A/N: Thanks for the reviews and encouragement. I've been reading some really good fics, and watching CSI and it's feeding my need need to write.

GSR as always.

The quotes are not mine. The characters are not mine. The Title is from Frank Sinatra so that isn't mine either.

But the story is. At least I'm pretty sure it is.

Read, Review, and Romance...

Take Care

x

I'm Beginning To See The Light

Two whole lonely weeks had passed since she'd left and Grissom hadn't heard from her. Walking in to his empty condo he let go of Hanks lead and moved to the kitchen. He powered up his laptop before moving away to make a cup of coffee.

Sitting on one of his barstools, one Sara had chosen for him, he clicked on his e-mail.

One new message.

Grissom.

Before I learnt the rules I thought I could hide from him. I thought if I couldn't hear them, it would stop, it wouldn't be real. At night when I'd hear the first stirrings of an argument I'd hide. I tried hiding everywhere. Under the stairs, my closet, in the garage, once I crawled into the cupboard under the kitchen sink. But I'd still hear them, and he'd always find me.

One night, I don't know why, but I decided I clearly couldn't hide in the house. It wasn't working. So I crept from bed and out the kitchen door. It was cold. I only had my pj's on and I was barefoot. I ran to the bottom of the garden and up to the oak tree. I climbed up, and it was high, and I was… I was scared but I couldn't hear them. I thought finally, finally I'd found the place I could hide. I waited a while and crept back in and it was silent. I survived.

The next few nights I did the same. Creeping about in the shadows of the night, I really thought I was safe.

Until one night the outside light flicked on. I hugged the tree, making myself seem as small as possible. But it didn't matter. He walked down the garden, chucking a cigarette to the ground as he went, and straight down to the tree.

"Sara, Sara.." he said shaking his head before reaching out and grabbing my ankle. I think I shrieked in surprise and then I was falling. The grass speeding towards before the sickening crunch of broken bone.

That was the first time he'd broken a bone.

My left arm.

He dragged me by the arm, yeah, the broken one of course, back to the house, throwing me into my room without a word.

The next day I went to school and the teacher asked how I'd hurt myself. I shrugged and said I'd fallen on the way to school that morning. I lied and she believed me.

Our old house has been pulled down. I went there today and it's just a patch of grassland in the neighbourhood. The tree is still there though.

It's a tall as I remember.

Grissom wiped away the tear that had tracked down his face and switched the laptop off.

The next email came a few days later. He'd just returned from a scene off the strip. A hooker and her pimp had been shot and dumped behind one of the big casinos.

Entering his darkened office he walked over to his pc which was habitually on and clicked on the mail box.

"One New Message - Sara Sidle" Smiling slightly he clicked on it.

In 3rd grade I thought I fell in love. His name was Jimmy Miller. Brown hair, green eyes and a scar on his right elbow where he'd fallen from his skateboard. He was in the 5th grade. Another older man.

I thought he was cool and edgy. He said he wanted to be famous. He was in a band with his friends. He thought I was a dork. Whenever he saw me he'd wink and say "Mind The Gap."

I saw him today as I walked past his parents old hardware shop.

He works there, a shop assistant to his father. I got chatting to him. He's divorce with 3 kids from 3 different ex wives.

He still has brown hair and green eyes. He said "Mind The Gap" and winked and it was different. I didn't find it make my heart flutter, or make me bluish that he was paying attention to me. Dorky Sara Sidle. I felt nothing.

I just guess he never got his big break.

Gil shook his head and laughed. Dorky Sara Sidle. Never. Beautiful Sara Sidle. Determined Sara Sidle. His Sara Sidle.

Looking at the emails he noticed she only addressed him in the first one and since then she'd neither said hello nor signed goodbye. It was like she was keeping a conversation going. One that he wasn't joining in with.

In the 3rd letter she addressed his silence.

