#renb80s

[addictedtostorytelling]

Hi!

Hope you are doing well :) Just a fun and silly question ....

How do you think Sara and Grissom would react now if Sara were referred to as Mrs. Grissom?

I think there have only been two scenarios (I could be wrong) this has happened on CSI – in 10x2, Sara refers to herself as Mrs. Grissom, and in 11x13, the Two Mrs. Grissoms – in which both times it was explicitly made clear she kept her last name.

I realize that it’s the 21st century and it’s not uncommon that women keep their surname after marriage so no biggie that Sara, for all (personal and professional) purposes has kept her last name. But the GSR-fan in me was really hoping someone – either by way of humour or not – would refer to Sara as Mrs. Grissom on CSI: Vegas (in front of the hubby) and we get a reaction. (we got a "my husband" and a "my wife" so can't really complain here)

The version of GSR we got in CSI: Vegas was more jovial. They probably would have teased each other about it?

(I mean she could have gone by ‘Sidle-Grissom’, no?)

Thanks for taking the time to share your thoughts!

hi, @renb80s!

good to hear from you again!

so this topic is one that tends to be polarizing in the gsr fandom, with some people really hating the idea of sara taking grissom's last name (even as part of a hyphenate) and some people really liking it/wishing tptb would have gone that route in canon (either in the original series and/or the reboot).

regardless of one's personal feelings on the matter, the facts are these:

as you point out, sara is twice in canon referred to as "mrs. grissom," once in episode 10x02 "ghost town" and once in episode 11x13 "the two mrs. grissoms."

she is also referenced as one of the two titular "mrs. grissoms" of the latter episode in an extratextual sense.

in the first case, she refers to herself that way, albeit in jest.

in the second, she is referred to that way by julia holden.

in both instances, her reaction to being called "mrs. grissom" is to smile widely and blush.

while she does in the former case correct brass's mistaken impression that she has legally taken grissom's name and in the latter case allow her mother-in-law to correct julia holden's mistaken impression that she has taken grissom's name on her behalf, she doesn't, in either instance, appear at all offended by the mistaken impressions themselves. her responses are both very mild.

i'll take things from there after the "keep reading," if you're interested.

__

now.

canon never delves into why sara doesn't legally take grissom's last name.

the choice could be a personal one on her part.

given the attitudes she expresses in episode 06x21 "rashomama" re: women being treated as exchanged property in marriage, she could be opposed to taking her husband's last name after marriage on feminist grounds.

in a similar vein, maybe she feels maintaining her own identity even within the context of her marriage is important and so doesn't want to either give up her name or merge it with grissom's.

alternatively, perhaps on a more intimate note she wants to keep her family name as something of a testament to herself: to prove her legacy is not determined by her family of origin and that she can be a good, just person while still bearing the last name sidle; to show herself and the world her whole lineage isn't cursed/broken (“everything that happens to us—good and bad—is a part of us. it took me a long time to realize that it doesn’t have to define who we are. we get to decide”).

as an aside: i've always found it interesting sara doesn't change her name upon her emancipation from the foster care system. not only might one expect her to change her name because many former foster kids do once they age out (a fact sara herself even remarks upon in episode 07x16 "monster in the box"), but also because one might think, given her feelings about her family and her childhood trauma, she might be eager to get a fresh start under a new identity once she has the chance to. that she sticks with sidle even after she is at liberty to do otherwise is curious. whether she opts to retain her family name for the personal reason detailed above or perhaps only because legally changing her name would be prohibitively expensive for her (particularly as a financially insecure young adult), we're never told. however, the fact that she still bears her father and mother's last name 25+ years on from her father's murder is certainly fascinating.

i wonder if she was ever worried while she worked for the sfpd that someday someone might discover a link between her somewhat unique surname—according to this tracker, there are fewer than 1,000 sidles (spelled sara's way) worldwide—and a particular 1970s marin county homicide case?

more inanely, maybe she opts to stick with sidle because grissom is commonly called by his last name by their close friends/found family, to the extent she feels her being "grissom," as well, would just be too strange/confusing.

maybe she just likes the way her maiden name sounds due to the alliteration.

maybe she doesn't want her initials to be "sag."

maybe grissom (for whatever reason) never actually offers her his last name and she, not wanting to be presumptuous, never asks if she could take it and so just ultimately doesn't.

maybe she reasons since she and grissom aren't planning to have children, there isn't much imperative for them to all have the same name.

maybe she and grissom talk about the matter and make the mutual decision they don't want to take each other's names or hyphenate (for whatever reasons).

of course, the choice also could be more of a practical one for her.

maybe, like many professional women who have earned degrees, published, been awarded accolades, and built their careers under their maiden names, she doesn't want to separate herself from 20+ years of work and accomplishments.

conversely, her surname status may be more a reflection of the circumstances under which she gets married than anything else: under costa rican law, not only do women not automatically assume their husband's names upon marriage, but foreign citizens who get married in costa rica must use the same name that appears on their passports on their marriage certificates. while a foreign citizen who gets married in costa rica can opt to legally change their name in their country of residence once their costa rican marriage license is sent there, that step is 100% optional and is something the person must undertake to do on their own time/at their own expense ex post facto. that so, if grissom and sara have their wedding in costa rica (which i tend to think they do), then it's entirely possible sara ends up remaining a sidle after marriage by default: because that name is the one on her costa rican marriage license, and she doesn't take the time/pay the fees to make an official change stateside. this option may be especially likely if we consider she probably spends very little time in the states as a newlywed before moving immediately to france.

