CHAPTER TWO

Grissom and Sara pushed the door of the morgue open, each snapping on a pair of latex gloves.

"Hey, Doc," Sara greeted the medical examiner joining his side next to the steel table. "Got a C.O.D. yet?"

"Easy one. Blunt force trauma to the back of the skull. There was a concentrated point of impact on her occipital lobe. Her skull casing fractured, causing hemorrhaging. At least two to three blows, maybe more."

"Explains the bloody mess," Sara said. The woman's shaved head looked vulnerable, an alarming reminder of the weakness of the human body. Blood caked around her head and shoulders

"Someone was angry," Robbins said offhandedly.

Grissom studied the head wound for a moment more, pulling his glasses down. "Time of death?" he asked, eyes still focused on the victims broken skull.

"She's only been dead a few hours," Robbins answered glancing at the watch on his wrist, "I'd say, close to 8pm."

Grissom's eyes shot up over his glasses, immediately meeting Sara's. "During the director's private tour," he said

She looked away, unable to meet Grissom's pointed look.

"I'm gonna go start on those shoe prints," she said after a moment "I'll catch up with you later." She smiled politely at both men, pulling off her gloves.

She could feel Grissom's eyes watching her as she pushed the heavy door open and left the morgue behind.

xxx

The music was gloriously loud, all other sounds hampered by the tiny headphones sitting in her ear. With a pile of shoes in front of her, nothing else mattered but finding a match to the cast she had made earlier that evening.

She worked efficiently, more focused than normal, but her thoughts continually landed back to Luke. When she thought deeply of him, she'd change songs on her iPod and try to reset her mind again. Holding the final pair of shoes, Luke's shoes, she considered them. They were black leather balmoral dress shoes, shiny without a speck of dirt on or under them.

Her memory of Luke was being stirred up. Like a pot of overcooked soup, everything had settled to the bottom of her mind over the last thirteen years. But nothing she remembered about him lined up with the man that stood in front of her earlier.

He was not the type of man that wore Italian leather shoes, no matter the occasion.

Boston, Massachusetts - January 1992

She looked at Luke, brow stitched. "You're wearing that?"

He frowned and threw his hands up, looking down at his clothes. "What's wrong with this?"

"It's just that.." she let out a short laugh, covering her growing smile with her hand, "It's flannel and faded corduroy. Not really job interview attire."

"Okay, I'll lose the flannel, but the corduroy is staying." He patted the thigh of his pants. "These are lucky."

A moment passed as she watched him from her spot on the bed. She gave a lopsided smile and said softly, "You'll do great."

He scoffed. "Maybe if I wear what you're wearin' now, I won't even need an interview," He said, leering at her through the mirror in front of him.

Sara giggled and lifted the sheet around her, looking down. "I'm naked."

He turned, biting his lip, shirt discarded. Suddenly, he jumped on the bed, scrambling up to her boisterously. He tickled her and nuzzled into her neck with his unkempt beard. She laughed, a full belly laugh, the kind she hadn't elicited since she was a seven year old girl, catching bullfrogs in her grandfather's pond. Not, at least, until Luke.

"Okay, okay, okay," she screeched out, breathless. He laid next to her and propped his head in one hand. They stared at one another for a tender moment and he brushed a wavy lock of hair away from her face.

"It's just a stupid bartending job, ya know, nothing special," he drawled out, shrugging self consciously.

Sara smiled warmly at him and propped herself up, pushing his solid chest playfully. "Give yourself a chance. Besides, you said you wanted to go to school. This could be how you get to do that."

Luke rolled his eyes. "A twenty-four year old college freshman. Sounds pathetic."

Sara sighed. The best side of Luke was his good-natured, coltish zeal. Unlike anyone else, he had pulled her nose out of the stacks, had made her want to be around another person other than her lab partner. He had fantastic ideas, even when he wasn't stoned, and one of Sara's favorite things was listening to him spout out business proposals over a slice of cheesecake at 2am.

The more intimate they became, however, the more she could see the side of him that he kept carefully hidden. He lacked the self-assurance to turn his ideas into reality and a dark intensity lurked somewhere below the surface that could make him suddenly dour. When it happened, though, he would catch himself quickly, a plastic-like smile appearing across his face. She lacked the social experience to massage his ego in whatever way he may have needed, so she usually let the moment fade away without recognition.

