"Home is where the heart is."

-Pliny the Elder.

Nick and Greg had just left Paymon's car lot when Sara's cell chimed with a text message. Thinking it was Grissom enquiring about breakfast she put the car in park and dug her phone out of her purse. How did it go? Gil xx, the message read. Smiling, she cut the car's engine and was swiping her finger to the screen to call Grissom back when a knock on the window startled her. Déjà-vu all over again, she thought as she turned to look.

Brass stood there in his suit with a tired, but fond, smile on his face. His shirt top button was undone, his loosened tie askew, and she knew he'd had a long night. Putting her phone away, Sara got out of the car.

"You weren't thinking of leaving without saying good bye, were you?" Brass asked, his eyes crinkling with affection.

"Nice of you to show," she retorted, her smile wide and happy that he had shown up.

"Someone's got to catch the bad guys. Sorry I couldn't be here earlier, but I was all the way out in Pahrump." He looked around the empty lot. "Looks like I only just made the party."

"There isn't much of a party left, I'm afraid. You hungry?"

Brass's brow rose. "Reckon I could eat a cow just about right now," he said, patting his paunch for good measure.

Laughing, Sara reached inside the car for her purse and car key. "Come on, then," she said, shouldering her purse as she locked her car, "I'll keep you company."

Silently, they crossed over to the entrance. "What time's your flight?" Brass asked, as he opened the restaurant door and let her in.

"Not until this afternoon, but I told my mother I'd spent some time with her before I left."

Brass gave a grave nod. "How is she?"

"She's good," Sara replied before amending quietly, "well, as good as she'll ever be."

The waitress did a double take on seeing Sara again before enquiring if she'd left something behind. Then, she seated them at a table for two near the front of the restaurant and Brass ordered breakfast. Coffees were served, and for a moment sipped in companionable silence. Brass did look tired, like he was ready to hit the sack, and Sara was grateful he was such a loyal friend.

After telling Heather, Grissom had called his long time buddy and had told him about the cancer. Brass had said he wasn't surprised, that he already knew – not that it was cancer, but that it was bad – had thought something was up from the moment he'd heard about Sara's extended leave of absence, only to have his suspicions confirmed when he'd received the postcard from Le Touquet.

She and Brass had met a couple of times since then. The first time Brass had just turned up on her doorstep after shift and had asked all the questions he'd been unable to ask Grissom over the phone. Sara had cooked him some breakfast, providing detailed answers to all his queries. The time after that, she'd brought him a takeout, surprising him at work.

When his Chicken Parmesan came he ate it with gusto, not leaving a single spaghetti strand in his plate. Sara told him about breakfast with the team. Brass knew about the envelope, told her with a tap of his finger on his nose that he had signed his name on the card and not to open it without Grissom. Before long, it was time to go and Brass insisted on settling the bill.

"You got yourself a ride to the airport?" he asked as they walked to her car.

Sara pressed her key, unlocking the car doors. "Greg's doing it. He's off tonight."

Brass gave a nod and reached across to open the door for her. Sara turned, and they shared a long and heartfelt embrace. "Look after him, will you?" he said, watching as she climbed into her car. "He's a proud, old fool."

"You're forgetting stubborn," she said, a fond smile forming as she remembered hers and Grissom's conversation to the same effect.

Brass only gave a half-hearted chuckle at her quip. "You take care of yourself too, you hear me?" he said, with visible emotion. Sara's smile wavered; she gave him a small nod. "And whenever it gets too hard, you call – me or any one of us – all right?"

Tears blurring her vision, Sara gave him another, short nod.

Brass took in and let out a long breath, then forced a shaky smile. "I'm going to go now," he said, and walked away.

Sara spent the next five minutes behind the wheel of her car, crying silent tears. She just couldn't help it, couldn't stop them from coming. She couldn't wait to go back to Paris and be reunited with Grissom and yet she knew that those next few weeks would be the toughest of her life. Tougher to get through than the worst years of her childhood, tougher even than when Natalie had left her to die under that car in the desert.

