CSI 1. Love Without Romance

A/N: Written directly after watching FMN because I had to do something and because murdering the folk responsible for the storyline seemed too illegal with too much bitter irony even for me, so please excuse any random thought jumping. A warning, this is not a bundle of fluff, it is an enormous ball of angst, read with caution if you want to join me in the corner of emotion I'm currently curled in...

**Chapter 1**

Love Without Romance

"_You've always got us..."_

Yes...Yes she did have them...always...But, how could she? If she always had them, she would not have believed that they would have been unable to look at her for daring to end her relationship with Grissom, with their idea of God, she would not have thought they would take his side, that she would have cheated on him she would have told them, would have told them that she _couldn't _cheat on him...She would have told them about Grissom, would have told them about _her _and Grissom...Except there was no 'her and Grissom' anymore, he had made that perfectly clear...She couldn't say she blamed him, not for that, they had been unhappy for months, 'If a relationship can't move forward...It withers...'

How could a relationship move forward when its participants were on two bloody different continents? How could this marriage do anything _but _wither? She remembered, with a feeling similar to watching herself on those grainy CCTV tapes, what it had been like when it had 'worked' when she had been able to honestly assure his mother, and _herself_ that it 'worked'...When coming home to an empty house did not make her dive for the whiskey, but for the phone, when it made it almost impossible for her to avoid jumping on a plane, impossible to wait for him, when the longing in her was for _him _was pure animalistic lust, not empty, pathetic pining, when every time they saw one another, it was like starting their relationship over again, everything she loved about him, about them, about what they had, hit her like a freight train and filled her with adrenaline and happiness.

Happiness...What was happiness? And how had it turned to this?

She might not have been able to blame him for succumbing to the inevitable, then gun that was their 'marriage' had been locked and loaded for weeks, _months_ with both of their fingers on the trigger, waiting for the other to make the first move, but when it was made, neither of them could have hesitated, allowing it to happen, to allow them to move forward, almost _willing _it to happen. They had been tying each other down, suffocating the other, drowning them in the misery that their relationship had descended into.

While the romance was gone, the love was not...They still cared about each other, _for _each other and _that _was why she was angry now, was why she was pissed, was why the wine glass in her hand went sailing, almost poetically, across the room, smashing into the wall opposite her, echoing her emotions with a poignancy that made her freeze.

She collapsed onto the cold, wooden floor, shaking and sobbing, finding tears flooding from her eyes without permission. Emotions she had been holding onto for weeks, because she had not only been hiding things from Nick and Greg but from herself too, boiled over, uncontrollably overcoming her now...Without warning or want, she found one of the neatly framed pictures sitting on the table beside her showing her and Gil when their faces had remembered what a smile was when in the vicinity of the train wreck that was their relationship, in her hand, and then it wasn't, then it joined the wine glass in bits on the floor, as she herself was, convulsing with the strength of the sobs that now wracked her fragile frame.

She screamed in pain and frustration, no longer caring what she destroyed, she had nothing left, physical property should not mean anything to her anymore...How dare he? How dare he, after everything they had been through in _thirteen years_, how dare he decide to end it with one phone call, with a few empty, meaningless words mumbled on the end of the dusty telephone line, "Sara...I've been thinking...I think, maybe we should think about a separation..."

He had probably had more to say if she was being fair, probably had some flowery poetry or Shakespearian quote to recite, with some deep insights into the meaning of love and happiness prepared to soften the blow. She had not heard them, slamming the phone down, barely being able to control herself after shakily telling him, "Maybe we should..."

The irony was, she had felt more emotion, more connection to him, that she had then felt the almost sickening desire to sever _immediately, _than she had done all those times in the past few weeks, always ending with the hollow, meaningless words that they both felt compelled to utter, "I love you..."

_This _was what she had been terrified of, _this _was what she had always been terrified of, the thing that he was putting her through, the thing he had _known _she feared and had still gone ahead anyway. _This _was why she despised herself, for trusting someone, for loving someone so much that she had become 'dependent' on them..She hated the word, hated the very idea that knew was the truth. But she had done it...She had done it because she loved him...

She should have known better, should have known that she was too damaged, too _broken_ to love someone properly, someone always fucked up in the end...She should have learned, you would have thought the lessons would have been hammered into her by her father...Every time at the hospital, the hollow promises, the empty lies that she swallowed _every time_, every time the words "I love you" and every time with the same meaning and use as a prayer because every time the promises were broken along with her bones...

How could she have been so stupid as to allow another human being to get so close to her? How had she allowed him to affect her so much? How had she been so naive as to think that he loved her, that he actually gave a damn about her, that they would grow old together?...Well they would grow old together wouldn't they? Since their idea of 'together' was being thousands of miles apart...In truth, they had been separated long before that phone call...

The door went.

She ignored it.

The door went again.

She ignored it again.

The door went for a third time.

She took a large slug of wine to allow her to ignore it as opposed to just shooting it.

The door opened.

She got to her feet, every muscle in her body suddenly tensed like a drawn bow string, and grabbed the gun from its case in the drawer at her elbow, hugging the walls as she prepared to confront her intruder,

"Sara." He exclaimed, shocked to be staring down the barrel of a gun.

She collapsed into his arms, relief draining her of the adrenaline hat had made it possible to stand as he gently removed the trembling gun from her hands, "Here, give me that...Jesus Sara..." he breathed,

"Oh Jesus had very little to do with it..." she replied throatily as he steered her with difficulty to the sofa, delicately avoiding the bits of broken glass and furniture that carpeted her living room, the cold embrace of the chair felt too good for her..."What the Hell did you expect after the week I've had?" she demanded, shakily,

"Yeah, sorry about that, but I think that if I'd have had to have relied on you to let me in, I'd have had an easier time selling religion to The Devil..." he told her ,pointedly,

"Well she is here and listening, go for it." She replied darkly,

"Have you called him?" he asked her softly, ignoring her jibe,

"No I bloody well haven't 'called him'." She snapped, looking disgusted,

"You should talk to someone..." he told her softly,

"I can't...I'm sorry Nick, it's just not me, shrinks or siblings, doesn't matter, it's all the same thing, it goes against everything I am so if you came here to 'talk' then you can leave now, it would be better for both of us..."

"We don't have to talk, I can listen, or we can just sit..." he said, stubbornly,

"No." She said bluntly, too miserable and exhausted to tart it up to spare his feelings, "I don't want to 'talk' I don't want you to 'listen' or 'just sit', I don't want you to hold my hand or my hair while I drink myself into oblivion, I don't want you to offer me philosophies on love and loss and I don't want you to see me in this state while I fall to pieces and drown in self-pity. I want you to go, _now_." This would all have been far more convincing if her voice wasn't shaking like a bloody naked Eskimo, she thought, bitterly, something that was not lost on Nick who murmured softly, gently taking her hand,

"I think you need me to stay."

Well that did it.  
Before she knew or consented to what was happening, she was sobbing like a child in his arms, trembling violently while he tenderly rocked her backwards and forwards, stroking her hair and soothingly murmuring words that she could not understand.

"You need to call him..." he told her, once her crying had subsided to a level that a level that allowed her to understand English once again.

"'Need to'? I don't 'need' to do anything, I don't owe him jack-shit!" she snapped, the furious effect of her words ruined by the choking tears that continued to fall.

"Not for him for you...Tell him, well tell him I don't know that you found someone else that ended up dead because your crazy stalker tried to frame you for murder and then almost killed you and that you blame him, tell him you don't need him, tell him he's a jumped-up idiotic asshole and that he should never have left you, tell him _something..._"

"Why?" she whispered,

"Because if you don't I'm afraid that I'm holding onto a human bomb and that I'm really too young and pretty to die that way..."

She laughed weakly at this, incredulity filling here as she realised that he had managed to remind her how to, as she gave him a friendly shove, sniffing and muttering, "Idiot.."

"Maybe...But I'm right, you know that...Call him, this is non-optional Ms Sidle!" he said, firmly, thrusting a phone at her insistently.

She dialled the number, irritated with herself because she still bothered to keep it in her memory, amazingly, he answered after only three rings, something she had not expected and that now caught her off guard,

"Gil?" as she breathed his name, her eyes fell upon the wedding ring that she was still wearing...

A/N: Was only supposed to a one-shot but I shall continue if you want...Hopefully this reflected Sara's feelings more than it did mine! Reviews, as ever, would be very much appreciated.


	2. Withering Nights

A/N: I may now understand why the writers haven't brought Grissom back, the man is bloody difficult to write, fingers crossed this was alright despite that, I thought it was only fair that they both get their say and this was supposed to be a very deep, insightful, sad say but I'm not really sure. Anyway, enjoy, potenitally with tissues...

**Chapter 2**

Withering Nights

He sighed as he gently poured a splash of cold water into the saucer below the little plant.

He didn't know why he was still bothering to keep it alive, it had been meant for her, but it was unlikely that she would get it now...He should just have let it die, as a tribute to everything they had, or more appropriately didn't have. Just another sacrifice in the chain of destruction that had led to _this._

If he was honest with himself, brutally honest, he had expected it to come to this, eventually...Mortals in a mortal world where everything is finite and nothing lasts. He had tried to stop this, to prevent the inevitable, he had asked her to marry him, back in a time when they had both been more successful at pretending that they were happy and still able to delude themselves into believing that they could find the secret to eternity and somehow last when they were not made to...

"We were never meant to have those things..." he murmured, delicately holding one of the small green leaves between his fingers as Hank padded into the room and he felt the need to say something to stop him looking at him in that way...

It was funny, now that he thought about it, the little plant habit that had started as an innocent gesture between friends, colleagues, nothing more and had developed into the only way for them to remind each other that there had been love in their relationship once, it had been the only tangible connection they had had left, providing a crumbling pillar for their marriage.

It had become more than sending pot plants and referencing ancient history, it had grown and matured with them and had become a symbol of their relationship almost. He had started planning for events such as birthdays, anniversaries and Christmases, and had grown whatever he had chosen for her from seed, the love and affection that went in to growing it and sending it across oceans meant to show that they still cared, made it a little more personal than the customary card that was sent with it, as always saying only '_From Grissom'_. That summed up their relationship a little too well...

He should just let it die...

But he couldn't.

He knew he should, their relationship had been a one-way train crash since they had first bought tickets for it, they were two people who were never destined to be together, never destined to be with anyone, alone always, both of them too damaged to maintain a healthy relationship for any length of time.

And it was _both _of them...People would pick sides, they had to, it was human nature, whether they kept it to themselves or not, in their minds at least there would be ultimately, someone to blame, there always had to be someone to blame...

In truth, _he_ did not blame either of them. They had both loved one another, but that was not enough...He blamed the world they lived in...They had spent more time apart when they were together than they ever had when they had been apart for all those years, dancing around one another. It was only now that he realised that they could never have been any more together than they were while working at that lab. It had been stupid of them to think that two people so defined by their work, could exist in the same way when separated from it, when their definitions had been so altered by their lives.

They had attempted to live in a fairytale for far too long. Life was not roses and rainbows, it was hard work, it was pain and frustration, passion and hate, hurt and Hell, tempered by just enough love and life to make it seem worthwhile.

They were attempting to have a marriage, a relationship on different continents and they may as well have been on different planets, they must have been to believe that this could have worked for any length of time, they had been hiding from reality because they had not wanted to accept its consequences, but soon the false little worlds of lies they had wrapped themselves up in so tightly, had become worse than the reality they had been running from. They had refused to accept that they could not make each other happy against everything and in the end, they were both miserable.

Despite this however, that decision and that phone call, had been one of the hardest things he had done in his life. On paper it was simple, too simple, they were making each other miserable, the phone tag, the missed messages, the time zones, they were having more of a relationship with their voicemails, and in these last few weeks, all of the things that had got to them about their relationship, had become excuses, excuses for why they were avoiding one another, they both knew what was happening... Logic told him that this was the right thing to do, the _only _thing to do...But it was then one of the rare times in his life that reminded him he was human, a distant and distracted with more than a few extremities, damaged, imperfect, emotional human being and that he didn't give a damn about logic and reason and what was the right thing to do, he gave a damn about his wife, the woman that he had loved for more than thirteen years, who he still loved, and how much this would hurt her...

As always however, the evidence won out, because the evidence had told him that, in the long run, he would hurt her more by continuing to pull strings and toy with her. He loved her, and he knew that he was slowly destroying her and he could not allow himself to do that...Something had to give, he knew that...

He had known how she would react, he knew her, but he still felt when the line went dead after her agonizing, choked, "Maybe we should..."

She knew that he was right, they were both trapped in the same pretence of marriage, keeping it up for the sake of the people who knew them and for the fact that they loved one another and still thought that somehow that would bridge the gap across the ocean, physical and emotional.

Denial was both a blessing and a curse...

He jumped and grimaced slightly at the painfully loud interruption of the ever ironic phone,

"Gil Grissom?" he said, answering automatically without bothering to check who was calling, needing the option to talk to _someone _that did not have four legs...

"Grissom, it's Greg..."

"What's happened?" he asked instinctively, thinking the worst because of the unexpected phone call and the usually up-beat younger man's grim tone.

"It's Sara..." he began quietly,

"Oh God no..." he said in a strangled whisper, any number of increasingly unlikely scenarios erupting into being in his mind, leaving his conscience leaving him with the horrific words _she could be dead and the last thing you said to her was that you didn't want her any more, that she wasn't good enough for you..._

"What-Oh, no, no, nothing like that." Greg said, hastily, realising his poor word choice,

Grissom sighed with relief, resolving to call her as soon as Greg was off the phone and fix this,

"She's fine..._Physically..._Emotionally she says she's fine too but...Well, I'm not sure, she told us what happened between you, I'm sorry..." he said, awkwardly, getting to the meat of the matter. P_icking sides..._

"You're worried she's not coping?" he murmured, concerned, but ensuring to deflect any conversation that touched on how he was coping, suddenly berating himself for not trying to get in touch with her, for not checking up on her, for doing what they both did in these situations and burying their heads in the sand, ignoring the world around them.

"I don't know...She says she fine but you know what she's like..." Did he? "The only thing that really makes me worry about her is when she says she's fine..." That was true, he shouldn't have ignored that..."Nick's gone to check up on her," Well that couldn't be good, Nick knew Sara as well, they must be worried about her if he was risking invading her personal life without invitation, "I thought you should know..." he muttered, trailing off awkwardly.

"Greg..." he said, slowly, "What's happened?" he knew that Sara would not just have spontaneously decided to sit them down over tea and biscuits and discuss her marriage, no matter how much she cared about them, the line between profession and privacy was never crossed, that meant that something else had happened to provoke this.

"How long have you got?" Greg sighed,

"As long as it takes." _For her, until the end of time itself..._

Once Greg had recounted the entire saga of the last few days, Grissom found himself wishing that teleportation was not a molecular impossibility...He wanted to be with her; but he was not entirely sure that she would want to be with him...

_Screw it..._

They were not officially divorced, she was still his wife and God help whoever tried to stand between him and her when she had been treated like this. He still cared about her, the fleeting feelings that had coursed through him in the moment when he had thought Greg was trying to tell him that something had happened to her, that he had lost her by someone else's design, told him more about himself than the months of pshychological analysis that had led to this.

His fingers found his phone, and, as if in response to his touch, it began to ring and this time, he did check the caller ID,

_Sara Grissom._

A/N: Thank you all for reading, hopefully you enjoyed it, if you have a minute, I would love to know your thoughts, whatever they may be...


	3. Regret Me Not

**Chapter 3**

Regret Me Not

"I was just about to call you..." he murmured quietly, surprising her by speaking first.

"Great minds and all that..." she said softly,

She made to stand up but Nick had already gotten to his feet, and wandered into the kitchen to give her privacy.

She could not believe how awkward this felt. She was sure that someone had called him. That was the only reason he would have wanted to call her or would have responded to her own call...Her money was on Greg...They had not spoken since the phone call where he had suggested they should consider a separation. They had used every excuse under the sun, work, time zones, bad signal, but that was all they were, excuses, smoke and mirrors to cover up the truth...The truth that they could not bear to attempt a thirty second phone conversation because it was just easier to pretend that it hadn't happened.

It was as though they had gone back in time, back to her first few months in Vegas, where that initial attraction from the San Francisco conference still lingered but they were both unsure of where the other's feelings lay. They had worked, they had talked, they had flirted and all the while with the uncomfortable, unsure air that clung to them both, afraid to open themselves us, afraid to share their feelings with the other in case they were not returned. Now after thirteen years of working together, seven years of being together and three of being married and they were back to that same uncertainty that had dogged them. She had hated it, and loved it at the same time, it had been part of the attraction and part of the prevention, now, she despised it, a thirty second phone call had destroyed thirteen years of their lives...

"Yes..." he said with a strained laugh, "...How are you?"

"I, I'm fine..." she replied, slowly, this time he really did laugh,

"Now I'm worried..."

"Not concerned?"

"Always..." he responded, softly, "Greg told me what happened..."

"I knew it." she breathed

"What?" he asked, surprised.

"I knew it would be Greg."

"He's worried about you, he thinks you're not coping..."

"Why? Because I was framed for murder, I appear to be taking dangerous combinations of alcohol and sleeping pills, because I've been stalked and someone has been picking through our house without my knowledge, because of a ridiculous one-night-stand or because of the breakdown of my marriage?" she sighed, suddenly catching herself, _I am always over talking around you..._Some things don't change...

"All of the above..." He replied, softly, knowing that they needed to discuss at least one of the many things on her list, for her sanity if nothing else.

"I'm sorry Sara, I should have checked up on you..." he began, quietly, immediately regretting his words, knowing how she would react to them.

"Why? You don't owe me anything Grissom..."

He noted the change in the way she now referred to him by his surname with a pang before saying, softly, "I didn't know I had to have a debt in order to care about you Sara..." he murmured, quietly,

"No, no I'm sorry I didn't mean that, I just..." she took a deep breath, looking towards the ceiling as though the answer to her life was scrawled across it in large, helpful letters, "I just, I, I don't know..."

"Sara, we shouldn't be doing this over the phone..." he murmured, softly, putting her out of her misery as she struggled to grasp the English language once again,

"No, no we shouldn't, but it needs done, and it needs done now, this can't wait Gil, it won't wait, and besides, there could be some benefits to doing this over the phone as opposed to face to face..."

"Really?" he said, surprised by this observation,

"I'm afraid I'll throw things..." he laughed genuinely at this,

"I can be at your apartment in an hour, if that's what you want." he told her, quietly

"What you can fly now?"

"Yes, in a plane a few hours ago...Your boss, Russell called me and told me I should come back for you..."

This surprised her, to think that they had been less than a few miles apart as opposed to a few thousand miles and still, stil the distance between them lingered...

"And what you just decided to just jump on a plane, just like that." She said, bitterly, thinking that if it was that easy they would have done that a long time ago.

"He was fairly vague, he told me that something had happened to you and if I cared I would get my ass back to Vegas immediately...You have a lot of people who care about you Sara..."

"Why didn't you just come straight here?" she whispered,

"I didn't want to do anything that would upset you...I'm sure Nick found out what happens to unexpected guests..."

It was her turn to laugh shakily at this, "I want you...I want you to come here I mean..."

* * *

True to his word Grissom arrived at their apartment in about an hour. It only struck Sara when he walked through the door what kind of state they were in if he had to ask for her permission to come home...

"Hey..."

"Hey..." she murmured,

"You look beautiful..." he told her softly, without thinking.

She did, dressed in a light, blue, summer dress, her hair hanging loosely around her face, still damp from the shower.

"But I don't look beautiful for you anymore..." she trailed off, looking at the floor as she led him wordlessly to the sofa and sat him down,

"Sara..." he began, cautiously,

"No, I'm sorry that was a stupid thing to say..." she murmured, quietly, before deciding to just bite the bullet, "How much did Greg tell you?" she asked, softly,

"Everything..."

_Blood from a stone, "_Define 'everything'." She said, cautiously, thinking she could see where this was going already and not sure if she wanted to let it.

"Basderic, the frame-up, how you resolved said frame up.." he paused, they were both unsure of how to proceed, eventually he decided it couldn't exactly get much worse, "Your relationship with the victim...

"Don't, don't you dare judge me..." she breathed dangerously, "I was tired of being alone, I lived my entire life that way, me, myself and I...When I was a child I couldn't talk to anyone, I didn't _have _anyone and that followed me everywhere, haunted me as much as any nightmare. I could never be close enough to anyone to talk to them, could never bring myself to trust someone enough to let them anywhere near me. I told myself that it was just who I was, I was a strong, independent woman and I didn't need anyone...But I wanted them..." tears were shining in her eyes but she angrily blinked them away as she continued, "Then I came to Vegas I found you I found them, I had something that I could belong to and in the end I didn't even have that...After thirteen years in this city, with these people, with you, I had no-one, I may as well have been ten years old again, hiding the bruises all over my body with no-one to tell how they got there..."

She looked away at this point, she could tell herself all she liked that the reason she couldn't trust them, the reason she couldn't talk to them was her father, because of what he had done to her, broken her long before she came to Vegas but she knew that that was not entirely true...

"I couldn't talk to anyone here either, I couldn't talk to them, how could I? How could I force them to pick sides, to _choose_? That wasn't fair...Russell and Finn, they 'understand' but they don't understand me or you, and I sure as Hell couldn't talk to _you_. Whenever I did, I didn't care, I was happy and I didn't give a damn about the times I wasn't...For that hour, hour and a half, whatever it was, I just wanted to hear your voice, I just wanted to have the chance to remind myself why I loved you and why I still did this, I didn't want to let go of that, neither of us could, we couldn't say what needed to be said because we couldn't deal with the consequences. When it came down to it, when my marriage and everything I had had fallen down around me, in a city I had known for thirteen years, I had to go and get drunk with a stranger to get a _shred _of human contact...And he ended up dead, regular King Midas me, story of my life..."

"Sara..."

"No, it's true, I couldn't be alone anymore, I didn't have to be alone anymore, I was stupid and selfish and _pathetic, _I went out looking for a good time and I found a meaningless one-night stand while Basderic found his perfect little murder victim..."

"You can't believe that Sara, after everything we've seen and everything we've done on this job, you can't think that you were in any way to blame for this..."

"No? You tell me why not? I might not have stabbed him but I got him involved in this, If I hadn't kissed him, been caught with him, if I hadn't put a target on his back in the first place-"

"Then maybe he would have been hit by a bus." He said firmly, "Sara, this is not your fault, you know that..."

"May be...But...I honestly don't know what I know and what I don't anymore I thought I knew we had something, I thought I knew that I had them that I had _something _but when I was standing in his apartment and he had a gun pointed at me, when he pulled the trigger, a little part of me wished that it was real, wished that he had actually shot me because then maybe I would feel something other than the _nothing _that's been my company these last few weeks."

She did not know what she hoped to gain from telling him this, make him guilty, make him care, she just knew that it was the truth, and it was a truth she could not share with anyone else, and they had to start being honest with one another...

"You don't mean that..." he said in a low voice, mouth dry.

"I think I do...They were all worried about me, about the apparent alcohol and sleeping pill cocktail I was taking, they thought I was hitting self-destruct again and that I was trying to drown the ruins of this relationship in nothing, numb the pain...Truth is, I haven't had to do that in a long time, I haven't felt anything in weeks, I've lost the ability to care enough to bother trying to feel pain...I can't do this anymore..." the last words came in a strangled whisper as she stared at the ceiling once again, eyes closed to he would not see the tears that threatened to fall.

"I know..."

"No, I don't think you do, I'm done Gil, it's over, it's gone, whatever we had, it's never coming back. I can't keep kidding myself that we can't make this work because we can't we can't force this into something it's not and frankly I don't want to...I love you, I do, but _this _this isn't a marriage, this hasn't even _resembled _a marriage in a long time...Relationships are about sacrifices, on both sides, but I..I can't leave what I have here in Vegas, and I won't ask you to give up what you have either because I know what happens when people start making promises they can't keep, saying that they'll work through it and they'll stay together for the sake of their daughter and that eventually leads to bitterness and hate and I, I can't do that to you Gil, I won't...If one of us has to leave behind everything they love for the person that they love, if we agree to give up who we are in order to become something the other can't love...We'll both be miserable, and I want you to be happy..."

