Disclaimer: I don't own.

A/N: Sorry for the long delay. Homework, the stomach flu, and a myriad of personal issues have come up to complicate an already busy schedule, but! I finally have this up. It's been playing in my head since I last posted, so I'm as happy as you guys are to get it up here. :) Thank you, thank you, thank you for the outpouring of support I received in the reviews. It means more than you guys can know.

Enjoy.

Chapter Sixteen:

"Sara…" He said with a warning in his voice and I felt my arrogance falter. Despite the angry, desperate, arduous manner in which he'd kissed me less than two hours previous, he did not look like a man who'd jumped off any kind of ledge. Things had not changed between us—at least not in the manner I had assumed.

I cleared my throat. "Look, I… I'm sorry. I shouldn't have teased you. I-It's a defense mechanism. I… don't really know, uh, what to do with… this."

He raised a skeptical eyebrow. I flushed.

This involuntary action seemed to soften his gaze; he didn't look like he believed me, be he did at least appear to be postponing judgment. I eyed my feet and cursed myself for giving myself away. Had I responded to his kiss demurely… been surprised and uncertain and somehow seemed lost in the reality of our mutual desire… Instead, I had only succeeded in putting him more on edge.

He sighed. "Get your things, Sara." His voice was frustrated and yet dispassionate. He turned from me and began packing up his briefcase and I blinked in surprise. The snaps sounded loudly, moving me to replace my notebook and textbook into my backpack. When I looked up again, he had his coat slung over his arm and the case in hand. Our eyes met briefly and then he turned to the door and began walking, the expectation being that I would follow.

He led me to his car and silently we slid into the seats. Delight warred with uncertainty in my chest. Were we going to his home? Was I about to get what I'd wanted all along? …I glanced at his face from the side of my eye—No, he did not look like a man swept up in desire, nor like a man whose resolve had broken. I bit my bottom lip nervously. Where were we going then? And why?

Sooner than I expected, he pulled up outside an apartment building with outside access to each apartment and slid out, reaching into his backseat to retrieve his items. Stiffly, I gripped my backpack and stepped out. "What, uh… What are we doing?" I shifted my weight nervously and when his eyes met mine, they softened.

"We're going to talk about this. Come on." He turned, walking toward his building, and I could do nothing but follow.

He unlocked his door and held it open for me, allowing me to take the lead for the first time since we'd left his classroom. I moved inside, setting my bag by the door, trembling slightly. The apartment looked like he'd only just moved in—there were no boxes on the floor, but there were also no pictures on the wall or framed photographs on the end tables. The furnishings were Spartan, clean and white and linear. No throw pillows or blankets on the couch, no knick-knacks or bookends of interesting conversation-books on the glass-topped coffee table.

I jumped when Dr. Grissom closed the door behind me, and instantly berated myself for it. I tensed my shoulders and turned to face him, watching as he set first his briefcase and then his coat in the armchair closest to the door. He glanced up, met my eyes, and his jaw tensed. His hands slipped into his pockets, revealing his nervousness, and his eyes flickered away again.

"Do you want to sit down?"

I shook my head, swallowing. "I want to know what I'm doing here."

He swallowed too, fidgeting and letting his breath out in a rush. "This, uh… I'm not really good with…" A hand slid from his pocket up, through his curls, and then he met my eyes with a fixed determination. "Sara, I do want you. I do. But it doesn't matter, and you have to know that."

I looked into his eyes this time, rather than turning away, because I was surprised he'd been so direct. I saw how difficult this was for him—speaking openly—and realized that we were only here at all, having this conversation, because he had believed my renewed show of innocence and vulnerability. I slowly let my look of concentration crease with uncertainty and shook my head. I wasn't sure what needed to be said—what he wanted to hear and what might change his mind—so I stayed quiet, hoping he would feel the need to fill the silence.

After a moment, he did. "Don't… don't look like that. Please. I… Honey, you have to understand that this is about you. This isn't a rejection, it's a martyrdom."

I blinked in surprise, forgetting for a moment to look vulnerable and simply looking at him in confusion. "I don't… martyrdom?"

