Author's Note: Okay, so this is, as all my pieces are, GS becoming GSR. It is set somewhere around the end of Season Five, and yes I employ some poetic licence with timelines, episodes and forensics. Its fiction, isn't it? After all, all we really want is the GSR, and there's plenty of that.

Disclaimer: I do not own the characters or the show, I have nothing so suing me really would be a waste of time that could be better spent writing Sara back in for Season Nine.

"Grissom." He answered the phone on it's first ring, having seen the caller display. He was eager for anything where this case was concerned.

"Grissom – it's Robbins. Got some interesting results on your three john does. You coming over or you want me to reel it off?"

"I'll be right over."

Grissom took long, slow strides down the halls of the lab, looking for Sara. He had learned how to do this safely. To take his time, and form in his mind an image of her face before he rounded a corner and was taken by surprise. He had fallen victim to this in the past, floored by her smile or her eyes or, worse, her scent. Sara close to him was devastating. A living, breathing, intoxicating reminder of all he could not have. He now tried not to let it happen. They were getting on so easily lately, and he knew he was likely to somehow misstep. He was so good at saying so little and meaning so much. He could come upon Sara in the hall and be breathless but look hounded. He could be struck dumb by her presence, by her words, by her intentions, but seem like he was looking for a way out. No more. He had made a conscious decision some time ago to try harder, to be a better friend to her, to not confuse her, to not disappoint her. But the mere sight of her could undo it all. Preparation was his best defence.

He found Sara at a computer, the green glare of the screen casting a slightly ethereal glow across her skin. He only looked for a second before speaking.

"Doc's got some information on our three john does." Sara looked up.

"Two."

"You got an ID?"

"Yeah, one of them had prints in CODIS. Matthew Harding. He's a mobile mechanic out in Henderson. Prior for possession. "

"You get an address?"

"The one on his driver's license is out of date. Brass is following up."

"Great." He paused, wondering why she wasn't moving. "You coming?"

Sara smiled to herself as she followed him out, grabbing her jacket as she went. This was precisely what she had missed in those years of turmoil, the years of game playing and missed shots and badly worded sentiments. She wished she could only remember the finer points. The few precious words he had said, mere seconds out of a lifetime in which she had, momentarily, felt adored. Since I met you. The gestures made that, in the face of a cold, professional exterior had alluded to the fact that there was so much more going on beneath the surface. The plant that she still had, in her apartment.

Instead, she remembered it all. The moments of clarity in which she had not feared rejection, the possibility of the other being too important an opportunity to miss. The words that had crushed her, that had sent her reeling back into herself, a shadowy recluse for weeks afterwards, angry at herself and at him. The way he had always made her take responsibility for them, so that it always had to be her exposed, asking, and him, closed, saying no.

She had her scars, but now she understood. It had to be that way. If he had asked, they would be together now, something that would threaten a lifetime's work for Grissom, the weight of which Sara had only recently come to appreciate. She had stopped looking on it as rejection and begun to see a bigger picture, one in which they had a place in the world that needed them to be just as they were – wedded to the job, sacrificing all else, committed beyond question. It was a way of life that Sara had always anticipated, wanted even, a desire that had only crumbled when she moved to Vegas.

She now knew that it was this quality they had first found attractive in one another, the absolute absorption of the science, the psychology, the criminology. Sara knew that she could only want a man who was this passionate about those things, and she also knew that any man who was would, like her, struggle to have a personal life. She had begun, slowly, painstakingly, to see them as silent warriors, fighting an often difficult but always worthy battle in defence of justice. Someone had to. She had never seen herself as someone to wait for the world to change. She wanted to be out there changing it, and she wanted to do that with Grissom. And if that meant damping down what was in her heart, then that was a price she'd have to pay.

The finer points of this resolution in the back of her mind, Sara got into Grissom's car. It smelt of him – aftershave and leather, and she allowed herself only a second to take this in. A small concession, she decided. She wasn't made of stone.