similarly, even if sara and grissom do marry in the us, she may end up a sidle not due to any strong personal feelings about the matter or professional considerations but simply because the process of legally changing one's name is, frankly, a pain in the ass: while in nevada, people can change their names upon marriage simply by making note of their intentions on their marriage certificates, there are still various costs associated with changing over all of one's legal, professional, and financial information to match one's new name, typically to the tune of about $100-$500. the process can also be time consuming/involved, often requiring in-person visits to prove one's identity at the dmv, bank, city hall, etc. figuring out what all you have to change and what documentation you need in order to make said changes can be confusing/laborious. maybe sara, after initially mulling changing her name, considers the time, expense, and effort required of the endeavor and simply says, "to hell with it," figuring since most people in her life would still know her as sara sidle anyhow, it isn't worth her while to jump through all those obnoxious hoops.

case in point: my mother, who has been married to my father and had his name for forty years, only recently discovered she apparently never changed over her social security number from her maiden name. the process of getting it changed over required dozens of phone calls and filings on her part (made difficult as, four decades on, she doesn't have much documentation linking her to her maiden name left to use for verification purposes) and took her several weeks to complete.

alternatively, maybe sara does initially intend to change her name and is maybe even in the process of doing so but never actually gets around to finishing the job due to the fact that, as a newlywed, she is so frequently in and out of the country, is extremely busy, (once she gets back to the states) works night hours, etc., etc.

maybe there is a paperwork glitch that makes the process difficult enough she doesn't elect to push the issue, even if perhaps she had initially been interested in taking grissom's name to start out with.

as a former ward of the state of california, she would not have access to her original birth certificate and was likely issued a new social security number when her mother's parental rights were severed. though she in theory has a redacted birth certificate and new ssn that are valid for legal purposes, maybe when, after her costa rican wedding, she goes to the state of nevada with her redacted/reissued documents looking to file her legal name change, they give her a hard time about them because they look funny ("how come your birth certificate says you were born in 1971 but according to this database your ssn was issued in 1980?") and require additional verification she simply cannot be bothered to provide.

it's also worth noting that while she doesn't legally take grissom's name either the first time she's married to him or the second (at least insofar as we know), her reasons for making that choice may be different in marriage 1.0 vs. marriage 2.0—for example, maybe the first go-around, she doesn't change her name due to the whole "we got married in costa rica" thing, whereas the second, she figures that after a 25+ year career, she wants to maintain the same name she built her reputation on.

of course, without knowing sara's exact reason or reasons for keeping her maiden name, we can't say with 100% certainty what her feelings on the matter of being "mrs. grissom" are—whether or not it's an issue she has strong feelings about, one way or another; if it's a decision she intends to stick with forever or if she ever might consider changing her name to grissom eventually; etc.

however, based on the two reactions to people referring to her that way we see in canon, i think, at the very least, we can infer she isn't adamantly opposed to being called mrs. grissom socially, even if she didn't take his name legally—and, indeed, may even be somewhat tickled by the experience, finding the notion amusing, if not even cute.

that so, i tend to imagine if someone were to refer to her as mrs. grissom or sara grissom during the events of the reboot, she would probably react much in the same way we see her do in s10 and s11: she'd get a big smile on her face, fluster a bit, and look to grissom, if he were with her. then, either she or he would, laughingly, point out she hadn't changed her name (at least not legally). maybe there'd be some playful banter about why she hadn't ("eh, i thought about it, but living in international waters? it would be a pain to file" "just say the words, and i'll take you to the consulate's office next time we're in guam, darlin'").

my take—and, full disclosure, i'm in the camp that doesn't mind the idea of her changing her name or even just going by grissom's surname more informally/on occasion (as is probably obvious from the fact that i often label my gsr gifsets as "the grissoms")—is that while she's never made the effort to actually legally change her name to grissom's and maybe even sees some advantages to keeping her maiden name for professional reasons, she has no problem being associated with his name socially and in fact kind of gets a kick out of it, which is why she sometimes refers to herself that way unprompted and doesn't really go out of her way to correct people who make mistakes about what she's called.

i can very easily imagine that after sara and grissom leave vegas at the end of csi: vegas s1, a few weeks later, a postcard arrives at the lab addressed to max, postmarked from panama, bearing no inscription other than a signoff "from the grissoms," written in sara's hand.

thanks for the question! please feel welcome to send another any time.

also, shameless plug: for those of you reading "an opposite of echoes," eventually, you'll get to see sara react to being called "mrs. grissom" in that story (on multiple occasions).

[addictedtostorytelling]

Putting Living Doll/the miniature storyline aside, can you think of any other way the audience and team could have found out about GSR? Personally, I liked that the audience knew before the other characters.

I think I watched in one of the DVD extras that the showrunners usually map out the season’s storyline or at least where they want the season to go. I think they always intended Sara to be one of the MK’s victims which paved the way for the team reveal. I guess this was plan B with Gum Drops being plan A (would Greg have been the first to find out??). I liked how it was revealed in LD but I think I would have preferred it more in a character-centric episode.

What kind of episodes do you think could serve as the ones to reveal GSR to the audience and/or to the team? Thank you in advance and apologies if this Ask has been done :)

hi, @renb80s!

so, first off, to answer the smaller question inside your larger one:

yes, had the originally planned gsr reveal from episode 06x05 "gum drops" actually made it to screen, greg would have been the first person on the team to find out that grissom and sara were an item—however, for how long he would have been the only team member "in the know," we really can't say.

it's possible that he might have immediately revealed what he'd seen to warrick and nick within the course of the episode or that they themselves might have come to sara's motel room not long after him and seen what was going on for themselves or even that grissom and sara would’ve just come clean to everyone once they were aware that greg knew. however, it's also possible that, barring those outcomes, it might have taken a bit longer for everyone to learn the truth; perhaps the season might have continued with each team member finding out individually at various points along the way or with everyone else besides greg finding out all together as part of some bigger event. 

