Sorry for the slower than usual update! I'm back at home for the summer moving out of the city messes with my head!

Thank you for all the reviews so far- please keep 'em coming!

Disclaimer: I own zilch.

Paramour

(Hope)

Reuben smiled offering Sara his hand; without any hesitation she took it letting him lead her to one of the back rooms. It was different to the one she had been in previously; there was a heavy oak dining table in the centre, the lighting mainly consisted of kitsch lamps dotted around on the mismatching furniture. Fine china plates were set on the silk table cloth as candles burnt out illuminating the scene.

"You look beautiful..." He shyly mentioned pulling out a chair waiting for Sara to take a seat.

"Thank you...I wasn't sure about the clothes..." She shrugged sitting down waiting for Reuben to take the seat opposite her but he didn't, remaining standing beside her.

"You need to be surer of yourself Sara..." He smiled. "...you're a knockout."

She pursed her lips, their eyes meeting for a moment before either one of them said anything.

"I'll be right back..." Rueben explained already heading towards the door. Sara glanced around nervously at the room that surrounded her attempting to familiarise herself. She noted that it was not the type of setting she would have imagined herself in but then again she wouldn't have ever imagined herself paying for companionship.

The sound of the door creaking open caught her attention Sara turned to find Rueben making his way back towards the table a six pack of beer in one hand and a pizza in the other. He placed them down on the table between them and finally took the seat opposite her.

"Sorry...this was the best I could do..." He apologised as he opened a bottle of beer and handing it to Sara.

"It's fine" She smiled reassuring him. "So how does this work?"

"Well...This is a first date...it's about getting to know each other..." Reuben explained. "So asking questions about each other, feeling each other out...figuratively obviously..."

"That's a shame..." Sara smirked taking a sip of her beer.

"Playing like that are we?" He gave a low gravely laugh.

"I'm not playing..." she quirked an eyebrow at him; she was enjoying this new type of attention she was receiving. As much as she loved Grissom their relationship had never been about desire or pure physical attraction. They had been drawn together based on the mental and emotional chess they had both trained themselves to play. And no matter her attempts to remind herself that this was false; it all seemed to so different.

"So...Tell me about yourself..." Rueben smiled handing Sara a slice of pizza.

"Well...to start with I'm a vegetarian." She offered looking intently at the toppings.

"Me too..." He beamed at her. "What made you want to become a vegetarian?"

"Grissom and I watched a pig wrapped up in a blanket decompose over night to measure the effects of cover on decomposing flesh..." Sara gave a secretive smile as she recalled the way Grissom's blue eyes had lit up as she approached him that night. They had sat in comfortable silence just enjoying the feeling of the other being beside them. It was the night Sara had realised that she was really done for- that there was no other name for what she felt but love. "And I just couldn't eat meat after that..." She shrugged.

"That...er...sounds lovely..." Rueben raised an eyebrow; noting the way that Sara had responded to talking about Grissom reminding himself to ask about him at a later stage. "You do a lot of things like that at work?"

"More often than you would think" Sara smiled feeling herself getting comfortable in the atmosphere they had created. "But it's a part of the job, you get used to it. Sometimes it's actually fun."

"What made you want to work in law enforcement?" He asked, interested in getting to know more about her.

Sara paused for a moment not knowing how to respond to the question that she had been asked. She couldn't remember if she had ever sat down and thought about the decision she had made to become a CSI. All of these years things seemed just so beyond her control- science had always been a way to prove that there was an order to things. That everything happened for a reason.

"My father...was murdered..." She half explained where the need to understand the reasoning behind unfortunate events came from.

"I'm sorry..." Rueben studied her as she kept her eyes focused on anything but him realising that he had hit a tender nerve.

"Don't be...you didn't know." Sara shrugged before she shook off the slightly timid form her body had taken. "How about you what made you want to be a writer?"

