Disclaimer: I don't own them. And, you know, after TTMG, I'm okay with that.

A/N: So originally I had thought (rather foolishly) that I would have this up the morning of Valentine's Day. I failed, of course, but a day late isn't so bad. So... yeah. My GSR Valentine's fic. (That's my excuse for the cheese, btw. Cheese is allowed on this holiday...)

Anyway, none of this would be possible without my awesome beta, Pati, who took the pieces of this story and made them work. Thank you dear.

...I think that's it. I hope you guys enjoy it! Happy (belated) Valentine's Day! Review?

Sara Sidle didn't drink.

Or, at least, she hadn't had a drink in a long time. Not since her almost-DUI. Her I-almost-lost-my-job. Her Most-embarrassing-night-of-my-life. Her I-can't-believe-I-disappointed-him-again.

She'd never been an alcoholic. Surprising, since they—whoever 'they' are—say that addiction is hereditary, and her father had thoroughly enjoyed his own alcohol addiction. But no, she'd never felt like she was drinking because she had to. She rarely drank alone, and it was rarer still that she had more than a single beer. Sure, a much younger Sara had used tequila to drown her sorrows in high school, until one of the better foster mothers had to come pick her up from a party the cops had busted. The woman pulled a move that Sara had seen on TV but never herself been on the receiving end of—instead of punishing Sara, she woman shook her head and told her foster-daughter how disappointed she was; she'd come to expect so much better of Sara.

Which effectively stopped her alcohol intake until she was in college. But even then, it had been limited to a beer here or there, and the occasional Spring Break adventure. She'd been much too serious about her studies to let a party get in the way.

She'd picked the habit back up when she moved to Vegas. Drinking more regularly, that is, not the drowning-her-sorrows part. Grissom, friend, mentor, and possible soul mate, had not really stepped up to be a companion, despite knowing he was her only friend in town. But Nick and Warrick—and later Greg—had filled his vacant role admirably, usually with a breakfast invitation that included a beer or drinks after a hard triple. Still, it was always social drinking, never a need or a longing.

And when drowning-her-sorrows did become necessary again, it never interfered with work. Sure, she'd had a few before getting called to a scene and Brass had called her on it, but to be fair, she'd worked a full shift the night before. She should have had at least twelve hours between calls. That was protocol, and supposedly as important as the process for evidence collection. But no one at LVPD seemed to care, mostly because the crime rate exceeded the number of criminalists and the budget still couldn't support a fourth shift.

She would admit that driving after drinks with the guys hadn't been her best decision ever. And she wasn't about to indulge in excuses about what Grissom had done to her or how cheated she felt professionally. But she would argue that while legally over the limit, her faculties had been just fine; the police officer who had pulled her over had told her as much. She'd had a tail-light out and, when he'd pulled her over for it, he'd asked whether she'd been drinking—a standard question to ask in Vegas. When she honestly told him she'd had a few, but was by no means intoxicated, he gave her a breathalyzer. Again, standard procedure.

Despite being able to say the alphabet backward (in Greek, if he had wanted), and calculate in her head that waiting another half hour to drive would have lowered her BAL to beneath the new legal limit, and also being able to walk a straight line (which her officer would have been more impressed with), the law was the law. So while it had been a professional courtesy, yes, it had not been like she'd swerved through four lanes of traffic on the strip and then blown a .27. It had been an easy courtesy to extend.

Regardless, she'd basically gone cold turkey after that. With the notable exception of a couple weeks ago, after being suspended, when she'd opened a beer, taken a sip, and then held onto the bottle for a solid twenty minutes before Grissom arrived. So she had no trouble saying plainly that she didn't drink. It had been nearly a year since her can't-believe-I-was-so-stupid moment. She didn't drink.

That's what she kept telling the full shot in front of her, anyway.

It was a rich golden color and rounded nicely along the rim of the shot glass, filled to the brim. The sweet and yet burning smell of top shelf tequila wafted to her over the too-salty smell of peanuts and the too-dirty smell of any off-the-strip bar in Vegas. She eyed it speculatively. She didn't drink, after all, and so there could be nothing to fear from the liquid.

God, she felt so clichéd. She was a single woman in her early thirties—How had she never known how different 33 would feel from 28?—in a trashy bar on Valentine's Day.

