A/N: A new chapter for season 3 (finally!)-read, enjoy, review...thank you!

Gil Grissom's Romance

Chapter 10

When Gil Grissom woke inside his dark and shadowy bedroom, he rolled out of bed, adjusted the baggy boxers he wore as pajamas, and opened the room-darkening blinds that covered the windows. He did not go into the kitchen to make coffee, or even to the bathroom to wash his face; instead, he walked over to his desk, sat down, and watched the darkness grow beyond the window.

Or what amounted to darkness in Las Vegas. Artificial lights gradually took over for the sun so that much of the city was never plunged into night—not even into twilight—giving the illusion of twenty-four hours of daylight.

Sitting at his desk, absentmindedly flipping a pen between his fingers, certain things floated back to him.

Gradually, he was losing his hearing; his house was quiet by design after he had realized he played music to loud. He had also stopped attempts to read lips, finding it was too personal, too intimate, too revealing.

Weeks before, he had been trapped by his own vulnerability, a fleeting moment of weakness when he had touched a woman's face. Her business was built on receptiveness, a quick ability to perceive, to notice what escaped others. He had stepped back, but she had understood, sensed his need for quiet during conversation and had not mentioned his hearing loss again.

He brought the pen to his mouth and tapped it against his lips. Whatever rapport had been building between the woman known as Lady Heather and he—as a professional or as friends—had disappeared like cool wind in the desert when he had requested a subpoena.

It wasn't Heather, the owner of Lady Heather's Dominion, who caused him to pace the floor and toss and turn while trying to sleep—or dream silent dreams of a dark-haired, dark-eyed young woman.

His eyes moved back to the window where the change from day to night had occurred. He thought of the young woman who had looked at him as she sat on the curb, cradling her injured hand. He thought of the perfect oval of her face as she had stood in his office doorway; for a few seconds, she had appeared like an eclipse, a bright corona around her head, her face hidden behind a glowing shadow.

She had taken his breath away—not for the first time—and caused an aching that did not diminish as he tried to sleep. He had gotten up and read Yeats—a poem about a fire in one's head and hopeless love. He had refused her invitation as a clear voice in his head: Don't say any more.

In private moments, he felt increasingly foolish about it, how enmeshed he was in wanting her. He had been doing fine for years—until he met her on that day in San Francisco. That one moment when a young woman with a pony tail had asked a question and had cast a net around his life—the one innocuous moment had destroyed his contentment.

Sighing, he got up and washed his face before going into his kitchen for coffee.

Hours later, Nick and Warrick were working a traffic death, Catherine had the night off, so when a call came in from the park ranger at Red Rocks, he paged Sara to meet him. In seconds, she was standing in his office doorway; in her hands were two cups of steaming coffee.

"I just made coffee," she said, extending one cup to him.

In minutes, they were driving a familiar highway, headed west as he repeated what he had heard. Bird watchers had seen a dead body in a ravine.

"In the middle of the night?" Sara asked as she followed his directions.

"The watchers had walked in—and found the body after sundown, walked out, and called the rangers who are there now."

She nodded as she left the interstate and turned on a paved road. Where they were going was not the easily assessable public areas; after several miles of driving, the asphalt ended in a parking lot.

"There," Grissom pointed to a yellow sign indicating a service road.

Sara maneuvered the vehicle onto the gravel road, little more than a rough path, and drove slowly between canyon walls that had been cut by eons of water run-off. The road was hard-packed with an occasional patch of bone-jarring rocks. At times the vehicle nearly scraped the sides of the canyon.

"Do you know where this ends?" Sara asked as she made a sharp turn and continued north.

"Lee Canyon. It ends at a deep ravine—where the body is." Grissom said through clinched teeth as the vehicle bounced over several boulders embedded in the road.

Suddenly, they entered a dry creek bed which made driving—and riding—much easier.

"I see lights to the right," Grissom said.

In a few minutes, Sara pulled to a stop next to several ranger vehicles. Their arrival turned everyone's attention to them as one ranger repeated most of what Grissom had already told Sara.

"The body is down there—about sixty feet," the older man explained. "We figured out it was a murder once two of my guys went down." Pointing to the center of his forehead, he continued, "One here and one here." He pointed to his chest. "Different calibers—neat to the forehead, huge hole in his chest."

