Spoilers: Up to 8x07 I guess.

A/N: After watching last night's episode (8x05) and seeing the piss poor job the writers are doing to set up Sara's departure, I felt the need to write it out myself so that Sara's leaving can make some sort of sense in my own head. I guess this is a kind of prequel to my last fic, Sandcastles.

A/N 2: Usually I'd like to sit on a story for a day, then look over it again to catch any mistakes or make a few changes, however tomorrow we're suppose to get the remnants of that hurricane and the power will probably be out most of the day and I don't feel like waiting. So I apologize for all mistakes. Feel free to review. I encourage all comments.

Nightmares

Eyes popping open, Sara sat up in bed. She shivered as her sweat-slicked skin made contact with the cool air-conditioned air. It was just another nightmare. Still gasping for air, she tried to calm her frantically beating heart. It was just a nightmare. Once again she mentally thanked Ecklie for forcing her to switch shifts. Every night it seemed, the dreams came, and she was glad that Grissom wasn't here to see them. He would just worry about her. In the silence of the room, she could now hear the rain beating on the window. Sara wondered if it was the rain that had caused her subconscious to take her back under that car. Or not, she mused, since rain or shine, the dreams kept coming anyway. Every night it was another horror scene. She rolled over and curled herself in to a ball and thought of the past few months.

Sara hadn't told anyone about her difficulties sleeping. She was sure the shrink she was forced to see knew, but then nightmares are common, so that wasn't much of a guess. She was pretty sure Grissom had an idea that she wasn't sleeping either. Sometimes when he got home and found her sitting up, reading or sometimes just staring out the window, he would offer to make her some tea; to draw her a bath; to rub her feet; anything to help her relax. And as he sat there rubbing her feet he would suggest oh-so-casually that maybe she needed more sleep.

At first she tried. She really did. The first few nights were hard, but she told herself that it was just because her body was still adjusting to the different work hours. After a few weeks, with very little sleep Sara accepted that her insomnia was back. Then, after staying awake for 72 hours and being forced to go home by her new supervisor, Sara finally admitted to herself that she was afraid to go to sleep. Sleep had become the enemy that she couldn't avoid. Still, you can't stay awake forever and Sara accepted that from now on she'd only get a few hours of sleep a night before the visions in her head forced her awake. At least I'm still alive, she'd tell herself. That was her new mantra.

Then there was the job. Stress had always been a large part of the work. She was used to seeing people on the worst day of their lives, seeing the end of love, the end of life on a daily basis. But now it was different. Vegas was only getting worse, no matter how hard she fought for the victims, they were outnumbering her and she couldn't keep up. No one cared anymore, in this town, and she was slowly losing her ability to connect with the victims or her job.

The new girl was being difficult too. She was an excited puppy who trailed after Sara silently begging for praise. Her cheerfulness was grating on Sara's already frayed nerves. She missed Greg and Nick and Warrick and mostly she missed working with Grissom. When Sara worked with Grissom, she didn't have to explain her thought process, he somehow just knew where her mind was heading. And Grissom was quiet. With Ronnie, she had to explain every little detail, every step of the way. It was draining.

But she was proud of herself. She went to work, smiled everyday, joked around with the guys, and everyone seemed content that Sara was back to her old self. Who knew she was such a good actor? The thought made her smile. After years of everyone being able to read her emotions just by looking at her, she was glad that she was able to hide her growing discomfort.

Mostly what she wanted to do was forget the Natalie even existed. If Natalie didn't exist then in Sara's mind it meant that maybe her life hadn't just been royally fucked over. Maybe everything could stay the same. Maybe people would stop treating her like something made of glass-ready to break at any moment. Grissom had tried to talk to her about her time in the desert, concern clouding his blue eyes, but she pushed her feelings away, ignoring them. He was so happy that she was alive that she didn't want to burst his bubble or hers for that matter.

Denial is what the shrink called it, but Sara didn't think it was. Was it really denial if she just didn't want to talk about it with everyone? She wasn't denying that it happened after all. Sara couldn't figure out the point of rehashing the ordeal. It wasn't going to change what had happened, wasn't going to change the outcome of her life now. 'What's done is done,' her mother always used to say. She also used to say 'you can't go back change the past no matter how much you may want to.' But maybe, Sara reasoned, she shouldn't be listening to decades old advice from a woman who murdered someone. No, talking it out was pointless. No one really understood anyway. They hadn't been there. Talking just brought on pity and she couldn't stand the idea of Grissom or her friends looking at her with pity in their eyes.

