Left Behind

Summary: When Sara finally returns to Vegas, it's too little, too late. Latent GSR, team friendship, Sandlish undertones but not so much. Character death. Two-shot and... I confess... a bit of a song fic.

Author's Note: Yes, I know, I'm supposed to be writing Las Plagas and I am. But I started this late one night, listening to the beautiful music of Spring Awakening (the Broadway musical) and I just couldn't pass this opportunity up. All italics are from the Spring Awakening, namely the songs "Those You've Known," "Left Behind," "Whispering," "Touch Me," and "Those You've Known" respectively (yes, I said "Those You've Known" twice). Youtube search the songs for the melodies, they are absolutely gorgeous.

Those you've known and lost still walk behind you
All alone, they linger 'til they find you
Without them, the world grows dark around you
And nothing is the same until you know that they have found you

Those you've pained may carry that still with them
All the same, they whisper "All forgiven"
Still your heart says the shadows bring the starlight
And everything you've ever been is still there in the dark night

When the northern wind blows
The sorrows your heart holds
There are those who still know
They're still home
We're still home

Thought you know, you've left them all behind
You walk on by yourself, and not with them...
Still you know, they will fill your heart and mind
When they say there's a way through this...

She hadn't crossed the threshold of the Las Vegas Crime Lab in just under five years. October always invoked a chilling wind in her. Something wasn't right; something was unsettling. She didn't know why she felt she should return now, of all other dates. She only knew something was wrong.

Gil hadn't been answering her letters, or her calls for a few months now. It alarmed her that he had cut off all contact from her completely. She thought that maybe it was his way of moving on. As the years faded away inside of old photographs and missed opportunities, they had spoken less and less. She always regretted it, and she always wanted to return to his arms, his embrace, but for some reason she could never pluck up enough courage to come back home.

Because he was her home. Inside of this upside down, morally bankrupt city which she had conquered with her own bare hands, he was the blanket she could wrap herself in when she was afraid of the cold.

The cold that October would bring.

She steeled her courage and swallowed before stepping through the doors. She found herself in the lobby, which appeared much unchanged, and this comforted her. She didn't recognize the receptionist; it wasn't Judy. Did Grissom still have the same office? She wasn't sure. They never spoke of work, that is, when they spoke at all. Only of each other. The word "love," also, graced the pages of their letters less and less. Love and work, love of work, two things she had lived for she was now a stranger to.

She past the receptionist and made to go into the hall when she was stopped.

"Excuse me, ma'am? You're gonna need a visitor's badge."

Sara stuttered. It was awkward, that she was a visitor in what she had always considered a part of her home, her church, her sanctuary. "Oh, I, uh... right." She smiled and moved to the desk.

The secretary was distracted. She had dark hair and wore horn-rimmed glasses as she filled out a form inside a manila folder. "What's your business here? Are you a reporter? Ms. Willows isn't seeing any more reporters today."

Sara blinked. "What? No, I'm not... Why is Ca— Ms. Willows seeing reporters anyway?"

The receptionist stopped writing and cocked an eyebrow at Sara. "What's your business here, ma'am?" she asked flatly.

Sara sighed. "Look, my name is... I'm Sara Sidle. I'm just here to talk to Gil Grissom."

A sad smile tugged at the receptionist's lips. "Ah. You haven't heard?"

"Heard what?" Sara asked.

The receptionist put her file down and picked up a piece of paper. She scribbled something on it and handed it to Sara, along with a visitor's badge. "You better see Ms. Willows then. She's probably better equipped to deal with you than I am. Give that to her."

And with that, she turned back to her manila folder. Sara pinned the badge to her shirt and headed down the hall. She unfolded the note and looked at it quizzically. S. Sidel to see C. Willows CONCERNING: G. Grissom. Claims to NOT be a reporter.

Hm. The little newbie had spelt her name wrong. Since when was the lab so bureaucratic? She could have easily told Catherine what she was doing there herself. She was so puzzled by this little piece of red tape that she didn't watch where she was going and collided head-long with someone else.