"It's always been an escape from reality...A place to hide and at some stage I started taking it seriously." He replied realising that like Sara he had never thought through what he was doing. She could sense that hurt lingered in the shadows of his past, but offered him the some respect by not asking what it was that had been trying to escape.

"It's sad don't you think, how everyone seems to have something they need to escape from?" She asked thinking out loud their eyes meeting meaningfully across the table; sparking something that neither one of them could explain.

"It is..." He agreed sadly.

"If you could escape...where would you go?" She questioned, thinking of the whole world around them, of all the places they could disappear to.

"Cottonwood, Utah." Rueben offered without hesitation. Sara raised an eyebrow at him not fully understanding the implications. "It's where I grew up...home...You?"

"I don't know...I'd travel, I think..." Sara offered shortly. It struck her odd how she had spent so many years wanting to escape but realising that she had no idea where she would go once she had done. A moments silence lingered between them as they lost themselves in an alternate reality where they had managed to leave this city behind and become the people that they had hoped they'd once be.

"What's your favourite book?" Rueben asked breaking the silence.

"Jane Eyre..." Sara replied after giving it some thought while she took a bite out of the pizza he had given her. She had always loved the story for the reminder of triumph, for the unconventional love that endured between Jane and Mr Rochester. She recalled hiding behind the curtains in the bedroom she had been allocated in one of her foster homes, looking out at the stretching greenery while losing herself in the pages of the battered old copy she had found abandoned in the room. Sara remembered how much she had loved the feel of the book in her hands, the texture of the paper, as she realised that she had become enchanted with words using them to escape the pain of reality.

"What about you?" Sara unfolded her napkin straightening out the edges with her hands.

"Lord of the Flies" He gave her his signature chipped tooth smile. "It brings out the optimism in me..."

"Optimism isn't what I'd associate with it..." Sara raised her eyebrows attempting to understand his point of view.

"There is always a chance you're going to be rescued." Rueben replied flippantly.

"Huh, never thought about it that way..." She shrugged.

"Getting new perspectives on old knowledge is always a good thing." He smiled softly at her.

"So...many of your relationships teach you new perspectives..." Sara teased.

"Some..." Rueben let the word linger as he studied the woman before him. He could sense all of the walls she had built around her heart; there was something sad lingering in her dark eyes and behind every one of her smiles.

He reached across the table tucking a strand of hair behind her ear, brushing his fingertips delicately across her skin. She met his eye as his hand seemed to remain for a moment too long the warmth of his skin spreading over hers. He was most certainly good at his job. She thought momentarily before glancing away with a shy smile.

"What inspired your book?" She whispered wondering if there was anyone for whom these simple touches and smiles he used were real. Something flashed across his eyes for a moment but as quickly as it had appeared it was gone.

"I once fell in love..." He said nonchalantly taking a swing from his beer. Sara understood his defensiveness and decided not to push any further recognising the hurt of a broken heart. "She...married someone else." Rueben eventually explained.

"I'm sorry..." Sara said apologetically placed her hand on his.

"Don't be...We all have to have our hearts broken at some stage..." He assured her but it was almost as if he was attempting to convince himself that was the case.

"I guess you're right about that..." She nodded, wondering if everyone was broken underneath it all. "I...I think should get going..."

"Okay..." Rueben smiled standing up offering Sara his hand.

"So...I decided to come back...How do you want me to pay you?" She asked dismissively with a disarming smile.

"Check should do it..." He nodded.

Once they had sorted through the formalities of their arrangement Sara turned to walk away but like the previous night Rueben offered to walk her to the car. She didn't protest as he walked by her side, his hand lingering on the small of her back.

"What are you think about?" She asked noticing how he had been silent the whole way to her car.

Sara turned to face him noticing how close they were standing; she could see the rise and fall of his chest, the smell of his cologne overwhelmed her slightly. Rueben ran his tongue over his lower lip before he spoke, his eyes firmly on hers.

"I was wondering what you'd think if I kissed you on our first date..."