DISCLAIMER: I don't own any of the characters

FEEDBACK: This is my first piece, any and all feedback welcome!

SUMMARY: My interpretation of the scene in Nesting Dolls with Sara and Grissom. How GSR started.

AUTHORS' NOTES: References to Sex, Lies and Larvae, Lady Heather's Box, Play with Fire, Butterflied, Bloodlines, Nesting Dolls, Unbearable

Chapter 1 – Why?

Sara found herself feeling very much alone. It had been a day since she was suspended from the lab, and had yet to talk to anyone about it. Cases like this one had bothered her before, why was this one so different? And she had watched so many of her co-workers' emotions get the best of them when a case had gotten too personal, why was her reaction considered so intolerable? If a man had been abusing his wife, why should she protect him? His dead wife deserved justice. Hadn't Grissom always told her that as criminalists, they are the ones who speak for the victims, because the dead can't speak for themselves? That's exactly what she was trying to do. Give a voice to so many who go unheard.

Besides, if Catherine hadn't pushed the issue, she never would have said anything at all. She wouldn't have been put in a position where she felt threatened and lashed out. She fought fire with fire, and was now in danger of being silenced forever.

Maybe she was out of line with the suspect. Maybe her emotions did get the best of her. But what about the one who confronted her in the first place? The investigation a couple of years back in which Catherine herself completely lost control floated into her mind.

You even think about my daughter again, I'll kill you. I will kill you.

Sara had never heard Catherine talk to anyone that way, let alone in the interrogation room.

I will hunt you down and put ... I will put you in the ground.

She had called Catherine's name, tried to talk her down from her verbal assault. She escorted her out, advised her to go home and be with her daughter. Sara had been more levelheaded then. Of course the rage made sense; Catherine was defending her daughter. And the threats Sara understood all too well; they were an integral part of her childhood. She had been able to keep it together once. When did the tables turn?

I tried to help you, Sara thought to herself, I understood. And this is how you thank me, by throwing me under the bus? At least I didn't threaten to kill anyone…

Just then a knock at the door brought her out of her reverie.

She glanced at her cell phone. No one had called her, and she wasn't expecting anyone. Sighing deeply, she mustered up the energy to answer it. Who she saw through the peephole brought a nervous smile to her face. She felt like a child whose hand had been caught in the cookie jar, a strange combination of shame and rebelliousness. Of all the ways she wanted to lure him to her home, insubordination was not at the top of the list. Ironically, the only person she needed was the last person she wanted to see.

As she opened the door, Grissom brought his gaze up from the floor, his blue eyes impassive. Sara masked her discomfort with a lighthearted smirk, hopefully coming across more nonchalant than she felt.

"Well, if you're here, it can't be good."

Grissom remained expressionless as he tried to read the woman in front of him. A thousand thoughts were running through his mind. A thousand possible explanations were flitting through his consciousness, trying to rationalize why Sara was suddenly unraveling. If a woman of her determination started careening out of control, no, he thought, it can't be good.

"Can I come in?"

This evoked another sigh as Sara wordlessly stepped aside to let her supervisor in to her living room. She was going to maintain the façade of strength he'd come to expect from her as long as he continued to maintain the professional, distant air she'd come to expect from him. From the moment she peered through the small looking glass, she felt the pressing need to defy him threatening to overtake her. If she was going to get in trouble for disobedience, she might as well show him just how disobedient she could be.

She waved her bottle of beer around, mocking the confident brashness of intoxication as she taunted, "Want to ask me if I'm drunk?"

Grissom glanced down at her hands, taking in the bottle she was clutching as he walked past her, an exasperated breath on his lips. "We both know that's not your problem." He walked to the middle of her softly lit apartment as Sara closed the door. She moved slowly towards him as he stopped to turn around to look at her, his expression still unreadable. "I spoke to Catherine."

Sara merely nodded, averting her eyes for a moment as the scene from earlier continued to flash in front of her.

The only reason this is your lab is because Grissom doesn't kiss ass.

"Ecklie," she said, matter-of-factly.

"He wants me to fire you," Grissom stated, his voice holding neither compassion nor admonishment. As her supervisor, he needed to reprimand her for her behavior; as her friend, he wanted dearly to help her. And this is what he constantly struggled with when it came to Sara Sidle. He constantly was trying to balance his professional needs with his emotional wants.

"I figured," she sighed. She wanted to delay the inevitable any way she could. The reasons behind her actions were not something she wanted to discuss with anyone, let alone Gil Grissom. She wasn't sure he could handle the past that she kept locked and guarded. She'd rather let him think she was volatile than let him know her weaknesses.

"Can I get you anything?"

"Sure," Grissom misled, "an explanation."

Sara sighed. Inwardly she knew better than to try to escape a conversation with a man of his persistence and curiosity. As a scientist he'd want a simple cause and effect explanation. What she had to offer was much more than that. So much more. "I ... lost my temper." She began to walk away from him and his questioning gaze.

"That seems to be happening quite a bit," Grissom asserted. "Do you know why?"

"What difference does it make? I'm still fired."

"It makes a difference to me." For the first time since the conversation started, Grissom's tone warmed. He knew that losing this job would destroy Sara; she lived and breathed her work. Her apathy sent up red flags that something deeper was going on, something to which these past few months had been slowly alerting him.

When Sara had stopped pacing, she ended up behind a chair at the opposite side of the room. The symbolism of using it to create distance was not lost on either of them. She began to tap the bottle on the cushion, trying to appear aloof in her thinking while trying to pick the words that would both explain and dodge the reason for her behavior.

"I have a problem with authority," she started, "I choose men who are emotionally unavailable. I'm self-destructive. All of the above."

Grissom considered her words carefully, noting the subtle dig of being "emotionally unavailable," before responding in his typical, yet sometimes confusing, way. "Have you ever gone a week without a rationalization?"

Sara inhaled deeply. Her mind was racing with ways in which she wanted to respond, but before she could say anything, Grissom was interpreting one of the many quotes he used in perplexing situations.

"It's from the "Big Chill"." Sara rolled her eyes and began making her way around to sit in the chair she was using as a shield as Grissom continued. "One of the characters explaining a basic fact of life - that rationalizations are more important to us than...sex even."

"I am not rationalizing anything. I crossed the line with Catherine, and I was…insubordinate…to Ecklie."

"Why?"

At this one simple question Sara felt her resolve start to falter. "Leave it alone."

"No, Sara."

She didn't know which bothered her more: the fact that he was ignoring her request to drop it, or his gentle persistence to understand. It was an act that she wasn't prepared for. Grissom was an intensely private person, and here he was trying to get her to open up. She could feel her anger rising as she glared up at him. "What do you want from me?"

Grissom's features softened as he looked at her. He had decided ahead of time to be stern with her, to keep his distance, but seeing her struggling erased everything from his mind except the need to care for her. Her adamant reaction was telling, and he was far more worried now that her defenses were cracking. To show his own emotions might scare her away, and he needed to know what was happening. In pushing Sara away all this time, he was missing all the warning signs that she was in distress. He considered to himself that maybe he was choosing to pretend things weren't that serious. Now that he was here, it was so clear that things were amiss, and he couldn't ignore it anymore.

He looked down into her dark eyes, seeing both anger and pain radiating from them. He watched as her eyes flitted around the room, trying so hard to focus anywhere but on the man in front of her. Very few words had already been able to elicit a reaction from her, so he chose to cut right to the heart of the matter. "I want to know why you're so angry."