She reached a hand out touched his beard. "Maybe you should trim your beard a bit."

"That'll never happen," he said, knocking her hand away playfully and hopping off the bed. He dug around his overnight bag that he brought with him to her apartment. "How about this?" He held up a t-shirt with Ren and Stimpy hugging stupidly on the front. Sara laughed and threw a pillow at him.

He caught it and nodded. "Flannel it is, then."

xxx

Sara studied the inky shoe print on the film as the song in her ears faded into another, and then another. A shadow fell over the layout table and she looked up to see Grissom hands planted on the table, staring at her intimately. It was startling.

"How's it going?" he asked.

"Well, this is the last of the shoes and it's not a match."

"I meant with you," he said with a faint, gentle smile on his face.

Her first reaction, which she struggled to internalize, was exasperation. She never wanted Grissom to think she couldn't handle things or deal with her problems herself. It's why she had taken so long to tell him about her family. But that, she had to remind herself, had only brought them closer.

She offered him a grateful smile. "It's going okay."

"Good. Let's go over this later. I'm starving."

"Me too." She got up and began gathering the evidence together. "I'll take this to the vault and meet you outside.

"I'll help you," he offered, sliding the folders together, his fingers delicately skimming over hers.

The shift that had occurred between them when he finally decided to pursue her had slowly begun to bleed into work, though she wasn't sure how intentional it was. Grissom had this other side to him that, while she enjoyed, she hadn't adjusted to quite yet. When he made the effort, she noticed how soft he could be and, when coupled with a surprising eagerness to please, it could be rather striking. He didn't let it show around others, at least not yet, so she knew he was aware of it. For her part, initiating was difficult, the sting of his long time rejection still bubbling under the surface somewhere. It was far too new, far too tenuous and she was far too vulnerable where he was concerned.

"Where do you wanna go?" Grissom asked her as they walked to his car. Sara slid her sunglasses on, thankful for the reprieve offered from the harsh Vegas sun. She looked at him, relieved that she couldn't meet his eyes.

"Wherever you take me," she said, the flirtatious undertone apparent when combined with the grin she threw his way.

She watched his lips pucker and his eyebrows raise over his sunglasses. "Burger King it is."

"Ha-ha."

He smirked and opened the passenger's side door for her. She catalogued gentlemanly as another surprising Grissom trait.

They drove further than necessary, closer to Henderson than Las Vegas, and Grissom settled on an amiable little deli. As they waited for their food, Grissom's fingers glided over the condensation on his glass. He looked content and relaxed, eyes taking in the deli patrons. Unassuming music filtered from a speaker somewhere, the pungent smell of sourdough bread hung in the air.

"Why did we come all the way out here?" she asked, head cocked to the side curiously.

He shrugged. "Why not?"

Sara matched his shrug, pleased at his easy attitude. Grissom's gaze landed on an older man huddled in the corner of the deli by himself, a newspaper dissected and strewn about his table. Grissom chuckled.

"What?" Sara asked, turning to look.

"That man looks just like my uncle Bart," he said, his mouth twisting upward to meet his eyes in a boyish grin. "Just like him."

"Are you sure it's not?"

Grissom's smile faltered so slightly it was almost imperceptible. "He died a few years ago."

"Oh. Sorry."

Grissom shook his head and frowned, waving her apology off. "This is definitely the type of place he'd come though. Hole in the wall. Not many people."

Sara marveled that in less than twenty-four hours, she'd learned something new about Grissom's father, and now uncle. He seemed to be in a sharing frenzy and she wondered if she should take advantage of it. She decided against the notion, unwilling to answer any loaded questions about herself, should he ask.

Grissom fiddled with the sugar packets on the table, slapping them against the faded beige tabletop. He didn't usually fidget like this and she assumed that he was struggling with sharing a piece of himself. She remained quiet, sipping her Coke placidly. If there was one thing that a relationship with Grissom required more than anything, it was patience.

"We were a lot alike, me and old Bart. My mother's brother." He swallowed, looking past the old man. He no longer seemed to be looking away out of curiosity, but rather to avoid meeting her eyes.