"I know, I feel the same way, that's why I stopped this, we've been trying each other down, suffocating each other for too long...I never wanted to make you unhappy Sara, I think we can both agree on that and I know that you have been unhappy, and that I am partly to blame for that and for that I am sorry, truly, and while I understand why you're saying you can't, it surprised me..."

"Why?" she said, a little wrong-footed by this.

"You were always the fighter in this relationship, I knew I would be the one pushing for change, one way or the other, and I expected you to push back, to fight for something..."

"I don't want to fight..." she whispered, "I've seen what fighting does in a relationship, whether it's for it or in it, it never produces anything good..."

"I don't think you believe that, I think you'd like to because it would make this easier to deal with but I don't think you can..After everything that's happened in this relationship, after everything we fought for at the beginning, everything we've done for this, we may both have been in the same place during that phone call, but we both started at the same point as well and I don't think that you believe that it can end like this, what's happened in between says it can't..."

"I do..." she said, quietly, she was surprised to hear him saying this, he was right, he would be the one pushing for the relationship to move forward, whether that was a separation to free them both or something that let them live and love together, he would push for it and she would push back, terrified for anything to change, terrified to trust what he was saying, even though she knew it was true because it would mean starting again with nothing and leaving herself vulnerable to change, something she had never had a strength for.

"I don't...What if he had pulled that trigger? What if he had killed you? What if I had lost you? What would I have then?"

"You would have what you have now!" she screamed coldly, anger flaring in her chest as they both got to their feet.

"No I wouldn't, I wouldn't have anything and I can't lose you as senselessly as that bullet would have taken you from me."

"Why not? You lost me a long time ago Gil and it didn't take bullets of phone calls, it took the distance between us being too great, in every sense of the word..."

"What are you saying Sara?" he asked, taking her by the arms and holding her close to him, "Look at me," she did, " Are you telling me that you wouldn't lose anything if I died right now?"

"No, of course not! Don't twist what I'm saying Gil!" she snapped, pulling herself free, turning and taking several steps away from him, he followed,

"I don't have to twist anything, answer me, just answer me, what would you have if I was gone?"

"Nothing!" she shrieked, without thinking, becoming confused and furious, "I-"

"Exactly." He breathed, pulling her around, her back against the wall, his hands on either sides of her waist, pinning her down without ever having to touch her, "We would have _nothing.._.I can't give up everything as easily as you can-"

"Easy! You think this is easy?" she snarled trying to push him away but he refused to move, "We don't have a choice, we would both move on-"

"No we wouldn't, we couldn't, we can't."

"We can...We have to..."

"Why? Why do we have to 'move on' to give up?"

"Because we can't keep going like this."

"Why not Sara? Why can't we just go on pretending?"

"Because it's not fair."

"Why not, we've both agreed we'll have nothing without it?"

"We have nothing now! I can't keep making you unhappy."

"Why?"

"Because I love you!"

He had been heading towards this since the beginning of the conversation and she knew why. Without ever remembering giving her body permission she found her lips pressed against his.

In that one heated argument, the first real emotion they had shown towards one another in what felt like years, it now felt like they were waking up, that they were back in the beginnings of their relationship again when the tension between them had been tangible and they had resorted to anger and passion to diffuse it, making each other jealous and angry while trying to pretend that they didn't care. The tension between them crackled like electricity but it couldn't last, it could never be more than a fleeting memory...

She broke the connection between them, closing her eyes and dipping her head. She felt his hands gently resting on her arms, locking them together. She pulled away and this time he did not stop her. When she was able to open her eyes she found that it made little difference as she still could not see him through the thin film of tears that was clouding her eyes and her judgement that she had so firmly told herself she would not let him see.

Would not let him see how much she needed him, how much she wanted him, how vulnerable she was without him, how hard she was fighting against this, even though she knew it was the only thing she had.

She began backing slowly from the room, slowly shaking her head as the forbidden tears spilled from her eyes, hands raised in front of her, to form some sort of barrier between them,

"I can't, Gil, it's over, it has to be over, I can't, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry I just-" her voice caught and she found her hand pulling open the door that she threw herself from, doing the only thing that that ever felt natural to her, running, running until she could no longer run, until she had ran far enough from her own demons that they would leave her alone until she was able to start running again...

A/N: I'm experimenting a little with this story, maybe a little too much, it's not my usual style of writing and it's a little (big) bit out of my comfort zone, as a result, I would love to hear your thoughts on this, constructive criticism is always welcomed on any of the content/writing, I'd like to improve, thank you all :)


	4. In a Cupboard Outside Paris

**Chapter 4**

In a Cupboard Outside Paris...

She was not sure where she was, and couldn't exactly remember how she came to be there. Words, sensations and sounds were flooding into her head in a confused, disjointed tangle, forcing her to her knees.

She had been coping, she had been dealing with it. On her own. The best way to deal with anything was always on her own. Other people just complicated things..._Too bloody true..._

It was safe to say that she was not coping now. If she was honest with herself, she had never really been coping, since her idea of dealing with it had been to pull so many triple shifts that she had rivalled Grissom and when she had finally accepted that even high-functioning insomniacs such as herself needed sleep, in order to succumb to the most irritating of nature's demands for humans, she ended up taking a couple of zolpidem with a shot and surrendering to the black abyss of unconsciousness with all of the nightmares that stalked her in the darkness while she was vulnerable.

She hadn't been coping, she had only been pretending that she was...That had been enough though...

It seemed that Basderic got what he wanted after all, she was slowly destroying herself somewhere in the middle of the desert, quite alone ,with no-one to know and no-one to care, delicately combusting as the memories of the last few hours overcame her.

"_Why not?"_

"_It's not fair..."_

"_I love you!"_

_His lips pressed, with tender passion, against hers. _

She opened her eyes and screamed in pain and frustration, knowing that no-one could hear her. No, it was not fair, none of this even came close to being 'fair'. He had no right to do this to her. He had ended it. He had suggested the separation. He couldn't just decided he'd had some sort of eye-opening experience from a bullet that did not even exist and then say that he wanted her, that she was good enough for him now...

She was not one of his research papers that he could leave and come back to whenever he became interested in it again. She deserved more than that. More than being treated like that. Didn't she? She would not, _could _not wait for him anymore...How many years had she wasted on that already? How long had she clung to the idea of him, the idea of them? She had not expected that when they were married, she would still be waiting.

But then she had not expected them to be on different continents, she had not expected them both to become so wrapped up in their jobs that they forgot about each other, she had not expected to come home to an empty apartment every night, with nothing but a take-away menu and a bottle of wine and sleeping pills for comfort and company; to sleep in an empty bed with only a pillow to hold her when she woke up in a cold sweat, screaming, under the blanket at three am...

Was this all she deserved though? Had she asked for this? She knew who she had married, what kind of man he was, that was _why _she had married him after all...Had she really expected anything different? Had she any right to expect differently?

_Yes._ She told herself firmly. Se had that right when he asked her to marry him, when he had found her in the jungles of Costa Rica, when he had made her feel for the first time in her life; happy. Properly happy, true happiness, not tempered by fear or lust or loss. He had no right to take that away from her whenever he felt like it...

She finally managed to clear her eyes long enough to see where she was. She was nowhere. She was nothing...An accident on the huge expanse of desert that was claimed by the horizon beyond. The great, flat plains of dead space where nothing grew and nothing lived felt strangely appropriate...She could quite easily lose herself to it...Right now she could happily lose herself to it, if only for a few hours...

* * *

He stared blankly at the wall where, two minutes ago, he had had everything and now, the only thing between his hands was all he had left...Nothing.

He sank to the floor, bracing himself against the cold stone, eyes closed wondering why he had done that, why he had pushed her, why he had pushed her away...

She was the only woman, the only one that he had ever allowed into his life without fully understanding. He could never understand her, could never quite wrap his head around the way he behaved around her, the way he no longer had to justify everything he said or did, he could be impulsive, he could say and do whatever he felt and only worry about the consequences later. He had opened himself up to her completely and let her love him for all of his imperfections, his demons and insecurities, for everything he was and everything he wasn't, and she had done the same for him.

And yet, for all that he knew about her, he could never know what she was. 'A riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma' that was part of the attraction. She was always changing, always hiding, never completely open about herself, no matter how much she trusted him, always giving him something new to learn about her every time they were together; every time they met; every time they talked; every time they touched .

It was her. It had always been her. The dominatrix Lady Heather had captured him, but only short term. She too had been deep and complex, a _challenge _but nothing more. When she had chosen to reveal herself to him, she had done so fully, leaving nothing to the imagination or the intellect. An open book with no more pages left to turn whereas Sara never stopped writing and never let him see until she was good and ready, and never any more than a glimpse...

He sighed and rubbed his eyes, the familiar dull ache beginning to throb behind them.

He started as someone banged on the door. He hesitated for a fraction of a second before reminding himself that it was his house too and stood to answer it.

"Hey, oh-"

It was Brass, exhausted and jet-lagged having just been giving the news of the drama that had unfurled in his absence.

"Hey Jim..."

"I, uh, I was looking for Sara..."

"She's not here...Would you like to come in?"

"...Sure, yeah, I have nowhere else I need to be..."

"I take it you've heard..." Grissom murmured quietly, leading him in to the living room.

"Yeah." Brass snorted, "I go away for a few days and everything goes to the dogs...And you might be faster asking who hasn't. News in Las Vegas law enforcement travels faster than half-price hookers on The Strip..."

Grissom sighed, knowing how Sara would take this and hating how much she would despise it.

"I also heard a couple of things that aren't running on the grapevine yet...You separated?"

If there was one thing he did not want to talk about and with one person, it was this and Brass.

The two of them had always been close, that had been obvious. What had not been as obvious however, was Brass' relationship with Sara. He had loved her like a daughter and she had accepted them as the father she never had, something that not many outsiders could see but he could. He was sure that, had he ever done anything to hurt her, he would have spent the rest of his life looking over his shoulder for Brass and a shotgun.

"Yes...At the time, it was the only thing I could do to stop hurting her..."

"'At the time'? Not anymore?" Brass asked quietly,

"Now...I don't think now matters, what's gone before...It's too late..."

"You know Gil Grissom, for a genius, you're pretty damn thick sometimes..."

"Yes, I am, particularly if I ignore the 'genius' part of me that's warning me not to accept relationship advice from you..."

"You see that just illustrates my previous point because I am someone you _should _take relationship advice from because I've been there. I know what it's like when you get there and you're not there, neither of you are...In the few months leading up to our divorce, all we did was fight, I mean, _all_, it didn't take much, any excuse...There was no love left between us by the end, the passion had turned to anger, the love to hate and misery...You're not there yet Gil. You have a beautiful, intelligent, brilliant woman in your life and she's not ready to let go. While you feel that this is hurting her, until neither of you can stand to be in the same room without need a large glass of something very alcoholic, it's not too late..."

"I hope so...It just feels as though I'm toying with her, abusing her trust, and I know what that will do to her...I've always only wanted what's best for her and I thought I knew what that was and then I thought I'd lost her and I realised exactly what that meant for her, for me and I...I don't know...I just can't see a way out of this other than to follow the path we've gone down..."

"I don't know either Gil..." Brass sighed, "As you pointed out, I'm not exactly the font of all knowledge when it comes to successful marriages, if it's over everyone will accept that and they'll support you, support you _both_..."

"Thanks Jim..." he said quietly, "Do you want to wait here for her or-"

"No, no, I think maybe I should give her some space just now, it's probably what she wants, i just came by to make sure that she was OK...But in all honestly, I haven't slept properly in four days and there's a feather mattress calling to me."

Grissom managed a smile at this and walked him to the door saying lightly, "Enjoy..."

"Yeah." Brass chuckled, before adding in an undertone, "Gil, before you follow me out, leave her with something to come back to..."

He left, leaving Grissom staring out after him, always surprised by his alarmingly accurate instincts.

Deciding that he was right and that, after all of the revisiting of ancient history that they had done, to stick to their unwilling drag down memory lane by reaching for pen and paper.

* * *

She cautiously entered the house, finding it as she so often did, to be empty, but for once, this comforted her. She could not face him right now, she needed to get her own thoughts straight before she started wrestling with his.

Her feet ached as she pulled off her shoes and socks, padding around in her bare, blistered feet allowing the cool tiles to soothe them. She didn't know how she had managed to stagger back home, or, more pressingly, why she had bothered...

As she padded into the living room she froze, noticing something on the table in the dark that had not been there when she had left. Her stomach convulsed and acidic bile hit her throat as her thoughts turned, irrationally, to Basderic. In _her _house. All over her things. Out with her control...then she switched the light on and realised what it was.

A plant.

Unable to believe the audacity of this, she moved towards it, noticing that a letter had been tied to one of its slender stems, more than the usual sentiments card.

_For Sara..._

She tenderly removed it and against her better judgement cautiously opened it, hand flying to her mouth and knees buckling beneath her as she realised what it was,

_'Human beings have developed a rather misconstrued idea of what a marriage it..What started off as a simple, religious ceremony celebrating two people has become a glamorised show...The dress, the church, the cake, the guests, even the flowers...I now know, and I think you do too, why _we _are doing this. We understand that you won't spend the rest of your life in your wedding dress, that we won't grow old together in that church, that we must let ourselves eat more than cake, that we probably won't see ninety per cent of the guests again and that I have something far more beautiful and far more worthwhile to spend my time looking at than those flowers...I have you. The only thing that matters from this day, the only thing that sets this apart from other marrigaes, is you. Because the only thing I will have from this day until the day I die is you Sara Sidle...'_

_In a cupboard in that little town outside Paris whose name I've forgotten, though I'm sure you won't have, with no-one but the minister and a couple of alley cats as witnesses, I told you that I loved you and that you were the only thing in this life I was sure I would have until the day I died. I still want that, I always have, I thought that I was acting with your best interests in mind but it was never something I believed or wanted. I know you must be confused by what I've done and said recently, to be honest, I am too. The only time I've ever been sure about my feelings for you is when I stop over-thinking and started listening to what my heart had been trying to tell me all along. The first time, when Natalie took you away from me, I couldn't think, I couldn't breathe without you and that told me more than all the hours of thinking and analysing how I felt about us It told how much I loved you. I am sorry that it took this, it took someone trying to take you away from me again to show me how wrong I have been..._

_I thought that when I made that call, that stupid, ill-thought out call, that I was saving you. That I was setting you free, removing the ties we've been pinning each other down with for too long. I thought that you would be ready to say goodbye because you weren't saying goodbye to what we had then but what we have now. Which is never something I wanted. It took a bullet that never even existed, the threat of someone else taking you from me to realise that I wasn't saying goodbye. I wasn't setting you free. I wasn't saving you. I was losing you. I was losing you and the pain I felt at that damned near killed me and the thought that you had known, you had seen that from the beginning destroyed me Sara. When I realised what I had done to you, what I had actually done and not just what I wanted to pretend I had...I cannot put into words what it did to me, how much I wished that I could take it back. I am so sorry..._

_I don't blame you for hating me, for feeling the way that you do. I rejected you, I told the only woman that I had ever loved that I didn't want her, that I never wanted to hurt her, while paining her more than I ever believed to be possible and it's only now I write it down and see the truth that I understand what I've done to you, what I've done to us. I know that you're not giving up on us, that you could never do that, but that you're giving up on me. You can't keep allowing me to play with you, to tell you I want a separation one minute and to spend the rest of my life with you the next. I understand that you must be confused and frustrated and I am too. I can only tell you now that I know. I know for sure what I've always known but couldn't find a way to make sense of until now. I know that I love you Sara Sidle. I know that you're the only one I've ever really loved. I know that I would move Heaven and Earth for you, sell my soul to the Devil and promise a lifetime of servitude to the Gods for just one more night with you. I know that you make me happy. But I also know how this must sound. Words on paper. They don't mean anything, not after the months of distance but they mean something to me Sara. You mean something to me, you mean everything. The only right now that doesn't is the thing I almost chose over you. Books and research, they can be done anywhere, at any time, I can't believe I allowed myself to become so lost in something so meaningless. To allow that to frustrate me and consume me so when the best thing that had ever happened to me needed me to be with her. I'm here Sara. I will always be here. I will be wherever you need me to be. _

_All I wanted was for you to be happy, and I want us to be happy but I'll understand if it's too late, if I've done and said too much, if you really can't. As with so many things in this mess we call life, we can't always get what we want, because sometimes, someone else knows it's not what we need. My main reason for marrying you, for being with you, for loving you and living for you was you..I don't know what to do about this Sara. I know what I want to happen but I don't know what to do...If you want me to go then I'll go, and never come back; if you want me to stay, then I'll never leave your side again; if you need time, then I'll wait, forever and a day if that's what you need; if you want it to be over then it's over; if you want to give it one more chance then I'll dive into it headfirst with you; if you don't know what you want, then I'm here for you Sara..._

_Whatever and always..._

_From Grissom._

A/N:Quite worried about this one, I may have gone too far with it, I realised what a twisted person I am when I had the idea to put his wedding vows in this...Overkill? The letter was one of the hardest things I've ever written (and re-written I don't know how many times) and I would like to know what you thought of it so I can fix it if it was broken to begin with.

I promise that I will try and tidy up the mess I seem to have made of this in later chapters, but if you're in this one, you're in for the long haul I'm afraid, I'm still sort through angst and thoughts of 'how the Hell do I fix this?' I'm thinking of going back and revisiting both of them in the aftermath of the infamous break-up callIn the meantime let me know your thoughts, good bad or indifferent, they are always appreciated, I am trying to improve...


	5. In The Dark

A/N: No idea where I'm going with this, well actually I do, I'm going to revisit the call that split them up, the night following it and the morning after, more appropriately I have no idea _why _I'm doing that...Anyhow, I have and this is what has happened, warnings for this chapter, my head went a lot of places I did not expect...Enjoy...

**Chapter 5**

In The Dark...

_Two Weeks Earlier: The Phone Call..._

The phone. Ringing. Again. Again it was ringing and again it was him. Again, she ignored it.

She could see this irony of this. The bitter irony. All those months she had called him, desperate to hear the sound of his voice, needing him with the desire normally associated with feeding an addiction. In the end she stopped calling with any intention of actually talking to him. The sound of his voice on the answering machine was enough...

Now she was avoiding him. Avoiding him like the drug she needed and hated for that very reason. Every word he spoke physically hurt her, especially when she had a fairly good idea of what those words would be.

She knew it needed to be done. That those words needed to be said. But not now.

After she had gone the day ignoring him, with Finn and Russell forcibly reminding her that she worked with trained investigators, she knew that she could not live the rest of her life this way, could not ignore him forever. Especially not after Russell had vacated his own office to her the privacy to answer the call.

"Hello." She said, softly, holding her breath.

"You've been pretty hard to get hold of." He told her quietly. _For good reason..._

"Yeah, um, I'm so sorry." _Was she? _"How are you?" she asked, awkwardly. _How are you? That was all she could manage?_

"I'm okay-"He_ was about as 'okay' as she was. She did now want to know what was following 'okay', _"Is uh, now a good time?"

No, now was not a 'good time', not here, not in the lab with everyone watching, judging, and prying. The only place she had ever felt safe, ever felt like she belonged. He could not do this to her now...

"Yes." She found herself whispering without permission. _No!_

"Sara...I've been thinking," _So have I, it's not a good time, please, _"I think maybe," _No, stop, please, don't say it..._"We should consider a separation."

_Oh God no..._Not this, not here, not now. She could feel herself clinging to Russell's desk. The harsh contact and pain the only thing reminding her of reality and preventing her from sinking to the floor and breaking down completely for all to see.

"Maybe we should." She somehow choked before hanging up.

She knew he would want to talk, would _need _to talk. To give her all of the evidence that he had carefully evaluated before neatly presenting his findings to her.

She couldn't. She had to run, had to get away. To hide. To run from them all, pull the shutters down and withdraw into herself until she could convincingly feed them the lie that she always fed them, that she was fine...

There were tears in her eyes that she would _not _let fall, not here, not in front of Russell. Russell. Watching her as she practically sprinted from his office.

"Sara! He called.

She could not stand it. The concern, the _pity_. He didn't know her, none of them did, none of them could, none of them _would._

She did not trust herself to drive. She could not see, could not think, could not _breathe._

She knew the streets of Sin City too well. It was too easy to just run, to lose herself to them until she could find a taxi to take her home.

Home. Their house was no longer her home. His house was no longer her home. 'Home is not where you live; it's where people understand you.' That was not where people understood her. In a sense, she was running from her home, from the only place she had been understood, to the one thing above all others that she could never comprehend herself.

...

He sighed, pressing the phone to his lips. Apparently it had not been a good time...It was never going to be a good time. How could it be? He was trying to end a relationship that had spanned so many years, in a few, insignificant, meaningless little words.

No...That sounded cold. He was not 'trying' to end it; he was forcing himself to end it. It was something they had to address. They could not just say 'hey, we're married now, that's enough, we'll deal with the details later.'

The trouble with details was that, sooner or later, we all find the devil in them.

His fingers moved blindly over his phone, dialling her number again.

He knew she would not answer. Knew she would be running. But he also knew that he could not leave it like this. It felt too cold. 'I think we should separate'. 'Maybe we should.' It couldn't end like that. He knew he shouldn't; knew what kind of message it was likely to produce when he was in this state, but he had to try. He owed her that much.

He waited for the agonising length of the time the phone rang for, hating the part of himself that still believed that she would answer, condemning it for being selfish and for not knowing her.

"Sara Sidle." He closed his eyes as; every time, he felt the bitter sting as it continued, "...leave a message."

"Sara I, I know what this must feel like just now but...You know it's the right thing to do, it's the _only _thing to do. I know that sounds cruel but I, I've always only ever had your best interests in mind...You know that..."_ You have to know that..._"I, I lo-"his voice broke. He couldn't, couldn't say it, couldn't do that to her, couldn't do that to himself, "I will never regret the time we had together, we need to talk, we need to do this properly...We owe each other that much..."

He hung up, and somehow felt worse for trying to make himself feel better...

He did not regret what they had, would never regret that. However much it was hurting them now, it had been worth it. He would go through what they were going through now for the rest of his life for one night with her. For one more night with her...

God why had he done that? Any of it? Because it needed to be done. Not like this. Yes like this, the longer you waited the more it would have hurt her. I love her, I shouldn't have hurt her at all, there must have been some way to do this without hurting her, to fix this. There wasn't...They both knew that.

Resigning himself to a night filled with insomnia fuelled by caffeine and relentless psychological analysis, he padded into the kitchen to make himself the first of, inevitably, many cups of coffee.

He skimmed over the usual instant at the front of the cupboard in favour of the smaller, more meaningful packet at the back. Greg's infamous 'Blue Hawaiian' that had made him infamous around the lab.

Every year he would be sent a small supply of it with notes such as '_Just because you're not at the lab anymore doesn't mean you can't mastermind me into giving you my 'community' coffee. Enjoy!'_

Hank trotted noiselessly into the kitchen behind him. His large, soft brown eyes reminding him forcibly of Sara's deep velvet ones and seemed to be telling him that he did not deserve that after what he had done to her.

"I had to..." he murmured, "I love her, it was the only way I could..."

Hank did not look impressed.

Grissom sighed and turned back to making his coffee, noting that Hank had become a silent, unpaid psychiatrist to him in the last few weeks. One who was increasingly losing patience with his patient.

He returned to the living room and slumped into a chair, playing absent-mindedly with his wedding ring. Sighing as the dog settled himself faithfully at his feet, looking reproachfully up at him as he carefully twisted it off his finger and placed it on the glass coffee table.

...

She was greeted, as she so often was by nothing. The cold chill of the empty apartment clung to her. She did not know how she felt about it. She was confused. On one hand she was angry; she hated him, even though she knew he was right. On the other, she just wanted him here to hold her and to give her something to cling to because at the minute, everything she had been slipping away from her and she was not sure how much more she could take.

