A/N: Well, its been a while! I have been suffering some severe writers block but I think I may have finally stumbled around it with this story. This was inspired by a wonderful book that I read called 'The 5 people you meet in Heaven' by Mitch Albom. It inspired me in ways I can't describe and awoke the creative in me... it also spurred this story which I hope you will all enjoy as much as I have. It is a little AU but mostly it is about romance and love and learning that everything does happen for a reason. Hope you enjoy, drop me a review :)
Charli xxx

Today is Sara's Birthday.

She is 43 years old.

Much too young, some would say, to be facing the end. She had so much more she should have done, so many unanswered questions, so many unachieved dreams. Maybe that was why it came as such a surprise to her, when it finally came.

It was, of course, a day like any other. She had wondered as she stared in the mirror if everyone felt the same overwhelming sense of emptiness on their birthdays. She genuinely couldn't remember a time when she had felt the excitement and anticipation of a birthday celebration. Certainly not one that hadn't ended in a crippling sense of disappointment.

She tugged at the corners of her eyes, tightening the skin momentarily in an effort to relive a moment of her youth. She hadn't aged badly, even she could see that. Time had been kind to her pale skin and her thick hair. It reflected in her eyes though, the age and the apparent wisdom that came with it. She saw such emptiness in the vast pools of darkness staring back at her. Either she was an incredible actress or the people around her were oblivious to the cloud that shadowed the light in her eyes.

Occasionally Greg would notice, in tiny moments of weakness when she let her guard down. She would notice him watching her with concern, the warmth in his soft hazel eyes embracing her like a hug. More often than not she would be able to shrug it off with a half-smile and an off the cuff comment about his dress sense or his hair but not always.

Sometimes he would see past her mask and turn up on her doorstep with a ridiculously cheesy movie and a bottle of wine insisting that he didn't feel like being alone when she knew, deep down, that the real reason behind his visit was that he didn't want her to be alone. She knew though, she knew that he was trying his best to keep her above the water, she knew that he was one of the only reasons she didn't drown.

That day was apparently one of those days. He was knocking at her door, somehow she always knew when it was him. Maybe he had a signature knock or they had some kind of psychic connection from knowing each other too long. She had never considered it and as she opened the door she figured she probably never would. It was one of those truths people just accepted in their lives, like knowing the different footsteps in your family home as a child or being able to tell exactly how long it took to get from home to work without ever timing it.

Greg stood on the threshold with a goofy smile, a paper bag between his teeth and a paper cup in each hand. She could already smell the coffee and the cinnamon muffin contained within his 'surprises' and without a word she took the hot cup and walked away, leaving him to follow her like he always did.

This had become a tradition of theirs. A birthday treat he always bestowed upon her although the words 'Happy Birthday' were strictly forbidden. Instead, Greg would place a single lonely candle on top of the muffin and gently light it as he placed it in the centre of the small glossy table. Sara would always sip her coffee leaning against the counter, she would let the flame burn the wax away to almost nothing before pursing her lips and relieving it of its short life.

She never said it out loud but she felt sorry for that candle, for its simple destiny. Its only purpose in life was to melt away to nothing, she saw some of herself in it. Her purpose in life seemed to be similar to that of the candle, she was simply melting away.

"Did you make a wish?" Greg smiled, watching her carefully.

Sara pondered his question carefully, she always wondered what people wished for on their birthdays. Every year she would smile and shrug as though her birthday wish was some great secret but every year she would just wish for peace. Peace within her life, peace within her soul, peace in all its forms.

Greg insisted on taking her to breakfast. It was odd in itself given that it was 5pm and most people were considering what to eat for their evening meal. She and Greg were creatures of the night, as the rest of the team were. They occupied that strange in-between place reserved for criminals and those who spent their lives trying to stop them.

Of course the joy of living in Vegas was, it never shut down. Had she been in a quiet little 9-5 town the idea of eating breakfast at 5pm would have been laughable. In Vegas, anything goes.

Sara dressed in a hurry, the presence of Greg in the other room bearing heavily on her mind. He wouldn't have minded waiting for her, she knew that to be fact but all the same she didnt intend to keep him waiting any longer than necessary. Within a few moments she was tossing her purse over her shoulder and asking him what was taking him so long with a sly smile.

Greg had brought the department issue Denali. They would go to work directly after their meal and therefore it made sense to be prepared for that. Sara climbed into the passenger seat, pretending she didn't notice the small smile of pride Greg always failed to suppress when she let him drive. She had been rather possessive of her position of control behind the wheel for a long time, it was something to do with the fact that her life often had the tendency to spiral out of control. When she could control other aspects of her life it made her feel less lost.

