A Broken Heart

One-Shot

Author: Lolly4Holly

Pairings: GSR - Gilbert Grissom and Sara Sidle. Minor Wedges - Hodges and Wendy.

Contains: Heart Break. Scenes from Season 8 Episode 4 - The Case of the Cross Dressing Carp. Season 8 Episode 7 - Goodbye and Good luck. Season 8 Episode 8 - You Kill me. Spoilers if you haven't seen them, but you most likely have if you know the GSR story.

Summary: A broken hearted Grissom tries to distract himself from the life he so desperately wants with a life he has always lived.

Author's Note: My own take on Gil Grissom's heart break after Sara left him during season 8. Just a quick one shot made out of a few of my favourite episodes. Hope you enjoy reading it. Please review if you did.

~ Holly

Graveyard Shift supervisor, Gilbert Grissom breathed in the familiar scent of the lab, walking in the direction of his office. Less than a week ago, Sara Sidle had left him a hand written letter, explaining her reasons for leaving him. It was no secret that the two of them were in a relationship anymore. The cat came out of the bag the moment he unintentionally told his entire team that the Miniature Killer, Natalie held him personally responsible for taking away the only person she had ever truly loved. Her foster father, Ernie Dell.

To punish him for this, she planned on doing the same to him by taking away the only person he had ever truly loved, crime scene investigator, Sara Sidle.

Natalie certainly had the right idea when she chose her out of everyone else on the CSI team. She may have been a little crazy, but she could see the connection that they had from a distance, while the supposed crime scene investigators they worked with everyday, trained to notice things exactly like this, had no idea.

"Hey, Gil." Captain, Jim Brass caught up to him in the hallway. "I heard you were looking for me earlier. Are you just getting off shift?" He glanced at his watch.

"Yeah." Grissom tried to think back to the reason why he even needed him. "Oh, Conrad. Ecklie, he's been on at me to finish the monthly stats, so I need a list of all the lab call outs from dispatch as soon as you can." He turned to walk away, but he could hear the man's footsteps behind him.

"You'll have it by the end of shift tomorrow. Hey, Gil." He caught up to him. "You've been pulling a lot of doubles this week." He pointed out to him. "I hope you're not overdoing it since your dearly beloved... flew the coop."

"Work is all I have at the moment." He tried to leave again.

"Have you been in touch with Sara... since she...?"

Grissom wanted to say that he didn't think it was any of his business, but he gave the man a slight nod. "We talked." He lied, quickly making up another lie. "She's in San Francisco, visiting her mother."

"That's nice. But, where's she at... you know, emotionally?" The man pried further. He was so relieved when he first found out about the secret relationship between the two of them, especially after she was returned safely to him from the clutches of that psycho. But he felt so heartbroken for his long time friend when it all came crashing down around him just a few months later. Out of everyone here at the lab, he thought that Grissom deserved a little happiness more than any of them. "Things are never what they seem, are they? With respect to the two of you, where's she at?"

"I can't speak for her." He turned to walk away, but the footsteps followed him again.

"So speak for yourself."

"I can't talk. I'm really busy." Grissom lied for a third time, continuing on down the hallway. He didn't hear the footsteps this time, but he felt the pounding of his broken heart again.

A few months before Sara's abduction, he finally managed to get up the courage to propose to her. It wasn't exactly how he had been planning in it his head for all these years that he had been in love with her, but she accepted his proposal none the less. He could still picture it as though it was yesterday, wondering if there was something different he could have said or done to make her want to stay.

He was standing at the work table wearing coveralls and a bee keepers mask, when he spotted someone making their way towards him. He immediately smiled at the sight of his one true love, smirking, "Oh, I love it when you dress up."

She gave out an infectious laugh, joining him to ask how his study on the bees was going. After a brief explanation on his findings, he assured her that they wouldn't sting, convincing her to remove a glove. Like magic, a bee landed on the back of her hand, gently walking across her skin as he continued to explain.

Then he asked her to marry him, more of a suggestion than a question, but he thought it went pretty well, until the bee stung her.

"I'm sorry." He quickly used the smoker to calm the bees, before he pulled out his pocketknife to scrape the sting from the woman's hand. "So, uh..." He wasn't sure that she heard him right during the confusion. "What do you think, you know, about..."

"Yes. Let's do it." The woman answered, without a doubt in her mind.

