Why Sara Came Back

Friendship. Gil G./ Sara S with Julie Finlay. Set in late Season 13, post Forget Me Not, but referring to Family Affair 10x1. Rated K.

Why did Sara return to CSI without her husband?

Sara Sidle shifted uncomfortably, smoothing her skirt and wondering for the hundredth time why the courtroom benches were so hard. Hundredth? She thought, then calculated quickly. I've worked 3,701 cases here in Las Vegas. Another 235 in San Francisco – the benches were no more comfortable there. Of those, I probably testified in approximately a third of them, the ones that made it to trial. And I complained, many times, if only in my mind, of how painful hard wooden benches feel after hours of waiting to be called inside. So that's 3,936 divided by…

"May I join you?" Julie Finlay's voice broke into her calculations. She too was dressed for court.

"Sure," Sara said warmly, sliding over to one side for the other CSI to join her.

"What were you smiling at?" Sara explained. They shared a quiet laugh.

"Yes, the benches in Seattle were just as rock-hard. If you start calculating how many weeks or months we've spent sitting outside courtrooms, I may seriously get depressed, though," Finn commented.

Sara chuckled. "Good point."

The blonde looked thoughtful. "Hm, 3,936 cases. I've probably worked close to that too. When did you make CSI 3?"

"2001. December. I was a Level 2 when I came from Frisco in September 2000."

"October 2000 for me," Finn replied. "And you became a CSI in?"

"July 1998. Fresh out of grad school."

"Same here. May 1997. So I've got a year on you, but I'd say we are close. Of course I didn't work as a CSI for 18 months, after DB…"

"Fired you?" Sara filled in, not unkindly.

"Yeah. Fired me." Julie Finlay shrugged. "So we can subtract that."

"I walked away from the job too," Sara commented. "Burned out. Went down in flames, really. Left a letter for Grissom at the reception desk and hopped a plane. I was gone from November 2007 until September 2009."

"Maybe we both needed a break," Finlay said thoughtfully.

"I know I did. But the way I did it? That still bothers me. I hurt Gil badly. I broke his heart, after I'd gone…after we'd both gone through so much to get together…" she trailed off sadly.

After a few moments she pulled herself together and continued. "Well, I came back for Warrick's funeral, but that doesn't really count." Sara paused, looking sad and pained, thinking of that difficult time. "That was October 2008. I wasn't ready to come back to the Las Vegas Crime Lab and Gil wasn't ready to leave. We had a conversation about a case that turned into one about our relationship. He can be kind of…passive aggressive. He won't just come out and say something like, 'You hurt me. I'm not ready to forgive you. You're going to leave me again so just go.' No, he talks around a subject. 'Maybe he needed her to leave him,' that's what he said. 'If a relationship doesn't move forward, it withers.' Sara quoted with her fingers. "So I did. I left again, and had no idea he would come after me just 3 months later. I honestly thought it was over. It wasn't the first time he'd chosen his job over me."

Finn narrowed her eyes but made no comment.

Sara tucked a curl behind her ear and continued with a trace of bitterness. "Everyone thinks he is a big hero for leaving his job for love, for me, but Grissom burned out too. He told me time and again that everyone in this job does, eventually. Catherine told me how much he lost interest, became sad and unfocused, and looked old and tired. He needed to leave to save himself. Just like I did. I would have self-destructed if I'd stayed. But he did it the right way. Gave his notice. Hired a new guy. Cleared his desk, closed his last case, and took an early retirement."

Finn was listening closely as Sara continued. "I know it was a long time ago, but I left everything for him once. He called me, I came running. I left a pretty nice life in San Francisco to be with Gil. I'd do it again, no question, but sometimes that part of the story gets forgotten. We've known each other over 15 years now but we've only been together as a couple for less than 3 years. Under the same roof and sharing a bed. It seems like we are always saying goodbye to each other. I'm not justifying how I left but there are 2 sides to every story. More than that, to every love story!"

Sara blew out a breath and continued her confession. "I hurt my team, my friends, their feelings, leaving without warning or goodbye. I felt so guilty. It was one of the reasons I came back."

"Why did you come back?" Finn asked, looking interested.

"Lots of reasons. Practicality. But we'll get to that. Gil found me in the jungle of Costa Rica in January of 2009. It was very romantic. We got married on January 29th, a week after he walked into the clearing and kissed me!"

Finn raised her eyebrows and Sara smirked back.

"That was a good place for us. We were both free and together and living in daylight in the wild with living creatures. But it couldn't last. The research study was only funded for 6 months. The research director was a well-known French professor, and he had to return for the spring semester. He and Gil hit it off right away. When Professor leSalle returned to the Sorbonne, he arranged for Dr Grissom to lecture there too, for a semester-long seminar."

"From the jungle to the city? Paris?"

"Yes. More romance! Of course you know it is a great honor to be invited to lecture at a world class university," Sara said proudly. "As a forensic entomologist he is in demand. And his seminar proved so popular he was invited to stay another year."

Finn nodded, listening closely.

