Author's Notes: Thank you for all who have read and replied to the first three chapters...I appreciate and look forward to your input! Replies encouragetimely chapters...Thank you!

Jenny

ChapterFour:

Greg was sitting at the kitchen table when the front door open, the familiar silhouette of his wife illuminated by the moonlight as she stumbled into the dark house.

His troubled attempt at sleep had been interrupted by Grissom, who had told him there was an incident at a crime scene and Sara was pretty shaken up. He hadn't gone into details, but had told Greg to expect Sara home soon. This was 5 hours ago, and after calling her cell for the 18th time, he had been rudely instructed to stop bothering her.

She fumbled a bit in the doorway, finally shutting the front door and latching the lock behind her. Tossing her keys onto the table, she stumbled to the couch, flopping down with a loud sigh.

"I didn't think you'd bother showing up here tonight." Greg said quietly from the dark kitchen.

Sara was silent for a moment, before replying in a cold voice, "I live here."

"Could have fooled me." Greg muttered, standing and moving towards the living room, "We need to talk."

Sara remained silent, and Greg took a shaky step towards the couch, suddenly nervous about the conversation he had been rehearsing for hours.

"You've been drinking." It was more of a statement than an observation, he had been able to smell the mixture of stale cigarettes and vomit the moment she had walked through the door.

Sara shrugged, the movement barely detectable in the black shroud of night, replying softly, "What's it to you?"

"Grissom called."

Those two words exponentially magnified the tension already present in the room, yet Sara's voice remained quiet, yet lethal, "It wasn't a big deal."

She stood, walking towards the bathroom with a scowl on her face. As she neared the door, she turned back to look at her husband, still entrapped in the darkness, "He shouldn't have called."

Before Greg could respond, she disappeared into the bathroom, the faucet beginning to run a few moments later.

She stepped into the bathtub, shakily sitting as she turned on the hot water. She could still feel the pain, indicating she hadn't been as drunk as she had originally presumed. Drawing her knees to her chest, she exhaled deeply, her head already starting to ache. She hated to push Greg away, she could see the raw pain in his eyes with every cold word she spoke, but there was just no other way to escape the reality of this situation.

The crime scene had been a complete nightmare. The moment she walked in the door, she was met with the overwhelming stench of copper and urine, and in the foyer alone laid two bodies. She had been in scenes more pungent and brutal than this had been, but the thing that upset her the most was that her victims were both children, slain in their own homes. Her head felt light and her stomach churned, and the next thing she knew she was laying on the ground, both Brass and Grissom hovering over her with concerned expressions on their faces.

Again, as she vividly recalled the crime scene, she realized she was entirely too sober to make it through the night. Grissom had taken her back to the lab, instructing her to go home and get some rest, but she knew that his suggestion would be impossible without something to calm her nerves. She had stopped at a bar by her house for one beer, although it had grown to many, many more over the following hours. Not surprisingly, they hadn't helped at all. The alcohol had made her emotions easier to resurface, only forcing her pain to bubble at the surface. She wasn't sure how much longer she'd be able to keep everything bottled up inside, yet she was scared to let it out, because that would make this nightmare a reality.

It wasn't just that they lost Sadie, it was the additional reminder that Sadie was killed while Sara should have been paying closer attention to her. I twas that she stood rooted to her spot while Greg tried to save their daughter's life. Sadie was her responsibility, she should have been more careful with their baby girl. Because of her incapabilities as a parent, their child was taken from them. All she had to do was watch her for a few hours while Chrissy and Greg had their fun, but she hadn't even managed that. Tears stung her eyes as guilt washed through her, another painful reminder that it would have taken the entire alcohol supply of Vegas to drown this heartache.

A soft knock on the door brought her out of her thoughts, and she was too tired and weak to argue when Greg let himself in, taking a seat on the closed toilet, studying her pale face carefully, "We can't do this."

