Disclaimer: Characters contained within do not belong to me.

Author's Notes: Thank you so much to everyone for reading this. I hope you enjoy it!

Forever, for the First Time

by Kristen Elizabeth

And no one else has ever shown me how,
To see the world the way I see it now.
Oh I never saw blue like that before.

- Shawn Colvin

"You were surprised."

"Excuse me?"

Grissom turned away from the dusty desert road he had been focused upon until just then, and glanced in her general direction. "You were surprised that I've never paid for sex. Admit it."

"I wasn't surprised…per se." Sara shifted in the passenger's seat of the Denali. "It was more like I was…"

"Relieved?" he supplied, dryly.

"That's not it," she insisted. "I just…well…you lived a whole life before we even met. So did I," she rushed to add. "There are obviously things we don't know about each other."

"And you were worried that one of them might be the fact that I've paid for sex." Grissom was quiet for a second. "I feel like I should be mildly insulted."

Sara shook her head. "It wouldn't change anything if you had."

"So, now you're giving me permission to have done something that I never did."

"What? No!" Intent on distracting him, she flashed him her best smile. "I make you happy, remember?"

Grissom glanced at her again. "Mysteriously so."

They covered another few miles on the trek back to the lab before Sara dared to sneak a look at him. He'd removed his hat to drive, but not his sunglasses. It was impossible to see his eyes, and therefore impossible to gauge whether he was teasing or really bothered. His face rarely gave anything away. The truth was always in the baby blues.

"Who was the first woman to make you happy?"

She could see his eyebrows lift above the frames of his dark shades. "That's…quite a question."

"We've never talked about it," Sara said, a shade too defensive for her liking. "I think we should."

"We've talked about it," he argued.

"When?"

"Years ago." Grissom hesitated, like it wasn't a memory he particularly cared to revisit. "You joined the mile-high club."

Sara choked and began coughing. "Ken Fuller?" she asked when she'd recovered. "You think Ken Fuller was my first?"

"He wasn't?" Grissom's question was tentative. And slightly wounded.

"No, baby. No." She reached out and patted his arm. "But it's very…sweet that you think I kept my virtue that long."

"I didn't realize you considered college a long time to wait."

Now he definitely sounded hurt. Sara frowned. "It's not. I guess. I mean…it's probably smarter if you wait until then."

Grissom glanced her way again. She wanted to rip his glasses off to see what he was hiding behind them. "But you didn't."

She lifted her shoulder. "Maybe I would have if things had been different."

His voice changed, and even though she couldn't see his eyes, she could feel his concern. "Did something happen to you in foster care? Did someone…"

"No," she assured him. "My first time was consensual." Grissom relaxed a bit, readjusting his grip on the steering wheel. "I just grew up too fast," Sara continued. "When you're forced to act like an adult, you forget that you're still a kid."

"I'm sorry, honey."

"Don't be. It was my choice." Sara paused. "His name was Keith. We had English class together sophomore year. I needed an A in it, and he helped me study. He was nice to me. The other kids…not so nice. So, one night at his house, when his parents were out, I kissed him. And we just sort of ended up…yeah." She smiled softly. "It took about four minutes, and we were both so embarrassed that we didn't talk about it for almost a week."

"And when you did talk?"

Sara cleared her throat. "We decided to try it again." Tossing him a wink, she tacked on a jaunty, "Doubled our time, too."

"Eight minutes. Not bad for a sixteen year-old," Grissom muttered.

"And that's the whole story." She turned her own expectant look on him. "Your turn."

He let out a breath. "Why don't you pick out a radio station? Whatever you want."

"Uh-uh." Sara shook a finger at him. "You're not getting off as easily as a sixteen year-old boy. I want to know."

"Why does it matter?" He wasn't looking at her anymore; he was staring at the horizon so far ahead of them.

"Because it's part of what makes Gil Grissom the man I…" She stopped. "Please tell me?"

For a moment, Sara was worried that he was going to ignore her request out right. But then he began turning the wheel to the right, easing the Denali off the road. He brought the car to a stop, turned off the engine and removed his sunglasses.

"This had better be an awesome story," Sara said, amused by all the fanfare. "I'm talking 'sexy exchange student from Germany' awesome."

"I was twenty," Grissom began. "Her name was Patricia. She was a doctoral candidate in the biology program."

"An older woman."

"A married woman." He shook his head. "I'm not proud of it. But I was young. Inexperienced. And I mistook her lust for love."

Sara reached for his hand. "Gris…"

"I learned my lesson when I found out that I wasn't the only one she was turning to for comfort." He let her thread her fingers through his. "Still…once bitten, twice shy."

She studied his profile intently. "Is that why you kept me at arm's length for so long?"

"I had to be sure, Sara." When he looked at her, she could finally see his eyes, that water blue that revealed so much more than his words. "You were so young, too. I wasn't sure if you could tell the difference between wanting someone in your bed…and needing them in your life."

"I knew," Sara whispered. "The first day we talked...I got it. The difference. You weren't Keith. And you weren't Ken. Or any of the others."

He blinked. "Others?"

The corners of her lips turned up. "You were the only one I ever wished I'd waited for." She leaned across the arm rest to give him a slow, deep kiss. "You know what?" she asked a moment later.

Grissom painted her cheek with kisses, leaving a moist trail all the way to her ear. "What?"

"I've never done it in an SUV."

He drew back a bit and stared at her. "But…it's broad daylight."

Sara began shrugging out of her crime scene vest. "Better to see you with, my dear." She leaned into him with more force this time, practically attacking his mouth.

"Nick and Greg said…they'd be…be behind us," Grissom continued to protest, even as her hands made short work of his own vest. "If they pass by…and see us…pulled over, they'll…"

"Probably stop," she finished. Reaching under his legs, she released the lever that controlled the settings of the driver's seat. Within seconds, he was on his back and she was on his lap. "So we'd better be quick."

Grissom stopped protesting when she crossed her arms over her stomach and pulled off her top.

"We might not have gotten to each other first…and we might have a long way to go before we know everything, but…" Sara bent down and kissed him again. "There are still first times we can have. We waited long enough."

He nodded, but he was distracted by her breasts and his sudden need to touch them. "It was worth the wait, Sara."

His lips engulfed one rosy peak. She closed her eyes on the tail end of a gasp; the last thing she saw was blue looking up at her, watching her pleasure. "Yeah," she agreed. "So were you."

Fin