Many thanks to everyone whom checked out the first chapter, your interest has kept me writing.

Disclaimers and warnings are the same as for the first part.

Staring at Walls 2: Brass

Brass dropped the papers onto his desk and sighed. He should have expected something after the last few days, Sara's abduction had hit them all hard, but some how this had still managed to surprise him. It was a transfer request. Filled out in elegantly precise handwriting, it was asking him to move his best detective to the narcotics division. A month ago she'd refused to even consider such a thing, but now it seemed she couldn't go fast enough. Something was wrong here, and he didn't want to look at the form, let alone sign it until he knew what it was.

Leaving the offensive document where it fell for a moment, he studied the woman who'd handed it to him. She looked much as she always did; stance confident, dark pants and light, pin-striped shirt both immaculate, blonde hair soft and perfectly straight as she stared past him at the wall behind his desk. Nobody else would have noticed there was anything wrong. He doubted anybody else would have cared enough to look, either. People thought well of Sofia; she was beautiful, and kind, and a good cop, but she didn't really let people in enough to actually be liked. For all her boldness and swagger, she was a little like Sara in that regard. Both of them were lone wolves; fierce, independent, keeping as much of themselves hidden as possible. Brass had known them both for a long time though, and he could tell Sofia was hurting. The tension around her eyes and the slight stiffness across her shoulders betrayed her now as easily as her tears had the first time he'd met her, just over fifteen years ago, and he wondered if there was a similar cause.

Then, she'd nearly flattened him as she smashed through the doors of her mother's office on the first day of spring break in her senior year of college. Her hand had been wrapped tightly around that of another young woman, and she was crying even as she shouted defiantly over her shoulder that she was getting the rest of her stuff and wouldn't be back until the Captain had dragged her 'delusional Victorian sensibilities into the nineties and learned to accept reality'. He'd been shocked when he worked out what was going on, but concerned enough to follow the strangely articulate whirlwind out into the parking lot to make sure she was OK. They'd ended up having a cigarette, and an only faintly nasty bottle of Bud Light leaning against her old GMC truck, while she'd introduced him to her girlfriend, and clued him in on what he could expect from her mother on the job. He'd had a soft spot for 'Sofie' ever since.

He'd seen the way she was with Sara. The teasing way she flirted with the other woman was difficult to miss when you knew what you were looking at, even when it was hidden under layers of sarcastic banter. He'd been pretty sure Sara returned her interest, as well. Greg and Sofia were the only people he'd ever seen Sara be playful with, but she never let Greg stand so close to her for long, and never watched him leave with longing, flame-filled eyes.

When the truth had come out about Sara and Grissom during the hunt for Natalie Davies, Brass had been surprised to say the least. God only knew what Sofia had been feeling; sidelined and helpless while someone you cared for struggled for their life God-knows-where, not even able to hold them when it was over because there was someone else – one of your own friends- suddenly in the way. It had to have been hell. Someone else might have broken down, but Sofie had always been too strong for her own good. She'd done her job with same hard-edged determination she always showed on a difficult case, and only taken the same couple of personal days as the rest of them when it ended. The whole thing had to have effected her more than she'd let on, but he never thought this would be the result when she finally let herself react.

Shaking his head slightly, he returned his attention to the form. She'd cited only professional considerations under 'reasons for transfer', but he knew that was bullshit. She was leaving over a woman. Again. As far as he knew, she'd only spoken a few sentences to her mother in the decade and a half since the last time she'd done it. He'd be damned if she'd do the same to him.

"You don't have to do this," He told her

At first he wasn't sure if he'd heard him, but after a few more moments studying whatever she found so fascinating on his damn wall today, she finally shifted her gaze onto him and asked "Do what?"

"Run away,"

That got an immediate response.

"I'm not!" she snapped, and he could tell from the sharp, defensive note in her voice that she didn't believe it any more than he did.

"Really?"

"Narco is a good opportunity," She argued, more convincing this time, since she wasn't actually lying right to his face this time. Narcotics was a good opportunity for someone with her skills at the moment. "They've just got funding for their own lab, there's an opening for a new Lieutenant, and they're looking for someone with CSI experience. Arildsen is only a few months off retirement, and Owens has already got as far as he's going. I could make captain by next year."

All this was true, which was why she should have applied for the transfer when it became common knowledge last month. Brass had put her in for the Lieutenants' exam at the time, and suggested she go for it. She'd passed with some of the best results he'd seen, but she'd been reluctant to move away from Homicide; or Sara.

He couldn't really block the request when it had been his idea to start with. He might not be happy with her reasons for going, but he wasn't that much of a hypocrite. It wouldn't stop him calling her on the real reason she wanted out now, though. "Are you sure this is what you want?" he asked, "There are probably other ways you could avoid seeing them,"

"It isn't about Sara,"

He noticed that she didn't deny having a problem with Grissom, but let that slide. He had something else in mind. "You should go see her,"

"I can't," she sighed, running her fingers through her long hair before going back to staring at that one picture on the wall. It was of Brass shaking hands with one of the city's volunteer firefighters outside the CSI building. He was smiling, more easily than she'd seen him do for a while now. He looked younger because of it, and far more care-free. Like they'd all been before this mess with the Miniature Killer had started; before it had got personal, and they'd all worked out what was really going on, and ended up fighting for one of their lives. The life that mattered most to her. And to someone else. "It wouldn't be right,"

"Because you like her?"

She nodded, acknowledging her feelings to someone else for the first time "Far too much for it to end well for all of us,"

"You should still go," he smiled "Take her some flowers, tell her how you feel,"

"What about-

"Grissom? You're not a coward, Sofia, let Sara make that decision."

She sighed, but tilted her head to the side and gave him that twisted little smile he was now so familiar with. "Okay," she reluctantly agreed, "But if it backfires horribly, I'm blaming you!"

"You'll do fine," His smile growing into a grin, like the one he was wearing in the picture. He liked Grissom, but he and Sara were too alike to work. They'd drown under a sea of quantifiable facts, and failure would only be harder on them both a few months down the line.

Still caught between horror and optimism at what she was about to do, Sofia only nodded "I hope you're right,"

"So do I," he held up the papers, "And I'll have these signed by the time you get back if you like,"

"Please," Sofia's gaze narrowed, and she regarded him for a few seconds with suspicion in her lazer blue eyes, "Would you have signed it if I hadn't agreed to see Sara?"

"Perhaps," Brass shrugged, "I guess you'll never know,"

When she left, Brass was smiling at the transfer request in his hands.