able to sit next to Grissom, so close they were nearly touching, and not be afraid that anyone would notice their complete and total lack of personal space.

She wasn’t trapped under a car or wandering in the desert.

She wasn’t stuck in a foster home with too many kids and not enough time, attention, or anything else.

She wasn’t being shoved across the room into a door by one or the other of her parents.

She wasn’t alone. Not anymore.

*

It was a good day.

And she clung to that memory once they got home, when she curled up on the couch and cried in huge, shuddering sobs, cursing Ecklie and departmental regulations and their stupid, ridiculous desperation for privacy and anything else she could think of, while Grissom held her and rubbed her back and made soothing noises, because he understood.

Because even good days, even the best days, can be bittersweet.