The first home I was sent to was a sort of halfway house. I'd just seen my Mom stab my Father to death and I guess they didn't really know what to do with me. I stayed there for 2 months and didn't say a word. The foster parents, Mr and Mrs Williams, they were nice enough. They never stopped talking to me, not caring if I didn't respond. They just kept speaking, telling me little stories, and I'd sit and listen and it didn't hurt so much.

Even if you never reply, I won't stop writing.

He snorted aloud at the thought of her stubbornness. He opened a mail intending to write back but.. He couldn't find the words. Standing he crossed his kitchen and poured some kibble out for Hank.

"I miss her." he said, and the Boxer looked up at his owner with eyes wide and beseeching.

Grissom nodded and crossed the room, tapping out a reply.

I'd expect nothing less.

Grissom.

He smiled as he pressed send and stood up, grabbing Hanks lead from the counter.

I'm sat at a diner in my hometown. And, it doesn't feel like my hometown. No one here knows me.

I'm eating pancakes in the diner my Mom took me to every year on my birthday, the only thing that was a constant. With black eyes and broken ribs we'd still end up here on September 16th eating the worlds best pancakes.

All I can think is I'd rather have the cardboard ones at Franks.

All I can think it that in Vegas people know me. I never thought I cared about other people that much. But I guess I do. Back in Vegas, I have you, Nick and Warrick - my adopted big brothers, Cath - our mother hen, Greg - my crazy little brother, and Brass - the closest thing I have to a Dad.

Sitting on a diner in a town that doesn't know me I think I've realised something.

I think I like being known.

She said nothing about his reply and he was glad because he didn't think he was ready to think about the connotations of this exchange. He'd start thinking questions he couldn't ask and wanting answers she wouldn't give. So just like before when she'd been at Berkley and he was in Vegas and they'd started this whole thing; The emails, letters, phone calls, it had all come full circle. They just began a new exchange of information. Neither asking, but both giving a little of themselves.

And somehow at night when he was asleep in their bed alone, it didn't seem so cold.

When I first came to Vegas one of the first cases I had was at the Tangiers. One DB in a room. Clean shot to the head and a plate of pancakes rested on his chest.

I worked the case followed the evidence to his girlfriend, a chef in the kitchen downstairs.

Apparently he'd been getting his pancakes from someone else.

G.

2 days later his phone rang. He was led on his back exhausted from a double shift and he felt weary. He didn't even bother looking at the ID he just picked up and answered with a sigh.

"Grissom."

"I don't know what to eat."

It was her. Her voice, immediately he blinked and sat up on the bed.

"Sara." he breathed her name, the agony it contained reached her ears but she ignored it. They were both good at ignoring things.

"First you put me off meat and now pancakes. That's two major food groups out the window."

"Pancakes aren't a food group" he smiled.

"They are if you can't cook." She laughed.

A silence fell and neither rushed to fill it. He relished the change to simply hear her gentle breaths in his ear.

"You sound good." he said, because she did and he couldn't hate her for it. He hadn't heard her sound so carefree in years.

"I feel good." she said simply.

"I'm glad." and he was.

A few moments of silence passed and they both took the chance to relax in the feeling of not being so far apart.

She hung up and he led back, the phone still in his hand but not grasped so tightly.

The next email comes and it's short and it's just so her that he has to blink back tears because he's missing her. It's only been a day since she hung up and he hadn't thought he'd hear from her so soon.

I went back to the diner.

I had the waffles.

He replies as quickly as ever.

"Our lives are not in the lap of the gods, but in the lap of our cooks." - Lin Yutang

A few days pass and his phone rings but he's at a crime scene and he gets Nick to answer it not really thinking about it.

"Grissom's phone."

"Sara!" Gil turns so quickly that he's surprised he doesn't get whiplash from the movement.

He watches the Texans face, the look of sheer joy on his face at the sound of Sara's voice.

"Yeah. I'll tell him." Nick pauses, and Grissom turns back to his evidence. Trying to slow his heart so he can hear Nick's end of the conversation over the thumping of his heart.

"Sis, I miss you." The Texan's voice cracks a little and Grissom closes his eyes. Fighting the same pain he'd been fighting since she left. He fights the urge to pull his gloves off and snatch the phone off Nick just to hear her voice. He doesn't.

