A/N: So I was watching "To Halve and to Hold" this afternoon, when Catherine tells Grissom, "It takes a bad marriage to recognize a good one". And I had a pop of inspiration. This doesn't quite resolve the conundrum of GSR, but it offers some hope :)

Grissom moved a stack of papers from his cot to his backpack. The bus into the village was leaving at sunrise tomorrow, and he wanted to be prepared.

From the stool he used as a bedside table, his phone chirped. He stared at it for a few rings, before picking it up and starting at it in his hand for a few more. The number was one he didn't recognize, and his own number was one very few people had.

"Hello?" he answered tentatively.

"Gil."

"Catherine," he said with surprise. "How did you get this number?"

"I have a vast amount of resources at my disposal."

"FBI," Grissom said knowledgeably, a smile crossing his lips. "How are they treating you?"

"Just fine," Catherine said briskly. "But that's not what I called to talk about."

"Oh?" he answered, already feeling slightly anxious as to what the conversation would bring. "Then what, pray tell, did you call from halfway around the world to talk about?"

She paused for a moment; letting Grissom ponder the answer he knew was coming.

"Sara," Catherine said finally.

"She told you?" he asked softly, dubiously.

He had yet to tell a soul, including his mother, and he assumed Sara had done the same.

"No, Nick did."

Grissom leaned back onto his cot, now completely gob smacked. So not only did Catherine know, but so did Nick. Who else was dialed in on this game of telephone?

"Nick," he said so softly, he was surprised he said it aloud at all. He cleared his throat and forced the shock from his tone. "Well, Cath, I appreciate your concern, but—"

"It's none of my business," Catherine cut in, accurately guessing how he would finish his sentence. "And in essence, you're right. I don't work with either of you any more. We only keep in touch through e-mails, on a monthly basis, if we're lucky. So why butt in?"

"Yes," Grissom said simply. "Why?"

"Because it's what I do," Catherine retorted. "Gil, a very, very long time ago, I told you it takes a bad marriage to recognize a good one," Catherine said. "Mine was very, very bad, but… you and Sara… what you two have is good. Special."

"Things change, Cath," Grissom said sadly. "Sara and I… we got to the point where neither of us were making the other happy."

"Gil, I was right there beside you when we were looking for Sara in the desert," Catherine said. Grissom's heart pinched with the memory. "I saw how you were, you were… worried sick. Frantic with the idea of losing her. Now, that man wouldn't do what you're doing. He wouldn't – after all that – lose her all over again, and be to blame, to boot."

Grissom took several calming breaths, and reminded himself that Catherine was only trying to help before he replied.

"How do you know that I'm to blame?"

"I know you," Catherine said. "And I know Sara. And I may not know all the details, but I know the both of you well enough to surmise what's going on."

"Please, clue me in on the details of my personal life," Grissom said bitterly.

"You kept Sara at arm's length for seven years thinking you were doing what was best for her, when all she wanted was you," Catherine said. "You were convinced that she could do better with someone younger, livelier, more adventurous, when all she ever wanted was you. Now, why would that have changed?"

"Who's to say it hasn't?"

"Stop making out like you're the innocent one here," Catherine said just as bitterly. "I may not wear a CSI badge these days, but I'm just as good at reading people as I used to be. You're letting Sara go because you're still convinced that you're tying her down. Gil, if that were the case, wouldn't your marriage have broken down years ago? All she still wants is you."

"And you know this to be the case," Grissom said flatly. "Have you spoken to her?"

"As a matter of fact, I have," Catherine said crisply. "Can you say the same?"

Grissom fell silent. Short of a last-minute text message sent in the last few hours of her birthday, he hadn't spoken to Sara since he informed her of his plans to separate. Predictably, the call had not ended well, and he'd been too much a coward to pick up the phone since, even the few times he came close to hitting her speed dial.

"There's a lot… that's been going on with Sara that I don't think you know about," Catherine said finally. "I'm not saying it'll make you change your mind about whatever the hell it is you're doing, I'm saying you might regret not speaking with her when she needs you."

When she needs you. The words stung Grissom's skin like sharp bites. He knew Sara would be struggling with their separation, he was too, but when she needs you… that sounded like there was more going on, more she was dealing with, that he did not know about.

"W-what's going on?" he asked. "Is she okay?"

"Call her," Catherine said. "I promise, you'll only hate yourself if you don't."

"Cath—"

He stopped short at the sound of a dial tone. She had hung up on him. Ideas were running through his mind a mile a minute, ideas of what could have happened to Sara that she would have needed him to help her deal with. Sara was not clingy. She knew how to handle her own problems. That must have meant it was serious.