Returning to his office, Gil dug out the letter she had left him with, brushing his thumb across his name in her hand writing. He felt his chest pounding heavily as he opened it up once again, feeling a tear threatening to spill as he read the first line.

'Gil, you know I love you. I feel I've loved you forever.'

He wished that it would stop there, but he read through the pain she had gone through, feeling goose bumps tingling down his arms, knowing he should have been there for her during all of this. She was so afraid she was going to self destruct and she didn't want to be anywhere near him when it happened. She loved him so much that she felt as though she had to protect him from that part of herself, but she had no idea how much that hurt him to read.

'I have no idea where I'm going, but I know I have to do this. If I don't, I'm afraid I'll self destruct, and worse, you'll be there to see it happen.'

The man brushed his hand across his cheek, wishing she would have said these things to him, rather than leaving it for him to read once she was gone. He tried to find her. He tried everything he could think of. You'd think after years of experience working missing persons cases, he'd know exactly where to start, especially with a missing loved one, but he had no idea.

'Know that you are my one and only. I will miss you with every beat of my heart. Our life together was the only home I've ever really had. I wouldn't trade it for anything. I love you. I always will. Good bye.'

He crumpled the edge of her letter in his palm, feeling a whole range of emotions coursing through him. He felt as though he wanted to hit something. He had always been able to contain his emotions, but Sara made him feel more alive than ever before. He felt as though he didn't even exist until she came along. He felt as though he didn't deserve her, but she was the one who set him free. She was the one who made him feel. He never believed that he would ever find love, especially not in his chosen career path, but there she was.

The most beautiful woman he had ever had the pleasure of knowing.

And he had lost her.

Getting up from his desk, Grissom grabbed his empty coffee mug, making his way towards the break room to refill it. He paused at the glass doorway, spotting lab technician, David Hodges sat alone at the table, holding a game piece in his hands. He appeared to be talking to himself, but with the door closed, the room was completely sound proof.

"Night, Greg." He spotted his youngest CSI trudging down the hallway after a long shift.

"Yeah, whatever." The younger man grunted, sighing as he made his way into the locker room. He thought he would be happy that he closed his case with a few minutes of his shift to spare, but there was clearly something bugging him.

It seemed like misery loved company in this place.

Pushing the door to the break room open a little, Grissom stood and watched the lab tech playing with his board game pieces, ease dropping on his conversation between them. "Oh Hodges, I'm so sorry." Hodges spoke in a high pitched tone. "It's just that I'm jealous of your intellect."

Grissom frowned at the man, watching as he moved one of the game pieces over to a glass of water.

"But Wendy," He spoke normally this time, looking the figure in the eyes. "You have so much to live for. Don't do it. You're too close to the edge." He made the figure dance around the edge of the glass for a moment, before he dropped the game piece into the water.

"Oh, now I'm drowning!" He screeched in a high pitched tone. "Oh, God! Oh, God. Help. Help me. Help me. Please. Isn't there a big strong handsome man to save me?"

Grissom took a step forwards, finally alerting the man's attention to his presence. Instead of asking him what the hell he was doing, he decided to just stare at him for a moment.

"What are you doing?" He finally asked.

Hodges glanced down at the figure floating in the water, quickly straightening up from the table. "Oh... uh," He snatched up the piece from the water, diverting his supervisor's attention towards the board game on the table. "I was... uh... I was just trying to develop a board game. Testing. Making a few tweaks, before I put it in for production."

Taking a few steps further into the room, Grissom glanced down at the board game mat that looked surprisingly like their lab. "It's..."

"Based on our lab." Hodges finished his sentence, snatching up the other little characters, before the man got a look at them. "But not in any legal action sense. The labs on this floor are basically in the same place, but it doesn't give away too much. How the game works is you get evidence, scenarios, analysis. The players have to try and solve the murders." He held up one of the characters to the man. "Completely made up, of course. I'm not giving away any past victims details. Think of it as... next generation, Clue. Only more... CSI-ier."

Grissom took the piece from his hands, examining the familiar looking lab technician with the name 'Mindy Bimms' printed underneath. He lowered the piece, taking a closer look at the game board, the different sections of the lab, the dice, the timer and the other game pieces that the man had forgotten to hide. He smiled for a moment, glancing up at Hodges in front of him.

"I like games."

