Disclaimer: Ah, word, these are yours? Oh I just - I saw them there and I - you know what you can have them back. No problem. MY BAD

Rating: M - we're baaaack, bitches (kind of. Sorry)

Trigger/Content Warning: Scenes Of A Sexual Nature. Also, general angst. Mention of BDSM, but no descriptions.

Author's Note: 1. ...And for my next pub quiz, I suddenly know a lot more about beekeeping/the structure of beehives. Love this for me, lol

2. I am so humbled and grateful for all your kind words. I don't even know how to thank you all so I just keep writing and hoping, and THANK YOU. Your reviews really are fuel for this fire. It keeps blazing because of your brilliance.

3. I'm sorry if I seemed to be dark in the disclaimer last chapter! Thank you again for your kindness and compassion - no real or direct negativity this time. When I took my mini break between S7 and 8 I spent some time on the fan-twitters and just noticed that there's a specific vibe there where I think some are trying to 'fight' for airspace or attention with dishonesty, fakery, and generally ripping off others' content and it just felt a bit weird. I'm mostly convinced that Jorja and others we love don't see any of what we put out there, which is why I'm kind of like - if you won't treat people who interact with you with the same respect as you would treat someone who barely knows you exist (no matter how amazing they are), who are we fooling?

Life is here, now. People we can love on and be loved by are here, now. If I could be so bold as to assume ANYTHING about Jorja, is that she's big on love and integrity (just look at her decision about leaving CSI: Vegas). So I figure the best way I can honour that (we, if you'll join me) is to try and live by that code too, with everyone I interact with. I think that's the kind of legacy that anyone we admire would be honoured by.

My promise to you is that I'll do my best to act in the same love and integrity and compassion. But I'll also fiercely (lovingly) protect the progress we make in creating a trusting, open, and safe community for ourselves and each other. I hear you when you share with me your pain and your truths, and I want to hold those beautiful honesties (new word, deal with it) with the same care as I try to carry our characters here.

I don't mind calling out bullshit when I see it.

4. On that note... thank you so much (we really need a new and more powerful word than "thank you", huh?) to those who shared your own experiences with mental illness in the reviews - WalkerTRnger, van22114, tessafox, Mauricia - I am always always grateful for the deep kindness and care with ALL reviews - shoosee! I am honoured! thank you - but I wanted to especially honour the courage you showed in sharing your truths here too. I like to believe that every moment we can truly be real with each other in public, even on the internet (the opposite of the behaviours mentioned above) are healing moments, even for those who we don't know are watching. That's why I feel particularly compelled to call it out when people try to hide, repress, or gaslight others, even anonymously, from within these circles of trust.

It was strangers on the internet who helped me first come to peace with my pain. I hope that my realness might help someone else come to peace with theirs. You are all gifts to this corner of the internet, and I have no doubt in your real lives you are making untold positive changes in the lives of others.

5. I'm just very happy to be here and I have a deep and profound love for you, being here, supporting me on this journey as you choose to.

(And I'm definitely working on how I can get both eBook and print versions of Baby Teeth out to you without getting in trouble from TPTB.) xoxo BB

Baby Teeth

Chapter 52

It always took her a few minutes to wake up properly, on the medication. Sara felt like she had to peel her eyes open, rolling over to push her legs over the side of the bed, rubbery and unresponsive. She would drag herself to sit up and wait for her head to clear, resting her forehead on a hand, elbow on her knee.

Gil would pretend to be asleep until she was fully awake. She was grateful, even if she felt him watching her. It was just… a lot. She hated her body refusing to cooperate with her as it did on the Seroquel. While at least her dreams, while vivid, were peaceful - waking was hard. This morning, she held her head in her hands for longer, blinking the rheum out of her eyes. She rubbed them with her palms, taking a breath.

A shiny glint of something metal caught her eye, tucked between the bed frame and the bedside table. Sitting up straighter, she leaned over and reached for the dark, shapeless object. Her hands closed around velvet, and feeling dread, she pulled to withdraw the leather cuff from its hiding place.

Sara stared at it, numbly. The memories of what her and Gil had done, once, with those bindings did not move her. Rather, her wrist twitched, and her good hand shook.

She could still feel the plastic of the zip tie cutting into the skin of her wrists.

Will you ever be able to enjoy this again? Now that she…

She threw the binding back under the bed, eager for it to be out of her hands. Her lip had curled involuntarily in disgust, and it surprised her.