He opened his phone's list of contacts, but stopped halfway through the alphabet, way before he got to "S", and hit dial.

"Stokes," came the merry greeting from thousands of miles away.

"Nick," he said. "It's Grissom."

"Do you need something?"

The question came across so distant, so detached, it caught Grissom off guard, and it took him several seconds to recuperate.

"I just had a chat with Catherine," he said eventually.

"Uh huh," Nick deadpanned.

"She said you and her spoke recently."

"That's right."

"About Sara," Grissom prompted.

"Yep."

"Nick, if you think I'm an ass, come out and say it," Grissom said angrily, both surprised and hurt at his former employee's so obvious choice of sides.

"Fine," Nick said firmly. "I think you're an ass. I haven't asked Sara what happened between you two, and I don't pretend to know, but I'm not stupid."

"Well, everyone is just so enlightened on the details of our marriage, I'm astounded David Hodges hasn't come forward with the whole story," Grissom sad sarcastically.

Silence settled over the line and when it became clear that Nick wasn't going to respond, Grissom took several more calming breaths and continued.

"Look, I called to make sure Sara is all right," he said. "Catherine said something that worried me, and I…"

"Shouldn't you be talking to her, then?" Nick asked. "Sara?"

"Nick. Please."

He heard the young man let out a loud whoosh of air and felt the change of tone when he spoke next.

"Truth is, I'm not sure if she's all right," he said. "She pretends to be."

"Because of me?"

"That, and a whole lot more," Nick said. After another few seconds of silence he added, "Don't you really think you should be hearing this from Sara?"

"I really just need to know if she's all right," Grissom said, refusing to bring up his own cowardice when it came to calling his wife.

"She was stalked," Nick said finally. "A few weeks ago."

"Stalked?" Grissom repeated in disbelief. "When? By who?"

"A guy named Ronald Basderic," Nick replied. "He resented Sara for standing up to him during a previous investigation, and for blaming him for the death of a young woman. He killed a man at the hotel Sara was staying at on her birthday, and set her up for it."

Grissom pressed his eyes closed, guilt flooding over him. Sara must have gone ahead and kept the reservations and plans they had made together for her birthday. He never told her explicitly he was no longer planning to come, but the details of their last phone conversation had made it pretty obvious. He never expected Sara to go alone. He could picture her there, sitting eating dinner at a table for two, all by herself. Sleeping in the king-sized bed with more than enough space for one person. He had hoped that she had canceled the reservations, and gone out for a beer with Nick and Greg instead. At least in those images, she wasn't alone. Knowing that she had been, on her birthday, and what had followed afterwards… Grissom never felt like he'd let her down more.

"Y-you cleared her, obviously," Grissom asked hopefully.

"Eventually," Nick said. "But not before it was made known what was going on between the two of you."

That part, Grissom didn't understand. Even with the stress that Sara was dealing with, how did their marriage get tangled up in the mess? Why had she felt it necessary to tell Nick and who knows whom else about their deepest pains? As if reading his mind, Nick continued.

"Sara… spent some time in the victim's hotel room the night of her birthday," Nick said cautiously. "Nothing happened between them, though there was no reason why it shouldn't… so—"

"Everyone assumed that Sara had cheated," Grissom finished.

This was getting worse by the second.

"Yeah," Nick said sadly.

"What happened to the guy – Basderic?"

"With help from Sara, we figured out his plan and his set-up," Nick said. "We got him – just as he tried to kill her."

"K-kill…"

Grissom's jaw felt slack, his mouth like he had a handful of cotton balls stuffed in them. He'd lost the ability to speak. This was far worse than he had ever imagined. No wonder Catherine thought he'd abandoned her when she needed him.

"We had it under control – it's really a long story," Nick said. "You should really be talking to Sara about it."

Grissom licked his lips several times.

"Okay," he said.

"Okay?" Nick repeated back with surprise.

"Yeah," Grissom affirmed, thinking it was high time. "I'll talk to her. Thanks, Nick."

"Hey – Griss?" Nick said. "Be gentle, okay? She's been through enough."

Grissom ended the call and checked the clock on the front of his cell – it was halfway through shift in Vegas. Nick either had the night off or had a spare moment while working on his case. Should he dial Sara now, with the risk of getting her voicemail, or wait until he knew she would be at home?

He pondered both options for a few moments before eventually deciding that giving himself time to talk himself out of doing what he needed to do would only make him hate himself more. He needed to call her, and he needed to do it now.

So he pressed the number one key for Sara's speed dial and listened to it ring. To his surprise, she picked up almost right away.

"Hell-o?"