The worst part was, she still felt for him too. And she hated herself for that weakness. But she could not help it, she had empathy for him. She understood. She knew what he had done and why. Hadn't she done the same thing, and for vey similar reasons? She had been sure that she had been killing him, tying him down and suffocating him, toying with him as she made him wait. She had been unable to bear the thought and she had sent him that video filled with half-truths and dressed up lies. Telling him that she was good and that she wanted him to move on from her, to move on with his life, to find someone else to make him happy because she did not think that she could anymore. And while she had said all this to him, the thought of him being with another woman had made her want to commandeer the ship, get herself back to Vegas and tell the stupid man that she loved him and she didn't know why...

He had seen through her pretence. Her sentiments had made him come to his senses, had shown them what they both knew...But somehow, she did not think there would be any reunions under the stars this time...

Her phone rang.

She could not do it, could not leave him on the other end, waiting, hoping, praying that she would answer. She picked it up to put him out of his misery and then realised who was actually calling her.

_D.B Russell. _

Shit...He was worried about her. And no bloody wonder after she had fled like a lunatic from his office as though a wormhole to Hell had opened up inside it and she was now being pursued by all of its demons. _Not too far from the truth though, is it?_

He wanted to talk and she couldn't trust herself to coherently string two words together in her head never mind hold down a full length conversation over the phone. She couldn't. But she had to. Otherwise he would know. Would know that something had happened, that she was falling to pieces, and then she would...

"Russell, I've just pulled a triple shift and most unfortunately, nature demands that I sleep at some point." She told him, in what she hoped was a casual tone.

He chuckled politely at this before saying, "No, no, that's not why I'm calling Sara; you can get to your bed in a minute I promise. I just...Are you OK?"

"I'm fine, really I'm great." She told him, closing her eyes as she told herself forcefully, _when you want someone to believe that you're OK, don't bloody tell them that you're 'fine'..._

"You sure Sara. You know you can talk to me, about anything, right, because lately, I get the feeling, and feel free to tell me to mind my own here, I just think that maybe things aren't as 'fine' with you as you like to make out..."

"I...I..." she stammered, she wanted to tell him, wanted to say that her husband had done the unthinkable to her.

In the middle of the lab, over the phone of all places and things, that he was not her husband anymore but she couldn't. Then she would have to accept it, would have to deal with it, would have to deal with them dealing with it and she couldn't. She would, in her own time, but not right now. Right now, she needed to trust what her instincts were telling her and that was secrets, you are only safe when _you _have your secrets and so she replied, softly,

"I'm okay, really, I'm dealing with it." _Why did you say that?_

"With what?" he asked, gently, as she kicked herself for being so stupid, "Sara, whatever you're dealing with, if it's affecting-"

"It's not affecting my work." She broke in too quickly, revealing her desperation.

Her work was fast becoming the only thing she had left. She could not lose it as well.

"I wasn't going to say that Sara, you're a professional, I know that...I was just going to say that if it's affecting you this badly, whatever 'it' is, maybe you should talk to someone. My door's always open, you could come round tonight, have dinner with us-"

"I, I, thank you but I can't...I really need to get some sleep or I'll fall over. Rain check..."

"Yeah, OK, I'll let you go, but if you need anything, you call me?"

"Of course."

"Alright...Goodnight Sara."

"Night..." she murmured, as the line went, reluctantly, dead.

He knew that he had gone too far, that he had pushed too hard, crossed a line from which she had no choice but to pull the shutters down and block him out. Something that affected her more strongly than she had anticipated. They had become close during his time in Vegas. Of all the new members of the team, she had connected more with him and it pained her to lie to him, to shut him out and to have him know exactly what she was doing to him. She didn't have a choice though, she couldn't...Or so she told herself.

Realising that what she had said about needing sleep had enough truth in it to force her to bed, as ever with the sleeping pills, the only thing standing between her and eternal insomnia.

She slipped helplessly into an uneasy sleep, and soon the reasons for her insomnia returned in full force.

_She was standing alone in the middle of a large, dense expanse of woods in a small clearing. A firefly bobbed, invitingly, in front of her, asking her to follow it. She knew she shouldn't but she always allowed it take to tempt her away. As she followed it deeper into the dark tangle of knotted trees she jumped and squinted between the trees, a sudden flash of movement in the darkness drawing her attention to a shadowy figure standing between two bowed oaks. When she looked back however, they were gone. _

_Shaking her head and passing it off as a trick of the light, she continued to follow the firefly deeper and deeper into the forest, stumbling on trailing roots becoming hopelessly lost as they continued through the natural maze. _

_She kept flinching, her muscles becoming permanently contracted in fear as the sinister black silhouette continued to dog her movements through the trees, coming ever closer, but always she had the reassuring presence of the little firefly to anchor herself._

_She stumbled into a clearing and the little light she had been following so faithfully, went out, leaving her quite alone with the claustrophobic darkness closing in around her, snatching the breath from her lungs and making it impossible to take another one in the consuming, dense forest. She stood in the grim, black, waiting. Waiting for what she did not know, starting violently as devilishly strong, icy hands closed around her waist, flipping her onto her back on the cold, hard ground, pinning her in place as the unmistakeable voice of her father, soft and poisonously sweet, hissed in her ear, _

"_You will never be good enough for anyone now that I have destroyed you my little broken bird. They will not want you anymore, they will not have you anymore, _he _will not have you...Damaged is enough, no-one wants a bird that cannot fly..."_

_She could see Grissom standing on the opposite side of the clearing. She screamed and called out to him but he simply turned and began to walk, silently, back through the trees. Away from her. Leaving her, the broken bird he no longer had any use for..._

_As the silver knife flashed above her, _her eyes snapped open and she found herself screaming.

She pitched forwards, curling in on herself in the bed as her limbs trembled and the light pyjamas she had on clung to her in a cold sweat. She buried her face in her hands as her muscles convulsed in fear and her chest heaved, as she took great, rattling breaths attempting to force oxygen into her lungs and control herself. Quiet tears seeped from beneath her clawing fingers.

It took a long time to calm herself down. It had been a recurring nightmare that had dogged her in the darkness for years but every other time it had been the cause of broken sleep and shattered windows, Gil had been there to hold her and to reassure her.

Now there was no Gil and no reassurance. Following the events of the night before, it felt as though even her subconscious had turned against her...

Knowing that there wasn't enough Zolpidem on the world to overcome the level of insomnia she was now burdened with; she pulled herself from the bed on shaking legs and moved automatically from the living room, seeking to cleanse herself of the horror within.

The pictures of what was now her old life, smiled mockingly down upon her and it was only with great difficulty that she refrained from tearing them from their shelves and throwing them violently at something only she could see...

Unable to allow herself to remain stewing in the light clothes that still clung to her damp skin, she stripped them off, dived into a cool shower for a few minutes before changing and entering the kitchen, purposefully leaving her phone on the bedside cabinet.

Pulling open the cupboards she soon found that the only thing in them that was remotely alcoholic was a half empty bottle of red wine, the shelves now being filled with various herbal teas. She remembered, bitterly now, telling someone,

"I've spent enough of my life feeling numb. Alcohol makes me feel nothing; tea makes me feel better..."

Right now she didn't want to feel 'better' she wanted to feel what he had done to her and then she wanted to have an excellent excuse to go out and numb everything and to never feel again as all she seemed capable of experiencing was pain and she had spent enough of her life in that already...

She suddenly realised that she had been in Vegas for thirteen years. Thirteen years and had danced with far too few demons in Sin City, something she intended to change that night...

A/N: Thank you for reading/reviewing!


	6. Chain Reactions

**Chapter 6**

Chain Reactions

_Two Weeks Earlier: The Night After..._

Was that her fourth or her fifth?...She didn't know. She didn't care. It joined however many there now were coursing through her veins without much more thought.

She knew she was being stupid. Knew that she was being reckless. Knew that slipping back into her old ways was not the best way to deal with this, that she should talk to someone, to anyone, Russell had been more than willing but she had done what she had done before, turned him down in favour of the equally sympathetic drink and wordless bartender, allowing herself to drown herself in whatever needed drowning in without wanting to conduct a psychological evaluation of her first. Although at the rate she was knocking them back he was beginning to consider it.

"Taken?" a smooth voice interrupted her. Its owner was tall with black hair and intense blue eyes, one hand wrapped around a drink the other resting on the chair beside her.

"Not unless you can see someone sitting there that I can't." She replied, dully, thinking bitterly of her ever-absent husband.

"Well I know that. What makes you think I was asking about the chair? Personally, I was more interested in the woman..." he replied comfortably.

"Well...Depending on what drink you buy me will determine how I answer that..."She replied with a flirtatious wink.

He smiled and moved away to the bar. _You are married...Yeah? Tell that to your husband..._

He returned a few minutes later, carrying drinks, "Cocktail, 'Sex on a Beach', do I win?" he asked with a daring grin, sliding it across the table to her.

"It's got alcohol in it...You couldn't lose." She replied, taking a sip and he sank, easily into the chair beside her.

"So, my question, taken or not?" he asked, sipping at his own drink, a frozen margarita.

"Not tonight..." she replied, quietly, without thinking.

"Not tonight...So..." he paused and his eye caught and lingered on her wedding ring, "Married?" he murmured, uncomfortably.

"Not happily, and not according to my husband..." she breathed, pointedly sliding the ring from her finger and slipping it into her pocket, "What about you? Taken?" she asked, not much caring. She was drunk, she was lonely, and if he wanted to join her in that vein he was more than welcome.

"Very...With you." He replied, silkily

She smiled, "Well that's very forward, I don't even know you..."

"And I don't know you...But I still offered you Sex on a Beach...Funny old world isn't it...Since you ask, I'm Taylor."

"Sara." She replied, raising the offered Sex on a Beach in toast, "Continuing on this 'getting to know you' path; what do you do to make a living in this 'funny old world'?"

"Well what do you think I do?" he replied flirtatiously,

She considered him for a moment before saying, "Something in an office..." she began, cautiously, emboldened as his eyes flashed she continued, "I'd guess accountant?"

"Very good detective." He purred throatily as she concealed a smirk at the irony of this behind her cocktail, "Yes, I was in banking, I did the taxes of a large firm in Sacramento."

"Was? Aren't you now?"

"Well _now _I'm in a bar in Las Vegas with a beautiful woman." He answered smoothly,

"You just don't let up do you?" she said, shaking her head with an incredulous grin.

"Do you want me to?" he enquired, staring intently at her with his large, blue eyes.

"No..." she replied flashing him a quick, playful smile.

"So tell me, what does said beautiful woman do in the real world?"

"What do you think she does?" she teased,

"Stripper?" he smirked, daringly, taking a sip of his drink

"Excuse me?" she choked.

"Well you've got the looks for it." He replied easily,

She smiled slightly and found herself flushing, "Ah, no, not a stripper..."

"Shame...Could you be persuaded?"

It had been so long since someone had made her feel this way about herself and she was quietly loving it. What was the harm in having a little fun? It probably wouldn't go anywhere and even if it did, she was 'separated' now.

"Perhaps..."

"In the meantime, getting back to this, I'd say doctor?"

"Really? Why?" she said, surprised by this, particularly considering what she actually did.

"Well incredibly smart woman, incredibly sexy woman, maybe I'm just praying you're good at mouth-to-mouth depending on where this goes."

"Well this is going cold." She said, calling him out, "Wrong and cheesy." She teased.

"Really? Well do tell then, how do you make your living?"

"Law enforcement, forensics." She replied, smirking at the surprise on his face.

"A very good detective indeed." He murmured, also picking up on the irony of his earlier comment, "Sexy investigator, I can run with that..."

"I'll bet you-" she began but a dull buzz from her phone interrupted her,

_Six new messages: Gil Grissom. _

She tried not to feel anything as she made her apologies and began to listen to her voicemail, catching herself as she realised what she was doing and how sickened she now felt by it.

"I should go..." she murmured. However she found herself rapidly changing her mind as she listened to the voicemail, angrily hanging up as he stammered, "...your best interests in mind..."

He did not have the right to make her feel guilty anymore, he gave that up a long time ago...

"I'll walk you to your car." Taylor offered, also standing and handing her her coat and bringing her back to reality.

"I don't have a car..." she murmured, not sure why she was telling him this.

"Well then let me walk you to mine..."

_Why the Hell not? _"Sure..."

...

Grissom sighed as he stared into the dregs of his latest cup of 'coffee' that hadn't really been coffee at all. He had been increasingly making his it 'Irish' all night until there was not much coffee left. ..

Usually he was not much of a drinker but he had decided that tonight was not a night for denial and self-preservation.

He did not think he had ever felt so much pain, so much self-hate and self-pity in his life, had not thought it was possible to hurt the person he loved so much and then feel so damned guilty about it, all for doing the right thing...

He now came to the conclusion that this was not the 'right thing'. It was the best thing. _The lesser of two evils is still evil..._

He sighed, staring into the black dregs of liquid in the cup in his hand. Swirling them slowly and staring into the depths of the dark, consuming whirlpool it created.

Yes it was, it was evil and he despised himself for it, but in the long run, this would help her. Would stop her hurting. In the long run, she would be able to forget about him, to move on with her life. To find someone who deserved her. Who would put her above his work. Who would love her as he had loved her but this time, would be able to show her...

_Bullshit. _

He found the coffee mug flying from his hand and impacting the wall opposite, smashing and sending the murky liquid inside across the walls and the shards of china scattering from the scene. He slumped forwards in his chair, hand running over his face. Hank had sat up, alarmed by the cup's sudden, suicidal flight over his head, and now stared at Grissom, concern reflected in his large brown eyes.

"Come here boy..." he muttered softly, weakly holding out a hand.

The dog obeyed at once, padding from his bed to his master's side, nuzzling his hand affectionately and allowing the broken man to lean against him as he slid onto the floor, burying his head in the dog's warm side as he whispered,

"What have I done?"

...

_Two Weeks Earlier: The Morning After..._

Sara grimaced as she was hit by reality and discovered that it was not at all pleasant this morning. Her head thumped, her tongue felt thick and fuzzy though nowhere near as bad as her clouded thoughts.

However another sensation began to break through, overcoming the anaesthetic qualities of the drink. Panic. It flared in her chest as she realised that the hard mattress and scratchy sheets that she was entombed in were not her own.

Forcing her eyes open she pushed herself into a sitting position, breathing as though she had been awakened from a nightmare, only to discover that she was in one. She was clearly in one of The Strip's most charming motels but the question was. Was she alone?

She had to be. She was certainly in the bed alone, no change there then. She pulled herself up and out of the bed, legs shaking as she staggered around the room, checking for signs of other life forms in it and was, for once, to find a cockroach scuttling along in the floor in the bathroom as it was the only creature occupying the room.

Relief crashing over her she collapsed back onto the bed, jumping as something crunched beneath her.

Standing, she found a short note written on a cheery hand that had presumably been on the neighbouring pillow and had been dislodged when she had jumped to her feet.

_Sorry nothing happened last night, next time, that's a promise! T. _

Nothing happened...Of course nothing happened. You love your husband. But he doesn't love you, he wants a separation...That doesn't change how I feel about him, last night was wrong...

She could remember his lips on hers. The cold, hard metal of the car pressed against her back. She could remember his fingers running through her hair. She could remember his intense, blue eyes, staring into hers as they broke apart and he sent shivers up her spine as he told her how beautiful she looked. She felt his lips on hers again; the taste of frozen margaritas and something citrus lingered on her tongue.

She choked and found herself splayed across the bathroom floor, retching and convulsing as the sensations overwhelmed her. She was _pathetic._ He hadn't even left her for ten minutes and she had attempted to jump in to bed with a stranger...But he hadn't he left her a long time before that...

She shivered and curled up on the cheap, cold tiles, the frozen stone draining her feverish skin of its warmth as she began to shake and sob, shocked and horrified by what she had almost done...

She found that the fingers she had curled around one another as she lay in a trembling ball on the floor did not feel right. Looking at them through her streaming eyes, she felt her stomach fall to the chip floor beneath her.

_My ring. Where is my ring? _

Panic engulfed her as she hunted around the room, desperately trying to remember what she had done with it. Finally remembering that she had defiantly stuffed it into her pocket when she had been at the bar the night before with Taylor. Digging frantically in her pockets she found it and collapsed back to the floor, relief flooding her as she held the thin band of gold in her hands as strongly as she held on to life itself, curling it between her fingers and holding it close to her chest.

Her delicate, searching fingertips found the words engraved on the inside, that he had picked out, and knew them without having to read them,

'_To be wise and love, Exceeds man's might.'_

Fittingly a quote from Shakespeare's 'The Tempest', but even more so, what it meant specifically to them. He had chosen her. He had chosen love over wisdom…He had chosen it, she had no idea what he would choose now…

She found herself crying again, her throat red-raw, every tear tearing at it and causing it to burn as though she was taking shots. She curled into a fetal position once again, arms wrapped around her head, ring back where it belonged as she was forced to hold herself once again as she cried herself into silence.

With difficulty, she picked herself up from the icy floor and began to pack up her belongings before hastily going downstairs and checking out, desperate to get home. She called a taxi from the reception and once she was safely ensconced in it and on her way home, pulled out her phone.

She guiltily discovered that she had almost thirty messages. Most were from Grissom, either voicemail or text but she could not bring herself to acknowledge them, yet, she could not delete them either. Between five and ten were from various members of the lab and were for pleas of back-up, night-off or not, the last one was from Russell and came in less than an hour before she had left the motel.

_Hey sleeping beauty, up and at 'em. You must be well-rested enough by now! Give us a call and we'll decide where we go from there, been a funny shift. Rx. _

She hastily flicked through her contacts and called Russell,

"Hey." She croaked, throatily, hating herself for how husky her voice sounded,

"Hey, Sara, good to hear from you."

"You need me today?" she asked, not sure what she wanted the answer to be.

"No, no I think we might be alright, we got a dead up-and-coming tennis star but I think we can cope, congratulations, your day off is yours to do with what you want."

"OK, thanks, I'll see you Monday."

"Yeah, see you Monday...hey Sara." He called out, catching her as she was about to hang up,

"Yeah?"

"Forgive me for asking but, are you OK?"

"I'm fine." She sighed, only now realising how bloody stubborn the man was... "And Russell?"

"Yes?"

"I only plan on saying that once a day."

He laughed at this, "Alright, I get the point, I'm going overboard, humour me, I care."

"I know you do..." she said, quietly,

"Well I'll let you go and enjoy your day off in peace."

"Thanks..." she murmured, wishing that for once in her life she had been able to tell him the truth because at the minute she was many things but 'fine' sure as Hell wasn't one of them...

.


	7. Eclipse

**Chapter 7**

Eclipse

Sara stepped quickly out of the shower, draping a soft, white towel around herself as she dripped water onto the cold tiles. She wrapped a finger absently around a strand of hair, already coiling into a characteristic spring, trying to ignore her conscience's persistent attempts to have her confront the last few weeks that she had been comfortably pretending had not existed until a few days ago.

He had said he would come over later, if that was alright with her, which of course it had been. After the state she had been in over the last few days however, it had forced her to panic a little and have an emergency shower and change to at least to _pretend _to make herself somewhat presentable.

He needed to talk. She found it ironic that after all her time on this job, all of the guilty cheats; the furious cheated; the angry drunks; the twisted rapists; the deranged serial killers and the psychotic sociopaths with all of the vile, horrifying things they had said over the years, that the thing that terrified her above all others were Gil Grissom's words, "We need to talk."

She was in trouble if he _wanted _to talk but when _needing _to talk had her down on her knees praying to a God she did not believe in...

Whatever happened, whatever they talked about, everything was going to change. One way or the other. Something not altogether reassuring to Sara who, despite her best stubborn efforts, had adopted the principle she had been raised with 'put up and shut up' and was reluctant to accept anything being majorly altered in her life however much she was told that it 'was good for her'...

She glanced around the room as she nervously sat down in the middle of it. She loved this room; loved this house and she did not want to leave.

Her eyes fell on the various aspect of the room that defined it. It was easy to pick out which items belonged to him, the crystal cubes with butterflies inside, and which items belonged to her, the little animal figurines she had picked up on her travels and yet the effect of their different tastes blended seamlessly to create their room.

_Their _room_. Their _house. _Their_ home. _Their_ life. Everything was _theirs_; so much so that she could not imagine anything being just hers anymore.

_Stop it. Yes you can, you have to. You did when your father beat you; when your mother killed him; when you couldn't trust anyone or anything; you did when you left everything you knew to come to Vegas for the man you loved after a two hour lecture; when the man you loved and who obviously loved you back rejected you; after the DUI; you did when he noticed you and wanted to be with you; you did when you fell apart, burnt-out and ran; when he ran after you, married you made you happier than you ever prayed possible; you did when he took it all away; you'll do it now..._

_Sara Sidle, fighter...No-one could deny that..._

Whatever happened here, she would not just jump back into his bed and into his life, she could not. She could not just pretend that the last few months had not happened. They had and the damage they had done, the wounds that had not yet scarred but would reminded her of that.

The events with Wynard and Basderic had tipped her over the edge. She had been teetering on it for a long time, the long distance 'relationship' she had been attempting to have with her husband and had realistically been having with an automated machine whom she had spoken to more often, the bitterness that had been building inside her, the train wreck of her marriage abruptly leaving the tracks when he had suggested a separation, the realisation that something she had devoted more than thirteen years of her life working towards had gone, her world, in short, crumbling around her, had dragged her kicking and screaming to the edge but had not been enough to push her over. This had.

She hated to admit it, even to herself, but she was too weak, too fragile to just hand herself unconditionally to him, to give him everything and have him do worse than throw it back in her face, to have him ignore it completely. She knew that she was not strong enough for that...

She jumped as there was a gentle tap at the door and she hurried to get it, opening it and standing aside, allowing him to pass into the area reception area of their home.

"Hi." She whispered

"Hi." He murmured in return.

He hesitated for a fraction of a second before pulling her into an unannounced hug, unable to maintain the distance between them while they were in the same damn room. She was a little taken aback and pulled him closer to her without thinking, savouring everything about him and suddenly feeling the need to collapse onto the floor and just have him hold her the way he used to. She pulled away from him suddenly, breaking the connection between them as shivers fluttered up her spine unpleasantly and her stomach turned.

As she led him into the living room she noticed for the first time that he had not come alone.

"Hello boy." She breathed delightedly, pulling the large dog into a hug. He had waited patiently for her to greet Grissom first but not could not contain his happiness at seeing her again. "Good call, dog bribery." She told him smiling, the atmosphere between them breaking.

He smiled as they entered the living room.

"Can I get you anything?" she asked, inadvertently reminding herself of the first time he had needed to talk and she had found herself breaking down and talking and crying uncontrollably in front of him. The only vulnerability she could remember showing to another human being. She had been unable to offer any reason as to _why _she had told him what she had other than they way they both felt about each other.

Hank diplomatically settled himself against the coffee table in the middle of the two opposing chairs they had picked, refusing to side with either of them, firmly declaring that he was on team marriage as opposed to team Grissom or team Sara.

She smiled as she noticed this and said, softly, "The dog's more intelligent than we are..."

"I've been saying that for a while now..." he said, pausing and playing his uncomfortably as he did so.

Her eyes were drawn to them watching them awkwardly writhing around in his lap but she quickly found herself forgetting about their discomfort as she realised that, like her, he was still wearing his wedding ring.

"Did you get my letter?" he asked, softly, for lack of anything else to say

For both of them having agreed to this for the purposes of talking they were both useless at actually getting down to it and saying anything.

"I did." She answered, without giving anything away but allowing their eyes to meet properly for the first time.

"I don't know what made me write it..." he confessed, slowly unsure of where this was going, "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have-"

"No. Thank you...It was beautiful..." she murmured, lowering her eyes but allowing the ghost of a smile to flicker across her lips.

"I meant it... I don't know why I couldn't say it to you, I don't know why I couldn't have said it months ago I..."

"Well that would have been too easy."