honestly, without having access to the original script for the episode, we really can't say.

so to speak to your larger question itself:

there is very little "one size fits all" writing advice to which i subscribe, except for maybe this thing the inimitable flannery o'conner once said, namely:

“it's always wrong of course to say that you can't do this or you can't do that in fiction. you can do anything you can get away with, but nobody has ever gotten away with much.”

to apply that maxim to the gsr romantic reveal: there are probably hundreds of potential routes that the writers could have possibly taken in terms of introducing grissom and sara’s relationship to both the audience and the characters, all of them theoretically viable as long as they received appropriate narrative treatment to make them “work.”

that so, i don’t think there’s really one “right” answer to your question.

there are so many ways the writers could’ve cooked this particular egg, you know?

in theory, there is a really compelling version of the story where they introduce the relationship to us right at its inception, showing the traditional “first kiss,” coming-together moment on screen, just like most other shows would do for their flagship, slow-burn “will they or won’t they?” couples.

in theory, there is a really compelling version of the story where they play it more as a slow build-up thing, where the audience is shown that grissom and sara are already together (with a relationship already in progress) in some quiet, mid-season episode, and then gradually more and more characters are looped in on that fact, as well, until eventually grissom and sara publicly “come out” in a more official way.

in theory, there is a really compelling version of the story where the audience and the characters find out simultaneously, maybe as part of some big mid-season sweeps event or cliffhanger season finale (prior to s7).

in theory, there’s a really compelling version of the story where they play with the economy of information, having some characters find out before others, with the audience being the only ones to learn the “full truth” prior to some big “coming out” moment.

in theory—

well, you get the point.

there are any number of ways they could have played things.

as for what my preferred method(s) might be, i suppose my answers change depending on the variables. 

discussion after the “keep reading,” if you’re interested.

__

if we presume that tptb were never going to show us the big “get together” moment right as it happened in late s5 or early s6, meaning that we were always going to learn about the relationship ex post facto, then i, like you, am very much a fan of the approach they ended up taking, in terms of letting the audience know before the other characters, as i think it added some nice dramatic tension (and at times comedic irony) to the storyline.

so that’s something i would keep, pretty much across the board.

as for where they might have let the other characters find out, i’m somewhat conflicted.

on the one hand, i honestly might have liked to see them have grissom and sara arrive at the decision to “come out” of their own volitions, rather than being forced into doing so by external circumstances, as it would have been nice to see some character-driven reasons for them doing so as opposed to plot-driven ones. 

of course, on the other hand, i understand the inherent drama value of having them be forced into the choice or having the choice taken away from them by outside influences beyond their control.

that so, i guess i could find either kind of story compelling, depending on how everything was executed.

so a few different scenarios:

one place where tptb might have been able to fit in the reveal would have been at the end of s5 or beginning of s6, as a reaction to the events of episodes 05x24 and 05x25 “grave danger,” pts. i and ii—and they’d have had multiple different ways they would have been able to stage things, had they trodden that path.

in any scenario surrounding these episodes, we would, of course, have to assume that grissom and sara had already gotten together at some point mid-s5 (which of course is something i already tend to do anyway) and had therefore been secretly dating for at least a couple of months leading up to nick’s abduction. however, we, as the audience, would have been introduced to the fact that they were dating sometime during this span, as opposed to at the end of s6. 

i’m not really picky about how and when said audience introduction might occur.

perhaps we could be treated to an additional scene during episode 05x18 “spark of life” where at the end of the episode, it cuts back to grissom and sara in a car, making out at the top of the burnt-out hillside under a cascade of stars, with some flirty banter thrown in about how sara really doesn’t have to hint so hard to get grissom to kiss her (“not anymore”);

potentially at some point during episode 05x19 “4 x 4,” we could get some follow-up between grissom and sara about the whole “greg seeing sara naked at their crime scene” fiasco (see here);  

maybe (more dramatically) after sara’s run-in with adam trent in episode 05x21 “committed,” grissom could end up pulling her aside somewhere and kissing her in such a way that made it clear that they’re together and have been for some time.

—but, in any case, the introduction for the rest of the characters would come on the heels of nick’s abduction at the end of s5 or the beginning of s6, depending.

so, for said character reveal: 

it could be a quiet thing, where after nick is taken away in the ambulance, we get a kind of tableau shot of the team (minus catherine and warrick, who went with nick to the hospital) slumped down and exhausted, sitting around the open grave they just dug nick out of, and grissom and sara are huddled together with her head on his shoulder, holding hands, greg, brass, and ecklie watching them but not saying anything about what they’re seeing atm, and then s6 starts with grissom and sara together and “out” (with whatever attendant alterations to the team structure that change would entail already made).

it could also potentially be more of a “drama” thing, where maybe sara is more actively involved in the whole cash drop-off part of the investigation, perhaps monitoring grissom from afar as part of a police surveillance team or something, and she refuses to hold off after grissom is nearly blown up by the c4 and essentially ends up “drawing back the curtain” for everyone to see as she runs into the building after the blast or even as she fawns over him while he sits in the back of the ambulance. 

maybe we could get a nice little callback to the “honey” scene from episode 03x22 “play with fire” but with the roles reversed.

and, of course, in the aftermath of such an outward show of concern and affection, everyone would know what was what.

alternatively, maybe it could be a deal where as the stress is mounting for the team during the course of the investigation—and for no one more so than grissom, who is heading up the rescue efforts—sara pulls him into his office or aside in some secluded hallway to offer comfort to him and is running her hands over his face or hugging him when someone else walks in on them.

in those scenarios, again, the full fallout from the reveal probably wouldn’t be made known to the audience until the start of s6.

