Author's note: I was just blown away by the wonderful response to the last chapter of this little fic. I'm new to the world of and I haven't quite figured it all out yet (like, for example, whether replying to reviews is a simple and routine practice) but I want to thank all the reviewers right now. Every response is much appreciated and so encouraging, but it's a special joy to hear from those of you who are so thoughtful in your reviews, who choose a favorite line or moment or tell me exactly what it is that's working.

Thank you. I only hope I don't let you down from here on in.

Moments of Truth

Chapter Three

A loud clatter from the kitchen woke Sara out of a restless slumber, mercifully ending a dated nightmare that was all too real.

Her eyes flew open, darting around in search of her gun until a muffled curse traveled from the kitchen, and she recognized the familiar voice.

Why the hell was Grissom in her kitchen?

She knew that he had driven her home from the crime scene. She had dozed during the drive, and she remembered waking to the sound of his voice gently calling her name and his hand gently squeezing hers. She thought she remembered him guiding her from the car to her door, and maybe even through the halls to her bedroom…

After that, she remembered nothing.

She took stock of what she was wearing and realized she hadn't changed before getting into bed. She wasn't wearing shoes, but otherwise she was dressed as she had been at the crime scene.

It occurred to her that it was silly to worry about her appearance at this point, but she decided to shower and change before letting Grissom see her.

After all, she was a woman, and he was a man, and there was an undeniable attraction at least from her end, and the fact that she was likely to be dead by this time next year didn't change that.

Fifteen minutes later she entered her own kitchen cautiously, silently, and she noticed Grissom before he noticed her. He was sitting down with a cup of coffee, staring into it absentmindedly, and she had the sad thought that the expression on his face was one she had seen on too many faces at too many crime scenes, when someone was missing and their loved ones knew the odds weren't good.

She walked further into the room, making her presence known, and Grissom looked up.

"You're awake."

"And you're still here."

"Now that we have that established…" Grissom smiled and sipped his coffee. "How do you feel?"

She ignored the question.

"You didn't have to spend the night," she told him, and smiled so he would know she appreciated it.

"You were half asleep in the car, nearly asleep by the time you hit the pillow… I wasn't sure if you should be alone and you weren't awake for me to ask, so I stayed."

Hiding another little content smile, Sara turned and poured herself a cup of coffee from the pot on the stove.

"You slept on my couch?" she inquired casually, turning back to face him and raising her mug to her lips. She was surprised at how comfortable it felt for the two of them to be here together, sharing morning coffee and conversation.

It was new and different, of course, but new and different had never felt so good.

"I... couldn't sleep. But I stayed on your couch, yes."

Grissom neglected to mention that he'd spent some of the night standing in her doorway watching her sleep and hating the world.

"You have some messages," he told her, gesturing to the machine.

"Weird," she mumbled, glancing at the blinking light, "Usually the phone wakes me."

"Well, you were tired." He paused. "And I turned down the volume," he admitted guiltily.

Not bothered in the least, she hit the 'play' button. Greg's voice filled the room.

"Hey, Sara, it's me, Greg. I'm a little freaked out here, you looked like you were gonna keel over last night. Just checking up on you. Give me a call."

Sara's smile disappeared, replaced by a look of dread that was becoming all too familiar to Grissom.

The machine beeped and moved on to play back the rest of the messages.

"Hey, Girl, Warrick here. What happened last night? Let me know how things are, and if you need a ride to work or something. I've got you covered. All right, later."

"Hey, Sara, it's Nick. Greg just called me wanting to know if I'd talked to you. He says you weren't doing so good last night, and you know, between that and the whole near-faint thing, maybe you should get checked out… Let me know if I can help. Or at least call poor Greggo and put the guy out of his misery. I'll see you at work. Bye."

"Sara, it's Catherine. I, uh… I hope things are… well, have you seen Grissom? Can't find him. Thought you might know. Guess I'll keep looking… So listen, feel better. And think about seeing a doctor, maybe. Nicky's worried about you." Her voice on the recording paused for a moment, then picked up abruptly. "Truth is I'm a little concerned myself."

"Sara? It's Greg! If you're there, pick up the phone. Nick says you fainted? And then after what happened last night, I mean, why wouldn't you tell me you fainted? Why aren't you seeing a doctor? Call me! I'll take you to a doctor if you want. I'd do that. I might make you do that. Call me, okay? Like, soon. Oh, and have you seen Grissom?"

"Hey, Greg again… just checking… and yeah, call me."

The machine finally finished, and Grissom gave Sara a pointed look.

"I know," she said, sighing. "I know… I know."

Sara sipped her coffee for a moment, thinking, then slammed the mug down harder than she'd meant to and picked up the phone determinedly.

"I'll meet them for breakfast in an hour."

