It didn't take a genius to figure out exactly who Catherine was talking to. His presence, after all, was filling the room long before she turned to look at him. He didn't wear cologne, no, but by now Sara was all but an expert on the subtle scents and sounds of Gil Grissom. The shampoo he used, and the soap that frequently slipped between their hands under the hot spray of his shower as her fingers glided along the slick skin of his back. The same laundry detergent he'd used for years—the one she'd briefly considered adopting years ago, long before the night they finally gave in. Now it was the detergent she had to avoid, lest one of her sharp-minded coworkers start to get ideas, but she knew it anyway. And it was hard to mistake his footsteps for anyone else's, or the way he leaned cautiously against the doorway before entering fully.

Sara wanted to follow Catherine and Wendy to wherever it was that they were going. For once in her life, she didn't want to be alone in a dark room with this man. Because the whole lab had been talking. She'd heard the rumors before, of course, of the strange Dr. Grissom and his thing for the sultry but dangerous dominatrix, but that was before...well, just before. Things were different now, or so she'd thought. She hadn't expected one of the lab techs whose name she didn't really remember to stop her in the hallway and gleefully ask her for all the gruesome details. She hadn't expected to have to freeze her face into disinterest, to have to give the busybody a brittle scowl and have to pretend not to know, or care, what Gil liked in the bedroom or who he liked to do it with.

The silence was heavy, and it felt oppressive in the way that only a secret could evoke. They'd made a promise to each other to be professional in the lab, however, and so she kept her face blank. "We may have a suspect." She was pleased to hear the coolness that she'd kept in her voice. The longer she could pretend not to be hurt by the gossip, the longer she could convince herself that she was actually okay with it. They'd never said anything to each other about monogamy, after all, so she shouldn't really be this upset.

She busied herself with the evidence before her, stacking and piling it neatly. It was second nature to go over the images again and again, but tonight there was an added level to it. She had to look away from him, because if she didn't, she knew her mind would start to conjure up images that she didn't want to see. That woman. This man.

"I'm the only one Heather trusts."

"I get it." Oh, and did she ever. Someone would have to have been a real idiot not to see the appeal of Lady Heather. Hell, even Sara had to agree that Heather Kessler was attractive. She was self-assured and confident in a way that Sara knew she had always lacked, and the woman oozed sexuality in a way that could turn anyone's head. Lady Heather was not someone who looked for validation from inappropriate places—or at all, even. Sara understood his reasons for going to her, but that certainly didn't lessen the sting. She wanted to ask him why he was standing there looking at her with that concerned, wounded expression on his face. He had no right to be so bewildered. Even she understood what this meant for the two of them—surely a man more adept at mental chess than she could figure it out as well.

And it was fine. If he needed to go to women like Lady Heather once in a while, then so be it.

"Sara." It wasn't just his expression that was wounded. The sound of his voice in the stillness that surrounded them made her knees wobble, but not in that dizzying, butterflies-in-the-stomach way that she was used to. The walls were closing in, and she needed to get out before something awful happened.

"Yeah?" Her voice sounded weak. Maybe this wasn't just a one-time thing. Maybe he was here to tell her that he was leaving her for the other woman, the better woman. It wouldn't be entirely unexpected, after all.

But he couldn't speak. Hell, he couldn't even look at her. If she hadn't been completely certain before, she was now.

"It's fine," she said, grateful that the only emotion in her voice sounded like gentle resignation. Because it was fine, for now. She attempted a smile, but felt it fall flat almost immediately. "Do what you need to do." This was what a bigger woman would do, right? Understand that she wasn't giving him everything that he needed, and grant him permission to seek it elsewhere? It felt like she was smiling again, but she couldn't be sure.

It was all she could do to keep from running from the room. She had to get out of there before she started choking, but she wouldn't let him see her run. The number one rule of survival, she had learned, was that you never let the other person see you were hurting. The slightest hint of weakness made you that much more vulnerable, and you were likely to get jumped. The fact that Grissom would never lay a finger on her didn't change the fact that he was an expert at breaking her heart, and she was getting tired of it.

When the case was over and the dawn was breaking, Sara slipped into the locker room to gather her things, and then left the lab without bidding any of her teammates goodbye. The whole building still seemed to be abuzz with whispers of Grissom's exploits, and if she had to listen to Catherine keep blathering on about how good it was that Grissom wasn't "fishing from the company pier", she might have screamed.