of course, another way to play things surrounding the events of nick’s abduction might be not to have any explicit reveal to the team in the episodes themselves but rather to have grissom and sara start out s6 by officially “coming out” with their relationship as a kind of belated response to that event, as a kind of “life is short and we’re done waiting to be happy”-type deal (a la warrick marrying tina).

of course, if one prefers to play with the whole “the audience knows grissom and sara are together but the characters don’t” setup for a bit longer, then another potential spot for making the in-universe reveal might be during the course of s7, surrounding grissom’s sabbatical storyline.

again, the writers could’ve chosen any point subsequent to episode 05x13 “nesting dolls” to let the audience in on the secret, but then they could have held off on letting any of the members of team graveyard learn the truth (much as is the case in canon) until much later on.

since so much of the s7 gsr storyline already revolves around sara’s feelings of insecurity regarding grissom’s level of investment in the relationship plus both of them becoming increasingly uncomfortable with their whole “secret dating lifestyle” (particularly as they more and more have marriage on the brain), it would have been really easy for the writers to just lean into that narrative tension even more deliberately than they do in canon in order to ramp up to a reveal.

after teasing out the idea that a major source of sara’s doubts concerning the strength of grissom’s commitment to her is the fact that, from her perspective, he seems so comfortable keeping their life together indefinitely on the dl, they could then show the audience that grissom is not as comfortable with the situation as sara thinks. him going on sabbatical could, as it does in canon, serve as a kind of turning point, where sara spends his time away fretting about whether or not she and grissom are actually on the same page about what they want out of their relationship with each other, while in the meanwhile grissom increasingly comes to the conclusion that he is finally ready to make it clear to both sara and the world that he wants nothing more than to be with her.

maybe in this version of the story, his unsent letter could include a marriage proposal, which he ultimately decides against sending because he would prefer to “pop the question” in person.

but then he gets back to vegas, and something happens which derails his plans for a hot minute.

perhaps in this version of the story, there’s a bigger fallout from the whole keppler debacle or the events of episode 07x16 “monster in the box” take place immediately upon grissom’s return to the city, instead of a week later.  

in any case, the writers could find some way to kind of prolong sara thinking that things were just going to go back to normal, with her and grissom falling back into their interminable state of secret dating—only to then have her discover grissom’s letter, much as she does in canon in episode 07x22 “leapin’ lizards.” 

maybe the writers could then work this plot development into the events of episode 07x23 “the good, the bad, and the dominatrix,” with sara questioning why grissom changed his mind about sending the letter—does he not want to marry her after all?—at the same time that none other but lady heather rolls onto the scene.

and maybe whereas in canon, sara drops quietly out of the episode after expressing jealousy and then everything reverts back to status normal between her and grissom by the next week (with no explanation ever provided as to how they kissed and made up), maybe in this story, she and grissom could actually end up hashing things out, with grissom making it very clear to her that he hasn’t at all decided against proposing and that he isn’t interested in heather and that all he wants is just to marry her, if she’ll have him.

and maybe once she says yes—because of course she will—they close out the season by making an announcement to the team or going in to see ecklie to discuss their options.      

of course, these options are all just kind of ones i’m spit-balling—and i’m not necessarily married to any of them—and certainly there are myriad other ways everything might all play out.

for example, maybe the reveal could involve each member of team graveyard individually discovering grissom and sara’s secret slowly over the course of the season, only for everyone to eventually at some point realize that they’re all equally in the know (a la the classic friends-style “they don’t know that we know that they know!” sequence) and confront grissom and sara about it. or maybe the entire gsr romantic storyline would be so wholly different from what happens in canon that some unforeseen circumstance might lead to grissom and sara “coming out” (like maybe in this version of the story, sara gets pregnant or grissom is kidnapped or rather than dismantling the team in s5, ecklie just makes catherine supervisor over grissom or something, and the fact that this new thing happens completely alters the trajectory of everything).

like i said above, in theory, there are any number of “everyone finds out that grissom and sara are together” stories that i could potentially find compelling if the narratives were well-handled.

it all would just depend.

anyway.

thanks for the question! please feel welcome to send another any time.      

[addictedtostorytelling]

All is well that ends well but do you think Grissom regrets not being with Sara sooner knowing so well now what life is like with her? He had his reasons but in hindsight do you think Grissom wished he got his act sooner?

Also, Sara is now around the age Grissom was when they finally got together (late s5?). Do you think Grissom still think about their age difference and do you think it's still a source of insecurity for him? Thanks for sharing your thoughts on these!

hey, @renb80s!

while i'm sure that grissom does on some level wish that he had chosen to live "the beautiful life" with sara sooner than in actuality he did*, i also think he is ultimately practical/pragmatic enough to realize that there's not much use in dwelling on the possibility, as there's no way now to go back to change things.

* not only because there is no universe in which, now that he knows just how happy being with her makes him, he would ever decline to have more time to spend with her, if given the opportunity (even if only in a hypothetical sense), but also because i'm sure that, knowing the things he now knows about her trauma, he would have liked to have been there for her earlier, if he could have been.

for worse or better, despite falling in love with her at first sight, it took grissom seven years to arrive at a place where he was emotionally ready to be a real romantic partner to sara, and now all he can do is try to make the most of the time they currently have together.

regretting his past decisions does nothing to serve them.

that so, i don't think he often gives himself over to fixating on "what if—?" scenarios or flagellating himself for not being braver sooner.

not anymore.

and especially not because if he ever starts to fall down that particular rabbit hole, sara probably reminds him that that's not the stuff that's important; what matters is that they did eventually find each other and that they're together in the present.

he just enjoys their current life together and tries to be the best husband that he can be to her now.

as for their age difference, i kind of think they pretty much got over whatever insecurities they may have had about that issue a long time ago, back when they first got together.