He chuckled softly, shaking his head. "Self-sacrifice. Do you think opportunities like this come along every day for a man like me?"

I managed a watery smile, thinking of the blind women who couldn't see him behind his large glasses and distant exterior. "But I… I want you too. It's a pointless sacrifice."

He gave me a frown, but it was creased through with sympathy—not pity, just deep understanding—and shook his head slowly. His hands came up to my shoulders, moving gently down my arms to my elbows and back up again in soothing strokes. "Maybe it feels that way. …God knows I'd like it to be that way. But you're a student, honey. Our power relationship makes a consensual relationship impossible… even if you don't feel like that's the way it is, it is. …I couldn't do that to you. Don't you know how much better you are than that?"

I felt my chin tremble, though I was absolutely confused as to why. I mean… Well, I mean, I had basically made of rule of keeping the sweet talk out of my relationships, after the first one had wreaked so much havoc on me. It had been a long time since a man had spoken to me this softly. Of course it would throw me, a little.

I shook my head anyway, not arguing my worth, but his assertions, but he nodded and caught my shoulders more firmly. "Oh honey, you are. In another time and place… professionals in the field, maybe, working in a lab together… We could be amazing. I know why you're upset, or at least, I think I do. …This feels like it could be…" He sighed, "But the circumstances are all wrong. Sometimes life is like that."

I frowned, disliking his lecture, but knowing better than to argue too vehemently again. If he believed me to be a woman who knew absolutely what she wanted from him, his sympathy went out the window… but if I was a girl who was overwhelmed with emotions she wasn't sure she entirely understood… Well, playing that angle had gotten me into his home, hadn't it? I bit my bottom lip in what I felt was a demure fashion and looking up at him through my eyelashes. "I… wouldn't tell on you."

He chuffed a laugh, more out of surprise than amusement, and squeezed my shoulders affectionately. "No, honey, I know. Sara… Sara." The second call came firmly, causing me to look up at him. His deep blue eyes held mine and I felt my chest constricting slightly in anticipation—Oh, how I wanted him. "Listen to me, sweetheart. We're not equals. Not in the truest sense. I'm your teacher. …How could I ever be sure of what you wanted? How could you be? How could we know that you weren't merely trying to live up to an ideal you believed I wanted…? How could I know that I wasn't unintentionally giving you that ideal? …I could never do that to you, okay?"

I felt my chin trembling again and with uncertainty I became aware that tears were welling up. I blinked and shook my head. "But…" I swallowed over the tremble in my voice, trying to block out the comparisons he had put into my head without realizing it. The first teacher—the only one that had hurt—who had spoken gently and whispered love across the skin of places that no man had ever seen, let alone kissed. Dr. Grissom hadn't used those words—the words I ignored—the promises, the declarations of love… but my first had never given a thought to the power dynamic. And it was a much more weighty argument then, regarding a relationship between a forty-five year old married man and a sixteen year old virgin. The others hadn't mattered so much, because I had learned my lesson with the first, but it was still true—no matter their words, they had never cared enough about me to deny themselves.

It wasn't until I felt myself pressed against his chest that I realized my face was wet with falling tears and that it was no longer just my chin trembling—my shoulders were shaking, whether with suppressed sobs or just overwhelming emotion, I didn't know. His arms were tightly around me and ever-so-gently a hand moved up to press to the back of my head, guiding me to lean against him. I smothered a sob that threatened, pressing my lips tightly together to contain it, and tried to decide if I wanted to throw Dr. Grissom down and have my way with him or simply break away from him and run out the front door. Car or no, there was a part of me that could not stand the open vulnerability I was offering him. I tried to pull back, to free my arms, so I could wipe at my face, and then his palms were cupping my face and calloused thumbs were dragging the moisture from my cheek bones. I was quite certain that no one had done anything like that for me since I'd been very, very small.

I felt very, very small, just then.

He hummed softly, a warm and comforting sound, and kept me against him. I didn't know what he was thinking, how he'd explained my outburst to himself, whether he believed that I was crying simply because he had said I couldn't have him. I felt my inner-self sneer at the arrogance of such an assumption, but a softer part of me protested. I had cried when he'd rejected me, the first night. And what had he said? Or, rather, not said? 'This feels like it could be…' powerful. He hadn't said it, but the look in his eyes had told me as much. In fact, was I so certain that I was crying over what my first lover hadn't done? …Maybe I was crying over what Dr. Grissom had done.