She unlocked the door to her empty apartment and tried not to remember the last time she'd spent any significant amount of time in the room by herself. She'd begun spending most of her time at Grissom's townhouse, despite the fact that he supposedly disliked guests. After all, someone had to take care of Hank when Grissom was pulling his customary double and triples, and they'd come to a nonverbal agreement of sorts that Sara would just hang around there, rather than make short trips every now and again. But tonight she needed to be somewhere that was hers. Grissom's townhouse was big and beautiful, but every corner spoke of the man himself. She couldn't handle that tonight.

Looking for something to do with her hands, Sara put on a kettle of water to boil for tea (which she would then forget and leave to grow cold and bitter on her desk) and wrapped herself up in a blanket on the couch. She was not broken. It would take a lot more than this to break her. Even their relationship, assuming he was still interested in maintaining one, would survive this. Because the truth was, as pathetic as it sounded, she had waited too long and fought for too hard to give Gil Grissom up without a fight. She just needed some time to recover from the blow, was all.

By the time Gil left Heather (and Jerome and Allison), it was approaching noon. Watching the way her hesitant smile had slowly given way to a beaming happiness had given him a second wind, but that was fading fast, and so was he. He wanted nothing more than to go home and stretch out in bed alongside Sara, who was most certainly—

But then a pang of guilt struck him as he remembered their last conversation. She had been so closed off there in that tiny room, so quiet compared to the Sara he'd come to know in their private time. She was hurt. Anyone could see that, and every part of his body had been screaming for him to take her in his arms and explain that nothing had happened at Heather's, but he'd stood frozen. He had been more worried about keeping the rest of the lab from finding out about the two of them than he'd been about the woman he loved. Stupid.

He climbed into the seat of his car and tried not to dwell on the broken smile she'd given him before she'd fled the room. She would not be at home. He knew that as surely as he knew the breeding habits of the triatoma infestans. He didn't even bother to stop in—just drove straight to her apartment. She might not let him in, but he had to give it a try anyway, to make up for his inaction in the lab earlier.

He knocked, then waited, but she didn't answer, so finally he grew impatient and dug out his keyring looking for the spare that she'd given him a long time ago. The apartment was much the way he remembered it: small and tidy with rich colors that comforted the senses. Until he'd set foot in her place, he'd always preferred the clean look of crisp blues and grays, but like most things about her, Sara's apartment changed his mind.

She was here. She'd kicked her shoes off by the door and dropped her purse on the little breakfast bar in her kitchen, and, as his eyes adjusted to the darkness in the room, he could see that the blankets on her bed were rumpled. He toed his own shoes off and nudged them into a straight line after closing and locking the door behind him, and then crept over to her bed. Sure enough, there she was, cocooned in every single blanket she owned. He smiled despite himself. She did that in his bed too.

Grissom knew that she probably wouldn't appreciate him intruding into her private space like this, but he also knew that if he didn't, she'd keep shutting him out until he had no other choice. So he knelt on her bed and leaned over to smooth her hair away from her face. She was not, apparently, quite as sound asleep as he'd thought, because as soon as his fingers touched her skin, she startled awake. Her fists flew towards him with surprising accuracy, given the fact that she had yet to even open her eyes, and he would have taken a blow straight to the chin if he hadn't grabbed her wrist. Not that he wouldn't have deserved it.

"Let me go," she ordered. "Get out of here. I have a weapon."

"It's just me. You're okay." He didn't let go of her wrist, though he did loosen his grip somewhat, and brought her knuckles up to press his lips against them. He felt some of the fight drain from her muscles.

"What do you want, Grissom?" She wasn't panicked anymore, just tired. No, more than that. Weary.

"I wanted to see you." Surely he didn't need more of a reason than that. They'd been together long enough for her to know that, hadn't they? "I wanted to touch you. I know you're upset, but you have to know that nothing happened last night."

He reached for her again, but she pulled away from him. "How would I know that?" She asked. Like their last conversation, he could tell that she was making every effort to metaphorically distance herself from him. He wasn't sure whether it was because he knew her so well by now or just because she was too tired to do a very good job at hiding, but there was even more pain in her voice now than there had been before. It was only just now that he was realizing how very big a mistake he had made. "You didn't call me. You didn't even text me. I had no idea where you were last night, but I figured you were out working on a cold case or something, which is fine, okay? It's not like I need to know where you are every second of every day. You know that." Keeping the blankets wrapped firmly around her body, she scooted around him and off of the bed. He let her go. "But then I walked into the lab at the start of my shift and heard from someone I'd never seen before that you had spent the night with Las Vegas's hottest dominatrix." She shook her head.

"I spent the night with a friend," he corrected. "Sara, I spent the night talking to a very good friend who I feared was a danger to herself." She shrugged and went over to her dresser. "What are you doing?"