He laughed gently in agreement, "Yes, yes it would...Sara I know this isn't easy, I know that none of this has been easy for you, for either of us, and I know that none of it will be-"

"Stop." She said sharply, without quite knowing why she had said it herself, "I...I can't do this Gil...I mean, I mean I can't do this right _now._ I can't just jump straight from first gear to fifth with nothing in between and start living my life as though we've just been on pause for God knows how many months...I need...I need a little bit of time to work out what I want to do about this."

He smiled quietly at this...

"What?" she asked, a flash of annoyance colouring her words.

"You were right. When I finally figured out what to do about this...It was too late."

She too remembered her first, disastrous, attempt to ask him to dinner all those years ago, confused as she both smiled and flushed beetroot at the memory,

"It's not too late..." she whispered, "It's never too late..." she found herself adding without remembering giving herself permission to convert the stray thought into words.

He smiled, "I understand..."

That was all he said. That was all he needed to say, all he had ever and would ever need to say. He understood. He understood her. Understood why sometimes, even after all these years, she still woke up in a cold sweat under the blanket, screaming, and needed him to just hold her without asking why. Understood that she would never be able to trust another human being unconditionally but that she wanted to trust him. Understood why she stood outside in the pouring rain even though it terrified her after what had happened out in the desert with Natalie Davis, because she needed to remind herself that she was alive, that she had people who loved her, who needed her, who she had to keep living for. Understood that after everything they had been through, survived through, alone and together, that she still needed him as much as he needed her, understood that they could be OK...

"Would you be upset if I left for a few days?" he asked, suddenly

She laughed at this, she couldn't help herself. For all of his intelligence, the man had less emotional range and understanding than a vegetable

"I think that's the definition of 'giving it time'." She told him quietly, the smile of her last laugh still lingering on her lips.

"Oh good..." he murmured, absently, obviously miles away, "I'm going to go back to Peru." She stared at this, startled by the sudden turn the conversation had taken, seeing her confusion as she began to open her mouth to protest, he quickly, added, "To pick up my things, make arrangements to leave before I come back to Vegas."

"Gil..." she cautioned "I'm not saying that if you give me a couple of weeks I'll be weeping rainbows of joy as we skip through a sunlit meadow of flowers together...I said I need time to figure out _what _I want, not when I want this..."

"I know that...We need a change."

"Gil, I don't want to pull you to Vegas, away from something that you love to come here for 'us' and make it feel as though we're forcing each other to be together because you left everything for it so it _has _to work...If it's going to work, it will work, whether we do this at a hundred miles an hour or at thirty..."

"I know that. I'm not trying to rush into this Sara; I've been feeling this way for some time. _I _need a change. Peru hasn't been good for me in a while, I've become too wrapped up in little things, too obsessed over things I promised I wouldn't become involved in anymore. I don't want to be that anymore, I don't want to be _there _anymore. I miss Vegas and you're here, where else should I go." He said, carefully, before adding without thinking, "And you wouldn't be pulling me away from something that I loved but towards it..."

She stared at him, a smile spreading infectiously across her face at just being in the same room with him again and actually feeling that they were getting somewhere for the first time in months. And for the first time in months she felt happy.

He was always able to surprise her, usually just following her giving up on him and then he went and said something like this...It was the infamous 'beauty' incident all over again and she found herself falling in love with him again as she had done then.

She was struck by a sudden thought, something that had probably not hit him yet and felt uncomfortable but also at the same time determined to bring it up,

"Gil..." she began, carefully,

"Hmm?" he said, absently, jerking himself back to reality, clearly back in Peru trying to decide which bugs he should quickly frame and pack for coming back to Vegas.

"Where do you want to stay when you come back?" she asked in a small voice,

He opened his mouth to answer before realising he was not sure how to and finally he shrugged and said in an off-hand voice,

"I'll sweet talk Catherine into lending me The Eclipse..."

She laughed uncontrollably at this and when she was finally able to control herself again she said,

"I, I...You should stay here, I'll-"

"Don't be ridiculous, you're not leaving." He protested, misunderstanding,

"No, no, of course not...Can I ask you to give me a few days to sort some things out, mainly myself, and then we'll work it out so one of us can have the spare bedroom?"

"Yes dear, you can..."

A/N: Actually almost happy for me...Maybe...But since it's me you should all be warned that it's not over yet, next chapter we have Nick and Greg round for beer and Sara and DB at work.

Thanks for reading and reviewing, I'm very grateful!


	8. Too Easy

**Chapter 8**

Too Easy...

Sara sighed as she swung her long legs out of the car and took a deep breath of the clear, fresh air. She had been cooped up inside for far too long and had started climbing the walls several days ago. It was good to be back.

She knew that everyone in the lab now knew, or thought they knew, about the current situation with Grissom, still, even taking that in to account, the looks she was getting from everyone from CSIs to lab techs, curious to downright concerned, was beginning to worry her.

"Hey Russell, what's-"she began catching sight of her eccentric supervisor who she had missed more than she had expected.

"What are you doing here?" he demanded, goggling at her with an expression that would have been appropriate had the sheriff flounced, unexpectedly into his office and demanded an up-to-date look at his reports.

"Well it's nice to see you too." She said with a grin, falling in to step beside him. "I was always coming back today." She reminded him,

"Yeah but that was before the whole..." he muttered, waving his arms around to indicate everything she had been through over the last few weeks.

"It's alright. I'm good. You don't have to worry about me. I promise, I'm OK."

He sighed, rolling his eyes at her and informing her sternly, "Replacing the word 'fine' with 'OK' does not improve the accuracy of that statement."

She grinned at this, turning away and having the decency to flush slightly. She had missed this, more than she had thought she had.

"It's good to see you smile again." He said gently and meaning it. The time off had done her good, whatever her personal thoughts on it.

"Thanks." She replied, quietly, noting that even as they continued to walk, people were just stopping short of pressing their noses against the glass of the clear walls of the maze-like lab, turning on Russell she demanded, "Have I grown an extra head or something? Russell, what is going on?"

He sighed and gently took her arm, leading her towards his office that they had just arrived at.

"Come on, I'll make you a cup of tea and explain everything properly."

"Well I wasn't worried until you offered me tea..." she muttered, allowing him to steer her into a chair and deposit her there as he went to the kettle. "What's wrong?"

When she was greeted with an awkward silence as he stalled, making far too much of a big deal out of filling the kettle and taking cups from the cupboard, she said,

"OK, you're scaring me now. Just tell me, please, what's happened?"

Realising that he had no excuse to put it off now as he hovered by the kettle, willing it to boil faster and give me a reason to look away and give them both a second to brace themselves. It stubbornly refused.

He turned to her, hating the worry that he had stirred in her eyes so soon after she had returned, and perched on the edge of the desk, pushing his glasses up to his forehead to make way for the fingers that were now massaging his tired eyes.

"You know Basderic's trial is coming up right?" he began, treading on eggshells, wondering how he could break this to her without breaking her.

"Yeah. He had a date this morning to make an appeal for bail." She replied, studying her supervisor carefully,

"Judge granted it to him an hour ago." He sighed bluntly, deciding that there was no way he could dress up the ugly truth.

"Excuse me?" she hissed, hollowly, both of them now too caught up in their conversation to pay any heed to the hotly protesting kettle behind them, "He _killed _a man, he committed murder, tried damn hard to commit it twice and he made bail?" she demanded incredulously,

"I know, I know..." he said, trying to soothe her while he felt the contents of the bubbling kettle surging through his own veins, "It seems our the delightful Ronald has some friends in the justice system." He retorted sourly, deciding that they could both do with the tea.

"This? This is a lot of things but justice isn't one of them." She shot back darkly,

"Yeah, I know Sara." He muttered, distractedly, pouring the water into their cups, "But his trial's only a few weeks away and he has strict bail conditions. If he comes anywhere near you, he breaks them and he's back in custody to await trial."

"I feel so reassured." She spat, accepting the cup he handed to her, "He's a psychopath Russell, you know that. A violent, obsessive stalker with a compulsive hatred towards me, you think empty threats and pieces of paper will keep him away from me for long?"

"No." He sighed, running a hand through his hair, "This whole situation is crazy I know. He paused a moment before asking, sharply, "Are you on your own just now?"

"Sort of..." she mumbled, burying her face in her tea, "Gil's moving back in one entomology text book at a time but nothing's permanent yet."

"Yeah that's what I thought." He muttered, considering this for a second before he said, "You know, maybe you should come and stay with us for a few-"

"No." She said flatly,

"Come on Sara, hear me out, just for a few-"

"No, not for any." She told him, bluntly, "You hear me. I'm not letting him put anyone I care about in danger and since I've became rather attached to you recently, that includes you." She told him, forcefully, "I could move in with the entire Las Vegas police department and it wouldn't stop him. If he's going to come for me, then he'll come; I don't intend on using your family as a human shield. God knows what he would do to them...No, I am staying put."

He sighed, forgetting for a moment just how bloody stubborn she was, "Let me call Brass then, have him put a couple of guys with you, even just for tonight. He would probably set up camp on your porch if you let him..."

"No." She murmured, softly, "I've had enough strangers rummaging through my house without my permission recently. I don't want them there."

"Damn it Sara." He hissed, understanding where she was coming from but still becoming frustrated with her. He slammed the cup down onto his desk with more force than it deserved, causing the hot tea to slop out over his hands. He ignored it as he told her insistently, "Sara if he _is _going to come for you-"

"Then let him." She said quietly, her normally calm brown eyes burning with an intensity he had rarely seen in them before as she said, "He won't want to hurt me, not physically, not at first, it's not his style and not straight away. _If _he comes for me, then I call it in and he gets taken in to custody to await trial and we can all sleep a little easier at night. But I will _not_ play into his hands and put anyone else at risk for my sake." She told him firmly, slipping her hands over his and gazing at him with eyes that left him in no doubt that her mind was made up and that she would not change it for all the tea in China.

"Why did I let myself become so damn attached to you Sara Sidle? You're going to be the death of me, you know that?" he asked, pulling her into a rough, impromptu, one-armed hug.

"Now then." She said, gently pulling herself free as she began in a business-like tone, "Did you have any actual work for me today or are we just going to sit around and drink tea all day?"

"Much as I like the sound of the latter, the criminals of Las Vegas do not agree with it." He said, eyes twinkling, "So, first things first, you want Nick or Finn?" he asked, grinning as he moved easily with her change in subject,

"I'll flip you for them." She replied with a wolfish grin, pulling a coin from her pocket,

"Alright." He said, returning the smile with one of his own, "Heads I take Nick tails I get Finn." She nodded in agreement and flipped it, allowing him to see, "Heads, I take Nick, Finn's all yours." He told her with a wink after examining the coin on her outstretched hand.

"I can work with that." She replied, smirking. It was no secret that the two women had become close over the last few months,

"There's a frightening thought, the two of you _together..._" he teased, pulling a face, "I pity your suspect."

"What do you have for us?" she asked, grinning and ignoring his light-hearted jibe.

He smirked and made to hand her the first assignment slip in the pile, reading it as he held it out, however he withdrew it reflexively before she had taken it.

"What?" she asked shrewdly, knowing that he had made the mistake of trying to protect her from it, instantly drawing her to it, "Whatever it is, I've dealt with it before in the past fifteen years and I'm going to have to deal with it again at some point." She told him gently, "If I've learned anything on this job it's that you can't be protected from all of the monsters in this world and least of all yourself."

He looked at her with solemn eyes that left her in no doubt as to how he felt about this. However he did not insult and disrespect her by going against her wishes and instead gave her details of the case,

"Neighbours heard shots fired at a house in Henderson, they called the police. When the officers arrived they found that the little girl had been found dead and was in the arm's of her father. No sign of the mother but there's been a history of domestic violence reports made by neighbours about him." He looked at her, his expression softening as he studied the look in her eyes, neither taking the case away from her nor forcing it on her as he asked quietly and evenly, "Do you want it?"

"I'll take it." She replied, tonelessly, accepting the assignment slip and taking the case against her better judgement and wishing that she had used his instead, "Where can I find Finn?"

"Strip club?" he suggested, mischievously, deciding to say no more on the subject.

"Shall I take that as 'Seattle code' for the locker room?" she asked with a strained smile.

He chuckled at this as she left his office, glad to have her back.

She did indeed find Finn in the locker room, that was apparently now the lab's version of a strip club, and quickly filled her in on their case.

"Great." She said, grinning as she grabbed her kit, glad to have something to do, "Girl's trip to Henderson."

Sara smiled because she knew, she knew the way it worked, the way it had to work for any of them to get by. Most people would have been shocked by Finn's words, by the apparent flippancy she had directed towards one of the most horrendous crimes they would ever have to work. But they were not most people.

Most people never had to deal with what they went through on a daily basis, only becoming involved on the worst day of their lives and only for a fraction of _their _lives.

They spent so much time in the darkness; hunting monsters in the shadows that whenever they were given the chance to have a little light int heir lives, however faint, however fleeting and however inappropriate it may seem to the rest of the world, they took it.

And so, Sara replied with a smile and a quip as she fished the keys from the other CSIs hands and told her playfully,

"I'll play taxi driver."

"You never cease to shock and amaze me Sara Sidle." Finn replied sardonically, grinning and rolling her eyes as she followed the brunette to the car park.

They had only been driving for about fifteen minutes, and frankly, Sara was amazed she lasted that long, before Finn broke the genial silence between hem as she turned concerned eyes on the other woman she had come to think of as a friend as she said

"So, what's going on with you and Grissom? Is everything OK?"

She winced as the younger CSI shifted, uncomfortably, and knew that she could have phrased that better with a sledgehammer and quickly attempted to fix her mistake,

"I'm sorry. That did _not _sound the way I thought it did in my head." She said awkwardly, "Why go mining with a chisel when you can use dynamite?" Sara teased lightly, relaxing the other woman as she laughed softly,

"I only meant, if you wanted to talk about it, about anything, I'm here for you, if that's what you want."

"I know what you meant, it's alright."

She had become used to the other woman's strange ways of working and rather blunt offerings of help. Her heart was in the right place, even if that tended to be her mouth, but she took a little bit of getting used to.

After having known people like Gil Grissom for so long when it could feel like playing in an international poker tournament just to deduce that he was offering to make her coffee; Finn's preferred method of simply ramming the coffee up her nose came as a bit of a shock to the system.

If she was honest with herself though, the only thing she had _not _become used to where the other woman was concerned was the connection that had developed between them.

They were polar opposites and as different as two people could be without succumbing to the rules of nature and simply repelling when they came too close. Finn was an open book who lived in a see-through world whose only feeble boundaries crumbled easily if someone so much as _breathed _on them. Sara on the other hand lived in a her own small, personal, very private bubble enclosed within the concrete, lead-lined walls appropriate in a prison with barred windows, steel doors, ten-foot high gates, guard dogs and more security protocols than a Swiss bank.

Still, however unlikely or inexplicable, they had formed a close relationship and Sara had found herself drawn to the other woman's infectious open personality, allowing herself to open up in turn.

"So, how are you holding up?" she asked gently,

"I'm fine..." she murmured, before catching herself and adding quickly, "Better than fine, I'm good."

"I see..." Finn said, rolling her eyes, "What about Grissom?"

She bit back the retort of 'what _about _Grissom?' and replied more civilly,

"I don't know really..." she sighed, "We agreed to give each other some time and a bit of space, ironically enough. But we're both in Vegas now so it's easier to just talk without having to plan around shifts and time zones and to reconnect."

"So he's _in _Vegas now? He's living here?" she asked

"yes. He'll still fly back every now and then I think for a while, just to tidy up things that he's already started over there; testify in some cases he's consulted on, that kind of thing. But no, he's in Vegas. For now..."

"For now?" she asked gently, "You expect him to leave again?"

"I don't know..." she replied, frustrated, "I don't know what I expect. I don't know what I know, what I think, what I _hope _anymore when it comes to him anymore. I just...It just feels too easy..." From the back of Finn's incredulous 'you must be joking' look she added, "I know, I know that sounds ridiculous. We've been to Hell and back to get here and 'here' isn't really _anywhere_ but I just...If all it took was him coming back to Vegas just like that, to fix everything...I can't help asking myself why it didn't happen months ago."

"It didn't have any reason to happen months ago." She told her quietly, "It's easy to fall from a plane, it's not as easy to jump in the first place." She replied softly, "Maybe Basderic was just the push he needed to go for it."

"Maybe..." she murmured quietly, considering this.

She wanted it to be true, but she was not sure if that was enough anymore...

They arrived outside the house and quietly approached it, both of them tensed given the situation. They met two armed officers outside.

"I thought Russell said that there were already officers here." Finn said, as she and Sara climbed out of the car, surveying the desolate neighbourhood.

"He did." She confirmed, just as wrong-footed as Finn on this one.

They both hesitated, about to call it in when a loud scream, several bangs and a course shout echoed from the house.

Looking at one another, both women silently agreed as they simultaneously drew their guns and stepped onto the path. They paused outside the door and Finn called for backup as they waited to hear what would happen next.

The woman screamed again from inside the house and Sara snapped, throwing open the door and entering the house, gun raised.

"Sara!" Finn cried, swearing under her breath.

Still, she was not about to let her go in there alone and after a terse word to Brass to figure out how to fly and get his ass here _now _she too pushed her way inside.

Both women froze as they surveyed the scene. The husband was on his knees in the middle of the living room, blood oozing from just below his temple, hands on his head, his wife standing behind him looking pale and drawn, thick knotted scars and fresh bruises clearly visible on her wrists where the bracelets she usually wore to hide them had slipped down. She had a gun shaking in her outstretched hands, pointed at the back of her husband's head and seemed utterly oblivious to the presence of the two strangers in her house.

"Carla..." he said, cautioning,

"No." She snarled, slamming the gun into the back of his head, "You don't get to speak." She hissed, eyes widened madly,

"Carla. There are cops." He snarled,

She hit him again but his words caused her to look up, taking note of the two women standing in the doorway to her living room.

"Drop them." She snarled, pressing the gun into her husband's head, threateningly, eyes darting between them as she indicated the weapons in their hands, "I don't want to hurt you but frankly, my desire to kill him outweighs that right now."

Glancing at one another and deciding that it would be a bloodbath if they refused, they both carefully lowered their guns, knowing that Brass was on the way anyway and they only had to avoid being shot for a few minutes more.

"Hands on your heads..." she told them.

They both did as they were told.

"I'm sorry..." she whispered,

She raised the gun and pointed it at them.

A/N: I thank you for your patience with this fic! Writer's block is cured! At least for now. I never really intended this to happen in this chapter and I got a little carried away...Let me know how you think it went!


	9. Queen of Hearts, King of Clubs

**Chapter 9**

Queen of Hearts, King of Clubs

Sara and Finn both froze, hands still above their heads as they found themselves staring down the barrel of a gun.

Sara could feel a hundred and one different memories and emotions rushing through her body in the space of a few seconds of silent hesitation that suspended the three women in that one moment.

They finally came to rest on fear and regret.

Regret for all of the things she had not done, had not said and now never would. Regret for not accepting that they had both made mistakes. For not knowing from this job how fleeting and cruel life could be and wondering why she had not simply thrown herself into his arms and kissed him and told him that she loved him and always would.

"I'm sorry." She whispered again, eyes white and wild, skin taut and pale, hands shaking violently on the cold metallic gun, now slick with sweat, "This has nothing to do with you. I never wanted this. But there are some things we must do whether we want to or not and if you've come for me-"

"We didn't come for you Carla." Finn said quietly, predictably being the first to find her voice, "We came here for your daughter, Ella?"

The use of her name, and, more so, her daughter's caused the other woman to pause.

"We didn't come here for you, or for your husband, we came here for her."

"Well you came too late didn't you?" she choked, "_He _already killed her." She snarled,

She turned back to her husband, swinging the gun wildly to face him again.

"You…" she hissed, advancing on him, "You _swore _to me that you wouldn't touch her. You swore that if I put up with it, you would never go anywhere near her, you would never make her go through the Hell you put me through. You _lied _to me Paul…"

"I lied to you a lot sweetheart." He sneered, eyes darting between her and then gun as he attempted to take control of the situation, "And I'd sworn to stop hurting you and look how that worked out so why don't you just do us all a favour and give me that?"

He snatched angrily and unwisely for the gun still clutched in her hand but she was too quick for him, the years of abuse giving her faster reflexes than he had counted on as she withdrew it, stepping away from him again as she cocked it and pointed it between his eyes, hissing,

"No, no you don't get to do that anymore Paul._ I_ am the one with the gun; _I _am the one with the control." She screamed, looking as though she had never had less in her life.

"So put it down…" Sara murmured softly,

"I already told you," she screeched, pitching away from her husband and back towards the two CSIs once more, "That this has nothing to do with you."

"It has nothing to do with you either." She shot back in a low voice, "And it has nothing to do with him. It has to do with your daughter. She is dead because of _this. Dead. _That is who and what this has to do with."

"And what can _you _know about any of this?" she spat feral eyes leering at her as she sneered, "You with your badge and your science and your morals. What can you possibly know about this?"

"Plenty…" she murmured darkly,

She could feel herself shaking as well as a cold sweat crawled over her skin and her spine, sending involuntary tremors up its length. Though not from fear or adrenaline or anticipation; but for empathy.

She could place herself in the shoes of the little girl in the bedroom with a little too much ease.

It could have been her.

That was how her life could have ended and it damned near had. That night…

She had never told anyone the specifics of how that night had played out, not even Grissom. Up until now, she had never been able to bring herself to fully recount and relive it all, only seeing it and explaining it in vague, sketchy flashes, never with any substance. Because it always made her feel like she did now.

Sick.

Her stomach was twisting and convulsing as though someone had slipped a pit of vipers down her throat and into it. Her limbs were shaking violently, as was her body, its fragile frame being wracked by powerful tremors. She could feel the cold swear she had suddenly become drenched in sticking to her feverish skin, clinging to her and causing her to feel as though she was suffocating in the thin clothes she wore, the light material adhering to her without permission.

That was how this was making her feel now as she felt her eyes close and her hand clutch the back of a chair for support as she swayed on this spot in response to the sudden torrent of half-forgotten, dreamlike images that flooded her conscience, assaulting her senses.

_Tears clung to the corners of her large brown eyes as she cowered against the wall, pressing herself into it and forcing herself to be quiet as she trembled, her desire to cry and scream in pain numbed by her terror that she would wake him. _

_He had finished with her and tossed her aside as he did every night. She had been able to smell the drink that had hung heavy on his breath and had clung to his pores like a suffocating perfume, gagging and blinding her as she had silently done as she had been told. He had collapsed onto the bed, passed out from the alcohol and left her paralysed in the corner, too scared to move. _

_The door to the bedroom opened and every muscle in her body tensed in response. The faint golden glow from the hall light beyond illuminated to tears in her thin cotton nightgown as well as accentuating the gashes on her slim wrists and the bruises on her pale white skin. _

_It also caused the cruel silver blade of the knife to glint darkly in her mother's hands. _

_Her voice was already ruined, rough and raw from the screams and cries she had uttered and he had ignored when he had first dragged her into the bedroom. He had stolen her voice and now she could only watch in silence, huddled in her quiet corner, always there but never noticed as she watched her mother cross the room with wide, haunted eyes. _

_She soon covered them as they were haunted once more, taunted with images that she should not have had to see, the cold, cruel knife adding more pain and sorrow behind her eyes than should have been there for her age. _

_She could still see the walls hungrily reaching out to catch the crimson mist as it flew from both body and blade. The thick, white carpet below eagerly drank the scarlet waters that flowed from above, inescapably dyeing it as the red fountain trickled from the plum sheets, standing out in sharp relief against the once white fabric. _

She felt the floor pitch violently beneath her, like a ship tossed about in rough seas and Finn's concerned hands at her waist as she opened her eyes and found the concerned blue of the other woman's staring back at her.

"That's why I'm doing this. That's why I _have _to do this." She replied shakily, sounding as though she was trying to convince herself as much as she was trying to convince them. "For my daughter. To protect my daughter." She whispered, "Tonight was the last night he was going to touch her…"

"Carla." Sara began gently, "Carla I'm so sorry but she's gone, your daughter's de-"

She found herself cut off as Finn gently pulled the sleeve at her elbow, quietly attracting her attention. She turned and the other woman nodded wordlessly to something on the floor in front of them.

