Title: Unresolved

Author: purplepopple, PartlyBouncy on LiveJournal

Pairing: Grissom/Sara

Spoilers: 7x23 The Good, The Bad, and The Dominatrix

Summary: Sara talks to Grissom about her issues with his actions during the events which happened in The Good, The Bad, and The Dominatrix.

Author notes: Not beta read. All mistakes are my own. Written for my own self to address things that I didn't feel were resolved by the episode.

Word count: 2,067

Sara sighed as she opened the fridge in the townhouse. The contents of it roughly met with her expectations: Mexican bottled beer, bottled water, some firm tofu, old oranges and a few containers of yogurt. Pickings were indeed sparse. She opted for a strawberry yogurt. Some one really needed to get to the grocery store and given the state of their relationship at the moment, it wasn't going to be her.

Taking it out and grabbing a spoon from a drawer, she took a seat at the breakfast bar. She quickly opened the top off the yogurt while casually examining a stack of journals on the counter. Sara grabbed the one on top, one she hadn't had time to read yet.

The dog trotted into the kitchen and nuzzled Sara's leg. "No food here for you. Sorry about that, Bruno," Sara said as she leaned down from her stool to give the dog a slight rub. "Griss will feed you when he gets home."

Sara started to read an article about forensics engineering as the dog turned in a circle before laying down near her chair. The article provided a bit of a distraction as she finished her dinner while waiting for Grissom to arrive home.

Five minutes later, Sara heard the front door open. She briefly looked up from her reading to watch her dog. Bruno, that traitor, roused himself to go find Grissom. A half minute later, she heard the sounds of man feeding dog. There was the sound of food being poured into a metal bowl and a low voice quietly telling the dog to be neat about eating as he didn't enjoy having to clean up after him.

The feeding related noises stopped. Sara quietly waited, pretending to read. She didn't want to be too obvious that she was sitting there, in the kitchen, waiting to ream Griss out now that she had him in a more private setting. He probably suspected she would comment on the little scene in the lab, might even be avoiding her because of it. Sara heard the toilet flush, the water run in sink and then silence again. She went back to eating her yogurt and pretending to read.

Half a minute later, Grissom, wearing a clean green polo shirt, was standing uncertainly in doorway to the kitchen.

"I'm not mad Grissom, not mad about what you think," Sara said as she put down the yogurt. She felt it was better to reassure him, better to over talk than under talk. Sara needed some sound to fill the void because she needed to give Grissom some time to think.

Grissom moved from the doorway, crossed the kitchen and opened the fridge. He examined the contents of it with a look of disgust, before pulling out a bottle of beer. "We need to go shopping. Fridge is empty," he said.

"We?" Sara asked.

"Right. I've been busy and forgot it was my turn," Grissom said as he twisted off the cap on his beer.

"Work has been... ," Sara trailed off as she made circular motions with her spoon.

"Yeah, it has," Grissom replied as he took a seat next to Sara and reached his hand over to play with the fingers on her non-spoon bearing hand. Sara stared vacantly ahead. They, as a couple, really needed to discuss this but it still made her anxious. Talking to Grissom about things that mattered to her was difficult because she wanted everything to be just right, had a tendency to bury her unhappiness in a relationship, to be quiet in those times because that was what her childhood and taught. Grissom had learned similar lessons though for totally different reasons.

Sara hooked her pinkie on Grissom's pinkie and shook it lightly. "This isn't about Lady Heather, Griss. It's about... ," Sara trailed off again and shook their joined fingers.

"I'm sorry that you had to hear about that from Brass. I should have told you where I was," Grissom said, filling the awkward pause.

"Did you know that Catherine is mad at me?" Sara asked. Their communication was obviously getting better. He didn't doubt her, didn't think that she didn't trust him and just thought it was about being left out of the loop regarding his activities that might worry her. Still, while his reading was better of her was better than it was in the past, it wasn't completely accurate yet.

"Ah, had not quite picked up on that. I know she was mad at me for the situation that occurred while I was on sabbatical."

"Well, she is. I don't think she has quite forgiven me for not standing up with her with the reverse forensics thing," Sara supplied.

Neither seemed to know what to say to that. Grissom absently sipped his beer and laced his fingers with Sara's. He needed more contact and Sara didn't pull away. Using her other hand, Sara continued to play with the spoon. She tried again to make sense of her thoughts. This wasn't coming out like she wanted it to and she couldn't look at Grissom until she could.

"I know I was the one who wanted to keep our relationship quiet," she went on. "And I never really told you why. I just assumed it didn't matter as you didn't seem to want to be public with our change in status either."

Grissom gave her hand a slight squeeze. "We're both private people, Sara. I figured you didn't want everyone at the lab talking about it, that you wanted your privacy protected."

Sara didn't know how to reply to that. She turned her head away, examining the wall. She carefully put down the spoon and then made a fist. She was angry. "And no one actually knows do they Griss? But they know I have, that I had feelings for you?"

