Disclaimer: I'm just going to borrow that characters of CSI for a little while, I promise I'll play nice, or at least that I'll bring them all back in one piece. I want to keep them, but I don't own them. Sigh, I wish I did, but since I don't this will have to do.

A/N: This is a WIP, but if I keep thinking about how I am going to get from A to B I am never going to even start the journey. So here's chapter one.

You take me in, no questions asked; you strip away the ugliness that surrounds me. Sarah McLachlan, "Sweet Surrender"

Chapter One – The Letter

She kept running her fingers over the writing on the envelope. Was she trying to change the sender's address or was she trying to make sure that the writing was real? She wasn't sure anymore. She paper had been so light when she had first picked it up with her other mail. Now it felt like lead weighing down her hand.

She hand been on her way home for a quick shower and something to eat before returning to the lab, when she decided she should also stop at the apartment to water the plants and pick up the mail. It was funny that she thought of the townhouse as home and her apartment as only a place that held her stuff. The only reason she still rented the apartment was that they had decided that if they were to actually live together, they should get a place of their own, and they hadn't found the right place for them yet. Some houses he liked, others made her smile, but none of them were just right for them.

The other problem was the change in address forms that she couldn't bring herself to fill out. It would be taking a giant step forward. Even though she was usually the one running ahead and dragging him behind her, in this one instance, she was stalling. He had told her that no one would really notice. What reason would the rest of the team have to scrutinize her personal file and see that her address and his were the same? Not even management would notice unless they pulled out both files and had them open side by side. She had laughed at this, but she was still coming up with excuses.

So there she was, stopping by the apartment for the hundredth time, or at least what felt like the hundredth time. She was tired and just wanted to crawl into bed. So all she did at that time was pick up the mail and stuff it into her bag without checking it over. When she got home, she found he had cooked dinner and left it in the oven warming so they could eat together. She had meant to look over the mail while eating, but ended up talking to him about his travel plans to an entomology conference instead. Then she had seduced him and left him sleeping while she took a shower. After enjoying the warm, steamy water as it washed away the grime of the case, she had lay down on the bed next to him and fallen asleep. Two hours later she woke up and decided a run would clear her head and energize her before she headed back to the lab. After another shower, and a little more of the vegetarian lasagna, she was ready to head back to the lab. She figured she had enough time to go through her mail and pay some bills first.

That is when she had finally found the letter. She still couldn't bring herself to open it. The official, off-white stationary could only mean something important. The typed-written words frightened her more than the hand-written scrawl of other letters she had received from the same address over the years. It was also good, expensive paper. Not the kind she usually received about psych evaluations and misconduct reports. She was going to get a paper cut if she kept running her fingers over the envelope. She should just open it and get it over. The expectation was worse than when she had got her college acceptance letters. She took a deep breath and ripped the side of the envelope completely open. The words rang through her head as if someone was reading the letter out loud to her, and as her eyes filled with angry tears, her hands began to shake. She was frozen in time. Both here in the present and back in the past at the same time. She was drowning. A million images of the past thirty-five years washed through her mind. She was having trouble breathing. She managed to get up and run to the bathroom where she purged her stomach and her soul. In the end it was only fitting that the letter, ripped up into angry pieces, was flushed down with the bitter taste ii had left in her mouth. She ran cold water over her face until the feeling started to come back. She stood there, looking into the mirror, trying to see more than just the reflection, until he came up behind her and softly touched her shoulder.

"Sara? Are you heading back to the lab?" He asked with a sleepy voice.

"Huh?" She turned and looked at Grissom like he was a stranger standing in the doorway of the bathroom.

"Can you do me a favor? I still have to pack for the conference. Can you hand out the assignments? His eyes pleaded with her more than his words.

"Um, sure." She said without thinking, had he seen how upset she was? She didn't think so. He was tired and wrapped up in his own concerns.

Sara kissed Grissom on the cheek and slide past him out of the bathroom. She picked up her keys and headed to the office. She hoped that there was something in the assignments to keep her mind off the letter and its ramifications. Otherwise this was going to be a long night. She shook her head. It didn't really matter. This was going to be a long night either way.