Her surprisingly cheerful greeting made him think she didn't check the caller ID before she picked up. It also sounded dead silent in the background, making him wonder why she wasn't at work.

"Hello?" she repeated. He heard a few scuffles as she drew the phone back from her ear to check the ID. "Gil? Is that you?"

"Yeah," he said softly. "Sorry it took me so long. Is now a good time to talk?"

The line went silent, and he remembered what conversation had followed the last time he'd said those words.

"Sorry," he said quickly. "I just mean… I think there's a lot we have to catch up on."

"Why are you calling me?" Sara asked.

She didn't sound bitter, or angry, or hurt, just slightly confused.

"I heard about what happened," he said softly. "With Basderic."

"Who told you?"

"Sara…"

"Who told you?" she repeated forcefully.

"Catherine," he said finally.

"Damnit," she swore, sounding half annoyed and half amused. "Woman can't keep her nose in her own business."

"Sara… are you okay?"

"Yeah," Sara sighed, letting her air of being okay drop. "I guess I am."

"They told me you were cleared… are you back at work?"

"Yes and no," Sara said. "I thought I wanted to get right back into it, but after being back for a week, it was… too much to handle. I needed a little time. So Russell gave me a few weeks off."

Grissom felt a rush of appreciation for the supervisor he'd never met.

"Honestly, the worst part is everyone knowing about it," Sara laughed tightly, putting on her bravado again. "You know how I hate being the talk of the lab. Hopefully by the time I come back, it'll be all blown over. Finn, uh, Finn said something about a woman being murdered at David's reunion… maybe that'll help change the wind of the gossip. Of course, David had nothing to do with it…"

"Sara," Grissom said affectionately.

"I know," she said right away. "I'm over talking."

"Can we… forget about everything for a second, and can you just tell me how you are?"

"I'm… getting there," Sara said. "You know, it's the funniest thing. I've been visiting with my mother a little more, and it's actually helped. She's still got some good advice left in her."

"Your mother?" Grissom asked. "You're in San Francisco?"

"No, I moved her here," Sara said. "She wasn't doing too well and it was easier on both of us to do it this way. She's much better than she was before, but I chalk that up to the doctors, not my visits."

"Honey, I wish you'd just be honest with me."

"… Do you?"

"Yes."

"I'm still not really sure how I'm doing," she said, finally letting honesty slip through her voice. "Some days I'm fine and others…"

"I'm sorry it took me so long to call you," Grissom cut in. "I just wasn't… I couldn't…"

"It's okay," Sara said. "You didn't know. I should have been the one to call you. H-how are you?"

"I'm okay," he said, giving her the same answer as the last time they talked. But it was the truthful one. "Sara… do you… want me to come there? Stay a couple days? I-I can't get away this week, but I might be able to figure something out next week…"

"I don't know," Sara replied softly, sadly. "I don't know what I want. Sometimes I want you here more than anything, and sometimes… I-I'm afraid."

"Afraid of what?"

"I guess… that seeing each other again will justify this," she said, before adding meekly, "Do you still think that this is the right thing to do?"

"I don't know," Grissom said honestly. "I guess I'm as all over the place as you are. I really don't know what to do any more, Sara."

"What's changed your mind?"

"Nothing's really changed it, per se," he said carefully. "It's complicated in its simplicity… I'm here and you're there. And… there's nothing telling us that that's going to change any time soon."

"But?"

"But… sometimes I miss you so much it hurts," Grissom said. "I miss your voice. Your smell. I miss your laugh. I miss waking up next to you in the mornings. I miss so many things."

He heard a stifled sob coming from Sara on the other line and he dropped his head into his hands, thinking of the pain and sadness he'd caused her, and was still causing her.

"I still love you," she whispered shakily.

"I know," he murmured back, trying to keep the wobble out of his own voice. "And I do too – Sara, you know I do. I just don't see any simple solution to this. Do you?"

"No," Sara admitted wearily.

They both became quiet, settling into their own thoughts. Grissom knew there wasn't much left to say, but he wasn't quite ready to hang up with her just yet.

"So… what do we do now?" Sara asked.

It was the question lingering on his mind since Sara said hello. He wished he had the answer.

"I don't know, honey," he said softly. "But… it's so good to hear your voice. And know you're okay."

"D'you think… maybe… we could talk a little more often?" Sara asked. "Not every day, but… two months is a very long time."

Grissom let out a chuckle.

"Yes, it is," he said. "And yes… we can. I-I would like to talk more often."

"Okay," Sara said, sounding relieved. "So… I guess I'll talk to you soon, then."

"Yes," Grissom smiled. "You will."