"Oh, I'm sorry," she said suddenly as the files fluttered from the man's hands and to the floor. His head was bent as he knelt down to collect them, and she went to help him.

"Aw, no, don't worry about it, they were all in a mess beforehand anyway. Scatterbrained partner, need to sort it for her—"

He cut off abruptly but she didn't notice, gathering up his files for him. Crime scene photos and sketches, it appeared, along with blue prints and some other papers. She noticed that he had stopped gathering papers and she glanced up at him and found him staring at her.

"Sara? Is that you?"

His words froze her in her tracks, and her eyes rested on a loose crime scene photo of a woman in a white nightgown, who had been strangled to death. Her breath caught in her throat as she, too, felt like she was being strangled. She hadn't looked at him properly, and wasn't sure which of her old friends she had bumped into. It saddened her that she couldn't even recognize his voice, and it had only been five years.

Slowly, she looked up and upon seeing those chestnut eyes knew immediately who had recognized her. A wry smile claimed her lips. He was unkempt, his hair a little longer than she remembered it being, but it was a soft and normal brown.

"Hey, Greg. What's with the stubble?"

He broke into a grin. "Oh my God, it's so good to see you!" he exclaimed. He was on his feet immediately and holding a hand out to her to help her to her feet. She took it, and he pulled her up with such force, she found that she had stumbled into his exuberant bear hug.

She felt like she was being strangled again, but this time, it was a good thing.

"Aw, I mean— I wish you would have left me a number, an address, anything so I could talk to you sometime!" Greg cried as he released her from his death grip. "I mean, God knows, I nagged Grissom for it more than enough times, but he said if you wanted to talk to me, you'd call me, so..." He trailed off and his smile faded. "Sara, why did you leave like that?"

"It's a long story, Greggo," she said.

"So what are you doing here?" Greg asked, his tone upbeat once again.

She opened her mouth to reply when she was interrupted by an anxious voice. "Greg, wait!"

Greg spun around to greet the young woman running down the hall, waving a file at him with a broad grin on her face. She tried to stop, but had too much momentum and stumbled into Greg's arms.

"Whoa there, girl, slow down!" he said with a laugh.

She nodded as she caught her breath than straightened. "I forgot— I was looking over these abrasions on her neck last night, you know—" She pointed at the file, which contained the photos of the strangled woman's neck. "— and then I realized— It was the scarves."

"We didn't find any scarves in her apartment..." Greg said slowly.

"I know, I know, I know," the excited woman said quickly. "That's the point. In the photographs by her bedside table, she's wearing a blue silk Vietnamese scarf—I know it's Vietnamese because I saw one just like it in Hanoi when I went there in college— and there was no scarf at her apartment. Which means... either it got lost in the laundry or something, or our killer has it. But I checked, because Nick and I ran these tests on the dummy with different scarves, and the chafing marks are best with a silk—oh my God, why didn't you tell me Sara was back?!"

But Sara was too much in awe of this girl's vigor to speak. She blinked a few times and then realized that the eager girl's arms were around her neck.

"It's good to see you too, Ronnie," Sara said with a laugh as the beaming woman pulled away from her. "Last time I saw you, you were just a rookie."

"CSI Level Three." Her eyes sparkled as she said it. "Just made it last week! Aren't you proud?"

"Yes, I am..." Sara said, slowly nodding. She looked at Greg, whose hand was covering his eyes as he laughed and shook his head.

But Ronnie seized her hand. "Come here, I want to show you something."

"Is she doped up on caffeine?"

"It's her third shift," Greg said as he followed the women into the locker room. "What do you think?"

"Nah, Greg's lying," Ronnie said as she made for her locker. "I mean, it's my third shift and all, but I'm like this pretty much most of the time."

"Ah, to be young again!" Greg reminisced with a wink at Sara.

"Please," Sara snorted. "You're just a puppy."

Ronnie's locker swung open and she reached in and pulled out an old CSI vest. She seemed to calm down as she grasped it, then reverently held it out to Sara, her smile fading.

