Author's Note: Okay, so this is, as all my pieces are, GS becoming GSR. It is set somewhere around the end of Season Five, and yes I employ some poetic licence with timelines, episodes and forensics. Its fiction, isn't it? After all, all we really want is the GSR, and there's plenty of that.
Disclaimer: I do not own the characters or the show, I have nothing so suing me really would be a waste of time that could be better spent writing Sara back in for Season Nine.
Sara went to the break room and waited for the results of the samples she had taken at the house, feeling her bruises really begin to take shape. She knew that she needed to go home, to shower, to rest her aching limbs and to eat, but she couldn't entertain the thought of dropping a hot case, if only for a couple of hours.
She made coffee, and drank a whole cup before pouring two more. She took them both down to Grissom's office where he was looking over the crime scene photographs.
"Here." He looked up as she placed the coffee on the desk.
"Thanks."
"Nothing yet." She said, anticipating his question. I've told Hodges to page me and to yell."
"Patience is a virtue," he quipped, a little sideways smile forming. Sara knew he hadn't meant it, but she was tired, and sore, and it stung.
"You don't think I'm patient?" It came out sharper than she had intended, but once said, she decided to stand by it. How many years had it been, until this recent ceasefire? Four? Five? More, since they had met two years prior to her move to Vegas. Pathetic, she thought. Had his hands not been on her face this morning, had his breath not mixed with hers, had his body not pressed down on her in an overwhelmingly intimate (and yet just inside the remit of professional) way, had he not insisted on keeping his arm around her, she might have said nothing more.
"It's a proverb, Sara." She knew that.
"I think there's a lot of things I'm not, but patient? Give me a break." She was only half joking, and he couldn't read her expression. There it is, Grissom thought, as his heart sank. He had done it, screwed things up. She was right. She was patient. She had waited with neither promise nor hope for years, with barely a word spoken of it. Amazing, he thought.
"I'm sorry. I didn't mean… anything." Sara nodded, not wanting to create a scene, or ruin the atmosphere she had been enjoying so much lately. She turned to go, thinking the quicker she got out of there the more chance she had of letting this moment go and rebuilding her resolve. But he had other ideas.
"Sara, wait." He stood behind the desk, started to say something else. She put out a hand to quiet him, and said, calmly,
"Have you noticed that it always comes back to this?" His brow furrowed. She held onto the door jamb, half out of the door, ready to leave him with one last thought. Her voice softened. "Why do you think that is?"
She turned, and walked back down the hall to the break room, feeling slightly agitated but too tired to think much harder about it. A little harsh, or perplexing, maybe, but he would get over it. She always had.