When she was composed again she called Grissom in Paris. She just needed to hear the sound of his voice, needed to hear he was fine, healthy. He and Betty had just finished dinner, he said, and he was on the couch waiting for the news to start on TV while Betty was clearing away the kitchen. They chatted for a while. She told him about breakfast with the team and then with Brass. He said he couldn't wait until this time tomorrow, and when they hung up she felt in better spirits.

Her mother was up and about when she got there. She was wearing the Le Touquet Paris-Plage T-shirt Sara had brought back from France for her. The television was on and they sat down to watch it. It wasn't long before Sara's thoughts began to wander and she was blindly staring at the screen. Laura's lunch was served at one, and knowing she wouldn't have much to eat once on the plane Sara bought herself an egg sandwich from the vending machine in the small cafeteria and ate it with her mother.

At around three, Sara began to feel uncomfortable. Her stomach felt tight, slightly bloated. Thinking it indigestion, she undid the top button on her jeans and shifted position on her chair. Before long, the discomfort became a dull ache and Sara got up and began pacing around the room a little. The pain steadily intensified into little tugs and twists, as if someone was randomly pulling at her insides trying to undo a tight knot.

Not dissimilar to bad period pain, she thought with a sigh of realisation. When was her period due, she wondered? Come to think of it, when was the last time she had had one? With a long-suffering sigh at the poor timing, she sat back down and rubbed her hand over her stomach in a vain attempt at soothing the pain before rummaging through her purse for pain killers.

No such luck, but she did find a lone tampon in the side compartment where she kept her ring box. Swiftly, she excused herself to go to the bathroom. There, she splashed water over her face and checked her reflection in the mirror, sighing at how pale she looked. In the cubicle, she checked for blood on her panties, finding none, the abdominal cramping and general feeling of unease steadily getting worse.

"Sara, honey, you're all right?" Laura asked, when she eventually made her way back to her mother. "You've been gone a while."

"I took a little walk," she replied distractedly. "I've got a stomach-ache."

"You do look kind of funny," Laura remarked. She got up from her chair and brought her hand to her daughter's brow.

"It's nothing to worry about," Sara said, mustering a smile. The last thing she wanted was for her mother to start worrying about her on top of everything else. "I just think I'm getting my period."

"Oh," Laura said, her face dropping. "That's not good. Not if you're going to be travelling for all that time."

"I'll be fine, mom. I got some stuff I can take at home."

But Sara wasn't fine. Her cramping got worse, and when she finally got home after her mother's lengthy goodbyes she headed straight to the bathroom and the medicine cabinet. It was four pm. She felt hot and dizzy, shivery and slightly unsteady on her feet too, and she knew that what she was experiencing wasn't like any period pain she'd had before. She popped a couple of painkillers into her mouth and cupping her hand to the faucet drank a little water to ease them down. The pills wouldn't go down, and she drank more water only to gag and retch.

Sara brought her hand to her mouth but not quickly enough to stop the tablets from coming back up. After spitting them out into the basin, she tried clamping her mouth shut and doing her gag-reflex thing to stop anything else from coming back up. In vain. Bent over the toilet bowl, Sara was sick, once, twice and more, gradually emptying her entire stomach content, lunch, breakfast and all. When she thought she had no more to bring up she pulled herself up using the basin for leverage and rinsed her mouth.

Her head was spinning now. The smell of sick made her heave again, and weakly she flushed the toilet, before half-sitting half-falling down onto the hard tiled floor. She just needed to catch her breath, and then she'd feel better. She closed her eyes and concentrated all her senses on taking slow breaths and keeping her dizziness and queasiness at bay.

"Come on, Sara," she mumbled weakly, "Get up. You got a flight to catch. Get up."

Her eyelids grew heavy, too heavy to keep open, and Sara felt herself drift off. A minute passed, five, ten, and still she hadn't moved an inch.

"Come on, get up."