"It's uh... It's yours, again, if you want it."

Where the name should have been was a piece of masking tape with the words "Good Luck" written on it. It summoned a smile to Sara's lips and, unwanted, a tear to her eye which she suppressed.

"Oh Ronnie..." she breathed as she took the vest and looked it over. The material in her fingertips felt so familiar to her, like she was at the piano playing an old melody from her childhood.

But she couldn't take it. She handed it back to Ronnie, who looked a little confused before turning to Greg.

"Hey, would you take me to Grissom please? I asked your new secretary and she just sent me off to Catherine. Where is he?"

Greg was suddenly speechless as he looked at her with his mouth half open. His tongue shot out and licked his lips before he uncomfortably rubbed the back of his neck.

"Yeah, maybe you should see Catherine," he finally said. "Don't pay any mind to Julie, she is such a stick in the mud when it comes to procedure and what not... Here, I'll take you to her." He put his arm around her shoulders and made to guide her to the door but she shrugged him off.

"I'll see Catherine later, I want to talk to Gil," she demanded fiercely.

Greg looked hesitantly at Ronnie, and Sara's eyes followed his. Ronnie looked between the both of them, her hands clutching Sara's vest in fists, as though it were a life preserver. She swallowed visibly.

"Sara... I'm sorry..." she began.

The cold October wind began to suffocate her again. "What happened?" she demanded, turning on Greg. "What's going on?"

"OK, look," Greg stated, in a low, matter-of-fact voice. He looked pointedly at Ronnie. "It wasn't anyone's fault, OK, it just—"

"Where is he?!" Sara insisted. "Just tell me!"

Greg's lip quivered as he looked at her before he shook his head visibly. "He's dead, Sara. It just—"

She didn't want to listen. She didn't know why, but Greg was playing a cruel joke on her. She spun on her heal and made a quick exit from the locker room before heading down the hall, following the ghosts of her own footsteps to the place she knew so well, his place, his church, his sanctuary, her home...

His name was still on the door and she didn't bother to knock. She had to see him, had to know he was there, she didn't care if she startled him. She seized the doorknob with reckless abandon and threw the door open.

Well, she startled someone. But it wasn't him.

"Sara?"

She stood there in the doorway, helpless, somewhere in between lost and found, heaven and hell, home and somewhere very far away.

She was afraid to take a step further.

Catherine Willows rose from what Sara distinctly remembered as being Gil Grissom's chair and approached the startled girl in the doorway with concern etched deep into her features. Her hair was different. It was dyed a light brown and shoulder-length. Currently it was pulled back into a loose ponytail which was coming undone from all the work she was doing. Her eyes had heavy bags beneath them, and they seemed more gray than blue. She had lost something and Sara wasn't exactly sure what that was. But somehow, her new look didn't feel like the old Catherine at all.

"Honey," Catherine said in velvet soft tones. She smiled, an odd expression on her worn and tired face. She seemed relieved and exhausted and apologetic all at the same time. "Please, come in, sit down."

But she wouldn't budge. "Where is he?" she breathed. "Where's Gil?"

"That's what I want to talk to you about, honey, now please, come in and close the door."

Sara hesitated, absolutely petrified. She shook her head. "Don't make it true, Catherine," she whispered, gripping the door frame so she wouldn't fall. "Please, don't make it true."

Catherine smiled at Sara as sweetly as she could, but all Sara saw was the bags under her eyes. Catherine gripped Sara's shoulders in order to help her keep her balance. Her hands slid down her arms until she found her hands and led her into the room and to a chair in front of Grissom's desk, one she had sat in time and time again. However, instead of going to sit behind Grissom's desk, she knelt down in front of Sara, still gripping her hands, like a mother addressing her daughter. And it was in that moment that Sara realized it had to be true.

"When... when did it happen?" she breathed.

"He died October first," Catherine replied. "The funeral was a few days after that. I would have called you, in fact, I've been searching his drawers and papers for your number or address or something... But like his thoughts of you, he hid them well."

