Disclaimer: I don't own.

A/N: Sorry about the angst. :( I promise GSR in the end, along with lots of hot hot hot gsr sex before I wrap it up. Cross my heart.

...I also find it interesting that several people suggested getting Sam Braun to send a hit man after Jace... among other death-related ideas. ...Do you really think Grissom is capable of that? Lol. I have violent readers. :)

Jelly--Once again, you inspired a line in one of my chapters. :) Although, this time you're not "one of the characters", so it's a little less pointed. Still, though, all you. ...Do I even want to know about the red hot thing?

Gsrmania--Tell your husband I'm sorry. :) Hehe.

gsrgirl4eva--I have granted your wish. :) ...One of them.

Chapter Fifty:

I was worried when she didn't show up. When Catherine arrived and I allowed myself to look down at my watch again, I knew that she was a half hour late. I finally gave in, telling myself that I wasn't being needy or controlling, just protective. I hurried down to her room, knocking on the door, and when I heard her crying, pulled out the key she'd given me before I left that morning and slipping inside.

She was still in the towel she'd been in when I kissed her goodbye an hour and a half ago, and she was curled up on the bed, her hair drying but looking like she hadn't brushed it since she got out of the shower, and sobs were spilling from her lips. …She must have heard me come in, but she didn't look up or acknowledge me. I took a step towards her and heard a crinkle under my foot.

An envelope. I hesitated briefly, and then pulled out the information inside… it was a boarding pass, for tonight. A flight out of Tambor Airport to SJO… that must be San Jose, the capital, and then another flight from SJO to SFO… San Francisco. I swallowed, feeling a sinking in my chest. "…Sara…?"

"…I'm so sorry, Gil." She said, so softly I hardly heard it. I moved over to her, sitting on the bed and drawing her up to rest against my chest, her hair still wet and dampening my shirt.

"…I don't understand. I thought…" I stopped, seeing her left hand against my chest. She was wearing her wedding ring again. The realization hit me so hard it knocked the wind from me and I was gasping with it. "…I… Sara… Why?" I asked, disliking how desperate my voice sounded. …Everything had been so perfect, this morning.

She wiped desperately at her tears, but couldn't look me in the eyes. She sniffled. "…Jace came here."

Immediately I took in her half-dressed appearance and her hysteria and thought the worst. "Did he… hurt you, Sara? Did he… Sara, I don't… You have to tell someone! We have to report it! Why… would you put… the ring back on…?" I ended, trailing off, thinking that my initial fears didn't necessarily fit. She shook her head.

"He didn't hurt me. Not… like that." She sobbed. "I… He… He gave me two choices."

I swallowed. "…Okay."

"One… I leave him, like I planned, to be with you. …He… divorces me on board here, for my infidelity… and then everything he earns from that point on is his. We… give everything to charity, Gil. There would be nothing to split but the house. I don't make enough to pay for half the hour, much less… lawyers…"

I shook my head. "I can pay for lawyers, Sara, if that's what this is about. I… Is this for child support or…"

"No!" She wailed, her hands clutched at my shirt. "Gil… it's for… custody."

I felt a tightening in my chest, but it wasn't severe—I mean, sure, it was an asshole thing to do, but Sara should know how rare it was for the courts to separate an infant from its mother. "…Okay. We'll get the best custody lawyers in Vegas, honey. …If we have to sell my townhouse and take out a loan, Sara, we'll do it. …We'll be fine. They're not going to take a baby from its mother…"

She shook her head. "Yes, they will."

I frowned. "I… don't understand."

She wiped her eyes again, though her tears seemed like they'd finally slowed. Her voice came calmly now, but it was a strange calm that made the hair on my arms stand up… She seemed so… detached. "I'm… a foster child. It's in my record—and they could get my file for this—that every house I was in, they were required to take me to counseling. …My record would show… self-destructive behaviors, a disrespect for authority figures, a drinking problem as a young teenager, depression, night terrors… a history of mental illness."