Grissom and Sara peered over the edge where darkness seemed to fall into an abyss and the bright lights of their flashlights disappeared before finding the bottom. Directly below them, on a protruding shelf a white shirt reflected their lights. The ledge could not be more than fifteen feet wide.

Puzzled, Grissom asked, "How did bird watchers see him?"

The same ranger said, "We've got them at the station house. According to their report, they had watched the bird—a peregrine falcon—feeding her chick for hours and the falcon kept going to the same place for food. Over the edge—so that's why they looked over and found him."

After a long moment of silence, Sara said, "I'll go down."

As she clicked a climbing harness around her body, as did two of the younger rangers, Grissom took her kit and tied a rope to the handle. He said, "The sun will be up soon."

"We'll have him up before then—and he's all yours," one of the ranger's said with a quiet chuckle. "We don't do dead humans very well."

When the young man turned to check Sara's harness, Grissom said, "Just bag his hands and shoes. Don't hang around on that ledge."

Sara smiled, saying, "I've hauled a few bodies around."

Grissom frowned. "Not from a ledge in the dark." He saw the quick set of her jaw. "You know what to do—be careful."

It took a while to get the body in a basket and up to the group; it was also apparent the man had not willingly traveled to the desert. His wrists were marked with abrasions and Sara had found trace of adhesive around his mouth as she covered his head. The coroner would meet the ranger's vehicle at the parking lot and transfer the body to the morgue.

The dead man's driver's license identified him as Robert Mathis with a Las Vegas address.

"Let's talk with the bird watchers next," Grissom said as he and Sara climbed into his vehicle. Again, Sara drove.

The bird watchers, two women, younger than Grissom had thought they would be, related a similar story that Sara and Grissom had heard from the ranger. They were quick to answer questions, provided details about their timeline, and could add no information about the body they had seen on the ledge.

One of the women, the older of the two, added, "I bet he works the Strip." When Grissom's eyebrows shot upward, she added, "He looked like he was wearing Vegas camouflage—white shirt, black pants—he could be a pit boss or a waiter or a father of the bride."

Sara's mouth became a thin line as she suppressed a grin.

As they headed back to the lab, Grissom called Nick with the address of the dead man. "See what you can find," said Grissom.

"We could have checked out the address," Sara said.

"We could, but I want Nick to do it. Doc won't finish the post until tonight—and you and I know what this is—we'll be lucky to get any kind of break." He adjusted his seat and closed his eyes.

A few minutes passed before Sara said, "We could stop for breakfast." When he did not respond, she continued, "Come on—we can eat a meal together without everyone else being at the table."

"Sara—"

He watched her as she sighed, keeping her eyes on the road. "I'm going to say something," she said.

When he made no response, she continued, "I think you go into a place inside your head where you can—can shut out what you don't want to deal with—like us."

He stared at her profile for a time before he said, "Sara, I am your administrative supervisor. Why can't you accept that?"

He could see her biting her bottom lip as he said, "You are a young woman. You have the world before you. Don't mistake friendship or admiration or appreciation for love."

As she drove, still silent, her hands tightened on the steering wheel. Not another word was spoken until she pulled into the parking garage at the lab. She pulled the key from the ignition and handed it to him.

"I'm going home, Grissom. I—I have a headache."

She left him sitting in his vehicle as she walked to her car, her back ramrod straight. If she had glanced back, he wasn't sure he could have remained in his vehicle.

Hours later, stretched out on his sofa, the shrill ringing of his phone brought him out of an uneasy sleep. In minutes, he was standing under a shower getting a wake-up stimulus from a hard stream of cold water across his shoulders. As he towel dried, he reached for his phone and punched the first number. A few seconds later, Sara answered.

"Sara, we've got a break on the case. North of Nellis—I'll pick you up in fifteen minutes."

The only words she had uttered were a sleepy "Sara" and then "Okay" when he finished.

At mid-afternoon, the sun was high and hot with the heat warping images they passed.

This time Grissom drove. "A highway patrolman noticed circling buzzards—lots of them—north of Skull Mountain. Didn't take him long to find a big SUV stuck in the sand. Two bodies on the sand."