Following the other woman's gaze, she saw too what had attracted it.

Muffled by the dark wood but clearly visible to those who knew what they were looking for, was the hallmark of a small footprint in blood. Running from the horrors of the other room.

Looking back at the other two people in the room with them, she saw that both of their feet were clean. The prints did not belong to them, which could only mean…

"You have another daughter…" Sara breathed, her breath catching in her throat.

Carla nodded and Finn murmured, gently,

"Where is she?" Carla just shook her head, tears springing from helpless eyes as the gun trembled more violently than ever and she mouthed wordlessly.

"Come on Carla. Let us help her; she shouldn't be here to see this." Finn encouraged gently.

"She doesn't know…" Sara murmured hollowly, understanding how this would work, "Does she?" she spat, turning to Paul who was still on his knees in the middle of the room.

He leered at each of them in turn, baring his teeth but did not speak.

"Where is she?" Sara snarled, moving closer to him, feeling Finn's warning fingers close desperately around her wrist and impatiently pulling herself free, "Tell me where she is or I swear to God I will walk out of this house right now and she can do whatever the Hell she wants with you." She spat, bending low towards him, "If you want any chance of getting out of this with your _pathetic _little life intact then you tell me where she is."

"I don't know." He said tonelessly,

"Liar!" Carla screamed, launching herself at him, the sickening crunch of metal on bone filling the room as blood leaked from above his eyebrow and he slammed her to the ground, only to be stopped when she pointed the gun, warningly over his heart once more.

Undercover of the chaos that was erupting in the heart of the room, Finn began to quietly follow the little bloody footprints to a small, dark wooden cupboard in the corner of the room, the little door slightly ajar.

She gently wrapped her hand around one of the little silver handles and eased the door open, sighing with relief as she found the little girl trembling in its heart, clearly petrified but otherwise unharmed.

"It's OK, you're OK now sweetie." She murmured, softly, drawing the little girl out. "Sara." She called, drawing their attention to her.

"Oh thank God." Carla breathed, forgetting her husband for a moment as she saw her daughter. "Rosie, Rosie sweetheart come here." She held her arms out but the little girl, who could not have been any more than four or five, resisted her mother's call and clung, silently, to Finn's legs instead, staring at her, her young, brown eyes willed with fear and confused accusation.

"Go." Finn murmured to her, gently guiding her to the door, knowing that she would not stray far and that Brass would soon be upon them.

The little girl ran for the door and Finn made to follow but Carla stopped her as she pointed the gun at her and hissed, a hard edge to her voice now,

"Not you. Don't you move. You stay there or I swear…"

Finn stopped dead and raised her hands soothingly, her eyes flicking towards Sara for a moment but otherwise she betrayed nothing of her own emotions.

"And you…" she breathed, turning back to her husband and pointing the gun to his heart once more, "You will not hurt her again. You will not hurt _me _again. You have to pay for what you've done."

"Carla, stop." Sara murmured, gently placing her hand on top of the gun.

"Stop? Stop?" she screamed, "Do you have _any _idea what he has done to me? To my children. To _his _children?"

"Do you have any idea what _this _will do to them?" Sara asked, her voice low and urgent.

"It will protect her…From _him._" She hissed

"That's not all she'll lose. She'll lose you too." Sara told her

"I don't care. If that's what it takes…So be it."

"No not so be it." Sara snapped, firmly, "You said you were in control Carla, so take control, take control of your life, of your daughter's life. Give me the gun. Give it to me and I promise I'll make sure that he gets put away, that he will never hurt you or Rosie again."

"No. I can't. What if he isn't sentenced? What if they take her away from me?"

"They won't. I promise they won't." she breathed, "I'll help you Carla, I'll make sure they don't take her away from you, but if you pull that trigger there's no going back. They will take her away from you. They will take her away and you won't see her again unless it's on her terms and she will hate you for what you did."

"No. No, I protected her; I'm doing this for her. She'll understand; when she's older she'll understand."

"She won't. She can't. She won't be able to understand why you did this and not what you should have done, what I'm asking you to do. She doesn't want you to do this Carla." She said, gently wrapping her fingers around the body of the gun.

The other woman jerked it away from her, her eyes filling with hatred and mistrust; she had been betrayed too many times.

"And how the Hell do you know what she would want?" she spat,

"Because I know what it's like to be her." Sara murmured, "I know what it's like to be the girl whose mother killed her father and I know that no-one wants that. When I was twelve, my mother took a knife from the kitchen drawer and stabbed my abusive father to death with it over and over again. He never hurt me again but she did. I couldn't understand why she had done it; I can't forget what she did and I can't forgive her. Because of her, I was raised in foster care; I didn't see her again until I was nineteen. The damage she did that night, she could never fix. She's spent her life trying to, but she knows she can't. We both know she can't. Please don't do that to your daughter. Give me the gun."

Sara watched as the other woman's expression and bearing completely transformed during her speech. From aggressive and disparaging to angry and disbelieving, to cold and indifferent, to warm, harsh recognition, to empathy to what she was now, trembling with emotion, hands twitching.

She dropped the gun and threw herself at Sara, her arms closing tightly around her neck as she collapsed and sobbed.

"Thank you…" Sara breathed, kicking the gun away from her, shocked and relived that that had worked.

"I'm going to take her out." She told Finn, helping her unsteadily to her feet.

Finn nodded. "I'll be right behind you. Someone needs to check on the little girl." She said, jerking her head towards the bedroom.

Sara nodded silently as she supported the other woman to the door. As soon as his wife had released he had scampered for the kitchen and the back door.

Finn turned and headed solemnly to the bedroom. She had only just pushed the door open when she felt a deathly whisper trace its way across her neck as a cold metal blade was pressed against her throat and someone wrapped a powerful arm around her waist. She struggled and snarled,

"I helped to save your life you ungrateful bastard."

"No." he hissed, "You let me live so you could destroy me later." He spat in her ear, pressing the knife more insistently against her throat drawing blood as he whispered, "I can't let that happen…"

Sara carefully set Carla down on the wall at the bottom of their driveway and wrapped her coat around her as she continued to shake, clearly still in shock, as the tears poured uncontrollably from her eyes.

"Mummy…" the small voice mumbled at her elbow.

"Rosie!" she cried, delighted, as she took the only thing that could have given her any strength in her arms and held her close to her chest, tenderly stroking the thin blonde wisps of her daughter's fine hair.

"What will happen to me?" she breathed as they heard sirens in the distance.

"I can't tell you that. Not for definite." Sara said quietly, "But I'll put in a good word for you with the DA. I don't think he'll be too harsh. I don't think he can be. There isn't a judge or jury alive out there that would convict you." She told her, struggling to smile.

The other woman slipped a cold hand into hers and murmured, "Thank you…For everything…You were right. She would never have forgiven me. Thank you…"

Sara only nodded, unable to speak, overcome with emotion and her own troubled thoughts to reply.

Brass and his team were upon them a few minutes later and just as he approached Sara and Carla, a thinly veiled scream issued from the house and alerted Sara for the first time to the fact that Finn had not joined them.

"Finn!" she cried, sprinting up the driveway, Brass and several other armed officers at her heels.

She was about to leap through the door without paying any attention to the danger she was putting herself in when she felt a strong arm catch her around the middle and haul her back. Brass hissed in her ear,

"Don't even think about it."

And forced her to wait behind as he and his team surged into the house, with her following behind them.

"Finn!" she exclaimed as she spotted the shadowy figure dart away from her limp form and head for the kitchen, followed by several of Brass' officers.

She knelt down beside her, tentatively feeling for a pulse as the scarlet blood poured from a wound in her chest.

…..

She could feel her hands shaking as she stewed in the cool locker room, pressing her head against the cold metal doors as the paramedic's assurances that Finn was in good hands echoed around in her skull. She was still not quite sure how she had come to be back in the lab…

"Hey…" Russell said from the door, startling her as he hovered in the dark space watching her as she tried several times to shakily hang her jacket on the hook in her locker.

"Hey…" she replied tremulously, "I take it you want to talk?" she asked, voice cracking, knowing that she was not ready but equally knowing that she would have to be.

"No." he murmured, crossing the room in two long strides and pulling her into a hug, "No. Go home. Get some sleep. We'll do this in the morning. You've been through enough for one day."

She could have cried with relief as she sank into him, the tension draining gratefully from her limbs as she forced herself to choke out instead,

"Finn?"

"It's alright. She's going to be fine, they've taken her in to surgery but they're sure she'll be OK. I'm going up to the hospital just now. I'll call you later; she won't be awake tonight at any rate. You can see her in the morning but for now go home, cry, sleep, whatever but promise me you won't leave that house unless it starts burning to the ground."

For once, she agreed without question, too exhausted by the day's events to protest.

…

Sara pushed her way into the darkened house, savoring the cool, refreshing effects of the cold floor on her now bare feet. She allowed herself a moment to drink in the calming atmosphere of the house before quietly padding into the living room.

She froze as she heard footsteps coming down the hall to her right and changed course, moving away from the kitchen and towards the source of the sound.

"Gil?" she asked, cautiously, waiting for a response.

"In a manner of speaking..." the voice replied, evenly. "You look good Sara…"

A/N: Not really sure where I was going with this, but you know me, any old excuse for some angst and a chance to delve into Sara's past. Hope you enjoyed! Thanks for reading! Please review :)


	10. The Wolves

**Chapter 10**

The Wolves

"_Gil?" she asked cautiously waiting for a response, "Gil is that you?"_

"_In manner of speaking..." the voice replied, evenly, "You look good Sara."_

The dark silhouette slipped from the comforting shadows it had been seamlessly wrapped in and exposed itself in the pale golden glow that her living room was bathed in, making her jump.

"What the Hell are you doing here?" she hissed, knowing perfectly well, "Get out of my house."

"You know, come to think of it, I'm not so sure that I'm in the mood." He replied plaintively, settling himself casually against the wall and fixing her with his unsettling gaze that seemed to strip away all of her defences leaving her bare and naked before him.

"I don't give a damn what mood you're in, I want you out, _now._" She told him, forcing her voice to remain steady as she delicately fished her phone from her pocket.

He made no move to stop her and simply stayed perfectly still, pressed against the wall, calmly watching her as he said smoothly, "Not so confident now are you? Without your plan an your tape-recorder and your friends with their _guns_." His voice lingered on the last word, drawing it out as his fingers danced suggestively across his chest, dragging and holding her gaze there for a moment.

"I don't need them." She snapped, her voice taut, "You're done and you know it. This is a violation of your bail conditions." She told him, trying to inject more confidence and authority into her voice than she actually possessed, "You are going right back where you belong you bastard." She snarled, punching numbers into the key-pad of her phone.

"You may want to wait a moment before you do that..." he told her silkily, eyes flashing.

"And why the Hell would I do that?" she demanded, shakily, her tone betraying her words and her feelings, revealing the discomfort she was concealing as a shiver traced its way up her spine, "So you can have a better shot at killing me?" she spat.

However, while her finger hovered over the call button, she did not press it. Something gnawing at her instinct prevented it.

"If I wanted to kill you Sara, "he said, slithering from his perch and stepping behind her as she stood rooted to the spot. As he placed his mouth close to her ear and she could feel her throat contract as her breath caught in it while he whispered, "I would have slit your throat in the silence and held you in my arms as it wept and watched as the life drained from those beautiful eyes of yours."

She jerked away from him, unable to contain the impulse that drove her to get away from him, ignoring the sickeningly satisfied smile that slowly spread across his face.

"You stay away from me." She choked, bile clinging to the back of her throat.

"Relax." He breathed softly, his unsettling gaze locked in hers again as he hissed, "You're safe. I won't hurt you. I don't want to. I promise."

"Well then what you want?" she asked tremulously, the fight going out of her.

She was afraid. She did not feel 'safe'. He had made her feel the one thing she had sworn she would never feel again, lost, in her own home.

The humourless laugh that issued from his thin, cruel lips made her blood run cold as he murmured, "Oh we'll get to what I want in a minute don't you worry. But first, let's talk about what _you _want."

"I want you to leave." She said in a strangled whisper, eyes darting uncontrollably to the door.

"No." He snarled, the sudden change in his voice cracking like a whip through the charged atmosphere and causing her already tense muscles to spasm violently out of control.

He changed instantly and alarmingly in response to this, lowering his tone and is eyes and whispering urgently in a soft voice as he wrung his hands like a child, "Oh no, oh no, shh, I didn't mean to frighten you, I'm sorry, you're alright, you're alright I promise.."

The sudden transformation and the pitching unpredictability of his mood terrified her more than outward displays of anger or violence.

She began to slide, gradually, towards the door, edging along the length of the table she was pinned against while his eyes were averted.

"Stop." He shrieked, causing her to freeze as he stepped towards her earnestly and simpered, "I told you not to be scared of me, I said, I said I wouldn't hurt you, there's no reason for you to be scared. You're not, are you?"

"No." She told him, soothingly, "No of course not." She murmured, finger sliding to the call button as she spoke.

"No...No of course not..." he repeated distractedly.

He jerked away from her suddenly, forcing her to draw back her finger as he continued, "And you're so intelligent, so clever, always. So you know...You know that what you want to do is to ask yourself what you have overlooked. To ask yourself what you _should _have asked yourself already. Why was I so sure? Why did I know? How could I make sure that you wouldn't call for help? What was my plan? Because I have a plan Sara...I'm too clever to get caught..."

"You _did _get caught." She hissed, daringly, trying to undermine and unsettle him and take control of the situation.

"No." He snarled, the flash of anger burning in his eyes momentarily before dying back down once more as he said, "I wasn't caught. I was trapped. You, you came into my house with your friends and their guns and your tricks. You made me look stupid. You manipulated me. You undermined me. _You _tried to control _me._

His voice rose to a quavering below and as he raised his hand, instinct born of years of similar motions in her childhood, made her cower away from him.

He hastily withdrew her hand, making desperate quietening motions as she pushed herself away from him.

"Oh no, no, no, that's right, you did that because of me, because you cared about me, because you wanted to get closer to me. Your friends ruined it. I understand Sara. I _understand._"

He hissed, crouching down beside her, eyes gleaming as madness twisted within them.

"You're going to prison Ronald...For a very long time." She breathed, still leaning away from him.

"I think not." He said, his composure suddenly returning in full along with his smooth, glossy voice, "I'll go to court, but I won't go to prison. You should know better than most, the courts are a game of dice. Truth and lies don't matter, none of those things even matter, _justice _doesn't matter, none of those things even exist in the great stage play they all put on. All that matters is what you can see, what the _jury _can see. And they won't see a killer. What they'll see is innocence. I'll make sure of that." He hissed cruelly, "They'll see me; assaulted by his main accuser, with a restraining order against her. They'll see _you _walking in to _my _home with a gun and a tape-recorder, pushing me to say and do all of those terrible things, to say all of those lies because I was afraid of what your armed friends, lurking in the shadows of my living room, who had already threatened me earlier that day, would do if I didn't go along with what you were making me do. And so you see, I won't be in prison for a very long time...I'll be with you forever..."

"That's a lie." She said, shakily,

"That doesn't matter." He murmured, grinning, "The jury doesn't know that. All they'll know is what I'll fill their heads with. I can be _very _convincing when I want to be..."

She stared at him, eyes wide and horrified, half-believing his lies herself.

"And so..." he said calmly, "Where were we? Ah yes, you were about to ask yourself that question you've been agonizing over for months now. Those words that should have been the first ones to trip off your tongue..." he paused, eyes glinting maliciously before saying, voice dripping in honey, "If not here, then were is dear Gilbert?"

Her breathe caught as her resistance crumbled with the use of that last word, the only word that could ensure his complete control over her.

She felt her mouth dry and her words seemed to have to force their way past thick, cloying sand that had lodged in her throat as she choked out,

"He, he went to the university...To meet a friend..." she managed to recall, dragging the memory of him mentioning it to her from the depths of her shocked, sluggish mind.

"Are you sure about that Sara?" he hissed poisonously, "Are you absolutely _sure_?" He asked, eyes narrowed, "Sure enough to make that call, regardless of the consequences?"

"What do you want?" she breathed, hands shaking violently as they clenched around the phone still trapped between her fingers, her tone caught between horror and fury.

"Well I thought that would have been simple." He sneered, a deranged smile twisting his face as he whispered lovingly, "I want you."

"Want me?" she repeated, narrowing her eyes, "Want me what? Dead?"

"Oh no, oh no, no, no, no, no..." he leered, grinning psychotically at her as he said, matter-of-factly, "Just you. Very much _alive._"

She shuddered despite herself as he said this. He then began stalking around the perimeter of the room, leering at her and forcing her to turn in the centre of it to keep him in view, giving the impression of a rabid wolf circling its prey.

"You see, they took Edie from me, and you tried to take her from me even before that. And know I know why..." his words were teasing, almost playful, but the toying effect was ruined by the fury burning in his eyes, "You wanted this as much as I do. You left me with no option. You see, her death left this..._void_ in me, a gaping hold that could only be filled by one thing..."

He had stopped pacing now and was walking towards her, meticulously picking his way around the obstacles between them, eyeing her hungrily as he breathed,

"You."

"Well you can't have _me." _she retorted, trembling.

"Oh but I can." He told her, less than a foot from her now and continuing to approach her even as she backed away, her legs hitting the back of a chair.

"I can and I will." He whispered, gleefully, "In fact, I do. I do have you. I have all of your secrets, all of the horrors of your past that you hide so well, that you bury so deep down, that you keep away from all of the people that you trust the most, I have them all..." he breathed.

He continued to move towards her as madness danced in his eyes and an insatiable, unhealthy hunger curled his thin fingers into claws.

"I have all of your deepest fears, I have them so close to me, I know them so well, that they almost belong to me. As you do. I could destroy you with just a few well placed whispers and there would be _nothing _you could do about it. I could control you so much that there wouldn't be anything you wouldn't do for me. Because I have _everything. Everything _that has ever meant anything to you, I have. And so I have you." He murmured, his hands snaking out from his body and closing the gap between them as he tenderly placed them on her cheeks, gently stroking the soft skin beneath his thumbs, forcing her face up, forcing her eyes to meet his, burning like chips of ice in his skull as he hissed, slowly and deliberately,

"You. Are. Mine."

"No." She choked, struggling against him, "Get your hands off me."

He held her still, hands dropping to her shoulders as he allowed her to see the slight flash of sliver from the gleaming blade of the kitchen knife he had taken.

She felt petrified tears that she refused to shed for him.

"Shh...Shh..." he murmured, feeling her shoulders shaking beneath his hands from the effort of controlling herself and containing her emotion. "I told you, you don't have to be afraid. This is your life now, the sooner you learn how to live it, the better. What was it that your mother used to say?"He whispered, smirking in satisfaction as he felt her choke at his mention of her mother, another button he would gladly push in time, "'Control what you can..." he murmured, making her skin crawl as he gently ran his fingers from her shoulders to her waist, tracing the delicate curves of her body as he did so, "Accept what you can't.' This is just something you have to accept now. This is the way things have to be. This is the way we made it."

One hand stayed at her waist, resting on her hop while the other made its way back up her body, resting on her cheek, for a moment as he examined her terrified, tear filled eyes,

Her heart pounded in her chest, causing blood to pulse painfully though her eardrums, the breath died in her lings as his hand drew itself up her neck, tangling in her hair that was still damp from the shower.

Her blood turned to ice and her legs to water in response to his sinister whisper,

"You are so beautiful..."

His hand gently began to sweep the loose, wet curls over to one shoulder, allowing the faint strands to linger on her skin before he exposed the pale flesh of her shoulder below to the cold atmosphere of the room and to his hungry eyes as he traced tender lines across it with his fingers and continued in a deadly hiss,

"So beautiful and so strong. Yet so fragile. So easily broken." He bent down until his lips practically brushed the naked skin he had stripped but he was careful not to make the actual physical contact, she still felt the whisper of his hot breath on it as he murmured,

"Don't make me break you Sara..."

He pulled away from her then, without warning, leaving her feeling vulnerable and exposed as she swayed on the spot while he withdrew to the door.

Before he left, he turned back to her and casually tossed out,

"Oh, and, to give you fair warning, 'dear Gilbert' will have to go...One way or the other." A sinister smile flickered in to life on his face as he said this, throwing her a sardonic wave as he added, twisting the knife as little more, "Don't do anything he'll regret now."

He slipped from the room then. The harsh clatter of the knife falling disdainfully from his cold fingers and striking the wooden floor beneath was the final thing that tipped her over the edge.

She felt her legs give way beneath her something they had been threatening to do since he had first placed his hands on her.

She felt bile clinging stubbornly to the back of her throat. It was partially responsible for the convulsions that tore through her stomach. They seemed to infiltrate her nerves too as they began to shake and twitch uncontrollably.

She wrapped her trembling arms around her stomach as she retched again, the cold wood beneath her soothing her burning feverish skin.

She struggled for breath as the tears came. Slowly and silently at first and then thicker and faster, controlling her already limited breathing, constricting her throat and forcing her to draw great, heaving, rattling breaths that strained her lungs and pained her ribs as they wracked her fragile body.

For now, there was no room in her hand to consider what had happened, to process what he had said, to contemplate what it meant. Rationale was replaced by reflex as gut instinct took over, taking control of her body and only allowing her to react in the strongest and most immediate way left to her.

She lay huddled in the half-light, holding herself until something caused her to jerk back to reality. Her head snapped up and she stared with haunted, tortured wild eyes as someone gently eased open her front door.


	11. Souls Twisting Knives

**Chapter 11**

Souls Twisting Knives

She stared through the gloom towards the door, eyes wide and wild, forced open by fear. Her heart seemed to be pulsing far too hard in her chest considering she was standing stock still in the middle of an empty room. It seemed to be working together with her lungs that were currently forcing air into them with such force that her ribs were burning, seeming to weaken them for her heart's desperate attempt to escape from the chest in which she kept it imprisoned.

She could hear the blood thundering through her ear drums, in direct contrast to her delicate fingertips that danced their way across the wall behind her as she silently felt her way up it. She began to ease herself from the edge of the room towards the chest of drawers in the corner.

As she heard her front door close with a gentle click, she wrenched open the top right hand drawer and rifled through it, sending great clouds of paper everywhere, knowing that the time for delicacy, quiet and control was long gone.

She wrapped hot, brittle fingers around the cold, harsh metal of the gun, it free from its resting place and holding it ready by her side as she walked into the open living room, knowing that her unexpected guest would be forced into it having nowhere else to go.

She slid noiselessly around the corner, pressing herself into the wall and clinging to the shadows of the black room allowing the darkness to cloak her while she stood, every muscle in her body locked in place, feeling as though they had turned to bone.

Her eyes found the outline of her visitor as they stood, silhouetted against the glass that allowed the pale white glow of the moon to reveal them to her, even as she stood hidden.

She stepped out carefully from her hiding space, raising the gun to shoulder height, leaving the protection of the shadowy anonymity and moving into the centre of the room to confront the uncertain figure who was fumbling with the switch on a lamp, sitting low on a coffee table.

The figure paused, the sound of her breathing and the shivers that shot up their spine in response to her charged, anxious presence infecting their nerves and causing them to freeze for a moment before turning towards her.

"Sara?"

She recognised the voice and the involuntary shivers it sent running throughout her body, electrifying every nerve, even before its owner turned the light on, bathing the room in a faint golden flow and startling themselves as it revealed the fact that they were being greeted by the cold black barrel of a gun.

She felt the energy drain from every inch of her body as the muscles of bone broke down to water and she felt her legs give way beneath her, as the shaking gun fell limp in her hand. The floor would have come up to meet her painfully fast had he not wrapped his hands around her waist and slowed its assent, lowering her gently onto it as she began to shake violently from an abrupt adrenaline withdrawal.

He gazed at her, concern reflected in his eyes as he attempted to draw her more closely to her. The words of her last meeting with _him_ floated through her mind in a sinister hiss as though his lips were pressed close to her, whispering poison into her ear.

"Are you alright?" he asked, softly,

She could barely hear him, never mind process what he was saying. His arms tightened around her, holding her as he had always done when she had been like this, knowing it was better to simply offer her silent comfort, rather than try and fill her head with empty words.

