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Hello!! Rewatching 9x05 for the millionth time I realized I never payed close attention to grissom’s reaction to Heather asking if she could touch him. I do love that she asks, though obviously she would, but his reaction is so.. thrown — or i guess slightly panicked — that I wondered, is that just a reflection of his personality/character or does it relate to Sara being gone? I assume the latter but I just wondered if you’ve ever discussed that part of the episode before

hi, anon!

the short answer is that it's both a personality and a "sara is gone" thing.

in general, grissom is not a touchy person with anyone BUT sara. he doesn't like having anyone but her, including even his other friends and family members, get inside of his personal space and/or make direct contact with him (see, for example, how he stiffens up when nick tries to hug him goodbye in episode 07x11 "leaving las vegas"). that so, even though he verbally okays heather's touch, the truth is he's not really ready for or comfortable with it.

when it actually happens, he finds it affronting; frankly, it's weird for him to have her touching him at all, but especially in an erogenous zone. he is shocked by both the sensation and the sense of traversing boundaries that comes from it.

of course, even beyond just his tactile "ah! someone is touching me!" kind of kneejerk response, there's also an emotional aspect to his reaction that very much has to do with sara.

as stated, sara is really his only exception to his general "no touching" rule, and particularly in those kinds of sensual areas, like on his chest, so having someone other than her touch him there sets off all sorts of alarm bells for him and draws the fact of her absence into sharp relief.

and, honestly, that's kind of why heather initiates the touch to begin with: because she wants to prompt grissom to consider where he's at with sara.

as i talk about here,

because heather knows grissom, she knows that he represses, and i think she knows that he needs help sorting through his inner turmoil—untying the knots inside of him and figuring out where all the ropes start.

since she has always had an interest in understanding him, and she cares about him as a friend, she tries to help him in the way that only she can—by asking him questions and getting him to face up to the things he otherwise wouldn’t be able to admit to himself.

—and part of doing that involves pushing his boundaries.

given that heather knows about sara by this point, i think she realizes right away that it is strange that grissom would show up to her house—and particularly as she realizes that she shouldn’t be his first choice for a confidante, given that he and sara are engaged.

if he’s in heather’s living room talking to her about how he feels, then that must mean that something is amiss between him and sara—or otherwise sara would be the person he was confiding in about his feelings, right? i mean, she’s his fiancée, and that’s kind of the role she’s supposed to play.

so i think heather picks up on the fact that all is not well in gsrland, right from the beginning—and that’s where the flirtation comes in.

something is wrong between grissom and sara, and heather doesn’t know what that something is exactly, but she does know that whatever it is is eating grissom up inside. grissom isn’t being forthcoming on the subject, but heather needs to know details if she’s going to help him. it therefore comes down to her to give him a push, and the way she decides to push him is to bring him up to the line which has always separated her province with him from sara’s: namely, sex.

she starts off soft, initiating touches between them, demonstrating the “pain button” technique which is—over the clothes and without the use of any implements—fairly innocuous in general, though certainly more physically intimate than anything she and grissom would typically do together, and especially now that he and sara are engaged.

she’s trying to gauge what will make grissom say “stop”—where his boundary is now, compared to where it was when last she saw him.

and her tactic works.

grissom consents to the touch "in the name of science," but then when her fingers are actually on him, he can't help but feel wrong—like he's making a big mistake because she's not sara, and sara is the only person allowed to touch him that way.

though he's been trying to repress his emotional turmoil ever since he received sara's video email, suddenly it strikes him just how distant he and sara have become, and he is no longer able to stave off his dread. so much time has passed since they've even been in the same room, let alone touched each other (whether intimately or not), and who knows if now they'll ever be in proximity to each other again? the thought that he might be bereft of sara's touch now forever panics him, causing him to realize how much he's losing and how desperately he doesn't want to lose it.

having another woman's hands on him—even within the context of an investigation, even "innocuously," over the clothes, within boundaries—jolts him to his core because it's not right to him.

nothing will ever be right to him but sara.

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

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