That was another reason not to drink—she would be working later tonight. With a smaller shift—just her, Grissom, Greg, and Sofia—they couldn't afford to give more than one CSI a night off at a time. Sure, it was a Monday, but crimes of passion were always more common on February 14th. Maybe because people raised their expectations and couldn't deal with the disappointment.

Man, could she relate.

She frowned at the shot; Greg had been the one to get the night off. Which was strange, because a week previous he'd showed up with a box of Conversation Hearts and proceeded to tease/solicit her all night. She'd gotten a 'Be Mine' in her locker and a "Sweet Heart" in the pocket of her lab coat and a "Love You" inside her field kit. He'd slung his arm around her as the pair of them and Grissom left what had been a particularly bloody triple murder and sighed dramatically.

"Sara…" He shook his head, "Sara, Sara, Sara. I've been dropping hints all night."

She felt a smirk lifting her lips. She really did love Greg. Not that she didn't deeply love everyone she worked with—except Sofia—but Greg was a true kindred spirit. A man after her own heart. She had actually found herself deeply saddened, once she'd gotten close to him, to realize that she wasn't physically attracted to him. They would have been really good together. Regardless, his antics never failed to lift her spirits.

"Hints to what, Mr. Sanders?" She teased him back, and he grinned.

"Well, you may be unaware, Miss Sidle, but Saint Valentine's Day is fast approaching."

She snorted a laugh. "Ah. I believe I heard something about that…"

He rolled his eyes and gave an exaggerated sigh. "Sara, do I need to spell it out? Be my Valentine. I'll rent a bunch of old black and white romances, bring you Chinese food, loosen you up with cheap beer and dirty interpretations of our fortune cookies…"

She laughed out loud, ready to accept his playful invitation with some snide remark of her own—"Only because you're a sure thing, hot stuff." Insert salacious wink here.—when she noticed Grissom's tensed back. Her grin faltered just as the man was turning around.

"Greg. I'm not sure this is the most appropriate conversation to have at work, nor do I think the deceased's family would appreciate the levity with which you're treating the death of their loved ones."

The angry entomologist climbed into the Denali without another word, and her former-lab-tech-and-prospective-Valentine frowned and piled evidence bags in the back in silence.

Sara tilted her head at the drink, as if she were wondering what it was rather than whether to down it. She'd never told Greg no, but she had gathered from his absence on the schedule for tonight that he'd scored himself an actual Valentine, and she couldn't begrudge him that. Even if it did mean she was spending this cheesiest of holidays in a seedy bar at ten in the morning, surrounded by people who'd been drinking since ten the night before.

She didn't drink, but just one wouldn't hurt.

She reached for the glass just as the other side of her booth was filled. She glanced up in surprise. Ah, her angry entomologist, looking less angry this morning. She felt like she ought to be surprised he was here, but she wasn't. Maybe her subconscious had merely been waiting for him, or maybe she was so tired that nothing would surprise her. Maybe she'd been dwelling so heavily on him that her brain had actually summoned him to her.

She quirked a smile at that—she'd have to experiment with that theory later. The next time she was attempting (and failing) to fulfill her more basic needs by herself, maybe.

He raised an eyebrow at her strange smile. A bored-looking-waitress asked what he wanted with a look instead of her voice, and he followed suit by gesturing to Sara's shot. Suddenly it felt very quiet. Everyone was communicating non-verbally and she foolishly wondered if she'd gone deaf and not realized, having been so caught up in whether or not to indulge.

Another shot of tequila landed on the table between them with a dull clunk, reassuring her that she did indeed still possess her hearing. She tilted her head at him. "Should I be surprised you're here?"

Grissom gave her his best blank expression. "I could ask you the same question."

She turned her gaze back to the shot and its counterpart. Foiled again. Why did she ever think she could outwit this man? Even when he kept silent he won. With her thumb and middle finger on either side of the glass, she slowly turned it. She wasn't going to force conversation when she knew she'd lose. He'd come here for a reason, hadn't he? He could speak.