Forcing her eyes open, she tried pushing herself up, using the floor first, then the edge of the toilet, but it was no good. Her arms, her legs felt like jelly. She'd take five more minutes, and then try again. In the distance, a car horn sounded. Once, and then again longer that time. It barely registered on her consciousness. Seconds passed, or maybe minutes, hours. The doorbell rang, startling her into wakefulness. Greg, she thought, Greg is here.

Then, there was pounding on the door and Greg's loud puzzled voice filling the silence. "Sara, it's me. You're there?" In her haste, she must have left the front door unlocked, because she heard it open, Greg's enquiring voice becoming louder and more fraught the further he came into the house.

"In the bathroom," she called weakly.

In a flash, Greg was at the bathroom doorway. "Shit, Sara," he exclaimed, crouching down beside her, "What's wrong?"

"I don't know," she said between breaths, "I'm not feeling well."

"You don't say." Standing up, Greg reached for a facecloth, wet it and passed it down to her.

"What time is it?" she asked, wiping her mouth and face with the cloth.

He flushed the toilet again and closed the lid. "Twenty to five."

"We got to get to the airport," she said, panicked, and reached up for his hand.

"Oh, I don't know."

"Just help me up, I'll be fine."

"Sara, you've just been―"

"It's nothing, all right?" she cut in, pre-empting more protestations, and tried to pull herself up.

"Sara, you look like crap. Maybe I should call someone."

"I've just got some bad cramping – period pain, that's all. I'll be fine once I'm on my feet."

Greg sighed, visibly hesitating before he moved to help her. "I'm no expert, obviously, but I've never heard of period pain making you barf. What if it's a virus? You could contaminate everyone on the plane. Hell, you could be contaminating me as we speak."

She gave him a dark look. "Then I won't speak."

"I'm not going to be able to change your mind, am I?"

"I'll crawl all the way to that aeroplane if I have to."

Once on her feet, Sara closed her eyes and concentrated on keeping in an upright position. She just had to make that flight. She'd be fine on the plane. She could sleep on the plane. She just had to visualise herself on that plane, in Paris, in her husband's arms. She felt better already.

"Could…could you be pregnant?"

Greg's question snapped Sara right back into the room. Could this be it, she wondered? Could she be pregnant? No, it wasn't possible. "I'm not pregnant," she said with more conviction than she felt.

She reached for the pill bottle on the side of the basin and popped two into her mouth before slowly bending down to drink from the faucet. This time, the pills and water stayed down. She washed her hands and face, and after drying both turned toward Greg watching her with concern.

"Help me to the car, will you?" she asked, taking a step toward the door. "There's no way in hell I'm not getting on that flight."

"Are you sure?" he asked hesitantly. "You really don't look so good."

"Greg," she said, managing a smile, "when have I ever cared about how I look, huh?"

Greg gave her a grudging smile before he relented and helped her out to the car. Once seated, she pulled the seatbelt across and leaned back in the seat. The abdominal pain was gone, but not the queasiness and general sluggishness. Dazedly, she watched as Greg rushed back inside to pick up her purse and jacket and carryon before securing and locking the house.

"Shall I keep your house keys?" he asked, taking his seat behind the wheel.

"Thanks," she said.

"You got your ticket and passport?"

She gave a wan nod. "In my purse."

"I'm going to stop by the drugstore on the way, get you some stuff for the flight."

Giving Greg a smile, she touched her hand to his arm. "You're the best."

Greg made a dubious sound, but started the car and closing her eyes Sara felt herself drift off. They had been travelling for ten minutes when Greg stopped the car and cut the engine. "I'll be five minutes," he said, rushing out, and Sara could only weakly nod her head. "There," he said on his return, and dumped a bag on her lap. It felt bulkier than she would have expected. Without wasting time he started the car and pulled back out into the traffic.

Slowly opening her eyes, Sara checked the content of the bag. A box of six rehydration sachets, a small bottle of water, an eye mask, antibacterial wipes, some low dose paracetamol and… Laughing she took out the bottled water and twisted the cap. "A surgical face mask?" she asked, before sipping a small amount of water.