"An honor, but not a well-paid job. Paris is terribly expensive. I couldn't get a work visa. I had just spent most of a year learning Spanish, and was thrown into the French-speaking world. I worked at it, and got fairly fluent, but still couldn't work legally. Meanwhile we had our big house in Las Vegas sitting empty. The housing market had tanked and there were no buyers. We bought during the boom and couldn't sell during the bust. The bank could have foreclosed, and we would have lost everything. The mortgage needed to be paid, and the property taxes too, and someone had to keep the place running. Gil has a pension and savings but it goes fast when you spend more than you earn."

Finn nodded. "Very true."

Sara continued. "I was a volunteer on the Sea Shepherd and then at that study in Costa Rica, so that cut into my savings as well. I hadn't earned a dime since I walked off the job. And since I left CSI voluntarily, I wasn't eligible for unemployment compensation and I lost my health insurance and 401k. I've got another 25 years to go to collect Social Security! We're both in good health now, thank God, but he's quite a bit older than me. We need to be in a good position financially when he's no longer able to travel so much or work in the field. Now he's on my health insurance policy. "

"I understand. Being without health insurance is no joke. It sounds like you thought all this through."

"We both did. It wasn't an easy decision. We spent that summer getting proposals ready for a research grant," the brunette CSI continued. "As well as having another honeymoon in Central America. Hey, just because we were scouting research facilities and projects, it didn't mean we couldn't have fun!"

Finn and Sara exchanged a knowing look and a grin.

"We took canoe rides to look for bugs. Went up in the forest canopy to identify birds and butterflies. Lived rough, but we were in love and it was all part of the adventure," Sara continued, smiling fondly. "Belize, Costa Rica, Guatemala…beautiful places, with such important work to do. If our grant had been funded, that's where we would be now."

She sighed. "But I try not to dwell on that kind of thinking. If we only…if this or that had happened, you know? We went back to Paris and Grissom went back to the lecture hall. I hoped I would have better luck in America, in the same time zones, pleading for a grant and filling out paperwork and meeting with the right people. There's only so much you can do from thousands of miles away. But it's been one rejection after another."

Sidle shrugged. "What choice did I have? We had talked about it even before Ecklie called. I knew this job inside and out. It doesn't make us rich but it pays better than starting from scratch at something else." Sara shook her head ruefully.

"The CSI they hired when I left, Riley, quit when she and Catherine butted heads. Warrick was killed, I left, and then Grissom retired. And then Riley. The grave shift was dangerously overworked. They hired Dr Langston…did you ever meet him?" Sara asked.

"No," Finn answered. "I never met Warrick, Grissom, Langston, Catherine or Riley. It's a little like starting to watch a popular TV show years after it started. I'm still trying to figure out the different characters."

"Ha, I like that analogy. Well, then, it's a lot to catch up on." Sara looked at her closely. "I'm not boring you, am I?"

"No, no, not at all!" Finn said emphatically. "This story is fascinating."

Sara gave a chuff of laughter. "Good. I'm glad. I guess…I need to tell someone this story, who doesn't know all of them, any of them, and who doesn't idolize Grissom or think I'm crazy to be apart from him, or miss him as a best friend. He's so revered around the lab that inevitably I end up as the bad guy."

"You're a good person, Sara. No matter what."

Sara gave Finn a warm smile. "Thanks. You are too. Now, where were we?"

"Doctor…what was his name?"

"Ray Langston. Right. He had been a pathologist, and then a professor and Grissom offered him a job when he was leaving. So he had no experience as a CSI. He was brilliant, and caught on quickly, but they were down to just 3 experienced CSIs.

Ecklie called and asked if I knew anyone who could take Riley's place. It all seemed to make sense. At our age we can't live out of a suitcase. The older you get the more you accumulate. Once the teaching job ended, we didn't know where we would go next, so we'd essentially be homeless. Plus paying for a house we weren't living in couldn't last. Gris has a wonderful library and papers and delicate specimens, for one thing, and we can't drag that all over the world. Grissom can get consulting work and go almost anywhere, but it's usually for a stipend or on a limited government grant. Someone needs to support that. Support that…lifestyle."

"And that someone was you," Finn supplied.

"Yes. I'm the breadwinner. I'm keeping the home fires burning. I'm doing the only real job I've ever done since I finished college. "

"And you do a brilliant job."

"Thank you. I missed my friends here. I don't have much family, and I found one here. So there is no other crime lab that I wanted to work for. I had enough time to get my head together, and marrying Gil gave me stability and support. I never thought I'd be a CSI again, but when I started it was like I had never left."

"So you came back because…"

"I came back to support my husband. I want him to be happy. I'd rather we were happy together but we can't always get what we want."

Chapter 1 of A/N: Don't worry, this story is not a WIP, and is near completion. The other chapters just need some tweaking, and I'd like to get some feedback before they are posted. It may be dull, all this talk talk and no action, but I always think there is more to Sara's story than will ever be explained on screen. So I need to explore her motivations. Get into her head to get it out of mine, you could say. Reviews are very welcome indeed!