A/N:

There is dialogue from Loco Motives in this one.

Nope not mine, just borrowed.

Grissom prepared his lectures as the time came to leave. Sara helped him in their time off. Grissom did not tell the team about his leaving. Sara wasn't sure if it was on purpose or if it just never occurred to him to say anything. He'd put in for the leave time and had it approved.

Sara was outwardly supportive. She inwardly dreaded the weeks he would be gone.

Grissom continued to work with a bit more enthusiasm over the remaining weeks. They had solved the long open case of Mickey Dunn.

That night at home Sara watched Grissom getting his class put together. She could see him puttering in an office at a university somewhere. He loved teaching. She watched him for a while before she spoke.

"Hey, you almost done with that class."

"Oh, hey. Yeah. I never thought that I could make swamp mosquitoes interesting, but I think I managed."

She smiled, "I think so. I'd listen to you lecture anytime. And just think, I get to sleep with the professor now."

He chuckled at her comment and walked over and kissed her.

She tried not to cry, but failed.

"What is it, Sara?"

"Damn it, I wasn't going to cry."

"Sara?"

"I'm….just going to miss you."

He kissed her again, "I'll miss you too. I'll only be gone four weeks."

"I know and I know you need to do this. Never mind, I'm just being selfish. I don't want to make this hard on you."

"Sara, you're not being selfish, and I'm glad you told me. I thought you didn't mind at all that I was going."

She smiled, "Back to old habits aren't we?"

He kissed her again, "I hope not, or I wouldn't be able to do that."

He grabbed her hand and pulled her toward the door.

"Come on, have dinner with me."

"You have to be at work in a few hours."

"I know. The lecture notes are done. It'll be fine."

"But you have to start packing."

"I'm starting to get the idea that you don't want to have dinner with me. Isn't supposed to be me that turns me down?"

She laughed, remembering when he had turned her down.

"Why did you turn me down that night?"

He was stunned at the question. She had never asked.

"Sara…there were many reasons, but never because I didn't want to be with you. I did. Do you know where I was headed when came to my office that day?"

"How would I know that? You never told me."

"I was headed to the surgeon. I had decided to have surgery for my hearing."

She knew he'd had the surgery. She did not know that it was that day he'd decided.

"I had an appointment later that day with her."

"Oh…I thought you didn't want….me."

She dropped her head.

He cupped her chin, "I have wanted you since sat in my lecture 8 years ago. I was just too stubborn and too stupid to tell you."

"Well, glad you pulled your head out of your ass, Gilbert."

He laughed again.

They went to dinner and talked about his lecture and what the weather would be like there. Sara had gone to school at Harvard and understood the cold weather. She told him what heavy clothing he would need to get even for the short time he would be there. She would take him shopping after shift tomorrow. They both had that day off.

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Shopping was not to be. There were two late call outs and Grissom was working a double.

He called her on his way back from the first one.

She heard him laughing as she answered the phone, "What's so funny, Gil?"

"Catherine and I just left a scene, there was a dead body lying on top of the concrete and a man buried up to his waist in the concrete. He'd had his wallet taken and was trapped. I know I shouldn't laugh, but just can't help myself. He won't tell us who he is. He told us to figure out what happened."

Sara smiled, "Does he not know that's the fun part?"

"That's what I told him."

"Where are you going now?"

"I got a call out to another scene at a Chicken processing plant. Looks like shopping is out for now. I will call you when I'm done."

"Okay."

She was glad she didn't get that call out.

Grissom took Greg with him to the scene. It at first appeared to be just another scene. A strange mode of death, but nothing too far out of the norm for Las Vegas. It was what Grissom found when he was investigating that changed all of that.

He found a miniature of the scene. A perfect half inch model of the scene.

He left Greg to finish the scene with help on the way. He took the miniature back to the lab. He called Sara on the way. She picked up the phone but did not get a chance to even talk.

"Sara, meet me at the lab. We got another miniature. At the chicken processing plant. I need you."

"I'm on my way."

Grissom had taken all the evidence from the other miniature cases and had it lain out on the table. He was looking at it as a whole. He was using the scope to look into the miniature. He knew what he was looking for and he found it stuck to the window of one of the swinging doors. It was a picture of a bloody doll. He grinned.