She remembered after her mother killed her father, how she began to think of herself as two separate people: the before Sara and the after Sara. The before Sara had a home. Even if it wasn't the best home, she had had one. And parents. But the after Sara spent the next fives years being bounced from home to home being forced to live with strangers. She could feel that same detachment starting again. The before Natalie Sara who had this amazing, fulfilling, happy life and the after Natalie Sara that couldn't sleep, couldn't talk, couldn't breath. Every night the walls closed in on her a little tighter.

The worst of it was the anger. Sara always felt her anger simmering just below the surface these days. The anger turned to lead in her stomach and prevented her from eating. Every time Grissom looked at her, concerned, she felt her anger toward Natalie grow. Natalie was causing Grissom pain. She was angry that her life had been so brutally disrupted without her consent. It was her life-she should have had some say in it. This was something she had no control over. Natalie had no right to interfere with her life. And it wasn't fucking fair. Sara didn't want to be the victim again and it just made the anger worse.

Like the insomnia, Sara was becoming an expert at hiding the anger. What she really wanted to do was yell and scream and fight and kick something, hard. Yelling and screaming were out of the question. Her neighbours would probably call the cops if they heard her. Going to the gym was a good outlet. Once she got the cast off her arm she started using the punching bags more, trying to work out all the aggression. She spent the hours she should have been sleeping on the treadmill trying to run from her problems but literally getting nowhere. Control yourself, Sara, she's say in her head as she ran another mile, control yourself; whatever you do, don't take it out your friends. It's not their fault.

She would lie alone in bed every night, wishing for sleep to come, so that she could escape life for a few more hours. But every time her eyes shut, she felt the anxiety return and she had to open them just to make sure she wasn't still in the car's trunk. Trapped. She missed having Grissom by her side. The dog was a poor substitute.

It just wasn't fair. That thought popped into her head ten times a day. Stop it, her mind screamed at her. Life isn't fair. Everyday you see people to whom life was not fair. One morning she woke up after a few hours sleep and realized that she didn't want to go to work. The next morning the same thing happened. So Sara asked for a few days off. She could tell that Grissom was starting to worry. Every morning after shift he'd bring home breakfast and watch as she ate it.

Those few hours she spent with Grissom were becoming the highlight of her day. Her safe haven, her life line. It was the only part of her day where she felt normal. She could relax and let the stress and anger melt away, knowing that Grissom just wanted her to be herself. They would watch TV; talk or read, curled up together on the couch. Sometimes they'd lie in bed together for hours. In the afternoon, they took the dog for a walk, enjoying the sunshine and fresh air and each other. It was then that her smiles were real and her laugh was happy. She was glad that he didn't push her to talk.

Until one morning when he came home early and found her curled up in a chair crying-sobbing her heart out. That was the moment his uneasy 'Sara's alive' bubble burst. Fear overtook him and he crossed the room and kneeled down in front of her.

"Sara." He said quietly. He lovingly reached up to wipe away her tears. "What's wrong?"

"I don't think I can do this anymore Gil."

The fear clenched at his heart. He managed to choke out "Can't do what anymore? Sara?" Please, he thought, let it not be us. He didn't think he could handle losing her now. He had felt her pulling away ever since she came home from the hospital, but he never questioned her love for him. Not even when he waited those nerve-racking moments for her answer after he proposed.

"This." She waved her hand around. "My job. My life. Everything is so messed up. I feel like I don't know who I am anymore." A few more tears rolled down her cheeks and over Grissom's fingers. His heart broke, knowing that whatever Sara was saying, he'd have to accept it. "I feel lost."

Grissom's mind raced, searching for the right thing to say, the right quote to make her feel normal again but came up blank. "Oh Sara." He pulled her into his arms and she came willingly, which he took as a good sign. "You're not lost. You're here with me."

"I'm not though." Her voice was muffled by his shirt. "I'm not anywhere."

"Is it us? Me?" He felt ridiculous asking when she was so upset, but he had to know.

She lifted her head from his chest and gave him a ghost of a smile. "No. You're the only thing that makes sense."

He breathed a sigh of relief. He was willing to face anything, as long as it meant that Sara was still going to be his. "Maybe you should take a leave of absence? Recharge your batteries. Get away from Vegas."

"Maybe I should quit. I think I need a break."

That gave him pause. Sara loved her job more then anyone he'd ever met, and if she was even thinking about leaving permanently, that meant that something was seriously wrong; this wasn't just stress. He hugged her tighter, willing her to feel better, knowing it wouldn't help.

"Ok." He whispered.