"Was he an intellectual?" Sara asked after a moment.

Grissom nodded slowly, as if lost in thought. "He didn't go to school, but he was very good with his hands. A real hobbyist. He'd repair clocks and even made some his own. I used to sit for hours watching him, listening to the ticking and the winding." He finally looked at her, a reticence in his eyes, then looked away again. "He... lived in his head a bit, you could say."

"Aha," Sara said with an understanding nod, "Good old Bart."

Grissom chuckled, eyes landing on the sugar packet in his hand. "He once told me: Gilbert, if you think you've thought about it enough, think again."

Sara smiled and slid her leg forward a bit, touching Grissom's slightly. She marveled at the fact that she could do that, make intentional physical contact with Grissom without him recoiling in discomfort. Instead, he furthered the contact, rested his leg against hers. His body heat made her leg tingle.

"That explains a lot," she said, balling the paper of her straw and tossing it at him playfully. "Gilbert."

He grinned, toying with the paper. "Yeah, I guess it does."

"I like learning about your family," she said, "I think we all just assumed you hatched in a pond somewhere."

Grissom screwed his face up in mock offense, lips puckering, and threw the ball of paper back at her. "Now it's your turn to tell me something I don't know about you," he said casually, sitting back against the red vinyl booth, cocking his head to the side.

Sara's face fell a bit, but he didn't seem to notice. She couldn't help but wonder if he was hoping to find out more about Luke Walsh, a conversation she didn't feel prepared to have. The waitress arrived at the table with their sandwiches and Sara welcomed the chance to stall. She immediately bit into her panini, chewing her thoughts along with the food. Grissom already knew more about her than she ever thought he would. Though, realistically, he knew so little.

She swallowed and decided to keep the conversation light. "Okay, sure… let's see…." She crunched a chip and looked excitedly at him, "Oh! When I was in tenth grade, I built an x-ray machine for the science fair."

A look of adoration and utter joy passed over Grissom's face. "Now this I wanna hear."

"It took me four weeks and my physics teacher helped me after school. She paid for most of the materials. And it totally worked! But by the time the science fair came, the power supply died. It was faulty and they sent me another one, but the science fair was already over."

"That's a shame."

"Yeah, it sucked, but whatever. I built an x-ray machine," Sara said, flashing a cocky grin.

"Your teacher must have been very proud of you," Grissom said, offering her a reverent smile. She couldn't help it, she loved his approval. Every time she got it, a light turned on inside of her; her heart quickened and swelled.

"She's the reason I went to Harvard," Sara said finally, swallowing a lump that was forming. "I almost didn't bother. She pushed me to go."

"It's important to have people like that in our lives."

"Yes, it is. She changed my life, I guess." She felt words crawling up her throat, attempting to escape, the things she couldn't get out of her mind since seeing Luke earlier that evening. She pushed them down, unwilling to lay out the fragments of herself while they were so pleasantly content with one another.

Comfortable silence ensued as they ate their meal, both looking out the window reflectively. Grissom took one last swig of his root beer and set the glass down, with a sharp thud. "We should get back," he said, and she nodded in silent agreement.

She wanted to stay in the little deli all day with him and she would have, if he'd asked her to.

Grissom paid and they reluctantly swung the door open into the October sun. She saw him look one last time at the old man in the corner and she smiled at this reflective side of him.

They reached the car and Grissom paused at the passenger side with her, as if to open the door. Instead he planted his hand on the window beside her waist, effectively pinning her to the car. In a wonderfully bold move, he dipped his head and kissed her on the mouth. It was abrupt and commanding, unlike any other kiss they had shared. The handful of times they had kissed, he was methodical, smooth, and patient. Never had he acted impulsively in public.

He pulled back and looked at her wickedly. His voice was husky. "We came all the way out here... because I've wanted to do that all night."

Sara's knees quivered and Grissom's left hand skimmed over her hip, pulling on the door handle. She bit her lip, words failing her, and he walked to the other side of the car. Her tightened nerves and the sexual tension between them made the car so warm, the air conditioner couldn't cool her.

To be continued...

Thank you for all of the reviews and reads. The next chapter will be up this time tomorrow :)