"Dead? Both of them?"

Day time traffic was much worse than usual, he thought as he wished he had asked Sara to drive. And Sara was not talkative. As they left the city, traffic eased. Grissom attempts at conversation got a monosyllable response until he gave up.

Minutes of silence passed as the terrain became flat and barren.

Sara stirred in her seat. "Is it because you think certain people shouldn't be together? Is that it?" She quietly asked.

Grissom knew that if anyone else had asked a question in her soft tone, he would not have been able to hear the words. He replied, "No."

"Is it because you are my boss? Or is it just me?"

He made no response as he slowed the vehicle, checking traffic before pulling off the highway. Turning so he faced her, he said, "Sara, you need to stop this—we—we have a good relationship. We share a lot of the same interests—we work too much—we get too involved in our work." He looked away from her questioning eyes and wiped a hand across his face.

Without looking at her, he said, "I can't be romantically involved with anyone at work, Sara. That's the way it is." When he turned to face her, she was staring straight ahead. She appeared to be on the verge of tears yet he could see the muscles of her jaw clinching. Reaching out to her arm, she flinched when his fingers touched the sleeve of her shirt.

"I'll resign," she said quietly.

"No," he protested. "No, you belong here! I—I want you to have a life—go out with friends. You are a beautiful young woman. Half the guys on the force—all of them in the lab—flirt with you! You could date any of them!" He lifted his hand from her arm. "What happened to the EMT? Hank?"

At his question, she scoffed. "I went to a few movies with him, Grissom. We went to a winery—and I left mid-dinner because you called me into work." Her hand wiped across her eyes. "And he was—he had a girlfriend. So that worked out real well."

"He what? He two-timed you?"

"Yep."

His hand went to her arm again. "I'm sorry, Sara. Really, I am."

Surprising him, her hand covered his briefly. "And I'm sorry about your hearing." A lopsided weak smile appeared as she said, "Hank wasn't much of a boyfriend—I bought my own tickets to the movies."

"We're okay, then? Don't even think about resigning." He attempted a grin.

Nodding, Sara said, "I'm fine—really." She pointed to the highway, saying, "We need to go—two dead bodies."

There were a dozen people standing in the desert when Grissom pulled to a stop. Sixty yards from the highway, hidden by scrubby bushes, a heavy SUV, the front directed at the highway, was buried to its axles in the soft sand—a mistake made by many drivers who left pavement thinking the hard desert crust would hold the weight of a vehicle. Slowing the vehicle caused it to sink deeper; spinning wheels sunk into talcum powder sand.

Sara saw the first body, pointing at him as Grissom stopped. "Did they shoot each other?"

"That's what the officer thought," he answered.

Wearing expensive suits, one in gray and one in black, the two men were forty feet apart. Yellow markers covered the ground where blood had dropped as one man had staggered away. His soft leather shoes were not made for the desert.

Everyone talked and over-talked giving an opinion about the scene. The day shift investigators were completing their work as one explained to Sara the three men had been "mob connected". She helped where they needed extra hands, taking photographs inside the car, finding zip-lock ties in the back seat.

When Grissom stuck his head into the car, Sara said, "This car was in a sand storm—so how did they get here from where we found our murdered guy?" She paused a moment. "Rephrase that to—why are they here?"

Grissom shrugged, saying, "In a sandstorm they could have driven off the highway."

Crawling out of the back seat, she asked, "What time?" When Grissom did not answer, she touched his shoulder, asking "What time was the sand storm?"

His eyes brightened as he caught her line of thought. "Time of death—before the sand storm." He held up one finger, saying "The highway patrol always keeps up with when those storms hit the highways."

A few minutes later, he returned. "A fifteen minute sand storm covered the highway at four-thirty yesterday."

Sara said nothing for several minutes as she pulled her sunglasses to her eyes, looking around at the scene as one of the men was loaded into the coroner's van.

Finally, she said, "If these two were caught in a sand storm at four-thirty, what time do you think they were shooting our guy?"

Grissom frowned, thinking this was an odd question.

Sara, a smile creeping across her face, continued, saying, "The bird watchers lied. They said they arrived around noon to watch the falcon. These two guys," she waved her hand at the SUV, "did not drive around for several hours after killing our guy. From where we found the body, how long do you think it would have taken these guys to get back to Vegas?"