October First. The date was October fifteenth. She was too late to even say good bye. And all the things she wanted to say to him that she could never say in letters. But he had stopped writing to her months before this one, in June. It still didn't explain it.

"How did he...?" Sara whispered.

Catherine sighed. "It was intense, there was... there was this suspect, and he just..." She closed her eyes and seemed to gather her wits. "He was angry, because he was so close to getting away with it, when Ronnie found the crucial piece of evidence to link him to the case." Catherine smiled, fondly as she thought of the woman. "It was the last detail that made Grissom decide to promote her to CSI Level Three. Probably the last big decision he made around here... Anyways. So this guy just burst into the lab waving this gun and he seized Ronnie and threatened to kill her right there in the lobby. Julie threw a fit—she's our receptionist now, Judy moved to days about two years ago— and Grissom came running. He tried to calm the guy down, tried to get him to release Ronnie, but..." Catherine took in a deep, shuddering breath. "Oh Sara... He shot him."

She didn't need to specify who shot who. Sara knew immediately. The two women were quiet as it sunk into Sara's mind. Grissom was dead, and Ronnie had escaped unscathed. Grissom was dead. Grissom was...

"Catherine," Sara choked. "What... what do I do now?"

Catherine gathered her up in a maternal embrace. "I wish you'd have stayed..." she whispered in Sara's ear. "He never was the same after you left."

"Neither was I," she replied. She should never have left. After all these years, she wasn't sure why she had stayed away for so long. She had been afraid to come back, to even call her old friends, afraid they wouldn't accept her for abandoning them. But it was a silly, useless fear. She was their family, and from what she had seen from Greg and Catherine, no grudges were held against her for leaving them alone. All was forgiven, because she was back again. She was home again.

Except, she wasn't home. She would never really be at home ever again. Not like she was with him.

Catherine pulled away from her too look her in the eye. "You know you always have a job here."

Sara smiled gratefully, but she wasn't sure if she was ready to work here again, especially without him. He had come here to find her home and had found instead her old family.

She rose to her feet, which surprisingly bore her weight. "I have to go," she told Catherine.

"You will come back this time?" Catherine asked, the hint of facetiousness to her tone, but also genuine concern.

Sara nodded. "You can count on it," she lied. It was a promise she didn't know she could keep.

She exited Grissom's old office and leaned against the door to catch her breath. She wasn't going to cry. She had shed too many tears over him already. This was too intense. She should never have come back. She wanted to run away again and find somewhere warm where she could hide for the rest of her life. But she knew that was the coward's way out.

She had left Las Vegas to find herself again only to realize that she had lost herself inside his eyes.

And now it was too late to tell him that.

Why had he stopped writing to her? She would never know.

There were so many things he had left unfinished, so many days they never spent together, so many truths that remained unvoiced. So many things were left behind and she was one of them.

She began to walk. She wasn't entirely sure where she was going, because she walked blindly. But she found herself back in the locker room and she felt as if she was interrupting something.

Greg's arms were wrapped securely around Ronnie, his hands running up and down her back as he kissed the top of her head. Neither of them seemed to have noticed Sara's entrance, and she contemplated leaving. She didn't even know why her feet had carried her to this room in the first place.

She turned to leave when she heard Greg whisper, "You know it's not your fault."

Sara stopped immediately. She knew Greg wasn't talking to her. She knew that he was comforting Ronnie and reassuring her, but she couldn't help but imagine that he was comforting her instead, reassuring her, reminding her that this wasn't her fault either. She closed her eyes and held her breath and the smallest smile danced on her lips.

She heard Ronnie's quiet sobs and heard Greg hush her. "It'll be OK. You will be OK." and Sara imagined it was her hair he was whispering into.

She continued to cry and Sara continued to listen, and then, Greg ran out of effort.

"I don't know what else to say other than empty reassurances..."

He sounded so defeated, and to hear that in him, the man Sara remembered as being the eternal optimist, was like having a dog tear out her heart with its teeth. Her eyes snapped open and she turned around again.