They sat in silence for several minutes, Sara's shot slowly spinning while Grissom's remained stationary. She found herself thinking that that was a fairly accurate metaphor for the pair of them, and then thinking that she must really need the drink if she was comparing the pair of them to a couple of drinks. She had just decided that he must be attempting to wait her out when he sighed and leaned forward in his seat.

"You said you'd stopped drinking."

"I haven't started again yet."

He tilted his head in acquiescence. "But you want to."

"I'm an adult. If I want to have a drink, I can."

A small smile crossed his face at that, almost knowing, and she wanted to tear it off him. It was so patronizing; so blatantly knowing. "Who are you trying to convince?"

She swallowed, despite the predictability of his statement. He was right. Grissom 2, Sara 0. Fuck.

"I'm not. You're questioning me."

"And you're getting defensive."

"And you don't have any business being here." She snapped, angry at his one-upmanship and those deeply blue eyes that wouldn't stop looking through her. Both eyebrows rose and slowly, he nodded. With a steady hand he lifted his drink and swallowed it in one gulp, not making a face at the burn, and then he was out of his seat and there was a five left on the table.

She blinked slowly, feeling as though she'd watched him stand and yet not seen him leave. One minute he was next to the table and the next he was gone. Her drink was still turning, turning, and his empty glass sat mocking.

Grissom 2, Sara 1.

How did he manage to make winning feel like losing?

She didn't know why she was standing outside his townhouse, nor was she entirely certain how she'd gotten there. She was aware that she must have driven, primarily because her vehicle was in his driveway behind her, but she could not have told you the roads she'd taken or the songs on the radio or what thought had even prompted her to move from table to car.

She did know she'd left the shot and her own five dollar bill behind, next to his empty counterparts. Another metaphor? Her head swam, and she knocked on the door again.

This time, an answer came quickly. When the door swung open, she realized he'd likely been in the shower for her first knock; his curls were wet and tight to his head and though he was dressed—a t-shirt and sweats—his feet were bare and a fluffy white towel was wrapped around his shoulders. His beard was wet, and the skin on his face looked tight and fresh and clean. She had the overwhelming urge to press her lips to it and test whether it would feel the way it looked, but he was watching her expectantly.

She didn't know what to say, so she said the only thing she knew.

"I didn't drink it."

He blinked in surprise, breaking his poker face, and she felt relief rush through her veins. After a moment, he stepped back and held his door wide for her. With the dazed look still in her eyes, she brushed past him, stepping into the cool, washed-out light of his home. She breathed in deeply, trying to clear her head, and ended up even more befuddled.

It smelled just like him here.

The door closing behind her made her jump, and then he gestured that she take a seat on his couch. She did, and he glanced over her before nodding to himself. "Tea?"

She shook her head slowly, but he'd already turned his back to her and was filling a kettle at the sink. She let it go, looking at her knees and, just past the edge of them, the tips of her shoes. Why was she here again?

"I didn't take the shot."

She glanced over her shoulder at him, and he was looking over his shoulder at her, the rest of his body facing the stove. "I know." He said, and she nodded. She wasn't sure what she was staying for, exactly, only that the thought of leaving left her feeling empty and the idea of getting up, walking to her car, driving home, and walking all the way up to her apartment left her feeling… tired. She was just so tired.

She could hear Grissom tinkering with cups and spoons and tea bags, and the strangeness in the domesticity of the moment was not lost on her. She tried to imagine Grissom cooking, peeling vegetables, tasting sauce to see if he'd got the seasoning just right. She licked her lips. She had no idea why imagining such a thing was turning her on, but she was only mildly surprised—it was rare that imagining Grissom doing anything didn't have some kind of effect on her. Still… peeling vegetables?

She needed to get out more.

He set a cup on the coffee table in front of her, and seated himself in a chair beside the couch. Close but non-threatening. The man should have been a hostage negotiator. She reached out for the cup of tea and sipped slowly, mostly to occupy herself and keep her hands busy. She didn't know what she was doing here. She just needed him to know. She doesn't drink.

Grissom, for his part, had taken a healthy drink rather than a sip, outdoing her once again, and set his mug back down on the coffee table without hesitation. "…Why don't you tell me what's bothering you, Sara?"

How direct. Grissom was never direct. Apparently he'd run out of ideas. Maybe he figured she'd come in and be over-talking in seconds, and that he wouldn't have to work towards a conversation at all. …Maybe he just wanted to know why the hell she was in his home, silent, except for insisting that she hadn't had the shot of tequila.