"Works for the Chinese," he said, and stopping at a stop light looked over at her. "I was thinking maybe it's something you ate. Can't be breakfast, though, we ate the same. What about last night?" A smile twitching at his lips, he refocused on the road. "I could always go back to your house and get your stomach contents analysed by Hodges."

Sara pulled a face. "Gross." Her brow creased with a frown. "I did have an egg sandwich for lunch," she said, "from the vending machine at my mother's care facility."

"Food poisoning could explain the symptoms. But so would―"

"Don't go there, Greg. I'm not pregnant."

On the plane Sara took every precaution to keep human contact as minimal as possible, but she did ask for a blanket and a sick bag she didn't end up using. As luck had it, the seat directly next to hers was free. She took some paracetamol, washing the tablets down with small sips of water, and then took off her boots, ready for take-off. Greg's Lysol wipes came in handy, and she took great care cleaning everything she touched before and after use, eventually including the plane bathroom.

When the pilot gave the go-ahead, she reclined her seat, then put her eye and face masks on, and covering herself with the blanket closed her eyes. Oh, she knew she'd raised a few looks from across the aisle, some worried, other puzzled or amused, but it didn't matter. What mattered was that she'd made it on the plane and was now on her way.

Changing terminal at JFK was hell, but she told herself that every step she took toward the awaiting transatlantic aeroplane was a step closer to Grissom. With every step she could see him a little clearer, smiling as he waited for her at the other end, and that kept her going. She wasn't feeling unwell per se, she just felt weak and lethargic, every move, every step managed as if weighing a thousand pounds. It was just like that long trek in the desert, except that now she had an endless supply of water. She'd made it then, and she'd make it now.

On touching down in France, just like she had at JFK upon embarking, Sara took the mask off, so as not to arouse suspicion and be disallowed entry. She felt a lot better, if still a little weak and drowsy. Once safely through customs, the mask made it back on her face. When she rounded the corner, she glimpsed Grissom standing at the exact spot where they'd waited for Betty. She stopped dead in her tracks, much to the annoyance of the rushing passengers behind her. Her eyes filled with tears at the overwhelming relief she felt on being back, on seeing him looking bright and well.

He looked good, if anything he looked like he'd put on a little weight. His beard was gone, and she knew he'd shaved it off for her. The crease on his brow as he scanned the faces of the arriving travellers was deep. His eyes finally came to a stop on her, and his expression pinched with puzzlement before softening with a wide, happy and relieved smile at seeing her back. Raising himself up on his tiptoes, he lifted his hand to his shoulder in a small wave, and snapping out of her trance she began to weave her way to him through the crowds.

His lips pinched, badly suppressing the smile of amusement, of joy growing on his face as he covered the distance to her, and they fell into each other's arms for one of the longest, most needed hug of Sara's life. She was home, at last. When he eventually pulled back from her crushing embrace, his gaze was earnest and searching.

"Trying a new look?" he asked.

Sara's hand rose to the mask on her face. His love, his happiness and mirth were contagious, and she smiled through her tears. "A dodgy egg mayo sandwich," she said, her voice muffled.

Worry flitted across his face. "On the plane?"

"No, before I left. Fortunately I had aisle seats toward the back of the plane on both flights."

He pulled a pained face. "I can imagine. And the mask?"

"Greg's idea. If it is food poisoning, and I'm thinking salmonella, it could be contagious." She didn't need to elaborate. His grave nod told her he understood the subtext; that they would have to take extra precaution for a day or two so that he didn't get infected with the bacteria himself.

"And you still came."

She reached up a hand and stroked his face. "You try and stop me."

His eyes shone with gratitude, with a love, an intensity and emotion she knew hers mirrored. Smiling softly, he leaned into her touch, then brought his hands up to her face and framed it. There, amidst the crowds and all the noise, he watched her tenderly for a long moment before his smile faded and he leaned across and gently pressed his lips to hers through the mask.

"Welcome home, sweetheart."