Gil Grissom sat in Sara's bedroom as he waited for her to get out of the shower. Grissom had tried talking to her about why she was so angry but she has told him to leave it and stop pushing. He had obeyed and then Sara said she was going for a shower but he was welcome to stay.

As Grissom sat on the soft bed his foot touched something hard with a spiky corner. He reached down and picked up what was an old book with a faded leather cover. On closer examination Grissom realized that it was a diary, and an old well used one too. He sat thinking about what to do. If he read it, Sara would likely go mad and never speak to him again but on the other hand, Grissom knew that this diary contained infomation about Sara's past which he doubted he would ever find out about himself.

Eventually, the forensic scientist in him won and after checking that Sara was still showering he opened the diary to the first page..

May 3rd 1981

Today was a good day for once so at least my first diary entry will be somewhat nice! School wasn't too bad as the guys that usually attack me weren't there to trip me up or call me 'nerd' all the time. It makes a nice change being able to eat lunch without it being thrown on the floor!

Anyway our new science teacher started today, his name is Dr. White, and we did an electrolysis experiment. It's so nice to actually do experiments rather than just learn thr theory like we did when Dr. Finchley was here.

School was fine but I came home to see my father hitting my mother around the head with a rolling pin. Blood was spilling on the floor so I grabbed my father's arm to get him to stop but he just turned round to face me and started to hit me with the rolling pin. The pain was so terrible that I started to cry. I should have been stronger as I know that he loves it when I cry so he hit me harder. But do you want to know the worst thing about this? This time round, I couldn't smell any alcohol on my father's breath so he wasn't drunk, he was just hitting me and my mum because he could.

It's getting late now so i'll be off to bed before my father wakes up,

Love Sara

Grissom sat with his hands shaking. Sara was abused? His Sara, one of his best CSIs had been beaten and had watched her mother been beaten too? Grissom felt something extremely unexpected. He felt angry, not just angry but furious and enraged that her own father had hit her.

Resenting himself, Grissom picked a random page halfway through the diary and continued reading.

September 13th 1984

Diary, today was awful absolutely awful. I'm crying while I'm writing this but I need to tell someone even if its just a page otherwise i'll explode. I have cuts and bruises all over me from where my father attacked me with a horsewhip. I had just come back from school and I noticed that my mother's car wasn't in the drive ( she had mentioned that she would go shopping this afternoon). I walked through the door and my father was standing in the hallway, drunk out of his mind. He called me a bitch and a whore as he dragged me into the living room by my hair and still holding my hair he beat me with a horsewhip. The first hit on my arm felt like I had been burned but the second one in exactly the same place turned it into an inferno. God it hurt so so much.

I think he did this for about 20 minutes until he got bored with the whip and decided to throw me against the wall instead. Then he tried to force his alcohol down my throat by holding my nose and tipping my head back. The liquid burned my throat and my insides so much that I thought I was going to die.

I think diary, that it may be better if I was dead. No one could hurt me then and no one would miss me.

My father kept hitting me with his beer bottle and his fists until he finally passed out.

I don't know how much longer I can live like this diary, even my mother hits me sometimes but that is because I don't protect her well enough. Yet this is how everyone lives so why should I complain?

Tears shone in Grissom's eyes. The words 'better if I was dead' kept repeating themselves over and over again in his mind. Grissom couldn't believe that Sara had ever thought that she would be better dead and that she wouldn't be missed. No wonder she hated domestic abuse cases so much. Why had he not worked out why sooner?

He could hear Sara turn off the shower so he quickly turned to the last diary entry..

December 15th 1984

My mother killed my father. I saw everything. I can't get the smell of iron from the blood out of my mind. I can't get the look of pleasure and happiness that was in my mother's eyes as she plunged the kitchen knife into my father's chest not once but seven times, seven whole times..

I don't know what will happen now. My mother killed, murdered my father, murdered him. Presumably i'll go into foster care with strangers who don't care at all. At least my mother sort of cared about me.

The blood on the wall, the blood spouting out of my father's body as he suffered seizure after seizure. MY MOTHER MURDERED MY FATHER. Should I feel angry and sad because I don't feel anything at the moment, absolutely nothing.

Grissom was feeling so terrible for Sara that he didn't notice her standing at the door with a terrified look on her face until she said in a whisper ' Griss? Wh -what are you reading?'

Grissom was still reeling from the shock of finding out about Sara's past that he didn't even bother to hide it. He held up the tattered diary and finally looked up to see Sara collapsed and crying in the doorway.

'Sara! I'm so sorry. So sorry for everything you had to go through and i'm so sorry for invading your privacy in such a selfish way. I was just curious' he added as he gathered a sobbing Sara into a hug.

'I still remember everytime they hit me Griss. Every punch or kick or push or beat or whip. Every single one.' Sara gasped between sobs which quickly turned to tears of anguish, 'Once, only once I remember my father coming into my room one night and he gave me something to drink. It made me fall asleep Grissom and I think.. I think my father r-ra-raped me.'

Grissom gasped in shock and anger at what Sara said. How could her own father do that to her? How could someone be so evil?

He pulled Sara into a tighter hug and he gently stroked her hair as her tears soaked his shirt.

'Sara, please know that of course I don't understand what you've been through as I have never had to deal with what you have but I want you to know that I am always here for you if you ever need anything, anything at all. I love you Sara Sidle. Its taken me a long time to realize it but I love you and I will never let anyone hurt you like that ever again, I promise.'

Sara seemed to cry even harder at Grissom's speech but this time it was mixed with tears of happiness. He loved her. Grissom loved her!

Sara gave a small smile and they kissed lightly on the lips for the first time. And despite Sara being completely broken with years worth of tears flooding down her face and Grissom feeling so shocked at what he had discovered and worried and sad for Sara, they both felt that it was the perfect time. They kissed again and eventually, Sara fell into a happy sleep in her lover's arms who would keep her safe forever.