"Do what?" Sara replied, trying unsuccessfully to sound forceful. She wasn't ready to talk to him, to unleash the pain that would certainly ooze from her pores once the cold reality sank in. If they were angry, fighting, she could keep the memories, the images at bay and focus only on now. She turned her head away from Greg's watchful gaze, and instead stared at the wall of the tub, closing her eyes as her head painfully throbbed.

Greg was silent for a moment, trying to find the words he had practiced so well earlier. At a loss, he stated quietly, "We have to talk about this. Shutting each other out isn't going to fix anything. Drinking won't solve anything. Ignoring me won't help anything."

"Nothing we do will change the past, Greg." Sara said quietly, refusing to let tears well in her tired eyes, "You can't bring back Sadie, and neither can I. She's gone, Greg. Talking won't change that. Crying won't change that. Rationalizing won't change that. Nothing will change it. She's gone, forever."

"Don't you think I already know that?" Greg asked, standing angrily. "Damn it, Sara, look at me! What do I have to do to prove to you that you can trust me?"

Sara shook her head, "This isn't about you, this about our daughter!"

"Then why the hell are you punishing me?" Greg shouted, his voice echoing in the small room, "I'm not asking for much, I just want you to open up to me. I need to talk about this, I need to feel this, I need to accept this so I can take care of Chrissy, you, our family!"

Sara turned her bed to look at Greg's streaked face, before replying quietly, "I don't really care what you want. What part of 'This isn't about you' did you not understand?"

"You know what?" Greg asked furiously, his eyes lighting up with anger, "When you finally decide to start caring about people besides yourself, Chris and I may have already moved on without you." Giving Sara a disgusted look, he swung open the door, shaking his head bitterly, "I'm going to bed."

Once alone, Sara buried her head in her knees and began to sob.

--

Greg crawled into his cold bed, a mixture of fear and anger causing his heart to pulse rapidly as he stared at the ceiling, unable to close his eyes. He understood that everyone grieved in different ways, and that he couldn't judge Sara by her current mood, but he was so fed up with getting the cold shoulder that he wasn't sure he even wanted to remain in the same house with her. What could he have possibly done to make Sara so angry with him?

There was the obvious reason...he hadn't reacted quickly enough the moment he heard Sadie's shrill voice. He hadn't been able to revive their daughter. He hadn't been able to be the pillar of strength for their crumbling family. None of this, however, was enough to bring such venom from his normally loving wife.

He understood that this day would change both of them forever, but never in his wildest dreams did he think that it would pull them completely apart from each other.

He wasn't sure how long he had stared at the white dots on the ceiling, but at some point Sara silently staggered into bed, the bar smell gone, replaced with lavender and peppermint. He had bought her that shower gel, it almost felt as if she was wrong to use it while they were fighting. She laid on her side, watching the green numbers change on their alarm clock. Both knew that the other wasn't asleep, but neither made a move to speak. Eventually, both managed to drift into a light slumber, the room thick with unspoken words.

--

Sara's eyes sprang open as she let out a small shriek, Sadie's face still vividly clear although the nightmare had ended. She realized she was going to be sick a few moments too late, and although she rushed to make it to the bathroom on time, she vomited once outside the bathroom door, and twice more into the small sink. Lowering her head into her arms, she fought to keep both her tears and nausea at bay.

While she hadn't had drank enough to erase her memories, she surely had drank enough to wind up hungover and miserable.

He was pulling back her hair and leading her gently to the toilet before she could tell him to leave her alone, but as he wet a rag, pressing it against the back of her neck, she realized she didn't necessarily want him to leave. The unexpected comforting was more calming than she ever would have anticipated, and as she was sick once more, she could barely remember why pushing him away was such a great idea.

Both were nearly certain that she'd close up again once she sobered up, but for now, both absorbed the closeness of their once solid relationship that was now weathering away.

And as she sat on the cold, tiled floor, wrapped in her husband's arms, she began to weep.

TBC