"Give me that long to get home and get cleaned up," he told her, and he was halfway to her door before he turned back. "Can I pick you up here on the way?" he asked, his tone hopeful, and she gave it only a moment's thought before nodding resignedly.

A dizzy spell while behind the wheel of a car wouldn't be a good thing.

Grissom was gone without another word, and Sara gave herself only a moment to silently relish the joy of the taken-for-granted; he knew without asking where they were going, because the team had only one regular breakfast spot; he knew she would appreciate having him there for support when she shared the news, and he didn't make her say it out loud.

Maybe it was just that he was more comfortable with the 'doing' than the 'discussing' of these things, but for a man like Grissom it wasn't half bad.

Suddenly the phone began beeping in her hand, objecting to being held up off the receiver for so long. She dropped it into the cradle and picked it up again, then took a deep breath and hit the speed dial.

…

Greg arrived first, full of questions and looking more than a little bit worried. Catherine was next, and Nick and Warrick showed up at almost the same moment after her. They all followed more or less of the same pattern, first looking at Sara, then Grissom, then back at Sara again. They weren't sure what was going on, but it was clear that Grissom knew, and it was clear that the news wasn't good.

They were all seated around a familiar table, and four pairs of anxious eyes were on Sara along with Grissom's saddened ones.

Sara rolled some words around in her mind for a moment.

The ripping-off-a-band-aid approach won out.

"I have Hepatitis C." She forced herself to speak matter-of-factly. "It's likely in its advanced stages. I may also have liver cancer. And I probably need a transplant."

They all gaped at her. Shocked, horrified, silent, disbelieving.

Nick shook his head a little bit in silent protest, and Warrick dropped his chin into his hand.

Catherine looked from Sara to Grissom and back again, as worried for him as for her, but Grissom's expression was a mask of control.

Greg looked like he was going to cry or throw up, maybe both.

"Okay, but…" Greg stammered. "Probably isn't for sure, I mean… maybe you won't need it right?"

"It's a possibility, Greg, but… it's not too likely at this point, according to what my doctor has been telling me." Sara told him gently, the same way she would talk to a child whose parents were likely dead.

"But you've… you seemed fine, until, like…" Greg let his voice trail off, thinking back, and his lips trembled a bit as he fought back tears. "Transplants happen, transplants work…"

Catherine put her hand on Greg's shoulder and met his eyes. They both knew the statistics. They all knew the statistics.

"Are you… Can you keep working?" Nick asked, his tone tinged with hope, and Sara hesitated.

"I've already cut back my hours… I might not be able to keep going out into the field. But I'm not giving anything up until I have to."

"Good to know some things never change," Warrick said softly, but in the silence that followed the phrase seemed harsh rather than appreciative.

"Does Ecklie know about any of this?" Catherine wanted to know, looking unsettled at the thought.

"Nothing yet, and I want to keep it that way for a while," Sara answered. "He'd like nothing more than to send me home."

Yet another moment of silence followed, and Nick drew in an audible deep breath.

"I don't know about the rest of you, but I can keep a secret." He promised, and there was an assortment of agreeing nods from around the table. "And I think I speak for all of us when I say that we'll do whatever we can. Day or night. Hell, they're interchangeable for me these days anyway." He tried for a moment of levity with the last thought, but Sara could have sworn his voice was just a touch thicker than usual, his accent just a little bit more prominent, and there might have been just a hint of moisture in his eyes.

And damn if it didn't evoke the same reaction in her.

She sat there with them for as long as she could handle.

But she hated to cry in front of people.

Nick and Warrick were keeping it together, and Greg trying desperately to do the same, but she could see the struggle. Catherine of all people reached across the table to take her hand.

It was too much. She was waging a losing battle with her tears.

"I, uh… I have an appointment… I have to get to… so I'm going to go…" She stood up and looked down at all of them. "I'm sorry," she told them quietly, and Nick shook his head.

"I'm sorry, we're sorry," Nick nearly whispered, and Sara nodded and turned to head for the door.

Grissom stood to go after her.

"We drove together," he explained, and he started to get out his wallet and then realized they hadn't ordered anything.

He took a few steps toward the front of the restaurant, then changed his mind and turned back.

"We're all she has," he told them simply. "You should know that."

And then he left them there to console each other.

…

"You were pretty quiet through all of that," Sara told Grissom as they arrived back at her apartment.

"I already knew," he pointed out, but that didn't seem quite 'it' to her.

"You're the 'Grissom' kind of quiet," she explained as if it was the most natural, sensible comment in the world, and she let herself fall into a sitting position on her couch.

He followed her in and sat down next to her, on the other end of the couch, and she took a mental note of how easy it seemed for him to do that.

There was a comfort level there now that hadn't been there before, and it was so bittersweet she could have cried.