"When are you coming home?"

"Sara… I .. Ok. I get it. I miss you. I love you."

"Yes. I'll tell him. Bye."

He ignores the footsteps as Nick moves back to him. Keeping his head low.

"She says to tell you she's good. And she had the pancakes today..." Nick shrugs and Grissom turns to him.

"Do you know when she's coming back? She wouldn't tell me."

Grissom shakes his head. "No. I don't."

Nick nods and hands the phone back, and turns to walk away. In the doorway he turns back and looks at Grissom. Tears are in his eyes and Grissom doesn't know what to say. "I miss her." The southern drawl crackling with his held in emotion as he walks away leaving Grissom in the room alone, muttering a quiet "Me too." to the blood soaked walls.

It's a week before an email appears. He thinks about writing first but he can't make himself type.

He sighs in relief when her name pops up in his inbox, having worried that her talk with Nick would have upset her.

I have no grandparents. Did I tell you that? I can't remember. My Dads parents died in a car crash when he was 21. My Grandad was in the Army, he was a hard-ass. I think that's where my father learnt his parenting skills from. I don't know. Anyway, they died the same year he got my Mom pregnant. My Mom was older than my Dad. Quite a bit older. Her parents died before I was born too.

My fathers parents were buried at the cemetery next to my first school. Everyday we'd walk past them but I've never visited the grave.

I visited them today. It took me about 20 minutes to find the lot. No one had visited it and it was overgrown and I had to push the ivy back to see their names.

"Arthur and Louisa Sidle. Together in Death. Greatly missed."

I thought it was the two of them, but pulling back the ivy showed my dad's name too. Must be a family lot or something. I don't know. Anyway, his was just his name "Steven Marshall Sidle." That was it. That was all he was though. He isn't missed, he wasn't a loving parent or a loving husband. I don't think they can put "Bastard." on a gravestone. I don't know. I might ask if they can add that underneath his name.

I didn't cry at his funeral. I went to it and saw the curtain close round the coffin and all I could think was that he was led in it with stab wounds. Had he been cleaned? I wondered. Or would he just be burnt like he was found? Blood all over him, and that look of terror that I later found perverse pleasure in.

I didn't cry today either. But as I walked away from the grave and looked back? I'm pretty sure I saw some of my ghosts waving back.

I think I'll leave them there.

Grissom sat back and let out a breath he hadn't realised he'd been holding. She was fighting her ghosts. Did this mean she would come back? He hoped so, because he couldn't stomach the thought of her not coming back.

This time he rang her. He knew that he should wait but he couldn't. As he heard her sleep filled voice answer, the tension that had his body shaking instantly dissipated.

"Sidle."

"I needed to hear your voice. I'm sorry. I just. Really needed to hear you."

"Don't be sorry. What's up?"

"I had a scene. 35 year old male died on his sofa. His 9 year old daughter was sat in the same room as him and. God Sara, it was like de ja vu."

"Your Dad?"

He nodded and then realised that she couldn't see him so opened his mouth to reply but she got there before him.

"I'm sorry." she says

"I'm tired." he replies.

She didn't seem to have an answer for that.

"How's hank?"

"He misses you. He found your red sweater and has claimed it for his own."

"You mean my Harvard one? My favourite "I'm just gonna slob round like a tramp" jumper?"

"Uh-huh." He said laughing at the outrage in her voice.

"Man. That hurts."

"He misses you, it smells of you. It's in his basket. With a pair of my socks. Go figure."

She laughed and he just took the moment to listen to it.

"Nick asked me when I was coming home."

"I heard."

"How come you don't ask?"

"Because I don't want to know if you aren't." He said. "I'm hoping I'll just turn around and you'll be back. Or I'll go home, open our door and you'll be stood there with Hank."

He hung up. Knowing she wouldn't reply, and knowing that even if she did, he might not want to hear the answer.