At my frown, she sighed. "…My mother. After she killed my father who, it could be argued, was also unstable considering he beat his wife and children, she had a break with reality… didn't know who or where she was. She was in an institution for a while, before prison… she died in prison. And the statistics they could show on the effect of childhood abuse on certain personality disorders… it'd be unlikely that I wouldn't have one or two of them."

I shook my head. "That's crazy, Sara. …Anyone who knows you—"

She shook her head, the cold, numbness still ever present. "It doesn't matter if I had character witnesses, Gil. They would look at me and see a young woman who cheated on her husband on their honeymoon while three months pregnant who ran off to live with her lover—"

"Fiancé." I corrected, but she shook her head yet again.

"…Semantics. I ran off with you, this man who is supposed to have an unimpugnable character, but who goes on a cruise with a woman he works with and ends up sleeping with one who is married. I don't have a support system or a family, and the lover doesn't count for much… Even if I bring in a line of people who can say I'm not crazy, they'll look at everything and say that Jace is the better choice."

Assuming Jace himself didn't have any of those deep, dark secrets… she was right. And then, I understood. "…So option one is, choose me, lose your baby." She nodded, another sob shaking her chest as she tried to hold it down. "…And option two is… stay with him, keep the baby." She nodded again, tears leaking once more despite her efforts. I fought back my own pain as much as she did. "And… you chose option two."

She nodded again, and the floor fell out of my world. There had been no malice in my tone… I understood why she made the choice, and I couldn't even fault her for it… but once again, I had somehow lost everything. I nodded, too, despite wanting to scream 'no!', "I… understand."

"…I'm so sorry, Gil. I… I love you so much. More than anyone else in the world…"

Except your baby, my mind said, but I wouldn't speak the words. They weren't fair, and they would only hurt her. I would probably have made the same choice, but… the thought of her going back to a marriage like that, instead of being with me. "Sara… I love you too. I… You're everything to me. I… I can't stand the thought of him touching you again."

"Never." She shook her head, lifting it finally to meet my eyes. And in hers, deep and dark and brown, I saw the truth of her words—it was killing her, to make this choice, but even if I never saw her again… she would never be intimate with Jace again. I took some small comfort, knowing that she would be loyal to me, but it wasn't much.

I kissed her, hard, wanting to feel her again because I had so little time left with her… tonight. She was leaving tonight. And she was just as desperate—we tore clothes off each other in a frenzy and with no preamble I pushed inside her. She hissed a little, because I had not prepared her, but I didn't have to move… I had just needed to feel her around me. To be sure of one thing, right now… the perfection of our love. I closed my eyes, laying kisses over her face, caressing her body, shivering and pulsing as I felt her get wetter around me, shifting against me in gentle movements that were driving me crazy.

I wanted to go slow, like we had the night before… sweet and romantic and sensual… but I couldn't. My need for her was anxious and desperate and demanding and as soon as I was sure it wouldn't hurt her, I was pounding into her with that desperation, trying to make permanent the feel of her as I buried myself completely… trying to frantically learn each and every nuance of her body and her voice… the way she moved and the way she sounded and the way she felt… The way she made me feel.

I don't know where I got the stamina… adrenaline or desperation or simply God cutting me some slack, but even after finishing inside her, with tears streaming down my face, I was hard… and I wasn't going to stop having her, loving her, feeling her, until I absolutely had to.

Hours later, wrapped in each others' arms, in bed, unable to sleep… I made the suggestion that had been on my mind. "…I could… move to San Francisco. We could… still see each other. …Something would be better than nothing."

She shook her head against me, the tears finally dried, the grief having reached the point of being inexpressible. "I… was told I could never speak to you… or see you… again."

My eyes fell closed, my heart throbbing. This was really the end then. I turned to her, kissing her forehead. "…When I met you, Sara… I didn't believe in love at first sight or… soul mates… anything like that."

"…And now?" She breathed against me.

I sighed. "…I believe."

"…Do you believe that soul mates always end up together, in the end?"

I swallowed, hard. "…I want to."

"Me too."