"Don't say that," she begged. "You can say anything but that."

And then he looked up at her, startled, and Ronnie broke away from him swiftly, looking exceptionally awkward.

Greg slowly smiled, but Sara saw no mirth in his eyes. And then, he closed them and laughed as a few stray tears escaped him and rolled down his cheek like raindrops on a window on a cold October morning. "It is... so good to have you back," he breathed.

They were miles apart, in reality, symbolized by the six feet of distance that they kept from each other, even though they both needed to run to each other, they both wanted to tell each other that things would turn out alright, even if they both knew it was a lie.

"Excuse me..." Ronnie sniffed as she made to pass between them.

Sara noticed for the first time the glint of something bright glittering on her ring finger. She tried to stop her, but the younger woman was gone from the locker room too fast. She turned instead to Greg.

"So Ronnie is married?"

Greg chewed his lip as he watched the door blankly. "Not yet. She's engaged."

Sara nodded. Of course she was, she was a lovely young thing, bright and stubborn, a catch for anyone. Of course someone had snatched her up. "Do you know the guy?"

"Quite well," Greg said with a sigh as he looked at Sara again with raised eyebrows.

"Is he good for her?" Sara asked. "I mean, is he... Does he deserve her?"

Greg smiled. "Nah, not in the slightest."

"Does it bother you?"

"A little."

They were quiet. "You don't like him very much, do you?"

"Sometimes I can't stand him," Greg told her honestly. "He's such an asshole sometimes, and he forgot her birthday this year."

"If he's an asshole, then why is she marrying him?" Sara asked.

He changed the subject. "Do you want to talk about Grissom?"

It was an abrupt shift and it caught her off guard. The fact of the matter is that no, she didn't want to talk about Grissom at all, which was why she was talking about Ronnie.

But she realized that she couldn't do that with Greg. She couldn't talk to him anymore. She couldn't talk to anyone.

"I wish you hadn't asked me that..." she breathed, regretfully.

"I wish you hadn't abandoned us," Greg returned icily.

There it was. The bitterness she knew would come, once the joy of seeing her again dissipated. "It had nothing to do with you," she said. "My head, it was all wrong after Natalie."

He nodded, seeming to understand. But then he said, "It could have had something to do with me." He took a step forward, and instinctively, she took a step back. "You could have talked to me..."

"I couldn't even talk to Gil," she told him, the unwanted tears beginning to well in her eyes as her throat constricted.

"I missed you, Sara..." he said with a desperate laugh. "And you didn't once call me or e-mail me to tell me you're OK. I sent you an e-mail and it told me your account no longer existed."

"I spent a year away from the city and computers," Sara told him. "It was an experiment..."

"I didn't know if you were alive or dead, short of the brief news Grissom ever fed us!"

She could tell that he was hurt, and that it was her fault. But she didn't want to deal with it, not now, not with so many other things weighing on her mind.

"Please, don't do this to me now, Greg," she begged.

She must have sounded pitiful, because Greg looked like he regretted every word. "He missed you too, you know. You're a hard girl to get over."

"Do you know why..." But she stopped herself. Of course he didn't know why he had stopped speaking to her. Only Grissom could have answered that. "Never mind."

"Yeah," Greg agreed. "Never mind."

She couldn't be there with him anymore. But luckily, he said it first.

"I'll see you later," he said, taking his jacket from his locker. "Or maybe I won't, I don't know, it's all up to you, isn't it? It's always up to you."

He hugged his jacket to his chest and nodded to her in goodbye before ducking out the door.

Sara wrapped her arms around herself, the chill in the air causing goose bumps to rise on her skin. She decided maybe it was best if she went back to her hotel now, or maybe even back to California. But wouldn't that prove Greg right? She couldn't keep running away from them. She would sleep on it and decide in the morning.

As she walked by all the old layout rooms and labs, she remembered her last day there, when she had kissed Grissom and her whole world goodbye. He had tasted so smooth, like silk. She wanted to wrap herself inside of him again, to find him again. She imagined that her arms were his, wrapped around her stomach. It was almost enough to make her cry again.