I stood outside the hospital where my mother is today. I didn't go in. I don't know if I can. I need to. I want to. But my last memory is her stabbing him. The blood spraying across the wall and across me.

They made me testify at her trial. I was 9 and they shanghaied me into testifying against her.

I can't forget.

He knew that she'd end up there. And he'd mind raced back to Adam Trent and the fear of seeing her held hostage by a known psychotic killer. He swallowed the lump of fear knowing that he couldn't stop her and he replied in the only way he knew. The words of someone else.

Your memory is a monster; you forget - it doesn't. It simply files things away. It keeps things for you, or hides things from you - and summons them to your recall with a will of its own. You think you have a memory; but it has you! - John Irving.

Two days later another email appeared and he clicked on it with a sense of dread knowing that this was the one. The one where Sara faced her past and he was scared. Scared of what she had found.

I went in today. I walked in asked for Laura Sidle and was shown into her Doctors office. They said they had some things to tell me before I saw her.

My Mom is 60. She has Alzheimer's. That's a kick in the gut, eh? All these years, all I've done is remembered. All these years, all she's done is forget.

She's frail. Doesn't look like she used to. Her hair is thin and nearly white. Her once tan skin is pale and she's old. Really old. She looked at me and she didn't know me. I sat down and held her hand and she said "Hello Dear." And it was her voice and, it didn't sound right. It wasn't coming from the person I remember. Her eyes were blank and she had no idea who I was. She kept asking "Where's Steven? He's my husband. Dear Steven. And my daughter. She's 6 and her names Sara."

I smiled through the tears and replied. "I don't know."

And she squinted and sat nearer and said "Sara has a gap like that. I hope she grows up to be pretty like you. And you're engaged!"

Her eyes lit up when they fell on my ring. And just as quickly they grew sad and she turned away and it seemed as if she forgot about me.

I stood and turned and just as I reached the door I heard her. "Sweet Sara. I hope my sweet Sara is happy." I looked back and she looked straight at me.

And I ran. I ran and I cried and I cried and I ran. And I got weird looks from the strangers as I rushed to the motel. But I don't care. I just had to get away because I couldn't breathe.

She killed my father. But I think my father had killed her years before. And now she's not my Mother, she's not Laura Sidle, she's just an old woman, who's locked in a room alone.

And I realised something.

I don't want to be my mother.

Sara x

A week later and he hadn't heard from her. He'd sent emails, and he'd phoned her. But the email's got no replies and her phone went to answer phone. And he was tired. He walked down the corridor, smelling like decomp and holding a bag of evidence that he wasn't sure would help.

"Gil." He stopped and turned and held his breath and his heart stopped.

"Sara." he said, stepping back. "You're here."

She took a step forwards. "Yep. You said I'd appear."

"And you have."

She nodded. Scrunching her nose up. "Decomp?"

He nodded, stepping backwards again, her following.

"Haven't we done this before? De ja vu, here" he asked.

"But it was the other way round. Vu ja de." She smiled.

"I need to shower. You don't want to be this near. I stink."

"Yeah." she nodded. "You do. But I miss the smell of decomp."

And with a speed that surprised him she crossed the yards dividing them and crashed into him, pinning him to the wall as she kissed him. Her kiss was deep, and hot and sure.

When she pulled away she smiled up at him, a tear in her eye and said "I'm pregnant. I was so focussed in chasing my ghosts, and sorting my past because that I didn't notice. I was on the plane home and it hit me. I ran from the plane and grabbed a test in the airport shop and found out then in the stall of some grotty loo. I love you."

Gil stared at her. "We're… I'm gonna be a dad?"

She nodded biting her lip. "Please don't me mad, I should have noticed. I should have paid attention. I was on the pill, but then there was the broken arm, and I had the meds, and I forgot and I just.. I'm happy, and I'm sorry and -" she was cut off by his lips on hers and he dropped the bag of evidence wrapping his arms around her and stepped back into the corridor spinning her round.

As the kissed his tears fell and mingled with her and she finally realised she was home and she was safe and she was known.

And it wasn't so scary anymore.