Grissom just stood there staring at Sara wondering now why he had decided to stop by in the first place and then remembering that he'd thought she looked upset before she'd left the lab with Nick. With Nick. His mind started to spin with possibilities and doubts began to assail him. "Is this the first time?"

Sara's eyes widened in shock. "What! No. I mean yes this is the first time." He was clearly hurt by what had happened, but now he wanted to know if she had cheated on him before. "How could you ask me that?" They had danced around each other for a long time before they'd trusted each other enough to start this relationship. She had been so obsessed about him for so long, the last time she even had a date with anyone else was when Hank Pettigrew had used her to cheat on his girlfriend; so for him to suggest that she could even conceive of cheating on him cut her to the heart. "I would never cheat on you."

Grissom quirked an eyebrow at her with sadness filling his eyes. "Then what was Nick?" He looked completely defeated; it wasn't that he didn't want to believe her it was that even in the midst of them being together he was always fearful that she would leave him; that she would find that the difference in their ages was just too much.

Sara was crying now. "It just happened...I don't know...all he did was kiss me." As much as she was upset by the accusation, she was also upset by the fact that Grissom didn't seem to trust her. She had never given him any reason to doubt her; before now that is. "He didn't know that you and I were together."

Grissom was confused as to whether they were still together or if this was the beginning of the end. "Well he apparently knows now." Maybe if they could just go back to the way things were before; if they could swear Nick to secrecy. "We'll just have to talk to him; make sure he doesn't say anything."

"I cannot believe you." Sara looked horrified. "After what happened to Sophia, you still want to keep this relationship a secret." At that moment she wasn't sure she really even knew Gil Grissom. She had no desire to go through what Alex Vartan was right now.

"Sara, we agreed at the beginning..." Grissom took a step back, feeling a bit off balance because she didn't seem to be seeing things the way he did.

"Fuck the beginning." Sara narrowed her eyes at Grissom. "Fuck the agreement." She was clearly pissed off. "Do you want every man at CSI to find out about whatever this is when they hit on me?" Grissom's lack of response was her encouragement to take the final step. "You know what? Fuck you, Grissom. Fuck you."

Grissom tried to interject a little rational thought into the situation; his voice sounded very controlled. "Sara, if this came out, I could lose everything that I've worked for."

Sara shook her head, her voice far too controlled now. "No, Grissom, it's even worse than that...you're going to lose me. I can't live like this anymore. I can see now that your career is far more important to you than I will ever be and I can't compete with that; I shouldn't have to compete with that." She realized then that unless the man standing before her was willing to go public and deal with the consequences as they came, she wasn't going to be satisfied with their relationship; she would always question whether he loved his career more than her.

"Sara." Grissom opened his mouth to protest as he felt this thing between them slipping through his fingertips. She was important to him; his career was important to him; surely there was a way to figure out how he could have both.

"No." Sara did not want to cry again; she was already confused enough with Nick's kiss thrown into the mix. "I think you should go." She was not going to cry. Damn those stupid tears.

"Can't we talk about this?" Grissom really didn't know what to say; he just knew that he didn't want to lose Sara.

"No." Sara blinked back tears. "No, I don't think we can...I think it's just better if you go. I just want to be alone right now." Her mind was swirling and she just needed to find a way to make it stop so she could sort all of this out.

Grissom headed for the door, pausing for a moment as he held the door open. "If you change your mind..." His words trailed off sadly as he turned and stepped through the door, closing it behind him.

Sara just stood there as the floodgate of tears finally let loose; and it barely registered in her mind that the movie that she and Nick had started watching was still going as she sank back into the couch and reached for the nearest beer.

Nick wasn't sure where he was going; he just knew he needed to take a long drive to clear his head. He just couldn't get the image of Grissom walking into Sara's apartment out of his mind. The man had a key; you didn't give someone a key to your apartment if you didn't expect them to come over whenever the hell they wanted. Why had she kissed him back? He couldn't get that thought out of his mind either because that kiss had been amazing; he didn't think she could kiss like that if she didn't mean it. In a nutshell, he was utterly confused.

In the next instant he was pissed off. How dare she kiss him like that if she was supposed to be with Grissom. He was not going to be the other man; he was not going to let her use him. Shit, get a grip Stokes, it was one kiss and you're the one that initiated it; can she help it if the Stokes charm was too much for rationale thought? Hey, but she knew I was going to kiss her; she could have stopped me if she wanted to.

If she wanted to.

Now that was a thought that Nick couldn't seem to let go of. If she wanted to. She wanted to kiss him as much as he had wanted to kiss her; he could see it in her eyes even as she had pulled away. He didn't know what the hell was really going on between her and Grissom, but if she kissed him like that; maybe he had jumped to conclusions. Shit. Grissom had a key; of course he'd jumped to conclusions; what other conclusion was there to jump to?

He was irritated. Why did Sara and Grissom hide their damn relationship? It wasn't a huge secret that Sara had been infatuated with their supervisor for years; in fact rumors swirled that they'd had some sort of relationship before she'd even come to Vegas. That was one of the reasons that Nick had never pursued his attraction to her. And then they'd formed a close bond; one that had gotten them dubbed as the Wonder Twins by one of the dayshift CSIs by the way that they seemed to work together seamlessly.

Nick wasn't all that surprised to find that he'd ended up in his own driveway; he really wasn't sure what time it was, but he was bone tired and he reasoned that since he didn't have to go to work, there wasn't any new news on Sophia, and he'd pretty much blown it with Sara he might as well try and get some sleep. Not that sleeping was going to be an easy thing; his mind was running at breakneck speed and was showing no signs of slowing down.

He eased himself out of the driver's seat and walked slowly up the walk to his front door. He was still berating himself for kissing Sara; all this going on with Sophia and he had to do this now. What a shithead he was; the master and commander of perfect timing. He only hoped that Sara could forgive him; that Grissom wouldn't kill him if he found out about it. He ignored the blinking light on his answering machine as he threw his keys onto the counter. He headed straight for his bedroom and stripped down to his boxers and crawled into bed; staring at the ceiling for a long time before he finally slipped into a fitful sleep.