"Really?" Hodges gave out a soft sigh of relief, glad he wasn't in any trouble with the most respected man of the lab. "Cool, I need a few test scenarios and who better than the master to test it out. Okay then, let's play a game." He pulled out his seat, ready to explain the rules to him.

Although he was relieved for the distraction, Grissom couldn't stop thinking about the love of his life or the hole she had left behind in his heart. They must have played the game for about an hour or so, before Grissom solved the case he had set up for him. It was relatively easy, but he enjoyed the challenge of the puzzle none the less.

"I am a mere Padawan in the presence of the Jedi Master." Hodges took a bow, respecting him even more then he did before.

"True."

Grissom pulled back the sleeve of his shirt to look at his watch, realising his shift was long over, but the only thing he had to go home to at the moment was an empty apartment. He still had some of Sara's things inside. She hadn't moved in with him in the official sense of the word, but she left the basics at his apartment when she slept over. He woke up to her toothbrush every day. Found her hair brush on the dresser beside his watch, complete with a few stray hairs and her over night clothes hanging beside his own that still had her beautiful familiar scent.

"Let's play another." He motioned towards the game board between them, needing more of a distraction.

"Sure." David Hodges tried to suppress his excitement a little. He gathered up the figures and scenario cards, giving them a quick shuffle, before he noticed the look on his supervisor's face. He wasn't that good at reading people's emotions, but even on someone like Grissom, he could tell that there was something wrong. "You weren't ready," He spoke softly. "To leave, I mean. You weren't ready to leave behind the challenges that this job brings. The puzzles that need to be solved. The victims and the work. You weren't ready for that."

"No." He agreed with him.

"But Sara was." Hodges could see the heart break written all over his face.

"Yeah." Grissom nodded, amazed that the only person who got what he was feeling was David Hodges of all people. "She was." He regretted it, but he knew that was why she left.

"You can't stand in the way of that. When it's time for someone to move on, you just gotta let them go."

"Let's play the game, shall we?"

Enough of the heart to heart, Grissom needed the distraction of a puzzle to solve in order to dull the pain of his broken heart. He played another hand, finding it slightly more challenging than the last, but he got to the end with the right result within no time.

"I like these characters." He picked up one of the board pieces at the end of their game. "Mindy Bimms, the clumsy yet buxom DNA tech." He cocked an eyebrow in the lab technician's direction.

"They're just..." Hodges quickly snatched up the piece from his hands. "Prototypes. I doubt I'll keep them for the final design."

"There are other ways to tell a woman that you like her, David. Subtler ways too."

"It's not..." The man sighed, setting 'Mindy Bimms' on the table, packing up his board game. "Lab Rats was just supposed to be a bit of fun to pass the time. Too much time on my hands and a disposable income, I thought that 'Lab Rats' could be a gold mine and a great distraction from... life things. Sandy Baxter, fingerprint fanatic. Reggie Chang, eagle eye AV expert. Andrew Henries, top notch tox tech and Mindy Bimms... not very original I know, but they're easy to remember. And she wasn't meant to see it." He defended himself. "I was just giving her some example scenarios to test out, but I never intended to show her all of this."

"You let her play?" Grissom glanced up at him.

"She wants to do what you do. She doesn't want to be stuck in a white coat, standing behind her lab table, sorting out results for the rest of her career. She doesn't want to be stuck as a lab geek, while the cool kids get to go outside and play. I blame, Sanders. Greg opened up the door for other lab techs to broaden their horizons, now they all suddenly want to do it. He's ruined what it means to be a lab tech."

"You're scared she'll leave you." The older man saw right through him, giving him a slight smile as he could relate.

"I'm the dumbest smart guy she's ever known." Hodges directly quoted the woman's last phrase to him. "What's worse... I actually agree with her."

Grissom climbed to his feet, feeling a little too connected to Hodges at the moment. He made his way over to the coffee pot to top up his mug, suggesting, "If you like her, I suggest you tell her. Take your own advice, Hodges. If Wendy truly wants to join the field, you can't stand in the way of that. When it's time for someone to move on, you've just got to let them go." He directly quoted him, turning for the door with his coffee. He wasn't ready to let Sara go completely, but he understood her reasons for wanting some space.

He still had his job. No matter how disconnected he felt at the moment, he still had his work to keep his mind focused. If and when Sara was ready to return, he'd be waiting for her.

Always and forever.

The End