Greg had been 'allowed' to drive many times since she returned to Vegas but he still had that look of surprise when she slipped into the passenger seat. It probably meant a lot more to him than it did to her, usually it just meant that she was tired or had papers to go through on the journey. Today it had more to do with the sleeping pills she had taken the night before in an effort to stop her over-active mind from running over ridiculous things at the most inconvenient time.

But she would keep that one close to her chest. He worried about her, they all did and it made her uncomfortable. She wasn't used to having people fussing over her, she had spent most of her life being dispensable and invisible. Having so many people care so deeply about her was very new. If Greg even got a sniff of her taking sleeping pills again she would never hear the end of it...not after last time.

Sara shivered, the memory gripping her body before she was able to suppress it and she could see Greg eyeing her suspiciously as he drove. She knew better than to catch his eye, instead the outside world suddenly became incredibly interesting.

The passing neon of the city had never held much interest for her, she wasn't the type of person to fall in love with the chaos and uncertainty of Las Vegas. A part of her craved the serenity of the sea and yet she somehow always ended up back here, back where anything went and crime paid big bucks.

Greg pulled up outside a diner, one she wasn't familiar with which was unusual. They usually always ate at the same place, even after Franks was gone they found a new place to frequent and it became theirs. Not just her and Greg but the whole team, and the police officers and detectives they worked with.

Sara quirked a suspicious eyebrow in his direction. Greg was never good at hiding when he had something up his sleeve, he couldn't stop grinning and spent an inordinate amount of time checking for her reaction. He killed the engine and shrugged as he stumbled out of the truck and towards the door, holding it open for her with an over-dramatic flourish.

The team was there, every one of them congregated around a huge circular table in the centre of the room. Some of them had just come off shift, it showed in the bags under their eyes and the way they moved to greet her with so much lethargy in their limbs. Some were fresh faced and smiling, coming here on their day off to spend time with her. This was her family, a very unconventional family she would readily admit but a family nonetheless.

And she knew the ulterior motive behind their gathering. It wouldn't have happened a year ago, they would have assumed she had plans, they would have wished her happy birthday in passing like they always did. This year they were making the effort, they were looking after her and hoping she never sunk into the darkness again. What they didn't understand was that the darkness was where she always was, only occasionally would she see a little bit of light.

Breakfast passed with lots of smiles and laughter, she liked when they were all together. She liked the way the conversation flowed so freely and she didn't feel like the odd one out. She felt a part of something and that didnt happen very often for her. A lot of the time she felt somehow detached from life, she didn't participate in the whole dating game, she didn't spend her evenings drinking in a bar or gambling in a casino, she didn't have a network of friends outside of work. Work was her social life and people still wondered why she took so much overtime.

It ended too soon, as was often the case. Soon everyone had to get back to their families, their lives or in her case work. She and Greg had barely sat down in the truck when his cellphone chimed and he rolled his eyes as if to say 'Here we go'

He didn't tell her right away, simply hung up the phone and pulled out of the parking lot and along the highway until they were clear of traffic and on a straight road.

"We got a DB out in the middle of the highway" He explained "Probably a body drop"

Sara nodded, it was very likely. Bodies don't often find their way onto the highway on their own, she saw it so many times when people lost their nerve and dumped the body from a moving car assuming that there would be no way to find out who done it.

In actual fact it was a good place to dump a body from an investigators point of view. The highway was well covered with CCTV, there was usually a number of witnesses and the haste of the driver to pull away often left great tyre impressions on the scene.

Normally, Sara would feel a deep sense of calm approaching a scene. She entered a strange meditative state as she scanned the immediate surroundings. Once upon a time it had been known as the 'Grissom look' although that phrase was now somewhat redundant. Most of the team she worked with now had never met him.

This scene didn't create a sense of calm. There was something so off about it that it made her feel uneasy right away. She couldn't quite put her finger on the source of her uneasiness but it settled in her stomach and made all the hairs on her arms stand on end as her heels clicked on the tarmac and the lights on the police cars highlighted the lowering dusk.

She didn't get the chance to figure out what was off about it. It all ended before she did, all she could remember was the look of concern and confusion from the police officer at the scene before it happened. She couldn't even remember who the police officer was, he had no real impact on the situation except to point beyond her left shoulder.

She had spun on her heel, her whole body alert and alive and she had saw the bullets flying through the air, she had felt the impact of Greg's body as she braced against him and the last thing she could remember was his voice, calling her name as a searing pain thrust through her body before she was engulfed in light.

P.S Huge thanks need to go out to Otie1983, CSIJenniferLyn and DearSweetPapercut for their input, help and generally for putting up with me ;) *mwah*