"I have my own brand of quiet?" he asked, slightly amused.

"The 'Grissom' look. Your inquisitive look. The kind of quiet you get when you're trying to figure out how a piece of evidence fits into the puzzle."

"You were tossing and turning last night," he told her suddenly, and then looked as surprised as she did that he'd said it.

"You watched me sleep?" She asked, and he was grateful that her tone was skeptical rather than upset.

"I think I watched you have a nightmare."

Sara started to point out that she had more than enough going on in her life to contribute to upsetting dreams, but she stopped before the words left her mouth.

There was a question in his eyes, and something holding him back, and she realized that he knew.

Of course he knew. He was Grissom. His need to know all surpassed her own.

And now here he was, looking for confirmation, as afraid to ask the question as she was to answer it.

"You want to know what happened. How I got the Hep C in the first place," she acknowledged quietly.

Can open. Worms everywhere.

No turning back now.

Grissom managed a little nod.

"I'd like to think it was through a blood transfusion," he said softly.

"But you don't."

He said nothing, revealed nothing.

For a moment she thought he was going to be sick.

"Mourning without empathy leads to madness," he quoted haltingly, and then for a few seconds he listened to her breathe.

"Donald Woods Winnicott." She gave the obligatory answer, then shook her head slightly, looking for a way out. "That, uh… he said that about loss…"

"Freud thought it had a lot to do with trauma."

She curled up just a little bit against the back of the couch.

And then she met his eyes.

"It's been a lot of years."

"Did they get him?"

Sara drew in a ragged breath that betrayed the calm she was fighting to keep.

She wasn't at all sure she wanted to do this. She wasn't at all sure she'd be able to look him in the eye again if she shared this with him.

But she'd come this far.

"I was eighteen."

Her voice caught, but her tense expression held strong.

"Crossing the parking lot. Behind the library."

Maybe she couldn't do this.

Maybe this should stay buried.

Maybe…

"I had pepper spray in my purse, but… I couldn't grab it… My first indication that anything was wrong… my body hitting the ground…" She sniffled, breathed audibly, let the tears fall. "I never even felt his hands shove me down, I just remember…" She licked her upper lip, licked the tears that had fallen there. "Just the ground rushing up at me."

She quieted for so long that anyone else would have said something to question her or encourage her.

But Grissom just waited.

"I felt everything he did after that, though."

Her face crumbled, and he sat watching it happen, feeling a prickling at the back of his own eyes, feeling sick, feeling helpless, wondering if any kind of physical comfort was appropriate right now.

He turned his body to face hers more completely, leaned forward, and reached out his hand along the back of the couch, as close to her face as he dared.

He wasn't sure how long it was before she collected herself and continued.

"You know they didn't have the same HIV protocols then… you know that… but, uh… there was this nurse, in the ER, when I finally made myself go get checked out, and… She went through the whole HIV spiel with me, because she'd… she'd known someone, I think she said… and I went back over and over again to get tested, like they recommended, you know, over time, just to be sure… And when that last test came back negative…" Emotion threatened to overcome her again. "It was like I won. They never caught the guy, but… Surviving, that was my victory. That's always been my victory…"

Grissom met her watery gaze and took a deep breath.

"Sara --"

"Guess he got the last laugh." She choked on the words, willing back her tears.

"You've spent the better part of your professional life getting victories for other survivors," he pointed out gently.

He had wanted to give her some sense of triumph to hold onto, but it was the word 'survivors' alone that cut through the layers of emotion and hit her hard.

Not other victims.

Other survivors.

"Survivors," she repeated, putting the word out there for consideration, looking over at him.

There was admiration and a healthy dose of empathy in his eyes rather than pity.

She was looking down trying to figure out how to thank him for that when his fingers brushed against her own, and she looked up at him.

There was a certain emotional exhaustion that seemed to take up space in the room with them, and she let the moment be what it was for several intense seconds.

Funny how knowing time was running out made people take time for things they didn't – or didn't know how to – before.

"You do well as the empathetic witness. Freud would be proud," she offered.

He all but scoffed at the idea.

"I'm lousy at this stuff. I've always been lousy at this stuff."

"You're not as bad as you think you are. You just… don't always say things out loud."

"I'm not sure you should count on that changing any time soon."

"Soon is all I've got." She said it matter-of-factly as always, and as always it hurt.

But she had a good point, and her voice wasn't trembling anymore, and so far getting closer to her hadn't brought the sky crashing down, so he moved over and wrapped his arms around her and pulled her closer until she was nearly in his lap.

For a long while they sat there together, close enough to feel each other breathe, staring into the empty space in front of them.

It was cruel, this life that gave them what they needed to find what they had been missing, only because everything that mattered was about to be taken away.

Thank you God.

Damn you, God.

Please, dear God…

…