i talk about my views more at length in this post and this one, if you're interested, but the tl;dr version is that i think that while before they actually got into a relationship, both grissom and sara had some concerns about how their age gap might potentially affect their dynamic, once they did finally start dating (and later get married), they realized that none of those concerns were especially relevant.

in the early days, sara used to worry that she wasn't mature/sophisticated enough for grissom's tastes. meanwhile, grissom used to be afraid both of how others might potentially perceive his and sara's age gap negatively from the outside AND of how said age gap might eventually factor into sara possibly becoming disenchanted with him over time (i.e., he feared that the older and slower and less able to keep up with her he became as he aged, the less appealing he would be to her, until eventually she would leave him).

however, once they actually got together, those concerns largely faded away on both sides, as sara eventually realized that grissom viewed her as his equal and also that he wasn't actually significantly more experienced than she was regarding romance/sex, even despite being older, and grissom came to understand that a) it didn't really matter what people outside of his and sara's relationship thought about them being together, as long as they were happy with each other (and they were), and b) sara's love for him wasn't some fickle thing that she was walking into naïvely or that was contingent on his "wholeness" in order to thrive; she was fully aware of who he was and what he brought to the table, and she still wanted him anyway.

just being together taught both of them that, like so many other outside factors, their age difference was really superfluous to what their bond was all about.

of course, while i'm sure there are still times even nowadays when grissom in particular does fret about what the future will hold for them—there are some sad realities that come with being a may-december couple that probably hurt his heart to think about—overall, i don't think it's something they've expended much brainpower on over the last seventeen years.

both of them getting older has probably changed how other people react to them as a couple—they likely get fewer people making rude assumptions about the nature of their relationship now that sara has some laughter lines on her face—but for them, just between themselves, i think whatever insecurities they may have harbored before were something they long since moved past, well before sara ever turned fifty.

that's just my take, though, and ymmv.

thanks for the questions! please feel welcome to send others any time.

[addictedtostorytelling]

Hi again! I’ve been off work because of surgery and reading your fics/metas have really been helpful to pass the time. I’ve enjoyed your GSR insights immensely so please forgive me for asking another Q: Can you please share your thoughts on how Grissom and Sara would have defined their relationship post “One to Go”? Technically, they “broke up” (“Leave Out All the Rest”), so would they have just assumed they were still betrothed to each other now that they were back together? And if another proposal need take place, can you please indulge on how that went about?

Side note: The meta/short fic re who proposed post “Immortality” is one of my fav reads of yours and I look forward to when you add more to your fic/WIP collection 😊.

hi, @renb80s!

thank you for your kind words! i'm so glad you enjoy my metas and my fic.

re: your question:

i have a big, ol' meta here that talks about the status of grissom and sara's relationship/engagement between episodes 09x05 "leave out all the rest" and 09x10 "one to go," if you're interested.

the tl;dr version is that i do think that once sara sends her video message, both she and grissom understand their relationship, including their engagement, to officially have been terminated.

that said, since the impetus for said termination was never that they'd fallen out of love with each other or that they wouldn't actually want to be together if they could but rather just that they both (in their own ways) felt that with the intractability of their apparent "she can't stay, and he won't go" situation, being broken up was their only real recourse, i think that the second they realize that said situation has indeed been resolved—i.e., that grissom has finally made the decision to leave vegas and follow sara out into the great, wide world after all—they also consider the termination to be moot, pretty much immediately.

like.

the only reason they weren't together was because they had a distance problem, so once grissom closes that distance, there's no reason for them not to be together anymore.

and that's pretty much an instantaneous thing.

just watch sara's face when grissom appears out of the jungle: it's clear that despite how she's tried to be "strong" and "set grissom free" for his own good, she has spent every day she's been apart from him fantasizing about a moment exactly like the one that's currently playing out, where suddenly he'd just show up and everything would be okay again. her expression once she realizes what’s happening makes it so obvious that this whole scene is literally something that she's dreamed of before and hoped for a thousand times over the last few months. it takes her all of zero seconds to be like, "there he is—there's the man i'm going to marry. he's here for me. he came, just like i wished he would."

and it's just as immediate on grissom's side.

as for how things progress from the between the last image we see of grissom and sara kissing each other breathless in the jungle in episode 09x10 "one to go" and newlywed sara showing up to vegas in episode 10x01 "family affair," i've got some speculation on that subject here and here, if you care to read it.

to elaborate somewhat:

(here be headcanon)

to my mind, the kissing segues into making love in sara's tent, and somewhere in the afterglow, tangled up under the canvas and mosquito netting, they start talking about everything that's happened and their relationship and their aspirations and their feelings and how much they just want to be together more than anything.

all of a sudden, sara's blurting out that she'd happily marry grissom tomorrow if he'd still have her—because i like to imagine that this time it's her who broaches the topic, since last time around grissom was the one to propose—to which grissom replies that absolutely he will.

that night, sara introduces grissom to everyone in her research group as her "fiancé from the states" over dinner and explains that they're going to be departing from the group the next morning.

cue more lovemaking in the tent after dark, followed by a trip to the capital city of san josé the next day (or however long it takes them to travel there from the jungle).

honestly, since unlike the majority of "destination weddings," this one is unplanned, they probably end up doing things a little backward—having a kind of unofficial ceremony first, which they then legalize at a later date.

as part of this process, they likely have to hunt down a lawyer who speaks english to officiate the event and sort out the paperwork for them ex post facto. they also probably have to notify the us embassy's consular office.

there is technically a one-month waiting period for us citizens to file a wedding application in costa rica, but grissom and sara are not about to wait another month after everything, so, like i said, i think they have the wedding first and get the license officialized a month later.

