A/N:  I hope everyone enjoyed the fluff of A Proper Courtship, because there isn't any here ;-(.  I expect the angst meter to climb pretty high.  Our Geeks have many complex issues in front of them.  But take heart, my idealistic (I'm an Air Sign, dontcha know? G) heart won't allow for anything other than a happy ending.  Episode excerpts are taken from Intrepid's site.   Aargh, still more issues with FF.net…some italics are making it onto the page, some are not.  Please excuse the formatting problems.

Spoilers: None for any episodes that haven't aired in the U.S., but episodes referred to and quoted are Early Rollout, Butterflied, Getting Off and Inside the Box.

Disclaimer:  Don't own a doggone thing, and I don't make any money off these silly fanfics.  Wouldn't I be a happy camper if I did (either)?

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Resignation

"How are you feeling?"  Brass approached Sara in the break room.

"Hey. What do you mean?"

"Well, you were popping cough drops at the scene the other day a mile a minute."

"I thought I was coming down with a cold."

"I, uh, I understand colds.  You know, back in Jersey when I was getting it from both ends, from my wife and my work, uh…things started to get heavy.  I started 'medicating'," Brass made a drinking motion with his hand. "Cure my cold.  And, um, God forbid I had an early morning rollout and I had that telltale breath, you know what I mean?  So I would dodge my supe, and I started popping cough drops."

"Huh…"

"I mean, what I'm trying to say is that…there's more problems than answers in the bottom of a bottle, believe me."

"Yeah," Sara sighed. "Actually, I had a couple of beers with breakfast when I got off shift.  And then I got called in."

"Just a couple?" he prodded doubtfully.

"Yeah."

A friendly half-smile crossed his face, "I'm just looking out for you."

The exchange bothered Sara more each time she remembered it. Great, she thought, now Brass probably thinks I'm an alcoholic.  He'll tell Grissom.  Two beers on your own time and bam! You're nailed.  How was she to have known that the entire team would be called back to work? Wasn't that the purpose of having a day shift?  She supposed she probably should have expected this.  Nothing had gone her way lately.  Why should she expect today to be any different?

She felt she was truly in a "damned if you do, damned if you don't" situation.  When she had completely dedicated herself to her job, she had been repeatedly admonished that she needed to find a diversion, develop outside interests.  Yet, whenever she attempted to do just that, it had always come back to haunt her.  She shook her head recalling the time when she had decided to tour a winery in Pahrump on her day off.  Grissom's reaction was one of icy disdain, apparently because she had taken too long to respond to his page on her day off.  He had made her wish she hadn't responded at all.

A flicker of hope had lit within her when she considered the possibility that perhaps he had reacted that way because he thought she had been there with someone, someone male.  No, she had reminded herself, if Grissom was interested in her he had already had two years at that point to make his move.  Jealousy couldn't be the motive…could it?  Then she had filled with anger and indignation at that thought.  What right did he have to be jealous? He didn't own her.  If he wanted her, he should have made that clear. 

The day she went to Pahrump had really signaled the beginning of the end of their friendly relationship.  He had begun to assign cases in a manner that ensured they would rarely interact.  He generally assigned Catherine to work with him, keeping her, Nick and Warrick on the perimeter of his world.  Sometimes, too, it would seem as if he was ignoring them when they spoke to him, though this didn't seem like Grissom-appropriate behavior to her.

She hadn't expected him to reject her dinner invitation as quickly as he did.  "I don't know what to do about this." What did that mean?  It seemed to Sara to be a cryptic non-answer, typical of Grissom. He had acknowledged a "this" between them.  But was it a good "this" or a bad "this" in his mind?

The man was just so confusing!  Just when she had convinced herself that she had imagined or misinterpreted all of the "signals" he'd given her over the years indicating romantic interest, he'd gone and made that speech to Dr. Lurie.

"It's sad, isn't it Doc?  Guys like us.  Couple of middle-aged men who've allowed their work to consume their lives.  The only time we ever touch other people is when we're wearing our latex gloves.  We wake up one day and realize that for fifty years, we haven't really lived at all."

It was obvious that Grissom had been referring to himself.  Was that how he really felt? Like he hadn't lived at all?  But that was his own fault, Sara reasoned.  He had chosen to cut himself off from the rest of the world.  She had tried to reach him and he had rejected her.  Was he regretting it now?

"But then, all of the sudden…we get a second chance.  Somebody young and beautiful shows up.  Somebody we could care about.  She offers us a new life with her. But we have a big decision to make, right?  Because we have to risk everything we've worked for in order to have her.  I couldn't do it."

Sara had been truly stunned by these words.  She hadn't imagined anything. She hadn't misinterpreted anything. He did want to be with her.  But he hadn't been willing to take the risk.  Did it mean he hadn't felt she was worth the risk?  He couldn't do it then.  Could he do it now?

"But you did.  You risked it all…and she showed you a wonderful life, didn't she?  But then she took it away and gave it to somebody else."

Was that how he saw her time spent with Hank?  Did he see it as a betrayal? How could he?  He had never given her the chance to be with him.  As Grissom hung his head dejectedly, Sara found herself filled with regret, realizing how much dating Hank had hurt him.  But how was she to have known?  She wished desperately she had asked Grissom to dinner before the Hank fiasco, rather than after.  How different would things have been?