Was that her? Would that be her, again?

Who was that woman, so self-assured and trusting with her body and mind and heart like that? She couldn't remember. Whether it was the drugs, or the trauma, or just that she was a different person now... she wanted to remember. She felt the heat of anger rise in her. She took this from me. Natalie. Her mom. She.

How could one person take so much?

How can one person lose so much…

Grissom was done pretending. She pulled herself from her musings as she heard him sit up, pushing the covers off and shifting in bed to be closer to her.

"How'd you sleep?" He asked, gently. Sara shrugged.

"Okay, I guess," she said. She glanced at the binding again, and then looked down at her hands. The cast had come off a few days before, replaced by a splinted brace, and she still had to wear the sling when she was at work to keep from putting stress on her shoulder. She felt the bed shift, as he stood and walked around to sit next to her on the edge of it. As if knowing where her mind was going, he reached his left hand out, gently touching her wrist at the wristbones before sliding his fingers up through her palms and between her own.

"What's on your mind?"

Sara let out a long, heavy breath, leaning slightly against him with her shoulder. "I'm still so tired."

"I know," he nodded, turning his head so he could kiss the side of her head. She stayed there for a while, listening to him breathing. "You're not needed in at the lab until six. Why don't you go back to sleep for a bit?"

He slipped his hand out of hers so he could rub her back, and she leaned forward. She felt like her entire body was sagging under the weight of her sadness. It wasn't grief, not like the sadness that followed her home after Cami died in her arms, not like the despair she felt when they were called to the scene of Susannah's death. That sadness had been sharp, urgent. This sadness was large, and heavy, and blunt. It just pressed on her, ever present, limiting the capacity of her lungs and heart to do their duty.

Physically, and figuratively.

Gil helped her lie back down. She vaguely remembered mumbling 'thanks'... feeling the warmth of his breath and the softness of his lips, as he kissed her goodbye.

"One times three is..." Sara mumbled, lips cracked, mouth dry. She wanted to stop, to sit down.

She had to keep going, if only because she wanted to see him again. Grissom.

"Yeah, but what then?"

She flinched, feeling Jack Sidle's shadow behind her back. Sara's gaze was firmly fixed on the relentless drag forward of her feet, head down, sun blazing on the back of her neck and shoulders.

"Three," she said, loudly. "Two times three is-"

"What's your plan, Rah?" he said. He was moving with her, in time with her. "What's next for you? You already told him you didn't want to get married. You don't want kids. What's your plan?"

"We don't need those things," she muttered before she could stop herself. "He doesn't need those things."

"But what about what he wants?"

"Six," Sara continued. "Two times three is six. Three times three is nine..."

"What are you so afraid of?"

She couldn't help herself. She looked back at him, and he vanished, at the same time as she tripped on a rock sticking out of the hard-baked dirt. She landed hard on her side, winded, coughing as the dust filled her lungs. Sara managed to push herself up to her good elbow, on her knees, and coughed out her lungs until tears filled her eyes. She sat back, kneeling on her heels, and closed her eyes.

"Marriage didn't kill me, you know."

Sara refused to open her eyes. Partly for the brightness of the sun, directly overhead - partly because she didn't think she could bear to see him again. She let out a heaving sigh, almost a sob, but had no strength to release the grief gripping her chest. She crawled forward, dragging herself to a standing position, and started walking again.

"Four times three is twelve..."

Sara arrived home before him, and she assumed he was in the lab yard with the bees he had rescued from the Macalino house.

She was exhausted. She didn't like feeling irritation towards people, but Ronnie just... irked her. And it drained her of her energy. She wasn't being fair, she knew, but she also felt like she couldn't really help it. She wandered down to the kitchen, half-heartedly reaching into the refrigerator for some leftover pasta. She managed one forkful before returning it. She was sure Gil would watch her to make sure she ate something later, anyway, and would hover incessantly until she had some kind of sustenance.

She just wanted to crawl back into bed, hide under the covers. The world seemed overwhelming, as if it was so loud and demanding of her senses that she couldn't get enough space from it to order her thoughts. The drugs were clouding her ability to think clearly. She felt so out of control... so detached. Not least of all, from him, which she hated.

Sara headed for their bedroom, slipping out of her work trousers and reaching into her dresser for a pair of sweats. Gil had clearly been home between his split double shifts, because the bed was neatly made. Something was missing. She stood up straight, walking closer to the bed, and realised the attachments to the bed frame at each corner of the bed - where they had stored the bindings - were missing.