this whole rigmarole may take them a couple days or even a week or two to put into play, but in the end, i think they get what they're looking for, which is a wedding that is first recognized by them and then later by the powers that be.

all in all, i think that the wedding itself is a supremely simple affair—stark, quick, "courthouse," and incredibly impromptu, attended only by the lawyer and whatever employees from the law office need to be there to serve as official witnesses—but that's okay by grissom and sara because they care less about the superficial trappings than about what is being signified. for them, they both very much feel as if they are finally doing something that they wanted to do months (or even years) ago, making good on a promise that they lost sight of for a while but have both always, always wanted more than anything to keep.

as for what they might say during the ceremony, i've got some speculation here.

once the knot is tied, they embark on a canoe trip through the jungle to look for bugs as their honeymoon.

anyway, that's what i've got.

thanks for the question! please feel welcome to send another any time.

and good luck with your recovery from your surgery! i hope it's going well.

[addictedtostorytelling]

Hi! I have just recently found your tumbler and have been obsessed reading your metas. I wanted to know your thoughts on the GSR cohabitation circa season 6-8/9. Who do think proposed living together?

Personally, the fanfic girl in me like to think they officially started living together-together after Grissom came back from his sabbatical and it was Grissom who brought up the idea because the time apart made him realize the importance of Sara in his life (I have another Q related to this subject that I’ve been itching to ask but I won’t bother you right now LOL). I like to think that the Way to Go bedroom scene was Sara’s apartment meaning that although they probably spent (most) every ‘night’ together in s6 (or even late s5 if they were together then) they took turns staying over at each other’s place (although if we factor in Hank the dog, which we don’t know when he entered the picture, maybe they spend more time at Grissom’s?). I think that the Fallen Idols’ shaving scene and Leapin’ Lizards’ bedroom scene were at Grissom’s place that Sara moved into … which is the same place we see in Grissom’s Divine Comedy and in Happy Place. I don't think they bought the place together since Land Titles are public record which would have outed them (I do, however think the house in Forget Me Not was their matrimonial home).

On a somewhat related note, I do think the 'suffocating' conversation Sara and Grissom had in Bite Me had a double entendre regarding their then current living arrangements. I think Grissom had casually (in his own Grissom way) suggested the idea to Sara that she should just leave her everyday things at his place so she doesn't have to lounge around an overnight bag. But Sara, in fear of jinxing things, was a little hesitant and maybe said something along the lines of not wanting to 'suffocate' him by having a lot of her things in his place. Grissom took this as Sara not being on the same page as him in terms of the status of their relationship. To Grissom his suggestion was rooted in practicality where else with Sara, although the relationship is something she wants very much, she's worried the floor underneath her can collapse if given too much weight so her take on the matter was more about self-preservation. I also read your take on this and enjoyed reading it very much!

Sorry for the long post and I apologize if the Q has been asked. I absolutely love, love, love reading your take on anything GSR/CSI and I hope you never stop!

hi, @renb80s!

thank you for your kind words! i'm glad you enjoy my metas.

as preface to my answer here, i'll direct you to this previous meta (which talks about my favored timeline for the gsr get-together) and this one (which talks about their living situation in s6).

then:

my short answer is that i think they start living together just before the start of s6 and that grissom is the one to propose it (though they’d basically been living together unofficially already, with sara staying over at grissom’s place pretty much every day, even prior to that point).

my longer answer is:

talking about the characters' living arrangements on csi is always difficult because the show is so wildly inconsistent in how it depicts them.

in general, glimpses into the characters’ homes on csi are a rarity.

we will maybe visit a character in their home once or twice per season at most, and usually only for one scene at a time.

and some characters, like greg, never have their homes shown at all.

with the exception of maybe episode 02x19 “stalker,” where a considerable portion of the episode takes place in nick's home, there are almost no “home-centric” episodes, at least during the early seasons of the series; more just a scene here, a scene there, spread out over the course of multiple seasons.

accordingly, whereas on many other, less work-centric shows, we see enough of the characters' living rooms, bedrooms, kitchens, etc. that there are regular sets for them that are used both repeatedly and consistently over the seasons (and so become familiar to us), on csi, the characters are almost always either in the lab or in the field, which means that on the exceedingly rare occasions when we do actually “follow our favorite criminalists home,” their homes are most often just random cbs sets/filming locations made up to suit the needs of a particular scene and are seldom consistent over time.

if two home scenes do occur in short succession from each other within a single season (like, say, the shots of grissom and sara's bedroom we get in episodes 09x02 “the happy place” and 09x04 “let it bleed”), then maybe they'll both be filmed on the same set. however, across seasons, the characters' homes almost never remain the same (see, for example, sara's studio apartment in episode 02x12 “you've got male” vs. her one-bedroom apartment in episode 05x13 “nesting dolls”).

moreover, since typically most csi home scenes are “one-offs,” meaning that only one scene per episode takes place in the home, and during these scenes (most often) the characters tend to remain in a single room, we're seldom given much insight into home layouts (i.e., we don’t typically see the characters walk from room to room with the camera following them), which makes it difficult and even sometimes impossible for us to say if a particular room we see in one episode (such as grissom and sara's bathroom from episode 07x17 "fallen idols") is supposed to be part of the same apartment/house as a room that we see in another episode (such as grissom and sara's s8/s9 living room and kitchen), particularly across seasons.

this turnover creates problems of interpretation for us as fans, because we either have to majorly suspend our disbelief in order to accept the idea that homes that appear completely different from each other in layout/configuration are supposed to (within the universe of the show) actually be the same property—see, for example, grissom's open-floor plan, warehouse-like condo with the centralized kitchen in episode 01x23 “the strip stangler” vs. his closed-floor plan, cozier condo with the nook-like kitchen in episode 02x15 “burden of proof”—OR we have to accept that the characters all apparently move house approximately every six to eight months, which seems excessive/unrealistic.