Something that would have previously offered her indescribable comfort, now turned her blood to ice and sent shivers running like rivers through her nerves, causing her to tremble violently as she considered the implications of it.

"_Oh, and, to give you fair warning, 'dear Gilbert' will have to go...One way or the other."_

She was sure that 'one way or the other' he would make him go. He could be watching them right now. Waiting for him to expose her, to leave her vulnerable. He wanted her all to himself. He knew perfectly well that Grissom was her rock, and God help the world if it pissed her off. Without him. She crumbled. He wanted him gone, and she was sure he would use whatever means were at his disposable to make it happen.

He was an obsessive stalker. More than that, an obsessive killer. He had already proven the lengths he would go to and how far he was willing to push things in order to hurt her, to _destroy _her.

She pushed herself away from him abruptly as her thoughts took control of her body and forced her away from him, putting more distance between them in that one action than it had whenever he had boarded a plane at the airport.

Unable to look at him to see the broken, confused and lost human being she would surely have left sprawled on the cold floor behind her, she turned away from him, staring instead at the numb, unfeeling wall, holding her heart in her throat in order to stop the tears escaping from it.

She dragged taut fingers through her hair before placing them on the cabinet, denting the thick, dark wood as the gun slammed into it. The action seemed to dislodge the lump that had become trapped in her throat, freeing it and the tears that began to fall silently from shattered eyes.

She released the gun as her hand went to her eyes, furiously wiping away the tears, laying on her skin like little beads of liquid glass, remnants of the broken soul that she concealed within, the only way the outside world would ever know the damage that had been done.

"Sara?" he whispered softly, his tender fingers dancing across her shoulder blades and making her skin ripple with emotion.

"Get out." She whispered softly, his silence spoke louder than any shocked outburst.

"Sara..." he murmured again, refusing to leave her side.

"No." He breathed, "Go, leave now..."

"Where would you like me to go?" he asked in hushed tones.

"Go home Gil." She told him, shakily, still without looking round.

"I am home." He murmured,

"No." She said, turning on him finally, eyes blazing, "You haven't been home since you arrived in Vegas."

"Home is wherever you-"He began softly, reaching out to her, trying to slip his hands into hers.

"Stop it." She snapped, pulling away from him and turning around again, partly so he would not see the tears she tried so desperately to hold in but that still fell. "Just go, Gil, please, just leave, just-"

He placed his arms at her elbows and turned her round to face him, brushing away a stray tear she had sworn he would not see.

And yet. He always would. Tears she should never have shed. Words she should never have said. Feelings she should not have felt. Looks that should not have held her gaze. Touches that she should not have let graced her skin. Kisses that should not have brushed her lips. Love that should never have escaped her heart.

And he could draw them out. All of them. With ease. With that one tear, that one word, that one feeling, gaze, touch, kiss or breath of love, he could strip from her every wall, every defence, every emotion, leaving her bare, naked and vulnerable in front of him. Nowhere to hide. Nowhere to run. No shadows to cling to. No demons to send in her place.

Just her.

Just him.

Just them.

His hands moved from her elbows to her waist, and from there they climbed up her body, slowly, fingers caressing every curve, savouring every line, every inch, until he reached her face cupping it gently between his hands and murmured,

"If that's truly what you want. Then that's what I'll do." He told her, his eyes burning with passion and love, every word true, "But I need to know that this _is _what you want. Look me in the eyes. Look me in the eyes and tell me that this is what you want."

"I...I want you to go...I want you to go, _please_..." she whispered, staring at him forcing herself to meet his eyes.

She didn't want him to leave. She didn't want him to return to Peru, to leave her alone and vulnerable, to abandon her to Basderic, to go again, and potentially never come back. But she needed him to go.

However much she loved him. However much she needed him. However loathe she was to do what Basderic wanted, to open herself up to him. She needed him to be safe. She needed to know that he could never get to him, that he could never be used against her, that he could never be hurt to hurt her. Because she couldn't do that. She needed to know. She needed to be sure. And the only way to do that was to push him away. To push him as far away as she could bear. To be alone once again. Because she would not be responsible for anyone else getting hurt because of her.

When she had been younger, when her father had attacked her, she had learned not to scream, not to cry, not to tell anyone. To keep it all to herself. To deal with it alone. Because if she did not. If she had cried out. Then he would find a new way to hurt her. He would go after her mother. He would break her in front of her and watch as they both shared in the other's torment. And that was worse. The pain of watching someone she loved destroyed and knowing that it had been her fault had been more painful than anything else he had done to her.

She had taken the harsh words. The cuts. The bruises. The beatings. The broken bones. The vicious assaults. The scars. Because the alternative she knew was worse.

Experience, cruel, cold, and more controlling than any poisonous human being she had ever had in her life, told her that she had to do this. She knew that she could never forgive herself if Basderic so much as breathed on him. She would deal with this on her own. Because she could not deal with it with him...

In that moment, as his hands fell loosely by his sides and his eyes dropped to the floor, unable to look at the truth and the desperation for him to leave shining in hers. He did not know which was worse. Seeing those emotions. Or knowing that she did not trust him enough to tell him _why_.

His hands slipped from her skin, seeming to draw all of her strength with it. As he nodded slowly and turned away from her she wanted nothing more than to dissolve to the floor and sob until he returned and held her in his arms until she was able to stop. She wanted to fall apart at the cracks that were beginning to show, to make him understand what a wreck she had become without him. She wanted him to see that she needed him. She wanted him to _know _how much he meant to her, that she could not do this without him. That the mere action of him taking his hands from her and turning away was enough to turn her strength to ash.

She could not.

She forced herself to stay on her feet, every muscle in her body drawn and tight, as though made of cold marble, forcing her to remain upright, to remain pretending that she was strong, that she could do this.

She forced herself to watch as he gathered himself together, really intending to leave and all the while she stayed in the same spot.

His hand was on the door handle and he was about to push the door open and leave when he stopped, something holding him back, holding him in place.

She would have spoken, would have told him to go, to get it over with to just leave her alone, but her tears were caught in her throat and she was afraid her mouth would agree with her heart not her head if she dared opened it and would beg him to stay.

He turned slowly, placing his things on the floor and leaving his hands as empty as his heart as he began to slowly cross the distance between them, his light, careful footsteps not making a sound as they flowed over the polished wooden floor.

She wanted to tell him to stop, to just leave.

She did not.

She stood frozen on the spot, eyes locked on his, lost in their depths.

He was very close now, too close, all she could see was the intense sea blue of his eyes and all he could see was the single tear that still clung to her eyelash, glistening like a diamond caught in a spider's web.

He gently brushed his lips over hers and he breathed as he pulled away,

"I love you..."

A shiver ran through every inch of her and refused to leave, clawing at her nerves and burning her muscles, as though her body was trying to hold on to the last feeling he had given her, even as he himself left.

She could not. She could not say it. She could not say anything. She just had to stand and watch as he left her once again. She could do nothing. Nothing, because she needed him. And she would not have him if she forced him to stay here.

The door clicked shut.

That was it. That was all she needed. She sank to her knees; hand over her mouth as it opened in shock and as the tears began to fall silently and all the more horrifically for that fact.

Now she could break down. Now she could fall apart. Now the cracks could become pieces and her strength could burn to ash and blow away like dust caught in the breeze now that he was gone. Now that she was alone. That there was no-one there to see her cry. No-one to wipe away her tears. No-one to be burned by them.

She was hollow. She was empty. She was done.

She found herself screaming. Screaming in pain and in frustration. Her hands closed around a delicate crystal vase on the shelf behind her and it was thrown against the wall, even as she fell against it, the bits of broken glass lodging in her skin and picking it apart, finding the seams that had been loosening for weeks and finally pulling them free, unravelling her.

The blood that gently wept from her skin matched the glassy tears that fell from her eyes, the rubies and diamonds mixing on the floor as though the contents of her soul no longer wished to be trapped within her tainted corpse and would use her pain and her torment as an excuse for their escape.

"How can he do this to me?" she whispered, hands tearing through her hair and pulling at it, the sharp protests giving her something to cling to, something she knew was real, _something_ as her lips parted again and the words passed again as a scream of agony, infused with all of her anguish and her pain, "How can he do this to me!"

She was on her knees again, murmuring those words over and over, senselessly torn from her throat without knowing why. Without ever hoping for an answer. Without ever wanting one. Content to be the lonesome soundtrack for the tears that continued to tumble, silently, from bitter eyes.

He hardened his heart as her screams of pain and frustration reached his ears and for the first time in his life, he wished that he could not hear.

He knew this was what she wanted. He did not know why. He did not need to. He had never been in the business of knowing why. Knowing what was usually enough. But now, now he wanted to know why. He wanted to know why his wife suddenly wanted him to leave. What, or _who_ had decided that he should return to Peru because surely this was coming from somewhere other than Sara. He knew her. He thought had had known her. There was more to this. There had to be.

But as he climbed into the car he told himself that did not matter. He wanted her to be happy. If it would cause her pain to have him stay, then he would do as she wished and leaved. No hesitation. No questions asked. Trust. He trusted her. Unconditionally. Intimately.

Still, he did not trust her enough at the moment to leave her alone like that, and so, while he drove to the airport and booked his flight, when he was in the waiting room, he pulled out his phone.

His finger hovered over her name. The only thing he had left of her, left to him. But he refused to press it, choosing another instead.

"Nick Stokes?" the voice came cheerfully from the other end of the line, his tone telling him that they had just wrapped up a case.

"Nick?" he said, quietly, "It's Grissom..."

"Oh..."

There was so much contained within that word. Confusion, suspicion, anger, frustration, empathy, curiosity, intrigue, wonder and he did not have time for any of it. He would take the time to answer to Nick later. Now he had to look after Sara.

"Are you at the lab?" he asked, directly,

"I'm just about to leave, why?"

"I need you to check up on Sara." He told him softly, trying to convey his need for him to do this without wanting to sound desperate and worrying the other man.

"Why?" he asked, concern being the main emotion colouring his voice but also that faint hint of suspicion and bitter disappointment.

"I'm at the airport." He said flatly, being well aware of this fact and the one that his flight left in less than twenty minutes, he did not have time to dress up the truth, he did not care about the potential fallout for himself, he just wanted to make sure that she was taken care of, "I'm leaving and I need you to make sure that she's alright."

"Well why are you leaving?" Nick demanded hotly, reacting in the way he had known that he would, "If you want to make sure that she's alright then you get your ass back to her!" he said, angrily,

"I can't do that Nick." He said quietly, running a hand through his hair as he closed his eyes, suppressing telling him that he wanted to do nothing more than that, but she did not want him to and that was what was important here. Her.

"No, you know what you can't do? Keep reeling her in and offering her everything then leaving her out in the cold when it suits you! She deserves more than that Grissom! After everything she's been through, after everything you've both been through, you can't just pick her up and drop her and then expect other people to come and pick up the broken pieces for you."

"No." He said, quietly, "I can't and I don't...You don't understand what's happening here Nick..."

"Then tell me." He said, his voice caught now between pleading and frustration.

"I can't do that Nick." He said gently, he had already decided that if Sara did not want him to know her reasons behind this departure, then she would not want them to know anything about it. She could make the decision to tell them the details if she wanted to, he was not going to impose that on her, to paint her out as the villain when he did not have any idea of her motives. It would be her choice. "If you ever cared for me, and if you _do _care for Sara, then you'll trust me now."

_You have to trust me...For her. _

There was a pause before Nick said, "I'm only doing this for her, you understand that?"

"I do." He said quietly, not particularly giving a damn _why _Nick was doing it at this point, so long as he actually did it.

"What do you want me to do?" Nick asked, hollowly,

"Go to her." He murmured softly, "Please, just go to her..."

A/N: Thanks for reading! What did you think of this chapter? Don't be shy, let me know, good bad or ugly!


	12. Under The Skin

**Chapter 12**

Under The Skin

She was curled on the floor in her living room, bare feet planted on the cold wooden floor, knees curled painfully as she drew them closer to her chest. Tears still clung to the corners of her eyes and seemed to whisper the reasons for them into vulnerable ears, drawing still more from her.

She regretted sending him away now. She would regret it more later this morning when she could not sleep and needed him there. She knew he had to go. Whether it was what Basderic had wanted or not; she didn't give a damn. All she knew was that she would not let him stay and get hurt so she could be selfish. She had survived for three years like this, she could damned well last a few more weeks until this son-of-a-bitch ended up where he belonged.

She buried her face in the large blue t-shirt she had wrapped around her hands. It was his. It would always be his. She had always worn it when she was in alone and awoke, terrified by the nightmares that had stalked her for over twenty years and showed no signs of stopping now. But no matter how often she wore it, it always smelt of him, it always made her feel alright, and made it easier to maintain the delusion that he cared, that he would hold her himself if he were there.

She held it wrapped between her hands now, burying her tears in it because she needed to feel close to him. She needed to feel close to the one thing in this world who could convince her right now that she was OK.

Before his return to Vegas, it had not taken much. Usually his voice on the other end of the answering machine had been enough, whether he had picked up or not. But now that was not enough. That was nowhere near enough. She did not just want to hear his voice to remind herself of the man she had married, she wanted the man she married. She wanted him here. She wanted him to hold her. And this was the only way she could do that now.

Taking several short, choking breaths, eyes still streaming, she forced herself to tear herself away from the shirt, telling herself that she was being pathetic. Her eyes caught on a dark figure standing just outside her window...

Standing up and screaming, she launched a delicate crystal vase full of flowers he had bought for her across the room, shattering it against the glass. She crossed the room and wrenched the floor length curtains across it, he could not even let her have one night. One night where she could cry on her living room floor and feel her heart break without anyone watching.

"Bastard..." she spat.

She could see the smug, satisfied smile that would no doubt be sickeningly twisting his face just now as he watched the products of his destruction festering away inside her, slowly consuming her with guilt and grief.

She dragged her fingers through her hair, tearing at it in frustration as she sank to her knees behind the curtains once more. She didn't care if he was watching her. She didn't care if he was standing over her with a video camera, uploading her breakdown to the internet. She didn't care because she had to do this. Because the cracks had been showing for months and she needed this. She needed to just fall to pieces and worry about what anyone thought later. She needed to be selfish. To do something for her for once. And right now, that meant this. Slowly pulling at the seams that had been unravelling in herself for so long now and watch as the world collapsed around her.

She screamed again in pain. A horrible, drawn out shriek of pure grief and agony that seemed to fill every nerve in her body with the desperate desire to turn the pain in her chest into something her entire body could feel as they lit up as though someone had filled them with liquid fire.

The tears that fell from her eyes were no longer filled with pain and sorrow, they were empty of any passion or loss, they were now only frustrated and angry. Angry that anyone could control her to this extent, that they could make her feel like this. That they could make her feel weak and out of control. That they could do the one thing she had sworn for all these years that she would never let happen to her again; that she would let another human being get in so close, that she would trust them so much that they could do this, that they could take everything away from her and watch as she slowly destroyed herself.

She stayed on a heap on the floor for God only knew how long as whatever that God was watched, seemingly satisfied with the lot he had drawn for her in life, content to watch as she writhed in agony once more because of 'circumstances beyond her control'. She had never been sold on the idea of a higher power, someone who could control her actions, dictate to her how to live her life, but if there was a God, he was a sadistic asshole.

She finally managed to peel herself from the wooden floor, the tears no longer falling from her eyes but clearly staining her skin with the marks of her misery. As clearly as an addict was branded by the track marks on her arms, so too was she branded by the track marks of her tears that testified to the Hell she was living in.

She staggered along the narrow corridor to the bathroom beyond and collapsed onto the cold tiled floor, her feverish skin desperately clinging to the tiles, savouring the cool, soothing effects they were having.

She was still weak and trembling, every muscle in her body utterly exhausted, making her feel slow and sluggish and she had no desire to pick herself up from the floor now. Every part of her body seemed to have given up and only the stubborn rise and fall of her chest testified to any kind of life left in her.

Finally, she forced herself to her feet and turned on the shower while she stripped the thin clothes from her body, the material clung, stubbornly to her skin that was still slick with the cold sweat that had engulfed her earlier, as though they wanted to protect her from the cold air that bit in to her feverish skin, making her feel vulnerable as she shivered.

Her eyes flicked towards the window in the corner of the room and for a moment as a faint tremor ran the length of her spine as though someone had slipped a live serpent under her skin. _Screw him..._She thought.

If she wanted to shower in her own home then she bloody well would. Even if the sick bastard had invited half her street to come and press their noses against the glass with him, he could not see anything. She refused to let him control her as easily as he had done with Edie. She would get him for this, and in the meantime, he could go fuck himself for all she cared.

The steady stream of water she forced herself under was cold and initially made her wince as it contrasted sharply with her burning skin. After the first shock touch however, it began to soothe her and she found herself being embraced by the cool torrent as it cleansed her of his sins without question and without judgement, happy to simply wash away the nightmare she was living in, even if it was only for a moment.

She had never been one for standing and turning aimless, endless circles in the shower, hoping for the answers to life from the bathroom mirror and as a result she was in and out of the shower in under ten minutes.

She quickly wrapped herself in a soft white towel and, for all of her assertions about not giving a damn about the array of psychotic stalkers and neighbours treating her house as the human equivalent of a goldfish bowl, she dressed in the relative safety of her bathroom.

She padded quietly from the bathroom and back into the living room, sighing and shuddering slightly as she was hit by the room and everything it had held in the last few days. She hated that it was still in darkness and a part of her wanted to wrench the curtains open but she did not. She told herself that she was denying him, going against him, but in truth, she was terrified and she did not want to see him quietly standing on the other side of the street doing nothing but stare in at her.

The thought sent tremors up her spine and she shook them off, curling up onto the chair in the living room and trying to pretend that she could do this.

She sat wrapped in darkness and embraced by silence for almost an hour until the relative peace she had managed to lower herself in to was shattered by a soft, sickening tap on the window behind her.

She forced herself to ignore it. He tapped again, long fingernails rattling off the glass and rattling her nerves at the same time. She ignored it again, closing her eyes and murmuring to herself as she had done when she was a child and had heard her father creeping up the stairs for her. He continued tapping on the glass at random intervals for over half an hour until she snapped.

"Go away, just go, please, please God, something just make him leave, please." She murmured, coiling her t-shirt between her hands just for something to do.

Finally, she stood up and wrenched the curtains open, going as far as to throw open the patio doors they had concealed and step outside, the fresh, cool night air nipping at her exposed flesh.

"What?" she demanded as he smirked in a satisfied fashion at her, "What is this what you want? To see me? To be able to watch me? To look at me when I don't want you to? What, would it make you happy if I just decided to strip for you now? Is that what you want?" she screamed, moving towards him and forcing him to step away from her in order to maintain the distance between them.

"I wanted to make sure that you were OK Sara..." he told her innocently, "You seemed upset..."

"Oh did I? Well there you have it, you've seen me, I'm still alive, I'm still here Ronald and you can go to Hell right now if you think I'm going to let you drag me there." She told him forcefully before lowering her voice to a sinister whisper and hissing, "You can't have me Ronald...I won't let you control me like you controlled Edie..."

"Well it seems I can..." he shot back smoothly, "Otherwise, tell me, where is the good Doctor Grissom?"

His name sent a shiver through her body but she ignored it.

"You're not hurting anyone I care about to get to me." She snarled, "That was _my _choice Ronald, _mine_...It ends now. You can set up a tent out there for all I care, this is my life, and fairly soon, you won't be in it, I'll see to that."

She turned on her heel and stormed back into the house, only just catching what he said before she slammed the door on him and resisting the urge to throw up at his whispered words,

"Sweet dreams Sara..."

She forced herself in to the house and sank to the floor, dissolving in to silent tears again, refusing to give him the satisfaction of knowing how much he was getting to her. She could not stand this. She could not stand him. Every time she built herself back up, he was there ready to break her all over again along the cracks he had carefully left from last time.

She slid down the wall feeling her shoulders shaking violently as she attempted to pull herself together without success.

But everything she was feeling stopped at once, only leaving behind tension and adrenaline coursing through her system in response to the light, almost mocking tap on her front door.

Standing on trembling legs, she pulled the gun noiselessly from the drawer in the corner of the room and padded to the door, fully intending to shoot the bastard in the chest and deal with the consequences later.

Every muscle in her body tensed as she wrenched open the door and aimed the gun over his heart.

"Bloody Hell Sara!" he exploded, jumping backwards as she breathed a sigh of relief, the tension draining from her muscles.

"You need to stop answering the door to me like that..." Nick told her, taking several deep breaths as she dragged her hands, gun and all, through her hair and turned away from him in despair, cursing under her breath, "People are going to start thinking that you don't want visitors."

"I don't." She told him shortly, bile clinging to her throat, one of many signs that she had overdone it tonight.

"Come on Sara..." he began gently,

"No, no 'come on Sara'." She choked, "Get out Nick..."

"No, Sara, please, how long have we known each other?" he asked quietly,

He took a concerned step towards her and forcing her back into the hall. After what had happened with Basderic, this was one of the worst things he could have done and she felt panic fluttering in her chest and gnawing at the corners of her instincts.

"I don't care." She told him, harshly, voice cracking as she breathed, "Nick, please don't, please, just go, just-"

"No." He said, firmly, continuing to walk towards her.

"Stop it." She told him desperately, "Stop it Nick. Please go, please just go, please-"

"Hey what's wrong with you?" he asked, worry flaring in his eyes, "What's happened?" he asked, pausing for a moment,

"Nothing." She spat, nausea still twisting her stomach, "Nothing, please just go." She said, her voice breaking on the last word.

She needed to take control of _something _in her life and she needed him to leave in case Basderic decided to take things out on him instead. She could not, she would not let him get hurt for her.

"Sara, that's bull and you know it." He told her firmly, "Talk to me, you know you can tell me anything."

"Then why won't you listen when I tell you to get out?" she breathed faintly, feeling her back pressed against the glass that separated the living room and the little entrance they were jammed in.

"Because I care about you." He told her quietly, "And because I'm not leaving you here alone in this state."

"If you cared about me you would." She said in a strangled whisper, "You would leave, you would go, you would listen to me please..."

"What is it that's scared you so much?" he asked her, seeing the terror she tried to conceal stirring in the depths of her eyes, "Come here," he said gently, taking several steps towards her and attempting to pull her into his arms.

"No." She choked and found the gun instinctively pointed at his chest, causing them both to freeze.

"Sara..." he murmured, eyes full of shock and concern.

"I'm sorry..." she whispered, the gun clattering to the floor as she sank to it as well, feeling his arms wrapping protectively around her waist and lowering her down more gently as her shaking hands went to her mouth while she choked, "I'm so sorry..."

"It's OK, it's alright..." he told her quietly, pulling her into his arms and holding her gently, feeling infinitely grateful that Grissom had called him, while being furious with him for leaving in the first place, "You'll be OK..."

He helped her to her feet and guided her into her living room, settling her down in the chair before returning to the door for something.

He managed to draw a shaky smile from her as the sight of the German shepherd padding by his heels, but he was rewarded with a disbelieving laugh at the sight of the second dog bounding gleefully towards her as though it were a puppy.

"Hank..." she giggled, trying and failing to fend the big dog off as he danced around her jovially, licking her ears. "Down." She told him, still trying to control her own delight at seeing him. He immediately sank to the floor and allowed her to rub his silky ears while he stared up at her with large, soulful brown eyes.

"Why do you have him?" she asked, gazing up at Nick as Sam collapsed on the floor beside her on her other side, pinning her in to a furry kind of prison, her back against the chair.

He chortled slightly at the sight of the two big dogs lying protectively by her side and said, "Grissom left him with me. He said that I should take him with me when I went to see you. He said he felt that you needed him more than he did..."

"Thank you..." she whispered, amazed at her husband's ability to sense what she needed without her even knowing what it was herself. She took more comfort in the big dig's presence than she could ever explain.

She paused a moment, burying her face in the dogs fur and hastily wiping her eyes and attempting to compose herself. Nick took the hint and padded in to the kitchen to give her a moment.