Sara met him at the lab. She walked in as he was looking at the evidence.

"You look like a kid who's just found the prize at the bottom of a Cracker Jacks box"

He showed he what he'd found, "Definitely some kind of doll."

"It sure is."

He pointed to the layout board on the wall.

"Three different views of the same dead doll…Maybe this is more than a signature. Maybe there's something these victims have in common."

"First two victims were white, the third Hispanic, two men, one woman, one rich, two poor, one young, two old, one famous, two obscure, ehhh." She shook her head.

"Yeah." He had to agree there wasn't much there.

He picked up the photograph of the man delivering the second miniature, "And unfortunately, this is the best lead we have for their killer."

"This is the most that Archie could get off that video?"

"Yeah, well, with the equipment we have here."

"I'm getting Raymundo's cell phone records. I'm gonna see if any of his calls are a match to the numbers that Penny Garden and Izzy Delancy had in common."

"Whatever happened with that number we got off the disposable cell phone? Any luck with that?"

"Disposable phone numbers are assigned by the carrier to the phone distributors. It took a little bit of legwork, but I did find the store where the phone was sold."

"Let me guess. It was paid for with cash."

"Yeah."

Sara was reading the file when she saw something interesting, "Mannleigh Chickens."

"What about it?"

"I'll let you know."

She picked up the folder and walked out. She looked over her shoulder.

"See how it feels?"

She suppressed a smile and left him standing there staring at him.

He should have been annoyed, but he just raised an eyebrow. Damn it she was cute when she did that to him.

Grissom went back to work.

About an hour later Sara came back to share with him. She popped her head in the layout room.

"Ready to find out?"

"You ready to share?"

She nodded and smiled.

She led him to the A/V lab and had a video cued up for him to watch. It was a video of Izzy Delancy doing a public service announcement against Mannleigh Chickens, the plant where the latest miniature was found.

Grissom sat there listening a bit stunned.

Sara paused the video.

"Where did you find this?"

"I like animals and after the Delancy murder I brushed up on my history and as it turns out Izzy Delancy had a midlife awakening and became an animal rights activist. He stared in and financed this PSA targeting Mannleigh Chickens as the epitome of everything that is wrong with the slaughter industry."

They continued to watch as the animals were cruelly treated by the workers at the plant.

"How bad did Mannleigh get hurt by this?"

"His sales dropped sixty percent. He launched a very expensive PR campaign to rehabilitate his image, including retrofitting the plant cruelty-free equipment. His business never recovered. He probably hated Delancy."

Grissom nodded in agreement.

"We'll have to look into this. I'll call Brass and have him bring in Ike Mannleigh."

"I'll work on those phone records."

"Let me know what you find."

"You know we still need to take you shopping. You're gonna freeze to death back there if you don't."

"Yeah, I know. Soon."

Judy called to say that there was a package for Grissom at the front counter.

"Oh, that's most likely the photographic enhancing technology I ordered."

"Okay, I'll check back with you in a bit, maybe we can get something to eat. You know I got called in early."

He smiled at her and nodded, 'Sure. I guess I owe you."

"Yes you do, and I'll collect it later and I get to pick where we eat."

"Fine." He went up to get the machine and get working on the photograph of the suspect

She went off to do some research on Raymundo's phone records.

She came in for dinner break.

"Get anything yet?"

"No, but it's working on it."

"Well, I'm hungry let's go. How about the deli? I know you want to get back and it's fast."

"Thanks."

They went to dinner and when they came back Grissom went back to work. He got the image cleared enough to figure out, with the help of Hodges, that the man in the picture had a shirt on from a local Model Train club.

Brass picked up Ernie Dell. He belonged to the club, he worked at Mannleigh Chickens, he was in the PSA that Izzy Delancy made. He knew Raymundo.

Grissom went on the interview with Brass. They had found molds that had been used to make parts of the miniatures. Grissom wanted to ask him some questions.

Dell did not give them much. They had to keep digging.

Catherine had wrapped up her case and was telling Grissom about the case. She still could not stop laughing at the poor guy. He had nothing but bad luck. He did not mean to kill his wife or the old lady across the way from their apartment. He told Brass that he'd run over his daughter.

