CSI: In Stitches - Purl (2/3)

[knitwitfics]

Fandom: CSI
Characters: Gil Grissom, Sara Sidle
Pairings: Hints of GSR
Rating: PG
Summary: Sara finally gets a hobby and learns a couple lessons along the way. A hint of GSR, a slightly Christmasy ending, and some seriousness amongst the fluff.
Originally written: December 2004

There were already a few people there by the time Sara arrived, clutching her bag to her chest as though it contained jewels, too precious to part with. In a way the item in the bag was more precious than jewels, even; too much hard work, frustration and sweat had gone into it to lose it now.

The others greeted her warmly, surrounding her with the acceptance and easy friendship she had come to expect at these get-togethers. As she sat in her usual chair, she was rather amazed at it, really. She'd never really gone out of her way to become friends with the others, but somehow she had been woven into the group. There were people she couldn't stand, of course, but there were more that she liked. A couple were judgemental, but most were open, accepting. She hadn't shared any of her secrets with them, but she had the feeling she could, if she ever wanted to.

Taking off her coat and hanging it on the back of her chair, she opened her canvas tote bag--a proper bag now, she thought, instead of the shopping bags she'd used previously--and pulled out the sum of her labours: a three-feet-long, charcoal-grey scarf. This was its first appearance at the "Desert Purls" Stitch-'n-Bitch, though one of those present had seen it before, as she'd helped in getting it started. Sara had been reluctant to show anyone her work until she knew it was perfect, which had taken no little amount of time.

Even she couldn't explain why she stuck with it. She'd never expected to actually enjoy something so...domestic. And so much of it wasn't enjoyable--dropping yet another stitch, trying to figure out what she she was supposed to do next, ripping everything out ten times as she made mistake after mistake. But sometimes she noticed she didn't think about things while she concentated on the needles in her hands. Disagreements with co-workers, the frustrations of a case... All of it kind of melted away, and there were moments--rare ones at this point, but moments--where her mind just emptied of all thought and she zoned out, a blissful feeling while it lasted. She didn't come home and grab a beer from the fridge, she sat on the couch and took out her knitting. She actually took breaks at work, exchanging the riddle of a case for the riddle of a row of stitches. Something kept her at it, her usual determination not to fail at whatever she tried her hand at, maybe. Or maybe, she thought, it was just another thing to become obsessive about.

Somehow typically of her, when faced with the decision of what to do after the usual starter projects, she'd gone for something that was miles ahead of her skill level: the difference between crawling and running. She'd looked through hundreds of patterns, trying to find the right thing, and had finally come into Desert Purls with a book in her hands, opening it to a scarf pattern which used a braided cable up the middle of the scarf, four columns of stitches that wove in and out, twining around each other. "I want to do this next," she'd said in a tone that indicated she'd brook no argument. It was the same kind of determination that had brought her this far: she would learn to do this, no matter how difficult.

Sara had seen the look of doubt on the face of Debbie Marsden, owner of the store, but Deb hadn't argued, had simply started to show her how to move stitches around each other with a cable needle, how to read directions from a chart.

Now, two months later, Sara had finally decided it was good enough to show the others. She'd never been good at failure; bringing an object with a single mistake in it was not an option, and there had been many mistakes. However, she had dutifully ripped out every mis-crossed stitch, every knit that should have been a purl and vice versa.

As she pulled the scarf out of its bag, heads swivelled in her direction at the prospect of something new. Hands gnarled with arthritis and soft with youth reached out to touch the yarn, to trace the pattern of the cables with their fingers. Sara was finding that knitters were very tactile people. When faced with something new, they wanted to touch, feel, examine carefully. To turn it over and look at every side. To admire its beauty, or to find out all its mysteries. To look at something small, a single element, and visualise the whole. It was, she thought, not unlike her work. Which was odd, really, as this was supposed to be something she did to get away from work, to have something outside work to fill up her time.

"Wow. That looks hard," said Helen, a recent arrival; a woman in her forties who was working on her fifth fuzzy scarf.

"It just takes patience," piped up one of the younger women, Kerri. She was a college student, cranking out sweaters at the rate of about one for every two exams.

Sara nodded, she'd learned this lesson--well, partially at least. "You just have to look at what you're doing and take it slowly."

"This cable-two-back looks really loose," the other college student, Adrienne, piped up. She pointed at a spot where two columns crossed over each other, about ten inches from the beginning of the scarf. Sara squeezed her jaws shut to keep from making a retort; she still didn't like that spot. One day she'd decided that it might be nice to have a drink, or two, after work (she'd hardly had any recently, after all, she was being very good, she deserved it), and then decided she'd pick up her knitting. Knitting and drinking didn't mix, and when she'd woken for work that evening, the sight of what she'd done to the scarf in those moments of tipsy dedication had been worse than the hangover.

"It'll come out in the blocking," Deb said, hurrying past with a bag of yarn, shooting Sara a smile. The unofficial peacekeeper of the bunch, she was used to keeping Sara and Adrienne on speaking terms.

"Is it a gift for someone?" Daniel, one of the two male members of the group asked, quickly.

"It better not be for a boyfriend." This from Joyce, the member who'd been knitting for at least five decades.

"Why not?" Kerri asked.

"It's the sweater curse; though it applies to more than just sweaters. Knit for a man who hasn't given you a ring, and he never will," Joyce replied.

"That's crap," Adrienne said.

"It's true. Generations of knitters have noticed the exact same thing. Probably has something to do with the amount of time and effort hinting at one partner being more committed to the relationship, or the hint of domesticity," Joyce said, flatly.

"It's not for a boyfriend," Sara said, feeling a blush rise to her cheeks. "It's for a...friend. Just a friend."

"Well whoever this 'just a friend' is, he's a lucky guy. It's a pretty scarf," Deb said, fanning a few magazines out on the table, "Now who wants to see some of the new yarns I got in yesterday? Someone was in this morning, and bought a couple balls of this one already." Deb placed a bowl of yarn on the table, picking up a ball of something slightly fuzzy, in muted blues and greens.

The eyes turned from Sara, something for which she was grateful. Twirling her cable needle in her fingers, she looked at the scarf. A gift for a friend--that was all. A relationship that hadn't ever started couldn't be any more cursed, could it? Just a gift, a sign of friendship, of gratitude. She didn't want anything more than that--not anymore. Ever since she'd realized it was never going to happen, she'd concentrated on what was there, rather than what wasn't.

She shook off the thought, stabbing her needle through the first stitch of the row, turning her attention to the task at hand. One stitch at a time, one row at a time, one day at a time, one case at a time. Eventually she'd have something to show for it; maybe not now, but someday. Someday, she'd look at all the work she'd done and see the beautiful scarf, instead of past mistakes and opportunities missed.