He returned with two steaming mugs of hot tea which she accepted gratefully and with a small stab at humour,

"Why is everyone's default setting for me when I'm upset to make me tea?"

"Because we don't know what else to do with you that's why." Nick told her, shaking his head and grinning into his own mug.

She smiled slightly at this, taking a sip with difficulty, her arms being pinned to her side somewhat by her furry invaders.

She waited a few moments before she breathed softly and without looking at him, "Grissom called you?"

"Yeah, yeah he did..." Nick murmured quietly, "And it's a good thing too by the looks of it..."

"Listen Nick I-" she began, not knowing what she was going to say but knowing that she owed him more than that.

"No. We'll talk later." He told her firmly, "You're exhausted and you're going to sleep." He told her, "You 're getting two for the price of oone tonight, Sam's staying too..."

"Nick I really it's OK, you don't have to-" she began. While she took comfort in having them both there, she did not want Nick to give up more than he already had for her that night and knew how much the dog's company meant to him.

"I do and I will." He told her firmly, "Don't you worry about taking him away, his Dad's staying too." He told her. When she opened her mouth to protest he shook his head and said stubbornly, "No arguments. I told you that I wouldn't let anything hurt you, and that includes yourself. I'm staying..." he paused a moment as she smiled into her tea, knowing she was beaten before running a hand over his head and saying, "God, what did I let myself in for with you Sara Sidle?"

A/N: Thanks for reading! What did you think of this chapter? Please let me know! ;)


	13. Forever Just Fine

**Chapter 13**

Forever Fine.

Sara sighed as she sat cross-legged on the bed, a file propped open in her lap, evidence reports spread out like an organised explosion on the mattress around her.

She had been avoiding the clock but now the irritatingly cheerful luminous green letters proudly announced that it was half past five in the morning.

She closed her eyes running her hands over them, her fingers resting on them as they burned beneath her feverish palms.

She was exhausted. But she could not sleep. Not without him.

Having Hank curled protectively at the bottom of her bed and Nick snoring peacefully in the next room were not enough. It was a nice thought, to know that they would be there for her in a heartbeat if she needed them but that was all it was for her; a thought, a theory, but nothing concrete, nothing tangible that she could hold onto. Not like his soft arms wrapped around her slight, trembling frame. Empty words and hollow ideals but nothing that could make her feel safe, nothing that could make this OK.

The only thing, the only _one_ that would let her sleep now was gone, she had sent him away to keep him safe, not realising that there was now no-one to keep her safe from the things she could not deal with.

She dragged her fingers through her hair, knowing that she could not go on like this for much longer. Not without someone noticing at any rate. Nick and Russell were already being over-protective and they did not even know half of the things that were troubling her.

And nor would they.

She had already decided that she would not give in to what Basderic wanted; for her to run scared to her friends, to her family, to the only things she had left in this world to care about, to put them in harm's way so he could hurt them and then blame her, just as she had done with Edie. Murder by proxy.

She would deal with this herself.

She rolled her shoulders irritably, finally giving in to the throbbing pain that had been gnawing away at her rattled nerves all night and began actively massaging it, wincing as the tense knot that had formed in her shoulder, spasmed and twinged beneath her searching, coaxing touch. It had only become worse as the night wore on until it screamed for her attention and she had given in to it.

It had started earlier that morning when she had sat bolt upright and jerked the muscle in her shoulder after her subconscious had dealt with as much of Basderic stalking her in the darkness as it could and had finally allowed herself to drag herself from the nightmare, only to discover that she was still living in it.

Ever since the incident at the hotel with Taylor Wynard and the sleeping pills he had known that she had become so dependent on to carry her into oblivion each night, she had been unable to trust them enough to let her sleep.

She had rid herself of all of the pills and alcohol in the house, barely leaving an aspirin in the medicine cabinet, firmly telling herself that she would not allow herself to be controlled by anything anymore.

At the time, this had seemed like a wonderful idea but she had not slept properly since, surviving only on the fragmented hours of broken sleep she had managed to snatch between nightmares.

It was as though she had fallen straight back into her old life. In those years before she had found solace and sleep in his arms, in those first few years in Vegas where she had stayed up for days at a time, forcing herself to stay awake, listening to the police scanner, desperate to hear of some horror happening in this world so she would not have to submit that night to the horrors of her dreams.

She had been alone. Completely alone. She had not told anyone. Grissom's frequent jibes about her not sleeping had, in hindsight, been hints that her supervisor had been concerned about her well-being and the potential insomnia that plagued his younger colleague but had not known how to raise the issue with her, but that was all they had been, 'hints'. None of them had known or cared enough to search for a deeper meaning in them. They did not want to know of the past that haunted her each night. They had not needed to know, even though she had needed to tell them.

And now here she was again. Right back where she had started. With nightmares that would not let her sleep and colleagues she felt were her family yet she could not bear to burden them with this.

She sighed again, holding the breath in her lungs until they burned and she was forced to release it as she forced herself to accept the truth.

She could not survive like this for much longer.

But she could survive for now, she told herself, and now after all, was the only time that had ever mattered to her.

She slid from the bed, the light silk sheets clinging to her sweat-coated skin as she untangled herself from them, suddenly feeling suffocated by her thoughts. She drew the light, thin nightgown more tightly around her slim frame as she padded to the windows and slipped open the curtains to allow herself to open the window and let air into the room.

She half-expected to see Basderic there, waiting for her and watching her but the dark street beyond was black and deserted, the pale light of the moon that bathed it in a soft white glow making up for the lack of street lights.

Rain still fell against the thin panes of glass but only lightly, quiet and almost peaceful, not like the torrential downpours she used to loathe.

She closed her eyes as the cool night air bathed and soothed her burning flesh while she stood there, bare feet nestled in the thick carpet below them.

She always loved this time of night. Everything was quiet, everything was peaceful and still and it seemed for a moment as though the whole world would simply stop for her, for that moment, to let her catch her breath, to let her breathe, properly, while she tried to remember how to live in the chaos.

She opened her eyes again and the rain that continued to valiantly throw itself at her window, trying to hit her, to hurt her, but stopped every time, reminded her that 'life goes on' whether she wanted it to or not.

She watched curiously as a bedraggled moth curled onto the windowsill outside, battered by the storm, its feeble wings twitching as it was struck by the innocent raindrops, that to her were nothing, but to the moth were like a hail of silver bullets.

She stood, transfixed by the darkness and the rain and the moth's endless struggle until the weak sun rose from beyond the desert hills and claimed the rain as its own, leaving the stubborn little moth to flutter drunkenly from the window ledge.

She sighed again as she turned to see the cold case spread out on the bed.

It was another old habit she had unconsciously slipped into. Usually, when she was plagued by her frequent bouts of insomnia, she had read, more to distract herself than anything else; when that hadn't worked, she had dug out cold cases and had began to obsess over them, allowing herself to be lost in a past of her own choosing until the dawn of her day had dragged her back into the present to begin the cycle once more.

She cleared the files off the bed, knowing there would be Hell to pay if Nick found them and, calling to Hank, padded noiselessly into the kitchen to make a stab at having breakfast.

"Morning." Nick said, making her jump as he realised that he was already awake.

"Morning." She agreed softly, holding up the kettle and asking, "You want a cup?"

"What is it that hippie crap?" he asked, yawning and stretching,

"Yes Nick." She said, rolling her eyes, "It's the 'hippie crap' known by most people as green tea, I take it you don't want one?"

"Nah..." he said, "I'll make coffee..."

"Make yourself at home." She said as he began rifling through her cupboards, "Hey, hey, hey, how long have you known me?" she flapped as he began aimlessly rummaging, "Coffee, top cupboard on the right above the oven...Always..." she told him irritably,

"Yes ma'am..." he said mockingly as Sam joined them, padding by Nick's feet as he headed to the mentioned cupboard, "I forgot about your system..."

"How? You complain about it every time you're here." She teased, pouring out the hot water into her comforting mug of 'hippie crap' and settling herself on the chair.

He managed to make his coffee without upsetting her much more and joined her on the sofa opposite, Hank and Sam collapsing simultaneously at their feet, drawing smiles from them both, before he said softly,

"Listen Sara, I don't want to push you or anything but..." he began,

"You have about a hundred and one questions you want to ask me?" she said, taking a sip of her tea,

"Yeah..." he said softly, "And they all seem to revolve around Gil Grissom."

She snorted into her mug at this, absent-mindedly fiddling with Hank's ears as she said,

"This should be a fairly short conversation then..."

"What happened Sara?" he asked, quietly, leaning forwards, "I thought things were getting better, that you were working things out?"

"So did I..." she murmured evasively,

"So why did he leave?" he asked, a hint of bitterness and frustration colouring the words he attempted to make neutral.

"What did he tell you?" she asked, sharply, wondering how Nick had managed to paint Grissom as the victim in all of this.

"That he was leaving, _again_, and that he was worried about you, he wanted me to check up on you."

Her pride took a moment to pacify at this point as she rejected the idea of being perceived as some helpless damsel in distress and had to overcome that in order to allow herself to say,

"He didn't tell you _why _he left?" she asked, rubbing at her temples and stressing over the infuriating enigma that was Gil 'Bloody' Grissom, wondering, not for the first time, how much simpler her life would have been had she not waited behind for him at the end of that seminar.

"No..." Nick said, clearly as wrong-footed as she was, "Sara..." he murmured quietly, watching in concern as she ran her hands through her hair, and pressed her palms against her closed eyes, "Sara, why did he leave?"

"Because I asked him to..." she whispered through her fingers.

"Why?" he asked, pity coating his words and getting her back up already.

"Because I was tired of living the way we were." She said harshly, exhaustion and bitterness at the real reason tearing at her and causing her words to be colder than she intended, "I couldn't do it anymore Nick...Just keep waiting for him, keep waiting to live..." she sighed, dragging her hands through her tangle of curls as she tried to explain her blatant lies, "I just...I got tired Nick...We both did...I didn't want to do that anymore..."

He shook his head, nursing his mug, a sad smile twisting his lips.

"What? " She asked irritably, eyes narrowed,

"I don't know Sara..." he said slowly, struggling to put his feelings into words, "You and Grissom, you just seemed, I don't know, _perfect _for each other, you know?"

"People change Nick..." she said softly, trying to bury the sadness that lingered in her eyes.

To give herself something to do other than look at the pity that was rising in his eyes like a snake, she picked up her now empty mug and carried it to the kitchen. As she reached the sink and made to place it in, out of habit, she glanced out of the window in front of her and saw the dark figure standing calmly on the other side of the street, silhouetted against the feeble orange glow of one of her neighbour's houses.

She dropped the cup and winced as it shattered in the floor, peppering her bare feet with small, sharp cuts.

Breathing hard, she braced herself against the sink as her head spun and the room pitched sickeningly before her. She forced herself to look out of the window again. He was gone. So quickly and so completely, that if she didn't know better, she would have said he had been a hallucination. If she was honest with herself, she wasn't sure which one was worse.

She cursed softly under her breath, telling herself to pull herself together and grabbed a dishtowel, hastily gathering the pieces of broken china and split tea as Nick leapt up from the chair, concerned,

"Sara!"

"It's OK." She told him quietly, "There was water on the floor, I slipped it's fine..."

"Sara..." he said again, more gently this time, slipping his hands over hers, "Talk to me." He murmured, a faint sense of urgency colouring his words.

She paused, suppressing the shiver that ran her length so he could not tell just how much she wanted to do that.

He wanted to help. She knew that, knew that he meant well but the thought of Basderic, of how close he was, of how easy it would be for him. Made her decision easy. Regardless of the consequences to herself, she would not let him hurt anyone she cared about because of her.

Ronald Basderic was a desperate man, a desperate man with nothing left to lose because she had taken everything away from him. She knew he would only relish the thought of doing the same to her, whatever the cost to himself. She had already sworn that she would not give him that chance.

She pulled away from Nick, emptying out the dishtowel into the sink. Back to him, shoulders hunched defensively and eyes closed, she breathed softly,

"I can't Nick..."

"Can't?" he said, an edge creeping in to his voice, "Sara, how long have we known each other? You can tell me anything, you know that."

"Not this." She said firmly, still not looking at him.

"Sara come on, I know you're not dealing with this half as well as you're making out." He said, placing a hand on her shoulder.

"Don't Nick." She snapped, pulling away from him, feeling suffocated by his attentions and knowing that she should have made him leave last night.

"No, don't you Sara." He said, firmly, "What is it?"

She hated the urgency and the pity in his voice.

"What is it?" she snarled, finding his frustration to be infectious, "I don't know Nick; where should we start? With my marriage falling apart; being stalked by a psychopath; my mother landing herself in hospital _again_; being framed for murder; being abandoned and doubted by people I thought were-"

"Hey, hey, hey, I didn't abandon you Sara, none of us did." He said sharply,

"No? What would you call it then?" she snapped, "I knew _exactly _what was going on behind my back. What the grapevine was whispering about. That I had cheated on my husband, that I was unbalanced, off-key, that I could maybe have done that..."

"Sara, no-one thought-"he tried,

"Yes they did." She said softly,

"Well no wonder." He snapped, taking a different tact with her, "You and Grissom had split up and you hadn't told anyone, everything stemmed from that."

"What? I deserved it?" she snarled, "I deserved that because I hadn't decided to tell you all every detail of my personal life?" she demanded, eyes shining with angry tears that she impatiently brushed away,

"That's not what I'm saying and you know it." He said in a low voice, "This is what I'm talking about Sara." He said, gently attempting to take her wrist and draw her towards him, trying to conceal his hurt when she pulled away, "You can't keep bottling everything up Sara. It's not good for you. You can't deal with everything on your own all the time and you don't have to."

It would have been so easy to just give him what he wanted, to talk to him, to confess everything. But she couldn't do that. She couldn't. He had gone out of his way to protect her when Basderic had threatened her, to the point of confronting him, God only knew what he would do now if he found out about this, she could not let that happen, she would not let anyone else be hurt because of her.

"Don't you dare preach to me Nick." She snarled in a low voice, wanting nothing more than for him to leave her in peace, however she had to achieve this. "You weren't exactly the voice of reason when it was the other way around. When you were bottling everything up and I was trying to open you up, when I wanted _you_ to talk to _me_. When I asked you, when I _begged _you to talk to me, when you were bottling everything up after Warrick's death and what did I get? You pushed me away, he was gone and I needed you, you needed me and you pushed me away, you wouldn't let me help you."

As his eyes darkened and the tears finally fell from hers, angry at first and then hurt and shocked, they both knew she had gone too far.

"I'm sorry..." she whispered hollowly, voice cracking, "I'm so sorry, Nick..."

"I know, I know. Come here." He murmured softly, unable to condemn her for something that had slipped out in the heat of the moment when she looked so broken and so vulnerable,

He wrapped his arms around her and pulled her close, murmuring softly as he did so,

"It's OK, you're alright...I'm sorry too. I shouldn't have pushed you."

"It's not that...It's not that I don't trust you or-"she told him in a fractured whisper, "I just...I can't Nick, I-"

"Hey, shh, it's alright, I understand...You just gave me a bit of a fright, I'm worried about you." He told her quietly, "But you don't have to say anything Sara, I know you, I know what you want and I'll respect that. I just want you to be OK...And this is all just as long as you know that if you ever can, I'm here..."

"I do. I know, I do, thank you..." she breathed sadly, knowing that that time would never, _could _never come.


	14. Bleeding Hearts and Broken Dolls

**Chapter 14**

Bleeding Hearts and Broken Dolls

Nick smiled slightly as he checked his phone, causing Sara to look up from what felt like her sixth cup of tea that day. It seemed his cure for her fragile state was to cause her to overdose on the stuff. Though she did have to admit it was helping. She was glad that she did not have to have the house to herself.

Usually she welcomed the silence, preferring to think of it as peace. It was a chance for her to get away from the chaotic lab and the howling clamour of Vegas. Before she had welcomed that as it had awakened something within her and had given her a purpose. She had soon found that that was why she had burnout. She had to find some kind of equilibrium, a balance between work and her personal life, or lack of as it was these days, to stop herself from exploding.

In her first few years of Vegas, she had needed the sound, the endless clatter of voices and cars and slot machines that seemed to ring through her mind at all times in the town whether she was in a casino or not. She needed it to remind her that she was not alone, that she was not vulnerable, not exposed, not defenceless, that there were other people with monsters on their backs and demons in their souls who hid them just as well as she did.

She wanted the noise of the city to drown out the screaming in her head.

Now however it was different. The silence reminded her of peace. Of luxurious nights spent beneath the dense, velvet strips of inky sky in Costa Rica, with his arm draped lazily across her shoulders as they lay on the sand and he pointed out constellations, some of which she later discovered, had been of his own invention because he had run out of real ones...She had never confronted him on that...

Now the shrieks of Vegas' nightlife only served to remind her of the screams in her past. Either her own or her mothers, in that darkened house, alone and terrified, the howls of pain and terror the only things to rent the suffocating silence that had swallowed her.

She took comfort in it now. She associated it with times where she had not had to fear the oppressive, daring silence, when she had felt safe and comforted by it because he had been there in it.

Since Basderic however, she had reverted to her old ways. Grissom had been gone for too long and the silence was beginning to be quietly corrupted by the poisonous influence of Basderic.

Giving herself a little shake, she pulled herself back to Nick, forcing a strained smile on to her face in response to his expression and burying the emotions she could not quite cover herself in her mug as she asked,

"What is it?"

"Finn." He said, smiling wryly and shaking his head, "She wants to know why no-one's brought her grapes." He told her, chuckling,

Sara smiled and found a laugh bubbling from the depths of her throat, "Yeah, that sounds like Finn...She gets stabbed and all she wants are grapes..."

"You know I was thinking about going to see her today...We could bring her some." He said, smiling and not adding that he also wanted to get her out of the house.

"Alright..." she said, smiling slightly as she set her cup on the table, "On one condition..." she told him, the grin becoming wolfish at the panicked expression on his face, "I drive." She winked,

Shaking his head he grabbed his jacket and said, "Alright let's go...Before you come up with something really crazy..."

She clambered in to the car and was glad that he had made her do this. She was almost able to escape the claustrophobia that was constricting her mind on the long open roads through the desert.

She watched with an amused expression as he continued texting Finn, unable to resist jibing,

"So, what's going on with you and Finn?" she asked teasingly, raising her eyebrows at him,

"What?" he spluttered, turning beetroot in response to her mocking suggestion and the flirtatious tone in which she had said it, "Nothing..."

"Nothing? Really? Is that what they're calling it these days?" she pressed mercilessly, watching him floundering helplessly,

"No, no, she's just a friend." He insisted weakly, knowing full well what he had walked in to and fully expecting her to take advantage of it. Right on cue, she smirked,

"With benefits?"

"No. No benefits, no gossip, no steamy office romances...That's your area of expertise." He retorted, taking a chance to bite back good-naturedly,

She stared at him, laughing in disbelief before she quipped defensively, "Well I was a damn sight better at it than you..."

"No, no, because _I_ have nothing to hide." He told her superiorly, smiling now, glad to see her laughing again, even if it was at his expense.

"Really you trying to tell me that nothing's happened?" she pressed, eyes dancing mischievously,

"Nothing has happened." He told her, chuckling at her insistence,

"You trying to tell me you haven't thought about anything happen?" she pushed daringly, grinning at him from the corner of her twinkling eye,

"Hey, this is becoming insulting, "he said, in mock hurt tones, "How long have we known each other, nothing's ever happened between us!"

"Yeah, not for lack of trying on your part." She replied deadpan, unable to contain herself at the expression on his face, able to forget for a moment about Basderic and Grissom, allowing herself a moment of happiness for what felt the first time in a lifetime.

They arrived at the hospital almost half an hour later, by which time Sara was wracked with feelings of guilt for not going to see her sooner. She had become so wrapped up in Basderic and she had wanted to keep her distance while she had figured out what he was doing. She had not wanted Finn to be in any more of a vulnerable position than she was in.

Nick sensed her discomfort and pushed her towards the door saying,

"You go in first...I'll go and get a coffee and then me and my grapes will come and rescue you later."

She smiled and nodded, appreciating this, "Thanks..." she murmured as he gave her shoulder a small squeeze and left her to push her way quietly in to the room.

"Hey..." she murmured, quietly taking a seat beside the other woman,

"Hey..." she said, forcing a bleary-eyed smile, "I was worried about you..." she said huskily, pushing herself up on her pillows and wincing,

"Yeah, I'm sorry I-" she began uncomfortably,

"No, no, I understand..." she said quickly, reaching out and wrapping a comforting hand around the younger woman's arm, "It's OK..." she paused a moment, lowering her eyes to look in to Sara's as she asked quietly, "Are you?"

"Yeah, yeah I'm fine..." she shrugged defensively, brushing her off as she did so,

"Picture that..." Finn muttered, rolling her eyes and quietly withdrawing her hand, the defensive paranoia of her younger colleague not going unnoticed,

"How are you?" Sara asked, clearing her throat and smoothly changing the subject, not wanting to stray in to uncharted territories, not trusting Finn to not hit a nerve and trigger something she could not control, knowing that the other woman had already noticed how on edge she had been.

"I'm fine..." she said, grinning slightly, before shrugging and adding in an off-hand voice, "The hole in my lung whistles every time I breathe but..."

Sara smiled at this and said, "Something for you to talk about at parties."

"Yeah..." she said, grinning, "You were a lot more sympathetic to that than Russell any way..."

"Really? What did he suggest?" Sara asked, smiling slightly in spite of herself,

"That I stop breathing." Finn replied flatly, trying, and failing, to look un-amused as the smile tugged at her lips,

Sara laughed, "Yeah, that sounds like Russell." She paused a moment, the laughter dying in her a little as she asked, "What happened?"

She took a deep breath and shook her head, "I was stupid..." she murmured quietly, wrapping the cotton sheets nervously around her hands as she spoke, "I went to check back on the little girl..."

"Finn..." Sara murmured quietly,

"I know, I know..." she said, shaking her head, "I just...I don't know...I...She...She was the victim in all of this, and no-one seemed to care about her..." she said quietly, fumbling with her words and watching the sheets twisting uncomfortably in her hands,

"They never do in these cases..." Sara murmured quietly, having a little too much experience of this herself.

Whenever doctors or nurses or social workers had tried, in vain and infrequently, to address the issues at home, it was never her they spoke to and more often than not it became about politics and protocols rather than an abused, smothered child...

"Sara..." Finn murmured gently, her chest constricting at the thought that had just entered her head but needing to give them both a chance to address it, she breathed softly, "What you said...Back in that house. About your mother...Was that true?"

Sara drew a deep breath and fidgeted, answering before she even opened her mouth, "I...It..." she began, faltering as the words caught in her throat,

"Hey, it's OK...I was just saying, if you wanted to talk..." Finn said hastily, wanting the other woman to open up but not wanting to push her and make her clam up.

"No...No, I would like to it's just..." she said, taking another thick breath that rattled in her lungs. She took a moment to compose herself before beginning in a soft, flat whisper, "My mother was schizophrenic...One night, a _long _time ago, she got up in the middle of the night, she took a knife from the kitchen, and she stabbed my father in the chest while he was sleeping..."

Finn stared at her for a moment her eyes flicking down for a moment before she raised them. Sara was surprised not to find pity or sympathy, but understanding and a faint film of bitter tears,

"Why?" she whispered, surprising her,

"He was controlling, manipulative, abusive...He beat and raped me...She had enough."

"Yeah..." she murmured quietly, "Battered women will only be pushed so far..."

"How far did he have to push you?" she murmured softly,

"What?" she asked distractedly, pushing away a stray tear that had managed to escape from beneath her stubborn iron lids,

"Come on Finn..." she said softly, "Something about that got to you and it wasn't my poetic words." She told her quietly, "What did he do to you?"