An hour before she had to leave, she dragged herself out of bed, packing her bags… she did not do it in the methodical manner I would have expected… she threw everything into a clump in her suitcase, save for her change of clothes, zipped it up, and placed it outside the door. Then she came back to lay with me in bed. I bit my bottom lip. "…Jace doesn't have any skeletons… like yours? …Nothing?"

She shook her head. "I… don't think so."

"I'll… dig around. Call in every favor I have and write out some IOU's… figure something out."

"…How will you let me know?"

"…Do you have someone you trust? …Someone we can communicate through? I mean, Catherine's an obvious choice, but Jace would suspect…"

"I, um… Kyleigh and Michelle… my other bridesmaids. I… trust them, but then… I also trusted Rachel...Slut." She spat out.

"…She was the—"

"Yes." She said, harshly, and I felt her anger course through me too.

"If you'd seen me… if you'd never married him…"

"We wouldn't be like this, now." She said, and it sounded almost like a snarl. She squeezed her eyes tightly shut. "I fucking hate her. …And him. I hate them!"

I kissed her forehead. "…Tell your friends about Rachel… if you still trust them… If they didn't know… have them send a letter to me at the Vegas Crime Lab, and anything I find, I'll communicate through them. …If I don't get anything at all, I'll… get Catherine to call from a disposable cell phone or…something. I'll find a way."

She rolled over and kissed me. "…I'm so sorry, Gil. …I never wanted this to happen. I… I was so happy."

"I know," I soothed, kissing her again. When I slid inside her this time, we didn't even move… we just laid there, holding each other tight, our bodies connected in the most intimate way possible, every once and a while sliding against each other, not for pleasure but for the comforting reassurance of feeling one another. We only separated when Jace knocked on her door, saying he was taking her suitcase and that she needed to be down at the taxi in five minutes.

We dressed in silence, she wrapped her still unbrushed hair into a knot at the back of her head, and picked up her purse, double checking for a passport and wallet. I wished desperately that I had somehow had the foresight to bring my grandmother's ring so that I could give it to her, to keep when she couldn't be with me… Instead, I walked hand in hand with her, the giant, gaudy thing Jace had bought her digging in to my fingers, a constant taunt.

Neither of us looked at him when we stepped off the boat and moved towards the cab he was standing beside. I turned her in my arms and pressed her against the door of the taxi, kissing her with as much love and passion and desire as I could, half not caring what Jace would think, and half wanting him to see it. He might have won this fight… he would have her with him… but he didn't have her heart. I did. I always would.

I pulled back and we were both breathless. I stared into her eyes. "…I love you. I'll never, ever love anyone like I love you."

"Me either." She swore. "And I'll never let him touch me, Gil. …Only you… forever." She said, repeating words whispered in afterglow, our first time.

"Forever," I whispered back, kissing her again, and finally releasing her. Again, she did not even look at Jace. She gave me a long, sorrowful look, bit back a sob, and slid into the cab. I had every intention of ignoring him further, but he stepped right up to me, so I met his eyes.

"…Did she tell you the conditions?" His voice was hard. I grit my teeth.

"Yeah. …She can't see me, or you'll use every trusting, honest, loving moment the two of you ever had against her… I'm aware."

I wanted him to be angry… to be as angry as I was… but he didn't seem to be. He just shrugged. "Good. Don't you ever come near my family again."

I didn't even think about it—I was not aware that I had hit him until he fell back hard against the taxi, blood spurting from his nose, and I realized that my hand stung. I shook it, thinking that the action had been over too fast… I had gained no satisfaction from the hit. …It didn't get my Sara back. I shook my head while he looked at me in shock, still trying to stem the flow of blood. "…They're not yours. Sara will live with you, and stay married to you… but she is my family. …And the baby you used as a pawn to keep her, that's my family too. Not yours. …Just so we're clear."

He opened his mouth to protest just as I was lifting my fist to strike again if he said anything I was assuming he'd say… but the cab driver honked, and he shook his head, turning from me and crawling silently into the cab. …I let my fist fall, watching Sara turn in her seat to look at me as she drove away, tears running down her face and one hand pressed to her heart, like it was breaking, the other to her mouth, as if she did not trust herself not to cry out to stay with me.

They turned a corner, and she was gone.