"Getting dressed. I feel stupid enough without arguing with you while I'm standing here in my underwear."

The thrill that ran through him at the realization that she was next to naked under those blankets was doubly inappropriate, given the number of times that he'd already seen her nude and the fact that they were apparently fighting. "You're not stupid."

The words fell on deaf ears as she retreated from him once again, this time into the privacy of her bathroom. When she re-emerged, he discovered that she was wearing one of his shirts that had disappeared from his hamper not too long ago. He arched an eyebrow at her, but she just shrugged. Still, if she was wearing his clothes, at least that meant there was probably still hope for the two of them. He didn't allow himself to get distracted by the sight of her standing there with his sleeves covering her hand, or by wondering which underwear she'd been wearing-if it was a pair he'd already seen, or something new. He was here for a purpose.

He stood up.

"Do you want some tea? Coffee?" She still wouldn't look at him as she turned to busy her hands in her kitchen. "The milk's probably bad by now, but I should have a little bit of orange juice left."

"Sara."

She didn't turn around, not even when he said her name a second time, and so he went to her. He stood behind her as she measured out heaping spoonfuls of coffee grounds and put his hands on her hips. Her skin felt warm even through the cool fabric of his shirt. "How can you think that I would hurt you like that?"

"It's not exactly a new experience for me, is it?" Something told him the words hadn't exactly been intended for him to hear, but they stung him anyway. He remembered hearing about the paramedic that Sara had been dating, and about his other girlfriend, and sighed.

"We're not all like Hank, you know. Some men—hell, Sara, most men—are actually faithful to the women they care about." He lowered his lips to the top of her head.

"You can't be serious." She squirmed out of his grasp and only turned to look at him once she was safely out of his reach. "I'm not talking about Hank, Griss. I don't even care about Hank anymore. Oh my god." She laughed, but there was no humor in the sound. "I'm talking about you. I was used to your awkward little rejections before we finally got together, and I'd accepted them, because I knew I didn't really have a chance, but I didn't expect something like this. And I'll get over it, okay? I'm not going to throw all this away because you needed to go to someone like Lady Heather, but I just need a little bit of time to get used to the idea. I'll give you whatever you want, just...give me some time." She looked at him, really looked at him, for what seemed like the first time in a long time, and he could see unshed tears glittering in her eyes before she blinked them away.

It hit him then. She had spent all this time believing that she wasn't enough for him, that he had gone to Heather's place to get something that he wasn't getting from her. She was hurt, but not just because she thought he was sleeping around—she honestly thought that she was lacking something for him. But instead of feeling angry and betrayed by his perceived unfaithfulness, she was telling him that she would accept it?

"Sara, no..." He couldn't even find the words. Even knowing that she needed space, he stepped forward. His fingers were aching to touch her, hell, his whole body was aching for her in general, because once again he had hurt her and made her think she wasn't good enough. He reached for her, followed her as she stepped backwards away from him until she was pressed against the counter and he was wrapping his arms around her. "That's not what this is about."

She fought him for a moment, stiffening in his arms and turning her head away from his lips, but he couldn't stop. He had to make her understand. He had to erase this pain from her. He wouldn't let it last one second longer. "Nothing like that happened. I saw that a friend was hurting, and I wanted to help her. Whoever you talked to at the lab was an idiot. When it comes to us, Sara, they're all idiots. You know that." He pulled away to cup her face in both of his hands so she couldn't look away. "You are all I need. You're all I'm ever going to need. I'm sorry that I never made that clear enough, but I am never, never going to hurt you again, not if I can help it." He pressed his lips to her forehead, fighting against his own stoic nature in order to find the words that he knew she needed to hear. "I love you, Sara, madly and illogically and with all that I am, and if you ever think that there is something you can't give me...you're wrong. You are perfect. I don't want anyone else."

The coffee pot was dripping and sizzling behind them, and somewhere else in the building, a dog was barking like it had gone crazy, but Grissom didn't hear any of it. He was too busy watching Sara's face for any indication that he was forgiven, that she finally understood what she meant. Anything. Her eyes focused on his and he felt himself smiling despite his jangling nerves.

"Did you just say—" She was still skeptical. Maybe he couldn't blame her, but he also couldn't keep himself from chuckling.

"I did."

And then she moved forward to kiss him, her hands moving from clutching the counter behind her to wrap around his waist and pull him even closer. Coffee forgotten, he pulled her back over to her bed and worked the buttons on his stolen shirt, and spent the rest of the afternoon proving to her just how ardently he'd meant what he'd said.