Title: The Dark Inside the Night

Pairing: Sara/Grissom

Spoilers: Everything so far in season four

Rating: PG, Serious angst, Tissue warning.

Disclaimer: Not mine.

Archive: At my site, , Fanfiction.net. Anywhere else, please ask. 

Summary: I hear your hopes, I feel your dreams…

Author's Notes: For the LiveJournal CSReports  "Letting Go" challenge. Companion to "Alone You Breathe" and twice as angsty. Title comes from the Savatage song "Alone You Breathe"

***

You are a fool Gil Grissom.

If things were different, you'd be giving me that look of yours, the one that says I'm wrong. Of course, if things were different, I wouldn't be lying on that slab in front of you, able to hear every thought that's going through your head.

Are you listening to you?

That's why you're a fool. Because you're realising all that now, when it's too late for us. You know how much I wanted to hear you say those things. I would have-

Huh.

I was going to say I would have died to hear those words.

Guess I was right about that.

I was right about a lot of things, but wrong on others. In the interests of fairness, I guess I should tell you that this whole thing is as much my fault as yours. Not just the drinking, or the drinking and driving. The whole situation. I know you, know what you're like, how you think. I should have gone to you sooner, told you how I felt, forced you to deal with it. I didn't do that, and I'm sorry about that now. See, I was too afraid of losing you, thought that the way things were was preferable to what could be, what might be.

I think that's the biggest mistake I ever made.

Grissom, there are so many things that I want to do differently.

Except that it's too late now. I have to go, and I have to let you go, and I'm scared. Not for me. But because I know you, and I know how this is going to affect you. Don't do what I did Grissom… don't bottle it all up. Let people help you. They're only doing it because they love you.

I know that now. I just figured it out a little too late.

Here comes the first of them now, looking a hell of a lot more rumpled than he normally does.

"Gil… it's time to go now."

I smile, because I knew it would be you. Hey Brass.

"I can't."

I've never heard him sound like that, Brass, and I don't like it. I know you don't either, because you look even more worried than you did when you first walked in here. You'll take care of him for me, won't you? You won't let anything happen to him?

You go over to him, laying a hand on his shoulder. "Gil, this won't do any good… you need to let her go."

And I need to let you go too, both of you, even though I wish I could stay. Because they're telling me that I've overstayed my time, and they're looking for me…

I wish I could tell you both that you don't need to feel guilty, that there was nothing you could have done.

I wish I could tell you that I love you both.

I wish I could tell you goodbye.

Instead, I just let go.