…He'd taken the shot, hadn't he? She frowned at this realization, but wasn't sure why.

"I'm just… Sometimes… this… isn't enough." She was surprised at the words that came out of her mouth, but they rang with truth all the same. She took another sip, and Grissom nodded.

"This?"

"…This. My… life. I… God, Grissom, I don't have… anything… but work. I used to have so many plans. So many dreams. I was going to go back for my doctorate. Learn another language. Go on exotic vacations and… date." She snorted derisively at herself. "I haven't had sex in three years. That's fucking ridiculous. You told me a long time ago to get a diversion and you were right. You were so right and I just thought… I thought you were punishing me for getting one, at the time, but maybe it was just the one I chose. I mean, Hank was a pretty big mistake. …God, I've made so many mistakes."

She placed the mug heavily down before her and put her head in her hands. "Do you know how… how sad I am? How pathetic? I was sitting in that bar, agonizing over taking a shot. Not because I'm an alcoholic or because I thought that one drink would lead me to spiral out of control. No. No, it was because I was so afraid of disappointing you again, but I just wanted to not have to think about being alone on Valentine's Day. …I mean, really, how stupid is that? Why should I even care—about you or this stupid holiday? I'm an independent woman who has worked her whole life to make her own way for herself… and I'm obsessing over a manufactured holiday and this culturally-induced ideology that I shouldn't be single."

She let out a shaky breath and glanced at Grissom. His face was closed, which Sara knew meant he was thinking. She turned away from him. She was tired of him thinking about her. She looked back down at her hands; they were twisting around each other. She wasn't even aware that she wasn't done; her mouth just kept moving. "I just… I work in a male-dominated workplace and I didn't want to be treated like a 'little woman' so I've tried hard to be just one of the guys and I don't really go out so… Greg's playful flirting is about the only time I actually feel like a woman. And that's… overwhelmingly depressing."

She didn't know why she'd spilled so much. Maybe it was her normal over-talking. Maybe it was just an unfortunate case of word-vomit. Maybe she was so afraid of his judging her tequila-dilemma that she felt like she had to explain why she'd ended up there in the first place. …Maybe she was just too tired to know what she was saying in the first place. She took another sip of tea, just to avoid looking at him.

…Had she just told him she hadn't had sex in three years? Christ, she needed to get out of here. Next thing she knew she'd be telling him about the vibrator in her nightstand or confessing that she occasionally cried at the end of chick flicks. She couldn't decide which would embarrass her more.

She set the tea down again. "I, ah… I should really go. …Thanks for the tea."

He nodded, his face still closed, and Sara was quite certain that she would make it out of his home and back to hers without interruption. That by the time she arrived at work tonight she would be able to put on a brave face and pretend it had never happened. She had no doubt that Grissom would let her get away with it. It would be simpler for him that way.

She did not make it past the door, however.

"Sara!"

She stopped with her hand on the doorknob, turning to look up at him. He stood at the top of the stairs, looking like he was in some kind of pain, and several times he drew in a deep breath in an attempt to speak. She was absolutely certain that he would give up and let her leave, and yet even so she could not help but hold her breath. She felt like she was lying on a bed of nails, and the slightest movement to redistribute weight would be disastrous. She swallowed thickly, positively aching with the wait, and then finally, in a voice so soft she nearly missed it, he spoke.

"…I always feel like you're a woman."

She blinked several times. Had he just said…?

"You do?"

One of these days she'd have to find a doctor to address that speaking-without-her-brain's-permission thing. It was becoming a problem.

"…I do." He said, and attempted to speak it in a whisper as well. Attempted, because his words held too much weight for a mere whisper to contain. It was like an oath and dropped heavily from his lips to land between them. Her stomach churned.

She blinked and swallowed, the actions making her realize that she had tears swimming in her eyes and that she hadn't been breathing. With a gasp, she drew in a shaky breath and looked up at him beseechingly. She didn't know what this meant, but if he ran away from this or took the out her uncertainty was unintentionally giving him… She would go right back to that bar and buy herself a bottle of tequila, without hesitation. There was only so much a girl could take.