and particularly as they're all so chronically busy that one has to wonder where they would find the time.

obviously, neither option is entirely satisfactory for us.

while i go back and forth on how to deal with this particular problem of verisimilitude, at present, my favored approach is to believe that any two home spaces that appear significantly different from each other are in fact two different properties—i.e., to go with the “the characters must move a lot” theory.

per this approach, between s1 and mid-s5, both grissom and sara have two different living spaces that we're shown: grissom's single-level, open-floor plan, warehouse-like condo from episode 01x23 “the strip stangler” and his closed-floor plan, cozier condo (number of levels unknown) from episode 02x15 “burden of proof;” and sara's studio apartment from episode 02x12 “you've got male” and her one-bedroom apartment from episode 05x13 “nesting dolls” (which, admittedly, look very similar to each other due to the walls being painted in the same eggplant hue but are just different enough in layout that i can't force myself to believe that they're actually one-and-the-same place).

note the shelving between the front door and the kitchen, which seems to be a built-in fixture; the kitchen cupboards, which are all on one level; the white countertops; and the lack of a bathroom off to sara's right.

note the lack of shelving between the door and the kitchen, plus the bathroom off to sara's right. the kitchen cupboards (which are visible behind grissom when he talks to sara about rationalizations) are also multi-level and have different moldings. plus, the countertops are gray. overall, the front entryway seems smaller/more cramped than the s2 apartment’s, as well.

meanwhile, from mid-s5 to s9, depending on how one calls some of the ambiguities, they may live in anywhere from one (if we make an incredibly conservative estimate) to five (if we make an incredibly liberal estimate) different locations together, depending on if one believes that the bedrooms from episodes 06x24 “way to go,” 07x22 “leapin' lizards,” and 09x02 “the happy place” are the same/different, and how one sees the bathroom from episode 07x17 “fallen idols” and the living room/kitchen area from episode 08x12 “grissom's divine comedy” as fitting into the picture.

all of the above is to say that with so much ambiguity surrounding the issue—and especially given that the show never clarifies anything with regards to grissom and sara's living arrangements, and particularly not concerning the timeline, specifically—everything is really open to interpretation, so your call is just as valid as mine or anyone else's.

my thoughts are after the "keep reading," if you're interested.

__

my headcanon, which is have no real way to substantiate, goes as follows:

so as discussed in the first meta i linked up top, i think that grissom and sara get together in mid-s5, between the events of episodes 05x19 “4 x 4” and 05x20 “hollywood brass.”

when they first get together, sara is living in the one-bedroom apartment from episode 05x13 “nesting dolls,” while grissom is (most likely) living in the same condo he was in in episode 02x15 “burden of proof.”

my headcanon is that when grissom and sara finally get together, they spend the first few weeks of their relationship meeting up exclusively at sara's place. their routine is that grissom shows up on sara's doorstep after shift, they spend their “alone time” together (i.e., a few hours at a time), and then he leaves shortly afterward, never actually sleeping over.

initially, sara is all right with this arrangement, as she's swept up in the happiness of just being with grissom in itself. however, as time goes on, some insecurity starts to creep in, as she begins to wonder why it is he always seems to run off so quickly after they have sex and how come they never go over to his place.

were he any other man, she'd suspect that he were cheating on her, a la hank peddigrew, but because it's him, she's just kind of bewildered. she can’t figure out what his deal is.

eventually, unable to help herself, she confronts him about his aloof behavior.

it is at this point that he tells her about his dog, hank (who, per my headcanon, he had adopted after rejecting sara's romantic overtures at the end of s3 in a misguided and ultimately unsuccessful attempt to distract himself from his heartache)—i.e., the reason why he always has to rush off after he's with sara and never sleeps over with her. he also starts inviting her over to his place (where she gets to meet hank and quickly starts sleeping over herself).

of course, on grissom's end of things, in typical grissom fashion, he is completely oblivious to the fact that his "run out the door immediately after the romancing is done" routine is freaking sara out. in his mind, as a gentleman, it is always his job to come to her, so that’s why he never invites her over to his place. meanwhile, his responsibilities as a dog owner are just so separate in his mind from his relationship with her that he doesn't think to explain what his reasons for leaving so abruptly every afternoon actually are. it's only when she calls him out on how he's acting that it even occurs to him to inform her about that part of his life. of course, once they actually have that conversation, he’s mortified that he ever gave her the wrong impression about his desire to be with her.

to my mind, once sara starts staying over at grissom's, it very quickly becomes an “every day” kind of situation, where by the time they've been dating for just a couple of months, she's for all intents and purposes living with him anyhow.

i think they then officially decide to move in together during the summer between s5 and s6, which, in my favored timeline, is about three or four months after they start dating.

when they do so, i think grissom is the one who does the asking, and he does so much in the same manner that he later proposes to her in s8—i.e., in a very, impromptu, off-the-cuff, “just because in the moment i'm so overcome with love for you” kind of way.

while you and a couple of other people i've heard from think that sara might be hesitant to take that “next step” with grissom and especially so soon, i personally don't read her that way. 

to me, even though she may be scared of losing out, sara's approach to her relationship with grissom has from the get-go been to jump in with both feet, and the only thing that's ever held the relationship back has been his reluctance to take action, not hers.

if it were her call, they would have started living together when she first moved to las vegas back in 2000.

the way i see things, the girl who has always, since day #1, been the one pushing for them to take their relationship further is not going to suddenly get cold feet when the guy she's been in love with for the better part of a decade finally shows her that he's ready to commit (and especially not since they’ve already practically been living together anyhow).

