My first GSR fanfic, so comments most definitely appreciated. Well...enjoy :)

This Year's Love

Chapter One

Sara held her books close to her chest as she pushed through the bustling corridors of the Judicial Conference Academy in San Francisco. She'd booked herself into a four day conference about crime scene investigation, something she was desperate to break into now she'd finished university.

She hadn't known what to bring, so had a satchel bag full of notes she'd taken during her university course, and a bunch of pens (why did they always run out just when she had something important to write?). She'd just taken a trip to collect a few books from the local library about psychology, but with no space in her bag, she was now struggling to keep a hold of the large hardbacks.

"Room 17..." the corridors were long and groups of people blocked out signs along the way, Sara could feel herself becoming more and more lost. "Ah!" she finally found the room where the conference was being held and rushed inside. Pushing open the door, she felt all the eyes in the room turn on her and she uncomfortably straightened herself out before turning to the lecturer.

"Hi, sorry I'm late, I had to fetch some books…" she forced a smile through the embarrassment, her eyes taking in the lecturer. He was tall, slim but not skinny, and had curly dark hair; he wore a black shirt and suit trousers, with polished black shoes. He was sat on the edge of a brown wooden desk; books piled up along side him.

"Name?" he asked. He sounded stern, but his eyes gave away nothing.

"Sara Sidle." Sara replied, looking around the room for an empty seat. The room was set out much like a classroom, lines of wooden chairs with small tables in front of each, totalling to about 60 spaces. There was a blackboard at the front of the room, with 'Grissom' written on it in big chalk letters, and the lecturer's desk and chair. The room was full apart from one seat – front row, right in front of the lecturer.

Sara took her seat quietly, placing her books on the desk. She saw him eye the titles of her books – 'An Exploration of Language, Mind, and Understanding', 'Human Memory, Theory and Practice' and 'Human Reasoning: the Psychology of Deduction'. She saw him give a small smile to himself, but Sara was unsure as to whether or not this was in interest, or laughter.

"Okay, as I was saying," the lecturer cleared his throat, "my name is Gil Grissom. You can call me Grissom. We're going to spend today discussing why humans do what they do, why they think what they do, what are humans' physical traits? …Why do you behave the way you do?"

Sara could remember what her housemate had said to her when she was leaving the house this morning, "Have fun, I've heard this Grissom guy's a real drag!" Sara wondered whether or not she'd made a mistake coming at all, she'd turned up 15 minutes late, he was making a point of completely ignoring her and she was dying for a drink of water as the spring sunshine burst into the room through the large windows.

"I've been working as a crime scene investigator for 10 years now. Started off in university, studying forensics, got my lucky break as a rookie, learning the basics in Las Vegas and built my way up. The lab I work in is second best in the country, we solve the crimes the other labs can't handle. We'll start with the first discussion point of the day – How has the evolutionary past of Homo sapiens influenced its social organization and culture?"

Sara listened to many different view points from other students; they were all older than her. Starting university at 16 years old, she'd spent 4 years studying forensic and crime science, and then went on to do another year studying forensics, ballistics and engineering. She was now 21 and she was still hungry to learn and get her break big break into a forensics job. Living with a housemate who ate everything out of the fridge, never cleaned and hosted parties till 5am every weekend was becoming more and more unbearable.

Questions about human evolution were discussed for the next hour or so, which Sara listened to intently, occasionally taking notes, but anthropology wasn't what burned inside her. She wanted to deconstruct crime scenes, get inside the mind of a murderer, understanding motives of people now, why they were doing what they were doing this very second.

"Sometimes, Sara, we have to take five steps backwards in order to take one forward." Grissom caught her eye, and Sara felt the heat rise to her cheeks. She must have gone off into her own thoughts.

"Okay, so let's have ten minutes to grab a bottle of water, have a cigarette, and breathe in some fresh air." Grissom told everyone and they got to their feet, gathering cigarettes and change for drinks machines before leaving.

Sara didn't smoke, but she did want some water… she picked up her brown leather satchel bag and placed it on her knees. She was wearing black denim shorts, and the coolness of the bag on her knees was such a relief in the heat. Her white short-sleeved cotton t-shirt seemed to be absorbing the heat more than anything. Rummaging through her bag, she was disappointed to find she didn't have any change; she must have left it all on her desk at home. Sara let out a little sigh, placing her bag back on the floor and running her hands through her shoulder-length curly brown hair.

"Water?" A bottle of water appeared in front of her, from Grissom.

"Oh." Sara hadn't realized he was still sat on the desk, drinking from another bottle of water he'd just pulled out of his bag. Everyone else had gone outside. "Thank you. I'm sorry I was late. I got held up at the library." Sara felt like she needed to apologize, nobody else had been late, and it was so unlike her.

Grissom smiled, "It's not a problem. Just don't do it again, I don't want you to miss out."

Sara smiled back, maybe her housemate had been wrong about Grissom, he seemed nice, and very intelligent. "It won't happen again."

There was a pause and they both took sips from their water bottles.

"You're younger than the rest of the people here. Are you in university?"

Sara knew the other people in the class were already in various jobs from law enforcement, they worn their uniforms like some sort of medal; most of them were in their thirties or fourties. She didn't like cops, heavy handed and harsh with no thought to families and victims, just protocol. She knew from various books that they had a tendency to contaminate crime scenes; maybe they were on this course to learn how to keep their hands off evidence.

"I've just finished university," she replied shortly, but realized he was trying to make conversation, and added "I got into university early, when I turned 16 - I left high school early, they had me a year ahead 'cause my grades were high."

Grissom nodded, before taking another sip of his water. "So, what do you want to do now?"

"I want to be a CSI." Sara was sure of that fact more than anything.

"Oh really?" he raised his eyebrows.

"Really." Sara broke her gaze from Grissom's, realizing she'd held it slightly too long. She played with the paper wrapped on her water bottle, but she felt his eyes on her for a second longer before someone returned back to their seat from outside.

"Welcome back, Chris." Grissom lifted his eyes from Sara to give the man a nod.

Within a few minutes everyone had returned to their seats, and Grissom began again.