A/N: Hey guys, hope you're all well! So, a new story for me, from a new account. I hope to update this if not twice, but at least once a week. I do have the next few chapters done, but have not fully decided where this story is going to go, but I have an idea. We shall see!

Anyway, I do hope you enjoy, and if you do (or don't), please do let me know by sending a little review, I would really appreciate it.

This is just a little beginning, to ease us into the angst that will come. There are a few clues in this prologue for what is to come, so put on those CSI brains and see if you can get any.

Now, let's saddle up and ride out!

xxx

PROLOGUE

All it took was one night, for everying to change in Sara Sidle's life. Just one night, changed the course of her life, forever.

She was lucky to be alive, she knew that, and she would be thankful about that for the rest of her life.

But because of that night, because of Natalie, she had lost everything that she had dreamed of.

For the first few days after her attack, she had been confined to her hospital bed, so highly medicated she could barely remember it, but she knew Grissom had never left her side. He had been so close to her for those days, as if he feared he would never see her again.

In a way, it was true. He never did see the same Sara again. She was just a shadow of her former self.

Once she was released from hospital, even though she would be lying in bed next to him, Grissom had never felt further apart from the woman he loved with his entire heart. It pained him to know she was struggling with what this monster had done to her. It was eating him up to know that he was the cause for her pain. Natalie had done this to get back at him, for causing the death of her step-father. It was all his fault.

Despite his self-loathing, he knew he had to be patient. He could not force Sara into talking to him, he would have to wait until she was ready. It had to be on her terms.

Of course, there were times when he felt angry that she couldn't open up to him. But he was more angry with himself, angry that he was not able to support her fully, because he did not know exactly what she was feeling. The moments when he would catch her, with her arms wrapped tightly around her frail body, he knew that she was doing everything in her power to hold herself together. She held so tight, that she feared if she were to loosen her grip, she would crack.

She thought work would help, and for a while, it did. Mainly because she did not have to face Grissom every moment of the day, she did not have to try and pretend that she was okay.

She knew she couldn't allow him to know just how badly this had affected her. She couldn't tell him exactly how much of herself she had lost that night. And she could not tell him about the messages she had started to recieve only days later.

She soon felt she was drowning in her own world, like there was too much that she could not keep up with. All she wanted to do was to scream for help, but she struggled to breathe.

Her whole life had crumbled down around her, and she knew that she was losing the man she loved, and that it was her fault.

Escape was the only solution she could come to. Maybe it was the cowards way out, but it was the only hope she clung to, that it may be possible for her to escape the demons that haunted her in Las Vegas. She needed to do it alone. She couldn't make Grissom leave the lab, and even more so, she didn't want to involve him in the frantic game of hide and seek she seemed to have been forced into playing.

With one painful last kiss, Sara turned and walked away from the only man she ever loved. He had seen the pain in those chocolate brown eyes of hers, but he did not follow, a decision he would regret for the rest of his life. Maybe if he had followed her, she would have never left him.

Maybe if he had followed her, she wouldn't be in the trouble she was in now.

xxx

A/N: So there we have it, the beginning of a bumpy ride. Drop a lil' review to let me know what you think, I would really appreciate it.