that's cause for rejoicing, not pumping the brakes.

she's eager to enjoy every second with him, when it comes to them sharing a life together, so when grissom floats the “let's move in together” idea, i think her response isn't, “eh, let's hold off—” but rather “awesome! what do we need to do to make this arrangement work?”

that’s just more in keeping with her characterization to me.

to my mind, once the decision to officially move in together is made, grissom and sara opt to “start fresh” by going to a new condo, largely because, by this point, certain members of the team have already visited grissom's place in the past (during the earlier seasons of the show), and grissom and sara want to “close that door” again, cutting down on the likelihood that catherine or whomever else will just show up on their doorstep unannounced. it's a kind of hard reset for them—an opportunity to go somewhere that none of their friends has ever been to, redrawing that boundary, pulling down that curtain.

of course, finagling the whole “living together without letting anyone know we're living together” deal takes some careful planning on their parts.

i’ve written fic about it, if you’re interested.

like you, i believe that sara doesn't initially put her name on any titles or deeds, in order to avoid there being public records of the cohabitation.

i also think she likely has to keep up her lease on her old apartment in order to have an address to give to hr at work and to fill in on her taxes.

how grissom and sara work out the financials of this move is difficult to say. the fact is that grissom is much more “economically established” than sara is overall (just observe the differences between his s1 condo and her s5 apartment in terms of their general "standards of living"), so especially if sara still has to pay rent on her apartment, then it's unlikely that she would be able to contribute as much as he does to the down payment, mortgage, and condo fees on their new place as he would. however, i also can't imagine that she'd be entirely comfortable not paying for anything. i'd be fascinated to know how they divvy everything up. (do they ever combine bank accounts, i wonder?)

as i talk about in the second meta linked up top, i tend to believe there's (subtle) canonical evidence showing that they're already living together by the end of s6, mainly in the form of the furniture configuration in the room (i.e., two nightstands, both fully stocked with personal items).

that said, i also don’t think that the room we see in episode 06x24 “way to go” (with the bathroom to the right of the bed if you’re looking at it from the foot) is the same one we see in episode 07x22 “leapin’ lizards” (with the window to the right of the bed if you’re looking at it from the foot), so i personally headcanon that grissom and sara move again sometime between s6 and s7, maybe just because they don’t like the management at the place they move to initially or because they realize they are living relatively close to another one of their teammates and don’t want to risk running into them at the grocery store or something.

maybe there’s even some kind of situation where they almost get caught, and they figure it’s best to relocate after their close call.

in any case, i think the place they live in starting in s7 is the same condo we see throughout s8/s9—so the bathroom with the green plant/butterfly décor from episode 07x17 “fallen idols” is part of that place; as is the bedroom seen in episodes 07x22 “leapin’ lizards,” 09x02 “the happy place,” and 09x04 “let it bleed;” and the kitchen/living area visible throughout episode 08x12 “grissom’s divine comedy.”

once grissom and sara’s relationship becomes public knowledge, i think sara’s name goes on the title to the condo, as well (and certainly by the time they get engaged).

in episode 09x11 “the grave shift,” catherine mentions that after grissom goes to costa rica to reunite with sara, he doesn’t immediately sell the condo (as the housing market at the time is horrible) and instead uses it for storage.

for how long grissom and sara hang onto the place once they’re married is difficult to say, but i imagine they retain it for the first little while that they’re globetrotting at least, possibly even keeping it as a “home base” while they’re living in paris.

it is perhaps to this home that sara returns when she first comes back to vegas in s10.

—though, eventually, i do think (as you do) that she and grissom purchase the house we later see in episode 13x15 “forget me not” as their matrimonial home, where sara lives between s11-s13 at least and grissom whenever he comes to visit her from france and/or peru.

sara then seemingly “gets the house” in the divorce, though whether grissom officially deeds it over to her or just moves out and lets her have it in a more unofficial capacity, we can’t say.

and i don’t care enough about the later seasons of the show to have my own headcanon on the matter; i just prefer to ignore that the divorce ever happened.

whether or not sara ever sells this house in the wake of the divorce is likewise unknown. while we don’t ever see the house again post-s13, that’s mainly because we never follow sara home again, so it’s really “dealer’s choice” on what one thinks there. 

if she doesn’t sell it at any point prior to “immortality,” then what becomes of it after she moves onto the ishmael with grissom is also indeterminate.

since it would seem that they don’t still own the house when they make their extended visit to vegas during the reboot—or else why would they need to live in catherine’s hotel?—they do seemingly at some point sell it. however, whether they do so immediately after their reunion in marina del rey or wait a while afterward is uncertain.

as the reboot tells us next to nothing about what they get up to between 2015-2021, we have no idea how much or how little time they spend in vegas during those years.

as i talk about here, i imagine that they do have to go back to vegas for at least a while before they fuck off to live on the ocean for the rest of their lives, as “while the idea of sara immediately and permanently quitting her job, flying to california, hopping on grissom’s boat, and sailing off into the sunset with him FOREVER is supremely romantic, that idea ignores a lot of logistical realities, [including that] sara still owns a house in vegas. while she could sell said house or rent it out, she would have to return to land at some point in order to do so... [and] she would also, undoubtedly, have loose ends she had to tie up at the lab.” however, for how long they remain in vegas surrounding the selling of the house and quitting of the job, i can’t even hazard a guess.

as stated up top, since the show never broaches this subject directly, no one headcanon is more valid than the others here.

mine is that grissom in sara move in together in early s6, move to a new condo circa the start of s7, and then live together in that condo between s7-s9, but your mileage may—and from the sounds of things does—vary considerably.

thanks for the question! please feel welcome to send another (including your s7 sabbatical question!) at any time.