Title: For Tonight

Author: Dizzy-Dreamer

Rating: 15, just to be safe.

Summary: heart shines like a neon sign, for tonight won't you just be mine? Four years apart proves that absence really does make the heart grow fonder.

Disclaimer: I don't own them. I just like to borrow them. The lyrics at the end aren't mine either, they're from the song 'Invisible Girl' by Minnie Driver.

Authors Notes: Thanks to Binx for the beta.

FOR TONIGHT.
---

Standing against the white wall of the meeting room in the university, Sara spotted a familiar face. A face she hadn't seen for four years, ever since she left Las Vegas suddenly. A decision she made in the heat of the moment, but didn't regret.

"What are you doing here, Grissom?"

"What does it look like I'm doing?"

"I don't know." She pursed her lips and looked at her feet as salty tears threatened to escape her eyes.

"I was conducting a seminar, but… Sara, why?"

She looked up; her chocolate brown eyes glistening with unshed tears. Her gaze locked with his, his deep blue eyes full of unasked questions.

"I…" she glanced around the room. People stood in small groups talking whilst others squeezed past, some heading for the door, others to the bar at the far end of the room. "Can we… can we not do this… here?"

He took her arm and gently tugged, leading her out of the room and up a staircase. Fumbling in his pocket, he found a key and turned it in the lock, opening the door into a spacious room.

"Sara… please, tell me."

"What is there to tell?" She asked, looking over his shoulder and through the window on the opposite wall, over San Francisco Bay. The sun was hovering over the horizon now, sitting comfortably on the edge of the water as it met the sky, fiery and orange – so bright it looked almost as if it'd sizzle into nothing if it sunk any further into the ocean.

"Why did you leave?" he asked simply, aware that she was avoiding his gaze as they stood by the door. It was only then he realised that he'd been so desperate for answers that he'd barely invited her in.

"I had to get away." She answered, just as simply.

"Away… from what?"

"From everything." She answered, hesitating slightly, and silently adding 'from you'.

"Everything?" Grissom asked, almost as if sensing she meant him. He knew he hadn't exactly been the most understanding supervisor since she arrived – in fact, most of the time he'd been downright anti-social and withdrawn. He rarely spoke to anyone unless it was specifically work related. He knew he'd let her down. He knew he wasn't being the Grissom she knew – or used to know.

She nodded, her eyes closed as she faced straight ahead. The evening sun shone on her face as a single tear escaped from beneath a closed eyelid. Without thinking about it, he reached a thumb to her face and brushed it away gently, cradling her chin in his palm.

Her eyes shot open when his skin met hers, her chocolate brown eyes glassy and bright with tears. His own blue eyes locked with hers, a powerful gaze holding her paralysed. Tentatively, he dipped his head and brushed his lips against hers, once, twice, three times – a passionate, hungry kiss so full of pent up desire.

A moment later she pulled away, looking like a deer caught in headlights. She blinked back tears and swallowed hard.

"What are you doing?"

"I… Sara, I'm sorry."

"Sorry my ass. You totally ignore me for months on end, you brush me off whenever I speak to you, then you come here, throw yourself at me and then you try and get back into my life?" Turning abruptly on her heel, she tugged on the door handle until the door flew open, almost throwing her off balance, and she left the room, tears streaming freely down her face. She tore down the stairs, almost knocking a hotel maid back down them on her way. When she reached the bottom, she pushed herself through two pairs of glass double-doors separated by a corridor, and ran through the lobby onto the porch at the front of the building. Slowing down as she reached the porch, she took several deep breaths to slow her heart and calm her erratic breathing. She gazed out over the beach, the golden sand looking warm and inviting, the late evening sun dropping slowly into the edge of the ocean. Without a second thought, Sara slipped off her shoes and ran across to the beach, the soft grains of sand slipping through her toes as she ran clumsily alongside the incoming tide.

After a while, she sat down amid a pile of large rocks at the edge of the sand. The sun had set completely and she pale blue of the daytime sky was slowly giving way to the deep cerulean of night. Settling back against the hard backrest of a boulder, she heard heavy breathing approach from her right. Slowly, she opened her eyes and leaned forward to see who was intruding on her. She came face to face with a panic-stricken face, blue eyes overflowing with tears.

"What are you doing here?"