She was laughing when she told Grissom about it all He was not laughing.

"I'm sorry. It's horrible. But it's really funny. It's horrible and it's funny."

She looked at Grissom, "Are you okay?"

Grissom shook his head, "A guy kills two people before breakfast that he had no intention of killing when he woke up that morning. By all accounts, he's lived a meager life, and unnoticed life. And then all of a sudden, in a flash, it's over. And for him, the real suffering begins."

"You're tired."

"Yeah."

Just then Sara walked in.

"Hey, guess what?"

Grissom said, "Mankind had reached a new evolutionary plateau, and starting tomorrow no one will rape, murder, or maim again."

She looked confused, "Uh, no."

Sara and Catherine shared a look of concern.

Grissom quipped back, "Too bad."

"But we did catch a break on that disposable cell phone number."

"Raymundo Suarez called it as well."

"No, he didn't. But according to the carrier, additional minutes were recently purchased with a credit card belonging to Ernie Dell. Brass is already on it. They're picking up. We've got the miniature killer."

Grissom nodded.

He was sitting in his office, waiting for Brass to call when his computer beeped. He had an e-mail.

He went to his desk and turned on the screen to look at what was sent. It was Ernie Dell.

He had sent a confession to killing Izzy Delancy, Penny Garden, and Raymondo Suarez. There was a link.

Grissom clicked on it and a video feed to Ernie Dell appeared. Dell began to talk. He was sipping tea and was telling Grissom about his life.

Grissom sat there listening to what he said.

When all of the sudden, Ernie Dell shot himself with Grissom watching.

Grissom sat in stunned silence as he heard the police arriving in the background of the feed.

Sara found him there an hour later. He had not moved.

"Gil, what's wrong?"

He said nothing. He just looked at her with sad eyes.

"What happened?"

"I just watched Ernie Dell blow his brains out."

"Oh, God."

"He emailed me and confessed to killing three people and blew his brains out."

"Come on, let's go home. You are into your third shift today. You need to go. You've been here for 24 hours."

He didn't argue, but he didn't get up.

Sara walked over and closed his laptop and took his hand.

"Let's go, honey."

He looked at her and gave a quick nod of his head and followed her out of the building.

She drove him home. He wasn't in any condition to do it right now.

"Sara, thank you."

"For what?"

"For understanding that I need to go for a while."

"You're welcome."

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Grissom woke with a start covered in sweat. He jerked himself into a sitting position.

He was breathing hard.

"Gil, what is it?"

His sudden awakening had startled Sara awake.

"Bad dream."

"Tell me."

"Dell….gun….shot himself."

He breathing still came in hard gasps.

She knelt in front of him on the bed and cupped his face and kissed him. Then she pulled him close.

He had done that for her on numerous occasions when she'd had bad dreams.

He held no to her. He needed her right now.

They both knew the time was drawing close that they would be apart.

Neither of them spoke for a few minutes. Grissom's breathing finally returned to normal.

"Better," he said.

"Good. Think you can go back to sleep now?"

He nodded again and leaned back against the pillows. Sara lay down against his chest. She lay there until he breathing became slow and steady again. He was asleep.

She slipped from the bed and went to take a bath. She could not sleep right now. This dream was just more proof that Grissom needed to take a break.

She let the warm water relax her. She was tired as well. It had been a long few months with the miniature killer. She was glad it was over. She knew that he was worried about leaving that case open while he was away.

Grissom came in a while later.

"I woke up and you were gone."

"Sorry, I couldn't sleep anymore."

"Me either. And before you ask no more dreams. I just missed you being next to me."

She smiled at him and shrugged her shoulders.

"You almost done?"

"Yeah, just let me dry off and I'll be right out."

She stood up as Grissom watched for a moment before handing her a towel.

"You are beautiful, Sara."

She always felt a bit self-conscious when he said that. She was getting used to it though.

"What did you have in mind since we can't sleep?"

"Oh, I bet we can think of something to do."

He stood and kissed her. She broke the kiss first.

"You know, I think I like that idea."

She ran off into the bedroom with Grissom close behind her.

A/N:

With the sad event before this and what is coming I decided to let our favorite couple have a bit of fun. Please read and review.