Disclaimer: shakes head Nope.

This here has no spoilers in it but it fits in nicely for those people that are spoilered. Heehee. But yeah, no spoilers. Oh, and I'm a sucker for constructive criticism so don't hesitate. ;)

Questions

He knew he had made a lot of mistakes. In fact, he knew he had screwed up big time in the past and so he had thought sitting down with her one day and letting her ask anything, anything at all would be a good idea. It would give her the chance to ask things she had always wanted to know and he knew that deep down, Sara Sidle was a nosy person. It would give her the chance to clear her head, get more comfortable with him and their relationship.

This would be fantastic. All he would have to do is answer. He gave himself a mental pat on the shoulder for having thought out something so clever, something that gave her all the control she could possibly want. Something that would reinstate her trust in him, a trust he needed like the air he breathed.

Half an hour later the idea seemed to have bitten him in the ass. He squirmed in his seat nervously, looking at Sara with a pained expression on his face. The kind of expression he wore when she subjected him to listen to her kind of music. Pure torture.

He had anticipated every question possible. Really, he had made a mental list of questions he was sure she'd ask, questions about his childhood, his mother and other things he had, so far, not disclosed to her. Confidently sipping his wine, he had waited for question after question he would be able to answer with amazing wit. He wanted to impress her. Needed to impress her.

However, Grissom had made one mistake. He had underestimated Sara's sneakiness.

"What was going on between you and Lady Heather?" The question hung in the room like a gigantic red balloon, one that he just couldn't avoid and one he couldn't get around without making a very loud squeaky noise. So he squirmed, hoping that she would get the hint, would drop the subject, and would tell him it was okay. Just like she had done in the past.

That was the second mistake Grissom made that night. He had underestimated Sara's meanness.

She wasn't about to drop that subject, not after he had allowed her to ask anything she wanted to ask. Instead, she enjoyed the way he squirmed uncomfortably. Yes, Sara enjoyed the fact that Gil Grissom was uncomfortable.

Every once in a while her sadistic streak surfaced and she felt like poking something small and furry with a stick. Or ask Gil Grissom questions she knew he didn't want to answer. In fact, that was so much more satisfying than poking something small and furry with a stick.

"Come on Gil." She nudged his foot with hers and grinned into her wineglass.

He felt like he was slowly being roasted over a fire. The first three questions had been so nice and easy. Reassuring, really. Now he understood why: She had wanted him to be comfortable, utterly at ease so she could trap him with the forth question and watch as his facial expression slowly morphed from confidence to shock. She congratulated herself on that and really, he deserved it and it felt incredibly good to see him burn.

"Sara…" he started with that dismissive tone of voice that made her feel like a little girl being chastised by her dad. She shook her head and pointed a finger at him.

"No, no, no Gil. Don't 'Sara' me. You promised you'd answer." She almost sounded whiny there. Oh well, whininess was justified in this case.

He cringed, then cleared his throat and stared out of the window for a moment that seemed to stretch from here to the West Coast. Finally, he turned and looked at her with a serious expression on his face.

"We… kind of connected, back then. She could read me like a book, which was scary and… amazing at the same time. She intrigued me and she took my mind off of you for a while. See, I could have her, I didn't have to risk as much as I would have to risk being with you. It was a rush… for a while… a short while…" he trailed off, looked at his hands clasped in his lap for a moment.

"And then?" she urged softly, trying hard to keep the jealousy out of her voice. She didn't want to be the jealous girlfriend hating the dreaded ex. Even though the ex had been a dominatrix. Sara wasn't sure the no-jealousy-rule applied there. Usually, rules and regulations tended to go out the window as soon as a large amount of skin and a little amount of leather was involved.

"Then I said stop. I realized she wasn't you and she realized that she wasn't who I wanted her, needed her to be. It all ended there. We crossed paths occasionally after that and the last time I saw Heather was when we found her daughter." he ended, unsure of how she was going to react. He had been honest but one of his troubles was that he couldn't read Sara the way he would like to. He had no idea how she was going to react.

Sara looked at him, a small smile flickering across her face. Her initial jealousy was replaced by a bunch of butterflies fluttering through her belly.

"Thank you." she said softly and he grinned. He had passed this question with surprising skill and tact, more tact than she usually gave him credit for. However, his answer had brought on another question she had not yet asked. Which was weird because she really, really needed to know. She had wanted to know for quite a while.

"What made you change your mind?" she asked and scooted closer to him until she knelt between his legs, leaning against his leg propped up against the back of the couch. A serious expression slipped back on his face.

"I realized that denial wasn't going to change my feelings for you. Nothing, in fact, ever changed my feelings for you. I wasn't only destroying myself, I was destroying you and I couldn't let that happen. I couldn't hurt you anymore for feeling the same way about me that I felt about you. So I kissed you."

A wry smile crept onto his face as he grabbed her hand, pulled her on top of him and kissed her softly.

"No more questions, Miss Sidle." he whispered close to her ear and she chuckled, burying her head against his chest as his breath tickled her ear.

"Fine, no more questions. You're just going to have to keep me occupied otherwise…"

The End.