"I suppose," Grissom conceded. "Brass heard my comments to Lurie and Catherine knew about me sending you that plant."

Sara didn't know how to react to that. She loved the man but was he really paying attention to her? "Your adjectives are a bit reversed Bug Man. I'm talking about me here, not you," Sara said tersely.

"Oh," Grissom offered in reply. "Oh," he said again. "That would be an important difference."

"Catherine knows how I felt, how I feel. I wasn't exactly subtle about it. Nick, Warrick and Brass, same thing. They know. And Catherine has no problems using people's feelings to get back at them. The guys probably wouldn't but Catherine, Catherine has no problems with that."

"Oh," echoed Grissom.

Sara finally turned her heard to look at him. "Is that all you can say? Oh? The silent thing, it doesn't really work for me as much as it once did." She grabbed his arm and used it to extract her hand from his. Sara stared at him for a few seconds, waiting for a response. When it looked like none was forth coming, she turned away and made to stand. Grissom put his hands on her shoulders, urging her to sit back down.

"Sara... ," Gil started before trailing off. He sighed loudly and started slowly massaging her shoulders. "It never," Grissom paused for a second before continuing. "It never occurred to me that Catherine would say anything to you, that people would say anything bad about me to you. And it really never occurred to me that some one would do that with the intention of trying to hurt you."

"Yeah, well, she did. How do you think it felt to listen to her talk about her thoughts your sex life? And to not be able to say anything in reply because I don't want to give away our relationship or make to it worse?" Sara asked angrily.

"That would be uncomfortable," Grissom said.

Sara cut him off. "And she knows about my feelings towards you. She's seen me rattle you. The incident with Doctor Lurie, she knew all about that. I heard her tell Brass about it, and how pathetic that made you."

Grissom tried again. "I wasn't aware that Catherine," he got out before Sara cut him off again.

"She said that to be hurtful. And then, then you go and spend the night talking to Lady Heather, trying to help her. I can totally understand that Griss. I get that. I really do. But do you realize how bad that looks? You and I both know that you would never do anything with her, but to outsiders like Catherine, it sure as hell looks like you slept with her and that's going to get back to me because Catherine, Warrick, Nick, they all like to talk and because you don't engage them on the topic of your life, they talk to me about it." Sara finished for a second, shrugged off Grissom's hands and turned around on the stool to face him again. She took a deep breath. Her eyebrows were narrowed. Her lips were pursed. She opened her mouth to go on because she wanted to go on, needed to go on, wanted to let Grissom know how his actions and their decisions had hurt her. He lightly covered her mouth with his hand. She closed her mouth.

"I'll talk to Catherine." Sara's mouth opened under his hand. Before she could remove his hand and start talking again, he went on. "I should have talked to her more after I got back. I never got around to it. I was preoccupied with other things. Obviously, I should have addressed it sooner." Grissom removed his hand from Sara's mouth, ran his thumb gently back and forth over her pouting lower lip.

A few seconds ticked by in silence before Sara interrupted it. "And?"

Grissom's shoulders dropped down. He looked resigned. "And I'm sorry. I should have realized how it might look to others, which I should have told you so you could be prepared. I know I don't care much about how others view me but I know that you care how they view you and I should be more sensitive to that."

Sara grabbed Grissom's hand and squeezed it as she brought it down to her lap. "That last part is bullshit. You care about how others view you and you damned well care how they view me," Sara said coolly. "If they were telling you about how I was sleeping around, you'd certainly care and you'd take it out on me."

Grissom's eyes widened and he opened his mouth to make a rebuttal. Sara beat him to it. "You've done that before. Remember how you treated me after you found out about Hank?" She released his hand and stood up. Grissom let her because he couldn't think of anything else to do, anything to say to that.

Sara looked at him again, stared into his eyes. "Get it? Get it as last as to why I'm unhappy?" Grissom nodded mutely.

Sara grabbed Griss's beer from the counter and took a swig of it. She handed it to him and he did the same. He then set the bottle back on the counter. "Sara, I am really sorry."

"I know, Griss. I know."

Grissom stood up and rested a hand on her hip. "I'll really talk to Catherine and try to be a better boyfriend," he said.

Sara gave him a small, tight smile. "That would be nice, all things considered."

He put his other hand on Sara's other hip. Grissom lightly caressed them both through the fabric of Sara's jeans. "Do you forgive me?"

"Yeah, I will. Just, please think more in the future, especially about the people who love you, before you go off like that again."

Grissom offered Sara a boyish smile. "I promise to try."

Sara smiled back. Things weren't totally fixed and it would take time for her to totally get over this latest hiccup in their relationship. She put her own hands on Grissom's hips, leaned in and gave him a light peck on the lips. "That's all I can really ask. Now, I'm going to walk the dog and you're going to go restock the fridge. You owe me a home cooked veggie lasagna."

With that, Sara walked out of the kitchen, whistling for their dog as she did. She left behind a befuddled Grissom, whom she hoped would finally get it.

End.