"…Grissom…" She said, mostly because she knew he was waiting for her to say something, and she had no words. Over-talking Sara Sidle rendered speechless. She closed her eyes to gather her strength, trying to figure out what on earth she could say to move this forward. God, she didn't want another 'almost' to agonize over. …She would just ask him, plain and simple, why he'd never been able to take the risk on her. If it was really his career or if he had such a high moral code that he would never stoop to dating a subordinate or if it was simply that he was attracted to her, but not in love with her. Surely he had to know how she felt, and maybe his refusals were a means of sparing her feelings. That sounded like Grissom. Cruel to be kind, or something.

When she opened her eyes again, intent upon asking him just that, it was to see him descending the final two steps to her. Her heart jumped into her throat in surprise. And in a move that surprised and frightened and absolutely took her breath away, he placed his hands on either side of her head against the door, boxing her in and closing the space between them. She was quite certain her knees were about to give out, so the stability of the door was a welcome support.

Slowly but surely, the man before her bent his head down, chin to chest, so that she was staring his curls straight on. They were still slightly damp, and she tried desperately to name the brand of shampoo. He drew in his own shaky breath and kept his head bent, as if it were easier to speak to his shoes than to her face.

"I… owe you an apology, Sara. Many, many apologies. I… You're unhappy, and it's mostly my fault. I made your life all about work—I kept you at the lab for ungodly lengths of time, until you thought that that was just how things were done. Because it's what I expect from myself, and for some reason believed that a young girl in her twenties ought to be as dedicated to the job as I was in my forties. How on earth could you have had time to learn a language or… go back to school, under those conditions? Those expectations? How could you take a vacation to someplace exotic when I question you over every day off you've ever requested. …I told you to get a diversion when I realized how much the work was affecting you, but when you got one I didn't like, I punished you for it. …Maybe if I hadn't, you'd have seen the paramedic for what he was much sooner, before you were invested. Maybe if you didn't work so much you'd have realized that he was desperately trying to divide his time between two women. And… and maybe if I didn't keep stringing you along, giving you mixed signals, you'd have moved on already."

Sara was breathless with his confession, but hearing it from his curls instead of his face had helped. Her mind always functioned better when she wasn't busy getting lost in his eyes. It occurred to her that he probably hadn't known this—he'd looked down in order to get the words out. It was the only way he could speak. A sliver of confidence—only enough to prompt a single sentence—moved into her at this realization, and she clung to it desperately lest it slip away.

"…Do you want me to move on?"

His curls slowly shook back and forth, and the muffled voice from his chest said, "…I'm down here, aren't I?" as if that not only expressed the depth of his emotions with little room for doubt, but also as if she should have realized the action for what it was long before this moment. She trembled slightly, licked her dry lips, and leapt off a cliff into certain doom.

"Then kiss me."

His head snapped up, his eyes especially bright the way they were framed by his damp hair and his dark beard and his sinfully long eyelashes. His mouth opened, closed, and opened again, in what she could only describe as absolute terror, but his eyes spoke for him. Longing. Lust. Desire. They flickered to her lips far too frequently and she felt her face getting hot. It was now or never, and this was a far more serious move than downing a shot of tequila.

She pressed her lips to his cheek, barely stifling a moan at the soft and yet still-prickly rub of his whiskers as she did, and then bent her head further, pausing with her lips a mere breath away from his. It was not that she was unable to make the final move, but that she felt that he was the one who needed to do it. She'd never been uncertain, never hesitated when it came to loving him, getting close to him. It was his move.

To be quite honest, she expected one of two extremes. He would either lunge at her desperately and seven years' worth of barely controlled passion would carry them off into the sunset… or he would retreat. Back away, make an excuse, kindly ask her to be going now. So when his chin tipped up just enough to brush their lips together and send shivers down her spine, she was completely unprepared for it.

Dear Lord, the man had soft lips. She could just imagine him applying chapstick religiously, three times a day, like brushing his teeth. Her eyelids fluttered and she let out a soft huff of surprise and pleasure that had a smile on those lips when they once again brushed against hers. He didn't pull back this time, giving continuous close-mouthed kisses and gently pressing her more deeply into the door at her back. She couldn't move, she couldn't breathe, and she absolutely couldn't think about anything but his kisses and how he managed to make her lips move with his in perfect synchronicity when the rest of her was frozen.