"Sara?"

The voice was timid and soft, not at all the eager young woman Sara had seen only moments ago. "Do you want something, Ronnie?"

The young CSI nodded. "So I guess Catherine told you what happened?"

Sara pursed her lips, then nodded back at her. "I don't blame you for anything, Ronnie," Sara told her, assuming that is what she had come for.

A tear escaped her blood-shot eyes. "I know," she said with a stifled sob. "But I just wanted to tell you that I'm sorry anyways. About everything."

Sara noticed her ring again, and changed the subject. "Congratulations. Greg told me you were engaged."

Her eyebrows shot up. She seemed surprised. "He did? Well that was candid of him. He hasn't exactly advertised it to the others."

"Yeah, well I pressed him about it," Sara replied. She thought about how odd that statement was. "What do you mean? Why would he do that?"

Ronnie shrugged. "I don't know. But whenever someone brings it up, he tends to change the subject. Catherine asked him where he got the ring and he just started talking about the case. It's almost like he's ashamed of me or something. Am I reading too much into it? Oh, I don't know, I'm just so on edge right now. And we've just postponed it again, on account of... what happened."

And then it dawned on Sara. "He's engaged to you..." she whispered.

"He doesn't even wear his band to work," Ronnie confided in her. "I don't know, Sara... What do you think he's thinking?"

Sara opened her mouth to reply when Ronnie went on.

"I mean, it's not like I pressured him into anything! I thought we were just having a good time! And then it was him who said to me, 'What the hell, let's get married!' I was the one who was hesitant at first." She seemed to remember herself. "Oh God, look at me, going on about my love life!" She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, then looked away from Sara. "It's just so much easier to get lost in something else. To keep busy, to not think about it... You know, every time I had a bad day, I always looked at your vest? I've been looking at it every day since the First. I know it sounds lame, but... You really inspired me, Sara."

She had no idea why she did it, but Sara wrapped her arms around Ronnie's shoulders. The younger woman was startled by the action, but returned the embrace gratefully nevertheless.

When Sara pulled away, she made it a point to smile. "You deserve to be happy, Ronnie. You don't have to be sad on my account. You and Greg are perfect for each other."

To her surprised, Ronnie closed her eyes and laughed bitterly. "No," she said to Sara, shaking her head. "Not perfect. Simply... second best."

Sara's brow furrowed in confusion. "I don't understand..."

It was Ronnie's turn to be surprised. "You're all he talks about," she said. "Even after five years, you're all that's on his mind. Didn't you know that?"

Sara could honestly say that she didn't. "Thanks, Ronnie, I... I'm going to go now."

"Did you see Nick?" Ronnie inquired. "I'll be he'll flip to see you."

"I'll be back tomorrow, I'll see Nick and Warrick then."

Ronnie hesitated. "Warrick left."

Sara was incredulous. "He did? When?"

"A while ago," Ronnie told her. "About two years ago, I think."

"Why didn't Grissom tell me?"

Ronnie shrugged and she was timid again. "I don't really know the details, but I think he put in for a transfer to New York." She seemed to remember something. "Oh, but Brass is here! Except, he's on leave right now. Started it shortly after the funeral. I think he took it pretty hard. And Catherine's been picking up the slack, and what with all the reporters who want some exclusive or other on how she's going to run things, because she hasn't made her statement yet to the press. Ecklie keeps telling her to, but she keeps postponing it."

"What statement?" Sara asked.

"Catherine's taking over graveyard," Ronnie explained.

"Of course..." Sara murmured.

"Nick'll kill you if he finds out you were here and didn't say 'hi,'" Ronnie said again.

Sara yawned. "Well then, tell him I say 'hi' when you see him. I need to get some sleep." She began to walk away then stopped and looked back at Ronnie. "And... tell Greg that I'm sorry."

"For what?" Ronnie chirped.

"He'll know," Sara assured her. And then, she was gone again.