"I came to find you. I know… I know I shouldn't have… done what I did. I… I'm sorry." He knelt beside the rocks, fighting the urge to take her trembling hand in his own.

"Grissom… please don't do this to me. Not again. I don't think I could handle it." She turned away, the tears gushing down her cheeks once more. She'd never been an overly emotional person, but today it seemed that everything she'd held bottled up inside was pouring out, the crying a release from the emotional pain she'd suffered over the past few years of her life. Grissom couldn't fight the urge any more. He took her hand in his own and caressed her palm, tracing his thumb across her knuckles as she used all the energy she had to cry.

"Sara… I never meant to hurt you. Never. Please believe me," he told the side of her head. "I… I guess you're looking for some answers, huh?"

Sara nodded between sobs, before they subsided to hiccups and she turned back to face him.

"Why?" she questioned quietly, looking down at their fingers, laced together on the rock by her side.

"It… It could never be, between us, Sara. I'm… I was your supervisor." He began. "It wouldn't have been ethical."

"Screw ethics," she whispered, her hushed tones barely audible over the crashing waves as the tide drew closer.

"What would Ecklie have said?" Grissom asked, shuffling closer to the rock and sitting back on his heels and looking into her eyes.

"I'd have moved to swing… or even days," she told him, her eyes still glassy with tears. Grissom looked at her disbelievingly for a moment, before she added "-really" and he saw the sincerity in her eyes.

"I'm almost fifty years old, Sara. I get along with bugs better than people. I'm old and grey. I was graduating from high school when you started elementary school. Why would you risk your career like that for me?"

"Because I love you," she whispered, gazing into his surprised eyes. As his face softened, she felt herself falling again, and sure enough, her lips met his moments later as years of passion and longing came to a head.

Unable to hold back any longer, Sara deepened the kiss, parting her lips slightly. Grissom accepted the invitation, slipping his tongue past her lips and into her mouth, suppressing a moan as her tongue slid across his and he tasted her. How he'd longed for this moment, ever since he first saw her sat in the lecture theatre, her eyes wide and her smile bright, he'd dreamed of holding her close and never letting go.

Slowly, he broke this kiss, the need for oxygen overwhelming him. She gazed at him, a look of urgency in her eyes and by way of an unspoken agreement; they stood and returned to the hotel silently, almost as if floating on air.

They were barely through the hotel room door before Sara tugged at his shirt, pulling him around to face her and tugging his head down. She wrapped an arm around his neck, pressing his lips to hers in a whirlwind of passion. A fire blazed between them, one that had been smoking away for so long, she'd forgotten what it was like without it. Grissom gave up trying to close the door behind him as his hands trailed up and down Sara's arms, his touch burning into her soft flesh. He kicked the door shut as he lifted Sara off her feet, carrying her across the room to the bed, their lips never parting. They'd waited too long for this to part so soon.

Sara wrapped her legs around Grissom's hips as he paced steadily across the room. She was unsure whether the dizziness she felt was because she couldn't see where she was going, or whether it was because she was being carried across a room by Grissom, her legs wrapped around him, her tongue dancing softly with his. For years she'd fantasised about this moment, ever since she first stared up into his blue eyes from her seat in the lecture theatre as she listened intently to his speech about insect time lines seven years ago. The twinkle in his eye had drawn her to him instantly; the passion he showed for his work was so similar to that of her own.

"Are you sure about this?" he whispered, dropping her gently on the bed as his hands traced a soft line from her face, down her neck and shoulders to the buttons on her blouse.

"More than ever." She answered, the words coming out in a strangled whisper as his touch ignited flames deep within her. The corners of his mouth twitched a little as he began to unfasten the buttons, fumbling as his fingers tried to move faster than his brain.

She lay beside him, her head and left hand resting on his heaving chest as he slid his left arm beneath her, pulling her closer as he fought to catch his breath. He bent his arm upwards and pushed his fingers through her hair, massaging her scalp as she had done to him earlier. Neither of them spoke, the comfortable silence told them everything they needed to know. Sara lived in San Francisco now, and Grissom was still living in Vegas. They were miles apart; they had been for four years now. Even if a relationship never worked between them, they knew they would always have that night. That night, where they belonged to each other and no one else in the world mattered.

--

Heart shines like a neon sign
For tonight won't you just be mine
Invisible girl, in the sodium light
She's the Queen of the Night

--

end.