A large, warm, gentle hand fell to her waist and gently tugged her away from the wood behind her and up against the soft, cotton-covered man before her. A shaky moan parted her lips when she felt the contact, a just the tip of his tongue slipped past her lips, teasing hers before retreating. Her annoyingly-effeminate reaction—a gasp and her hands clutching his overtly-masculine forearms to steady herself—had him grinning like he'd just won a cockroach race.

Her eyes were heavy-lidded, and she was merely waiting for him to guide her to his bedroom and show her with his body everything he hadn't said in words the past seven years. She was trembling and leaning forward, waiting for his next kiss, when she realized that he'd pulled back. She opened her eyes fully and tried to mask the fear in them as a question, though she was quite certain she'd failed. He gave her a wavering smile.

"I, uh… I don't know where to go from here, honey. I… I can't just drag you off to bed like you're… like you're just some woman. I have…" He looked down again, hiding his face. "I have loved you for so long that I can no longer remember the precise moment or the exact smile or the specific eyebrow raise that prompted it. And I… You're better than that."

The tears that had burned her eyes, off and on, since she'd left the lab this morning finally fell over tired, exhausted cheeks, and she shook her head and then kissed his curls and tipped his face back up to her, kissing him fiercely. She pulled back and was gratified to hear him gasping against her ear as she wrapped her arms around him and rasped quietly, "…Take me to bed, Grissom."

His breath hitched, his fingers at her waist twitched, and then he was eyeing her closely, scanning her face and evaluating her eyes, making sure. Finally satisfied, he nodded, kissed her lips softly again, and then took her hand and led her. Up the stairs, through his private home and personal sanctuary, and into a room and a bed that he'd honestly never shared with anyone.

Sara expected the awkwardness to return in the washed out light filtering through his blinds and around them, but Grissom's hands were steady as they moved beneath the edge of her t-shirt and slowly pulled it up and off of her. Trying to parity, perhaps, he then pulled his own off and let it fall to the floor, on top of hers. The way they merged together was unreal—almost fluid—the way Sara had only seen in movies, and the way he touched her was nothing short of everything she'd ever dreamed.

She was surprised by the fact that the often taciturn man was so full of words as his lips moved over her skin and the remainder of their clothes fell away—sweet nothings and soft promises, his voice a caress in its own right. But she was not surprised at how explosive they were, together; at how she was so vocal that it might have bordered on ridiculous, because getting everything you've ever wanted does feel that good, after all; at how she was tremblingly close to release the entire time, her body on fire; at how beautiful he was, when he let himself go.

Those things were expected. Could it really have been any other way?

Years later, curled up together after what had to've been the ten thousandth time they'd made love, Sara could not remember the all of the exact details of that first time. Not the words he whispered nor the precise order in which they'd explored each other, body, mind, and soul. But she remembered that his palms were calloused along the pads near his fingers, and baby soft in the center, and that he'd had to stop and clutch her hips tightly once he slipped inside in order to not lose control.

He'd confessed later that it had also been three years for him, which was comforting, but unnecessary. She would have given herself to him even if he'd been with someone else that very morning, and she was quite certain that his worry over coming too soon arose solely out of his overwhelming and uncontrollable desire for her. Or, at least, that was what she liked to tell him.

She remembered that his kisses tasted like tequila, which was sweetly ironic and maddeningly arousing, and that she hadn't been able to stop saying his name. He would tell her he remembered thinking that he'd never imagined she could be so beautiful, and that her skin had tasted precisely like the Pacific on a hot summer day, and that he'd never felt whole until he'd filled her up.

That was his excuse for how close he'd almost come to losing it. …She liked that explanation too.

And strangely, she remembered curling up to sleep in the afterglow, her face buried in a pillow that smelled like the man pressed behind her, and thinking that maybe Valentine's Day wasn't such an awful holiday after all.

Grissom, not Sara, made sure that Greg had a box of Conversation Hearts delivered to his door every Valentine's Day, at every address he lived at, in every city he moved to, for the rest of his life. …It was the least he could do, for the man who had made his Sara feel like a woman when he had not.