"You remember me telling you about Mike?" she said quietly, brushing her eyes looking irritated with the corner of her sleeve,

"The Seattle ex?" Sara asked quietly, confused, having met Mike and not being sure where this was going,

"Yeah...Husband number two and if he was an idiot, then the first was a real son-of-a-bitch..." she said, the last word being spat from her throat in a choke. Sara placed her hand gently over the other woman's, knowing that there was nothing she could say to make this easier for her and sensing that this was not something she had spoken about often, "He..." her voice shook and Sara gave her hand a soft squeeze as her breath rattled in her lungs, "He was abusive..." her voice cracked again and her voice became laboured, coming in short, sporadic bursts, "Shocking." She spat, rubbing her eyes again, looking irritated, "Nothing was physical to begin with, all emotional, all subtle, everything was kept hidden, even from me...It got to the stage where I could barely breathe without him telling me no and still I couldn't see what he was doing to me...It had to get to the point where something pushed him too far and he snapped...Once he did that, I was out, and I realised how much of my life he had stolen from me..."

"What happened?" Sara murmured softly,

"I was five months pregnant..." she replied in a strangled whisper, "I miscarried...He blamed me...Sent me back to hospital..."

"I'm so sorry..." Sara murmured quietly, giving her hand another comforting squeeze, "I didn't know, Finn, I..." she said, trailing off, not knowing what to say, wishing she had not told her and wishing she had not been so blunt about it,

"Well now you do." She choked, channelling a certain bluntness that was specific only to Finn.

Sara rewarded her with a strained smile and was quiet for a while as they both struggled with similar flashbacks before saying softly in to the silence,

"When are they going to let you out of here?" she asked quietly, knotting her hands absently in the thin sheets on the bed,

"I don't know..." she said quietly "Soon I hope..." she said brusquely, before adding in a quieter voice, "I cannot sleep in here..." she said, trying to be blasé, "And speaking of that, you don't look like you've slept in about...Three years? You OK?" she asked gently, gazing at the brunette as she laughed uncomfortably and averted her eyes,

She knew that after Finn's faith in her she had to give something back, but with her being in such a vulnerable position in the hospital, she did not want to tell her about Basderic and potentially make it worse. This was her problem and hers alone. She would not allow anyone else to suffer for her own recklessness.

"You know...Since the whole thing with Taylor Wynard at the hotel and Basderic swapping out my pills..." she took a deep breath, eyes darting towards the ceiling as though hoping to find solace in the cold, yellowing tiles, "I haven't really slept since I stopped taking them..." she paused, still running her hands through the thin, prickly sheets beneath her fingers, "I could only sleep with a shot and a sleeping tablet...Now I just can't sleep..." she sighed and brushed nervous fingers over her lips before saying, "I can't sleep with them...Won't sleep without them..."

"Yeah..." Finn murmured quietly, "I know the feeling...Insomnia's a bitch..." she said, "Is it nightmares or can you not even bring yourself to that?"

"Bit of both..." she admitted with a shrug, "It's a vicious circle..."

"Yeah, you can't sleep because you think it will give you nightmares, and then you try, the nightmares wake you, and you still can't sleep because you know you'll have nightmares..." she murmured bitterly,

"Voice of experience there?" Sara asked gently,

"Bitter experience..." she replied coolly, "It used to be, I wouldn't get cases that kept me up at night because they got under my skin and I couldn't stop working on them, they kept me up at night because they got stuck inside my head and I couldn't stop seeing them when I slept. The victims. The killers. And I always ended up a screaming wreck trying to run on less than three hours of broken sleep..."

"How did you deal with it?" Sara asked quietly, having gone through just about every trick in the book and finding herself fast running out of healthy options.

"I don't know..." the other woman replied quietly, not making eye contact, "I tried the alcohol and the pills...It worked for a bit, but then I just found that I still had the nightmares, I just couldn't wake up from them...I tried reading, I tried working, I tried just about everything..."

"What worked?"

"I don't know...Some days I still think nothing." She said quietly, "There are some dark secrets inside my head that aren't going to leave for any reason, I've learned to accept that, but...Talking helps...Russell was great..." she laughed a little at the memory, "He had noticed that I had become irritable at work-" Sara raised an eyebrow and Finn shrugged, smirking as she said, "More irritable then...He called me out on it, guessed, correctly, and started prescribing me all of these strange teas...I thought he was nuts but I went another rough patch a few days after it and I decided it couldn't hurt...It didn't." She said with a small smile, "But if there's something that's bothering you Sara, then all the tea in China won't fix it..." she told her perceptibly,

"Yeah, I, uh, I think it's just bad memories..." she said quietly,

"You sure?" Finn pushed quietly, knowing that there was more than ancient history tormenting the brunette,

"Yeah, I'm sure..." she said, forcing a sad smile.

She could not tell her about Basderic. And she would not tell her about Grissom. She had had enough of that with Nick. She could not do that with him anymore. She had made her choice and now she had to deal with it.

Fortunately, at that moment, Nick provided a welcome distraction for both of them,

"Hey..." he said, walking up to Finn and pulling her in to a brief hug, careful not to brush her injured side,

"Hey." She and Sara answered him silently,

"It's crazy serious in here..." he told them, drawing back from her as he glanced between them,

"Yeah..." Finn said heavily, giving her loose blond curls a shake and hitching a smile on to her face that told him not to push it.

"Well alright then." He said quietly, taking a seat behind Sara. He looked between them again, noticing that neither of them held eye contact with them before sighing, leaning forwards and asking Finn in a deadly serious voice,

"Would you like a grape?"

They stayed with Finn for a few hours and gave in to her protests, filling her in on some of the recent cases they had worked at the lab and giving her something to puzzle over before she started climbing the walls before they both agreed that they had to leave.

They quietly slipped from the hospital and back in to the car. As Sara began to head for Nick's apartment he glanced at her and said,

"You wanting me to stay another night with you?"

"No." She replied bluntly, something he picked up on as he snorted, "I'm sorry..." she said, smiling slightly at his expression and shaking her head, "I just...Uh, I think I just need to start learning...How to do this myself. I'll be fine, I promise..."

She had already let him get in too close. It had been stupid and selfish of her, knowing that Basderic was there and knowing how much danger she could have put him in. She would not do that again. Whatever it cost her.

He agreed without comment but as she pulled up outside his apartment he leaned in through the open window and told her quietly, "You know that if anything happens, you can call me, right?"

"Sure, Nick, now-" she began, brushing him off easily,

"I mean it Sara." He told her sternly. Like Finn, he too had noted the discomfort that had settled around their cagey colleague, "Anything."

"I know Nick." She said, forcing a light laugh as she leaned over and gave him a friendly shove in the chest, "I've got you on speed-dial, now go."

"OK, alright, I'm going..." he said, also smiling and stepping away from the car.

She quietly pulled in to the drive of her own house and sat for a moment, enjoying the dark and the quiet that followed her chaotic day after she had pulled the keys from the ignition.

Finally forcing herself from the car, she swung her long legs from it, planting them as firmly on to the drive-way as she could and staggered up it on exhausted feet that were telling her that now more than anything, she needed to sleep. Regardless of the nightmares that came, she knew that she had no choice tonight.

Ducking in to the house, she slowly punched in the alarm code and numbly dropped her keys in to the little bowl on the wooden shelf beside her.

She stumbled in to the living room, intending to head straight for bed and not bothering to turn on the lights.

She froze as she saw a familiar outline sitting on the chair that had always belonged to him, back to the door.

She watched as it rose and felt ice cascade in to her stomach,

"I thought I had told you to go?" she murmured softly as the shadow moved in to the light, revealing their face to her.

A/N: A little iffy on this chapter and so your thoughts, any and all, are welcomed and much appreciated! :)


	15. Golden Apple

**Chapter 15**

Golden Apple

"I thought I had told you to go."

"As you can see, I didn't listen." He replied silkily, grinning at her as he moved from the shadows and in to the light.

"I want you to leave." She told him hollowly, "Now."

"I don't' want to." He replied sleekly, eyes dancing, moving forward to further compound his point,

"That's enough Ronald." She snapped, holding out a hand, "I'm calling the police and you are going right back where you came from."

"We've been here Sara." He told her playfully, "You're not calling the shots anymore. I am. And I say. No."

"Well as you're the one out on bail for murder and have broken half a dozen of your conditions by coming here, Ronald," she told him tightly, "I'd say you don't have a leg to stand on."

"And I'd say that you've got something else I don't have." He murmured vindictively,

"And what's that?" she demanded irritably, sligtly surprised by this observation,

"Weakness." He whispered, "You have so many weaknesses. So many things that I could destroy, one by one and watch as your world crumbles…"

She froze. Sure that he was going where she thought he was and sure that she did not want him to.

"What are you-"she began tautly.

He did not let her finish before he had smoothly taken over, moving towards her as he said evenly,

"I thought I told you. You don't talk to them. You don't tell them. I wasn't doing this to be horrible Sara; I was doing this for your own good. I was warning you what would happen if you tried to cross me and you did. Nick spent the night did he not? And what did you really hope to gain from that?"

"I didn't want him to." She choked; suddenly terrified that he had somehow gotten to Nick, because of her, "I asked him to go."

"And that." He told her softly, "Is the only reason he's still alive."

"You won't hurt them Ronald. That's a promise." She told him hollowly, staring right at him and holding his foul gaze in her own.

"No." he hissed playfully, "I won't." he agreed softly before tilting his head slightly and adding a musical lilt to his voice, making it teasing and almost childish, "You will." He told her sleekly, smiling broadly, "Because you'll be the one that got them involved. You'll be the one that dragged them in to this." He leaned in closer, pressing his lips against her ear as she stood frozen in place, breathing slowly and deliberately, weighing each word heavily on his tongue before allowing it to slip past his poisonous lips, "You'll be the one who puts a bullet in them."

He turned away from her, giggling madly to himself as he did so, grinning to himself as he revelled in her agony.

"Leave them out of this Ronald." She breathed hollowly, pointing threateningly at him, her voice dropping to a low undertone, "I don't care what you do to me but you stay away from them."

"That's the thing though isn't it?" he said, suddenly darting towards her, like a snake, suddenly springing forward and giving no warning, bobbing and weaving around in front of her, seeming to draw her in as his nostrils snatched at the air around them, "You can't have both. Because I'm not hurting them, not intentionally anyway, they are merely a means to hurt you, so whichever way you look at it-"

"No. I don't give a damn which way you look at this, but you stay away from them. They're off limits Ronald, do you hear me?" she snarled shakily, unable to bear even the thought of any of them being hurt because of her, "You leave them out of this, it has nothing to do with them, and this is between you and me. I won't play your games with them involved Ronald, do you hear what I'm saying?"

"I hear you." He whispered, tilting his head sideways, eyes dancing maliciously, taking pleasure in every single, _delicious _second of her pain, "Loud and clear." His lips contorted in to a venemous sneer, "Off-limits says you?" he breathed, dancing closer to her, his breath whispering on her neck, casuing an involuntary tremour to run through her as he whispered maliciously, "Forbidden fruit says I…"

"Back off." She snapped, eyes widening threateningly, reagardless of the fact that he was the one with the gun, with the control, with the bargaining chips in this conversation.

"From what?" he asked, smirking jovially, "From your friends? Your family? " he continued, baring his teeth and stalking towards her, gun held loosely, almost casually in his hand, drawing her eye, "Nick and Greg, your brothers in arms, and more besides?" he began, raising a malicious eyebrow,

"This has nothing to do with them." She began quietly,

"This has _everything _to do with them." He spat, "Because they are special to you. They mean something to you. They matter. And even then they could never matter half as much as she mattered to me." His voice began strong, full of confidence and anger and trailed off as he began to speak again of Edie, dwindling away to nothing once more, with something of a childish quality to it, showcasing his dependence and the depth of his reliance on her, as well as his mental instability.

The long months since her death had done nothing to quell his obsession. He may have replaced his fixation and his purpose in life but he had not replaced her. She could not believe how long the young woman had managed to go on with him breathing down her neck every single second of every single day. Just hearing him talk about her was enough to convince any sane person that the 'relationship' he had fabricated between them was anything but healthy.

"She wasn't anything like what Nick and Greg are to me." Sara breathed, deciding that if he could push buttons she could push back, at the vulnerable nerve he left constantly fraying and exposed, the chink in the armour, the soft underside in the belly of the beast, "Because you were nothing to her. They care about me in a way that she never cared about you. She was terrified of you Ronald; she hated you."

"No." he spat, "No she loved me. We were going to be married."

"She wouldn't have married you if you had held a gun to her head." Sara pressed, walking forwards,

"She would have. But you, you courrputed her, you posioned her against me, you made her scared, you made her hate me it was you." He snarled, suddenly advancing on h er, pushing her back against the wall, pressing her in to the cool concrete surface and leaving her no where to go. Literally backed in to a corner with a deranged, gun-wielding psycho on the other side, gun pressed against her temple, one hand crossed over her chest, pinning her arms to her side, surprisingly strong.

"Would you like me to pin you down Sara?" he whispered softly, his tone and the now twisted memory sending shivers up her spine and destroying any hold she had had over him, "Like he did?" he pressed, forcing the connection. He pressed his lips to her ear again as she instinctively turned her head, "Do not test me." He whispered, "I have friends in places you wouldn't believe. I have eyes and ears everywhere Sara. The walls whisper secrets to me if I ask them nicely. I know things about you that you've forgottten, do not, test me."

He released her, walking away, opening his arms out expansively as if he had never stopped, as though she had never interrupted him, finding his way back to the conversation he had so obviously planned,

"And then there's Morgan. Sweet. Innocent. Disposable little Morgan…"he told her in a sing-song voice, once again pitching back to face her, eyes dancing madly.

It was the way in which he seeded these little hints. The sinister wolf set among the sheep disguised as a lamb. Innocent subtle and utterly deadly.

"And Mr. Russell." He said, with a tone that suggested the thought had simply come to him, "Your friend. The one who was there for you, you understood you and what you wanted. Who would never push you or press you but was there and knew just what to say to get from you what you needed. Someone you could connect with. Someone who understood what you were going through because he has what you had, someone who was married, and how is that going for you these days?"

The conversation ebbed and flowed without any need of input from her. All she had to do was what she was doing; standing dumbstruck in the middle of the room as his foul whisperings fluttered from his lips and pierced her heart with more surity than any blade. He was hitting her where it hurt, and he knew it.

"And then of course there is the tenacious Ms Finlay…" he continued tauntingly, dancing around her grinning as he watched the colour drain slowly from her face with every word he spoke, loving this, making all those months of pain and all those weeks of effort, finding and studying and learning and changing and adapting and growing all worth it. Worth it for the beautiful look of pain and disgust that now twisted her pretty features, "Usually so full of spirit and life. Feisty." He smirked before turning to her and adding, "Not so fesity now is she? Injured. In hospital. Vulnerable, would you say? Because you know, that hospital just lets anyone walk in and walk all over the people you care about, including your mother if you remem-"

"Stop it Ronald." She snarled, taking a step towards him,

"Ah, ah, ah…." He said cautioningly, eyes widening as she attempted to tip the balance of the conversation towards herself for a moment, carefully following her with the gun, the black hole following her like the blind eye of some strange and terrifying creature, poised and ready for use, "Get back…." He whispered, flicking the gun at her, "Good…." He whispered, eyes narrowing and dancing once more as she obediently returned to her previous position, "And now we ask ourselves why? Why was poor Finlay put in that position? And I think you will find that the answer stares back at you whenever you glance across a mirror. It was you."

"I…I had nothing to do with what happened to Finn." Sara choked, shocked,

"Oh but you did…" he told her playfullly, smirking at her, "Just think about it Sara, you're good at that I know." He paused, grinning at her still, "It was you that had to go to that house. Running in all guns blazing as per usual. She wanted to wait for back-up; she didn't want to go in there. She went for you. To protect you. Because she cares about you. Now don't you see?" he whispered, "Don't you see what you do to people? You are poison. You are dangerous. You hurt them; every which way you turn, without even trying. Asbestos. The silent killer that sneaks in to their lungs on a breath and hides there, harbouring away the pain until they're weak until they're vulnerable, until there's too much in there for them to let go of and they end up hurting because of you." He paused here, watching with delight as her eyes clouded over and the faint outline of her slender body began to tremble in response to his teasing words, "A regular 'Queen Midas' so you are. With opposite effects. You poison everything you touch. And you don't tell them until it's too late. Because you know. You know that thay'll get hurt. That they always have. That ever since you were a child you've lived with pain and suffering and tragedy and trauma so much so that there's nothing left. That they can't possibly be around you and not be subject to at least some of the demons that plague you. That at least one of the devils they see dancing in those deep dark eyes will try and snatch at their soul and turn them too because you must. Because you've seen it so many times. That you just leave a trail of agony and destruction and ash in your wake. The echoes of your presence found wherever there is darkness and wherever there is pain in the lives you've been in."

"Why are you doing this?" she whispered, her whole body going rigid, tensing up and breaking down all at once in response to his brutal words,

"To teach you a lesson." He breathed, "To try and offer you what you offered me. A few painful home truths that hurt, don't they? You told me what you thought I had done to contribute to Edie's death, I'm just paying you back in kind and showing you how you've destroyed the lives of the people you claim to love."

"I do love them Ronald." She snapped, "And I won't let you hurt them."

"I've already said, I won't have to-"he began sleekly,

"I won't let anything or anyone hurt them." She snapped, advancing on him,

"Haven't I made that clear?" he breathed, "You don't have to try, and you just do." He told her, grinning and walking towards her, "Anyone you let get close gets hurt. It's just the way you work, as fundamental as any of the laws of nature. Even the people you try to love and try to protect get hurt by you. Grissom. Remember him? Remember how you sent him away? Because I told you what would happen otherwise. I was trying to save him from the car crash relationship he's been having with you for the last fifteen years. I was doing what you should have done years ago if you really loved him I was letting him go. Because how much have you hurt him Sara? Hmm? How much pain have you caused him over your time together?"

"I love Gil." She told him, voice choked with emotion, "There's nothing you can say or do that will change that."

"I don't want to chagne the way you feel about him Sara, perish the thought. Feelings aren't just things that you can rummage around in, that you can just play with, try them and take them off like you're a child with a dressing up box, they don't work that way, I know that. I'm doing what you CSIs do. I'm taking the evidence with a pair of fresh eyes and I'm giving you a new way to look at it."

He smiled, circling her, mouth twitching at the corners as he began to pad around her in a meticulous cricle. Each step practiced and precise meaning that he never had to take his eyes from her. His glittering and gleaming like those that lodged in the skull of a rabid wolf, fixating on the little rabbit in his sights, her eyes wide, full of emotion and thinly veiled fear, stalking his prey, walking around her, tightening the circle, winding the spring, turning the screws before he struck.

"Think about it. You've been suffocating him all these years. Silently dictating every move he's made for years."

"What?" she demanded, "He danced around me for years, he kept reeling me in and then holding me at arm's length…If I had been dictating the terms of our relationship we'd been have been together and married years before we actually were." She said, not paying any heed to the honey-laced trap he was setting for her, blindly walking in to it because, as he well knew, she was blind to almost every aspect of her life where Gil Grissom was concerned.

Smiling sleekly, he continued, voice vibrating in a low purr, "No, no. He only did that, for you. He pulled you in because he needed you, because you were the drug that he could never clear from his system and yet always craved more of, the one of which there would never be enough. In that respect he was selfish. As we all are when it comes to the things we lust after, we're allowed to be. We're human after all aren't we? But he did everything he did to protect you. To make you happy. You drove him to be alone, to be in pain, in order to spare yourself."

"Stop it Ronald." She choked, "You're twisting things that you don't understand, that never happened."

"I think it did." He told her venemously, "And in your world that's enough. It was enough to destroy mine. When you told me it was my fault she died. That was just what you thought."

"The truth hurts Ronald." She spat vindictively at him, not caring that she might push him too far, just wanting him to feel a little of what she felt, never missing the opportunity to bite back.

"Yes. It does." He sneered, "So it should hurt you to know that you never really loved him. That you were just using him for your own selfish ends. That he was just another excuse to do what you do best. To fall apart and watch as he rushes to pick up the broken pieces-"

"Stop it."

"To break down and wait for him to come and hold you like he always would-"

"I said stop it."

"To scream and cry in your sleep so you could wake him up to share your pain and have him there to comfort you-"

"That's enough."

"To self-destruct and see how many you can destroy in the fallout."

"I said stop it Ronald." She growled, advancing on him, eyes blazing.

"You stay where you are and listen." He snarled, holding the gun out and deliberately placing it over her chest, voice catching and champing down on the last word, mashing it and grating it and spitting it out between furious lips in a hungry snarl, "I know you don't want to. Because I know why. The truth hurts doesn't it Sara?" he breathed softly, "Listening is something you're not very good at you know. And it's cost you dearly. Not listening you could say, has cost you everything. Because you never listen do you? You didn't listen to me when I told you not to push me. When I told you that you were making a big mistake. That you had taken her away from me, that it was your fault, you didn't listen then…You told me that it was mine. That I had taken her away. That I was the reason she was dead. And now just look at the mess you're in." he said. His voice pitched between a low, threatening rasp, a thunderous growl that tumbled from beneath his black eyes, to being suddenly light and airy, like soft snow falling gently from white clouds, "You didn't listen to your husband. When he tried to tell you that it wasn't working. That he wasn't happy. That neither of you were. That you weren't making each other happy. That you couldn't make each other happy. You stopped listening to him because you didn't want to hear what he had to say. You switched off your phone, disabled your voicemail, started avoiding as calls as often as you avoided your colleague's concerned inquiries in to your welfare. You don't listen when don't want to hear it because you don't want to hear the truth about yourself. You don't want to know what other people think about you. You don't want them to point out all of the flaws that you know you have. Because the truth. Hurts." He continued, advancing on her slightly, the gun trembling as his hand shook violently, his eyes wide and unblinking, never leaving hers, "And you hurt me. When you told me the truth about my Edie. When you told me that she was dead and you just said it. You hurt me then Sara. And that was very, very stupid of you…" he added, his head dipping to one side again, like a puppet whose master had fallen asleep at the helm, allowing it to droop and loll madly, utterly out of control, "Because you know what they say, don't you? Keep your friends close and your enemies' closer?" he murmured, leaning towards her again, "Well now you don't have any friends. Because they're not friends anymore. They're liabilities. They're weaknesses. They are things that I will use to get to you and I don't care what I have to do to them to make that happen. You only have me. And you better start getting used to having me close Sara, because I'm not going anywhere." He paused again, leaning in towards her and continuing in a low foul hiss, his breath washing over her face and seeming to seep through her pores, making its way in to her bloodstream, causing her nerves to ignite and her brain to freeze simultaneously as she shuddered and trembled before him, "I'll be here tonight, watching you while you sleep, or while you try to. I'll be here tomorrow as well, as you get undressed, and showered anc changed to go to work. I'll be there too. While you put a brave face and you tell them all it's 'fine', when youi push them away because that's what you do, because you know, it's better to be alone with your demons. Because your demons hurt them. . Because you've always known that, I'm just reinforcing the point you've lived with all your life. It is better for you to be alone. But don't worry, you'll have me. In your darkest moments, when you cry to yourself, when you scream and you curse that the world isn't fair. When the walls come tumbling down and you're forced to drop your guard because the effort of keeping it up there, even for my benefit, is just exhausting. When you think you can be weak, and vulnerable, because there's no-one there to see it, you keep in the back of your mind that I'll be watching you. All those times you falter and fail, and all those times you reach for the bottle to be your crutch again, I'll see, and I'll know about, even if no-one else does. You can hide from strangers at work or on the street. You can hide from your neighbours. You can hide from your friends, from your family. You can hide from the world Sara. But you can't hide from me…I will be there. Always." He leant in and brushed his lips against her cheek before murmuring, "And if I ever have to leave, it will cost you. If you make me go I'll take someone with me. Remember what happened to the last woman who said no to me, one too many times…"

A/N: Alright, can I first apologise for my horrendous update 'schedule' recently, damn exams and whoever created them! Now that they are over, I am going to try and start updating properly again but I have a lot going on just now so I make no promises! Secondly, may I apologise for the potentially jumpy nature of this chapter, I wrote it in random segments and then stitched them all together. That was the plan anyway! enough of my waffle, I hope you enjoyed, leave a review if you can and let me know! :)


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