To make matters worse, as if it wasn't enough for her personal life to be such a jumbled mess, her professional life was suffering as well.  Her career was all she had left that she could depend on.  She had a feeling she wouldn't get the promotion, even though she believed she deserved it.  She had found herself forced again and again to take a back seat to Catherine's ever-evolving drama. Now Brass would be watching every move she made, thinking she was hitting the bottle.

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Grissom heard Sara's words as she updated him on the case, but they didn't really register.  "Samples from your suspect.  There's nothing but a few track marks.  No defensive wounds, no bruising.  Junkies usually bruise if you breathe on them too hard.  She is a pile of twigs.  Very frail."

He stared at her curiously, as if she had been gone for months.  Something seemed different about her.  Or maybe not.  Maybe he had just missed her.  He couldn't be sure.  It was odd to be noticing her for the first time in a long time.  The scent of her hair.  The curve of her face.  The tilt of her chin.  The depth of color in her eyes.  She was captivating.  "I haven't seen you for a while, have I?"

"You see me every day," she told him and walked away. 

No, I don't, Sara.  I look at you, but I don't really "see" you.  He had perfected the art of looking through her rather than at her, and he thought it had served him well.  But now he wasn't so sure.  He had missed her.  It occurred to him that he thought of her as a friend, but had no idea what her life was like outside of the lab.  Though he ached to change that fact, he wasn't certain if he had the strength to put everything on the line.

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The insistent beep of the microwave told Nick that his lunch was ready.  He retrieved it gingerly, have been burned four or five times too many, and sat at the table across from Sara.  Their case was a relatively simple homicide.  The evidence was being processed in the lab and Doc Robbins had assured them that he would call when he was ready for the autopsy, which gave them a little time for a lunch break.  Sara's pager sounded as she finished her sandwich.  She glanced at it. "It's the Doc."

"Oh, man," Nick groaned. "I just got my burrito warmed up."

"I'm done. I'll go."  Sara cleared her area of the table and headed for the morgue.

"Cool. Thanks!" Nick called out after her.

"What's up, Doc?" Sara asked as she stepped into the room.  She realized her mistake the instant the words left her mouth and Al Robbins' disapproving glare settled on her.  "I'm sorry," she smiled. "That was bad. I didn't mean for it come out like that."

"You scared me," Al returned the smile. "That's the kind of bad joke I'd expect from Nick…or Greg."

"Anyway," he continued as Sara nodded knowingly. "We have a gunshot wound to the head.  Bullet entered here." He pointed to a spot just above the victims left ear, then moved to the other side. "And exited here.  No surprises there.  What is interesting, however, and I don't know whether it has any relevance to your case, is this scar here behind his left ear.  He has one on the right as well.  I don't have access to his medical records, but it's a good bet your vic had a bilateral stapedectomy."

"Which is…?"

He answered matter-of-factly, completely unaware that his lesson would rock Sara's world. "A procedure to correct the hearing loss from otosclerosis.  It's the same surgery Gil had done last year."

"Oh," Sara tried to disguise her shock. "Anything else?"

"Nope."

"Thanks, Doc," she retreated hastily.

Sara found herself in a restroom in a little used area of the building. The last thing she wanted right now was company.  Otosclerosis.  Hearing loss.  Now it made sense.  He hadn't been ignoring them—he hadn't always been able to hear them.  That's where he had gone when he had taken that time off the previous spring.  Why did he conceal it?  If Dr. Robbins knew, who else knew?  Did he really have so little trust in her?  Did she really ever know him at all?  She fought back the tears and tried to pull herself together.

With her composure sufficiently regained, she made her way through the maze of hallways that lead to Grissom's office.  She had every intention of confronting him, but once she was standing in front of him, face to face, she found her resolve had waned.  She decided the best course of action was to give him an opportunity to tell her himself.

"Hey," she said brightly, to get his attention.

"Hey.  What's up?"  Grissom looked up at her.

Sara kept her tone of voice even and asked innocently, "What do you know about otosclerosis?"

The color ran from Grissom's face. "Um…why?"

"According to Doc Robbins, our GSW vic had it."

"Oh…" Grissom choked out. Sara thought she saw something in his eyes, that maybe he would open up to her, but then it passed. "Well, it's probably not relevant here."  He purposely turned attention back to his magazine.

Sara's face fell as she shook her head grimly.  Grissom glanced up, catching her expression as she turned away.

"Thanks," she said in a clipped voice.  Grissom watched her until she disappeared.

Idiot!  He berated himself.  You're a fool. A damn fool.  You had the perfect opportunity to tell her and you just couldn't find the strength.  You're not a fool, you're a coward.  He knew that he had kept this secret too long.  After all these months, when the truth was finally revealed, she would be upset that he had kept it from her for so long.  And she would have every right to be upset.  What was it that Nietzsche had said? "All truths that are kept silent become poison."  Yes, that was it.  And this truth had definitely become poison for him. 

Something in her manner and expression made him wonder if she knew more than he thought she did.  What if she knew and had been testing to see if he would tell her? How much would she resent him? He quickly dismissed the notion.  There was no way she could know.  Was there?

TBC