He pulled back just enough to see my face, and gently wiped at my tears again, obviously pleased that no new ones were replacing them. "I know, honey." He murmured, his voice soft and delicate, like a whisper or a caress. "I… shouldn't say this, but we've already crossed the line, haven't we?" I blinked, feeling the tears still matted in my eyelashes, but nodded. A smile ghosted over his lips. "I know that what we're doing is right. …I know that this is the way it has to be. But I regret it. I feel like you have to know that. …That if I could justify having it any other way, I would. You believe that, don't you?"

That soft, whispery voice had me feeling weak-kneed in a way that was less about lust and more about the sincerity being all encompassing. I trembled with the truth of his words, and nodded as best I could despite that. After a long look in my eyes, he nodded too, and then his hands came to my face again, tilting me up to look at him. Despite myself, my breathing picked up. It felt like he was going to kiss me. It made no sense for him to do so, but I was yearning for him in a way so deep that I wasn't sure I fully understood it. When his head bent down, my eyelids fluttered. Sure, if he kissed me, it might negate all he'd said… but then, I'd be getting what I wanted, wouldn't I? And I couldn't deny that I wanted it… I was gravitating towards him like he was my sun.

When his lips brushed against me, my eyes did close—the intensity was so strong that I had no other choice, even if his lips were pressed to skin instead of mouth. I could feel the slight quirk of a sad smile in the corner of his mouth as it brushed against the corner of mine, but there was no fire in it—feeling, yes, but fire, no. I let out a shaky breath when he pulled away, not knowing what to do with myself, but he didn't seem to be expecting anything. He wrapped me into another soft, warm, affectionate hug and when we pulled apart, asked if I wanted a ride back to my car right away. I didn't, exactly… I kind of wanted to stay in his home, taking in the details, explore the man and his abode… but it was clear that he was trying to direct back into our traditional roles.

No matter what happened, I was not willing to go back to being a nameless, faceless student to him. I couldn't make sense of anything right now, but I knew that as strongly as one can know anything. "Did you, uh… want to grab lunch tomorrow?"

He looked at me in surprise, and then shook his head. "Sara…"

"No. I mean…" I blushed, getting flustered, but he seemed to appreciate the blush and quirked a smile. A little of my confidence seeped back in. "Not as a… date. I just… want to see you." I didn't mean for my voice to be meek, but it was, and he quirked another sad smile.

"You work tonight?" I nodded, and so did he. "I'll come in at some point and we can… talk about it."

I got the feeling that he wanted to get out of the privacy of his home and the closeness of our embrace, which we still hadn't stepped back from, and though I didn't want to give him that relief, I felt myself nodding again and letting him steer me back towards his door to collect my backpack and get a ride back to my car. I had learned that although Dr. Grissom was a man who could be pushed to a breaking point, he didn't necessarily remain broken. It would be no good pushing the issue… and at least I knew for sure that I would get to see him again. The car ride was silent, me embarrassed of my tears and he sitting strong and quiet and unreadable. I was ready to jump out of his car without a word once he'd brought me to mine, but before he had fully slowed, his hand had caught mine, preventing me. …Apparently he had expected my actions.

I glanced at him uncertainly, once again flushing without having any desire to do so. Did his eyes have to be so unbearably blue? My heart thudded and his palm contracted, squeezing mine gently, before releasing. …It wasn't maybe what I was hoping for, but it was better than a silent retreat, and I offered him a smile before I climbed out and then into my own vehicle, which had been functioning just fine since he'd… done whatever it was he'd done to fix it. He waited a moment, but when the car started he gave me a wave and drove away… and I exhaled in a rush, pulse thundering. I wasn't sure why I felt so tightly wound—so stressed—but I did know that I was a little relieved to be out of his presence.

I backed out of my parking spot, hoping that Anni might have chosen today to skip class and that I would get a chance to talk to her before work. I needed help.