Grissom smiled. He knew he had upset her earlier with his words yet she had worked as the professional she was. Even now, with her clever reasoning and the beginnings of a smile, he could forget his determination to be her supervisor—and only her supervisor. Suddenly, a thought punched into his brain. He could easily share his life with this young woman—it was up to him.

Reality kicked in as she moved to the front of the car.

She said, "Sand knocked out the electronics—but why were they here?"

Giving her a crooked smile, Grissom said, "Come on. Let's go visit our birdwatchers." He pulled keys from his pocket and tossed them to her; quickly, instinctively, her hand went up, catching the keys in mid-flight.

"I'll call a detective to pick up our ladies. Let them explain their timeline again," he said.

After they got on the highway, heading back to the lab, Grissom said, "After this is over—I mean interviewing the women—I'm—I'm—we're going out to eat—and I'm giving you a few days off—with the promise not to call you."

Sara kept her hands on the wheel, her eyes direct on the highway. "All I can say is I have never in my life met anyone like you. Absolutely no one. Never."

Grissom sighed; he could feel fatigue seep through his body. "I'm too old, Sara."

Making a sound that he saw rather than heard, she said, "Too old for what?"

"What young people do."

"Like what?"

Shaking his head, he looked out the window, seeing nothing of passing scenery. "Let's change the subject, please."

"Okay." Sara glanced at him. "What are you going to do about your hearing?"

Not the subject he wanted to discuss, but it would change the subject. "I'm having surgery in a few weeks—microsurgery in the ear."

"A stapedectomy?"

Of course, she knew, he thought. "Yes. Ninety percent recover complete hearing."

Looking at Sara, her eyes still focused on the road ahead, he could see she was no longer anxious or argumentative but had settled into a reserved detachment, an unusual calmness for her.

"You'll take the days off?" He asked.

She nodded, "Sure—but not yet."

Of course, Sara was right. The birdwatchers had not been completely truthful. Not only were they watching as two men shot another, they had taped it with a small video camera they used to record birds. At first, they appeared mystified as to how the two men in the SUV ended up stuck in desert sand miles away from where they were watching the falcon.

Yet, as Sara and Grissom watched the rest of the tape, after a delay of several minutes following the shooting with the camera on 'pause', they saw the falcon swooping to her nest. The video continued showing the bird as it flew back and forth to its nest; shadows revealed the filming had gone on for at least an hour before the camera was turned off.

"Did you hear the background noise?" Sara asked. Quickly, she explained, "Right after the shooting. There's something else—another engine—motor—as the SUV leaves. It's faint, but there."

Grissom frowned, saying, "They said they walked in."

Within ten minutes of asking questions, the younger woman admitted to owning an all-terrain motorcycle; one she had ridden into the park to watch the falcon.

She explained, "It's against all park regulations—but I was late."

No one said a word.

A full minute passed before she said, "After they shot the guy, one of them turned his gun toward the falcon! For no reason! He was going to kill her! I knew I could out-ride them so I got on my bike and took off—driving out of the canyon as fast as I could. They knew I had seen them—and they didn't know about Cindy, so she was safe." The woman took a deep breath and continued. "They followed me out and I led them on a chase—I know that area well, so I took a couple of service roads. Used a drainage ditch. It was easy." She held up her hands, saying, "Arrest me for—for saving a bird—but I didn't kill them! I got them within walking distance of the highway! They wouldn't even get out of the car!"

Shrugging, the woman placed her hands on the table as Grissom, Sara, and a detective sat in stunned silence.

She said, "Arrest me or let me go."

The detective glanced at Grissom who managed to lift one eyebrow.

"You can go," the detective said.

Three weeks later, while Grissom was recovering from successful surgery, he heard footsteps arriving at his door. Expecting Catherine, who had surprised him at the hospital, he opened the door to find Sara.

"What are you doing here?"

She grinned, extending a familiar box in his direction. She said, "I got your favorites."

Grissom stepped back and motioned her inside. "You should be doing something fun."

Another grin. "I am."

A/N: Thank you for giving us encouragement! Long live GSR!