FIC: Family

Title: Family
Author: rachelkow14 (aka weirdgirl42)
Summary: a post 8.02 reflection
Spoilers: up to "A La Cart"
Rating: G
Parings: GSR

XXXXXXXXXX

Family

As she watched the rest of her now former team race around the track she felt a wave of sadness wash over her.  It had been happening to her pretty regularly since her rescue and each time she also felt a twinge of guilt.  She was alive, she had no reason to be sad.

But now, watching the people she had come to love as a family have fun together in a way she wouldn’t be able to anymore.  She knew it was the right choice.  It wasn’t fair to the team to make Grissom change.  But she knew she’d miss it, miss them.

After a few more laps Nick pulled his cart over again and jumped out.  Coming to stand next to her he wrapped his arm around her shoulder.

“How ya doin’ Kiddo?” he said.

Ever since she had met Nick there was something about his half-Texan accent that for some reason always served to calm her.  She turned her head and grinned at him.  “You are less than two months older than me Slick.”

Nick laughed and squeezed her slightly, resting his cheek on her head.  “We’re gonna miss you,” he said.

Sara raised an eyebrow.

“Ecklie told me.”

She nodded and they turned to watch the others.

“I’m happy for you guys,” Nick said after a few minutes.  “You and Griss.  Bout time you two figured it out.”

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you.”

Nick waved off her apology.  “I get why you didn’t.”

“A part of me wanted to.  Especially cause you were part of the reason.”

Nick looked at her, his brow crinkled.

“Whatever you said to him in the hospital, after you were taken, I don’t know what you said but he showed up at my apartment that night.  Been together ever since.”

“That long?” he said.  “How did we not figure this out?”

Sara laughed.  “I’ve wondered that myself.”

By then, the rest of the team had had enough racing and were walking towards them.

“Breakfast!” Greg said, his usual exuberance shining through.

Grissom came to stand next to Sara as Nick removed his arm from her shoulders.  “You up for going?” he asked.

She had been surprised that Grissom’s concern and desire to care for her during her recovery didn’t bother her.  She just smiled at him and nodded before reaching out and straightening the cap on his head.

Grissom looked and saw that everyone else was already walking towards the door so he quickly leaned in and kissed her gently.  She was about to comment on his sudden comfort with PDA when Nick came running back.

“Sara?” he said, “I meant to ask you…you didn’t tell Greg did you?”

“What?”

“Greg implied to me that he knew and I was just wondering…”

“When Greg came to visit me in the hospital he told me that when Grissom told you guys it was all he could do not to faint.”

Nick grinned and ran back towards Greg, Sara and Grissom could hear bits and piece of their conversation and had to laugh.

At the diner Sara quietly observed the rest of them as they talked about their most recent cases.  Grissom had kept her up to date but she decided to stay out of the conversation.

As Catherine was teasing Warrick about night vision goggles he caught Sara’s eye, then he nodded and winked, letting her know that he had her back.  Greg had taken it upon himself to make sure Sara’s water glass was always filled; she had told him in the hospital that she wasn’t sure she’d ever stop being thirsty again.  Nick snuck half his pancake onto her plate when he thought she wasn’t looking.  Catherine finished her teasing then turned and whispered to Sara that she would be missed.  And Grissom…

Grissom kept his hand on her knee the entire time, eating his western omelet with one hand.  At one point his hand curled into the sign for “I love you.”  With his middle and ring finger folding under his palm.

It was then that a new feeling washed over her.  She had spent her whole life keeping people at arm’s length.  Closing herself off for fear of being hurt.  She was flooded with the memory of a movie she’d seen in one of the foster homes.  The one about the Grinch who stole Christmas.  She had spent her whole life resenting people who had families, thinking she would never have that.  No matter how good she was in foster homes, no one ever came to adopt her.  And sometimes it felt like she was some kind of produce, never ripe for anyone to take home and love.

Nick loved her.  And Warrick and Greg and even Catherine in her own way.  Graveyard shift, swing shift, these people were her family and nothing could take that away.  And Grissom loved her.  Tomorrow if she decided that she wanted to move to Alaska and open a bar for fisherman he’d be on the internet in a minute looking for flights and bartending schools.

So maybe family, like Christmas didn’t come from a store, or from blood and DNA.  Maybe family meant something a little bit more.

The End

Kinda short and sappy but it was floating around my head.