She felt herself flush with shame. He'd seen her pick up the binding and throw it back, last night before he rose and went to work. Ever observant, he had watched for her reaction, and then decided she wasn't ready for those reminders... and instead of bringing it up, forcing her to talk about it, he had simply quietly come home while she was at work and removed them so she never had to think about it again.

Part of her was humbled by his care for her. That he would do such a thing without being asked, only in her interest. And she knew it was in her interest - if there was anything she knew, without question, it was that he would walk through fire for her. She felt cherished in a way she hadn't ever felt by another person before. But the other part of her felt shamed, guilty... angry. I'm not a child, she thought, heated, as the blood rose to her face. I don't have to be coddled.

The rush of emotional energy took away her tiredness. Enough. What had been done to her hadn't broken her, weakened her - so she refused to be treated as fragile. Enough.

No, she probably wouldn't be able to engage in bondage for a while. No, her arm was still healing and painful, so she couldn't do everything she wanted to. No, she couldn't sleep soundly without medication that left her waking groggy, mind moving more slowly than it otherwise would.

But she had survived being abducted by a serial killer bent on vengeance against her lover, had broken her own arm to get out of the wreck of that car before she drowned in that steel coffin, and she had walked through the Nevada desert in burning sun and heat for an entire day, alone, haunted by ghosts at her back and in her mind.

Enough.

Gil returned to the lab to relocate the bees from the Macalino house to the hives he had set up in the yard. He liked bees. Liked their promise of flourishing, their industrious nature, their instincts, their predictability. Working with them gave him a few minutes' reprieve from his own buzzing mind, as it whirred on constant worries.

He had deliberately avoided Sara at the lab, knowing she needed to feel independent and capable, knowing that his constant hovering and worrying would undermine her confidence. It wasn't that he expected bad things... he just needed to be certain she was okay. He had to trust his team that they would be keeping an eye on her, too. That Brass, Al, Wendy, or even Catherine would give him a heads up if anything seemed out of the ordinary.

Or, even more out of the ordinary.

Their ordinary had already shifted, considerably. Slotting the last brood chamber into place in the hive, he pulled up the sleeve of his coveralls to check the time. 5pm - just as well he had ordered both of them take a day off the next day. He knew Sara would be exhausted, and he wanted to see how she'd handled her first day back, particularly as she was downstepping her medication. He said goodbye to his bees, slotting the cover over the top, then removed his netted hat and wiped the sweat away from his forehead with the back of his hand.

She was sitting at the bar counter when he arrived, a cold beer at her elbow, the newspaper open in front of her on the crossword page. For a moment, he wanted to just stand and watch her in her peace, comforted that she could find some alone. She hadn't heard him enter, possibly too engrossed in what she was doing. She did her crosswords in pen. He couldn't remember when that had started, but it was noticeable, given he always had pencils at the ready for precisely this task.

Still, if she turned and saw him, he knew he would startle her. "How was your day?" he asked, gently, as he descended the mezzanine stairs.

Sara looked up and smiled at him, only a little strained, and then looked back down to the crossword. "It was okay," she said. "They've got me babysitting this rookie-"

"Ronnie," he said, reaching into the refrigerator for another beer and opening it with the bar blade on the counter. "I know. How's she doing?"

Sara shrugged, grimaced. The cuts on her face, still healing, pulled and twisted with the movement of her mouth and eyes. "She's... idealistic," she said.

"Sounds like someone I know," he smiled affectionately at her before taking a mouthful of beer. He received a glare in response, but not at full intensity.

"I was never naive," she corrected him, and his smile vanished. No, unfortunately you knew better by then.

Gil just nodded. He could tell she was frustrated, that something in Ronnie had set her off, and he could also tell that she didn't feel good about it. Sara finished off her beer and placed it on the counter, carefully, then pushed the crossword and pen away from her.

"Gil-" she said, holding her hands in front of her, playing with the new flexibrace over her arm. Suddenly alert, he walked around the side to sit at the bar stool across from her.

"What is it?"

She took a deep breath, and he saw her hand shake a little. She gripped her other hand to steady it. "I'm not broken," she said.

"I know that."

She seemed to be warring with herself, colour rising in her cheeks as she looked around the kitchen and refused to meet his gaze. "Then why," she said, voice soft and uncertain, and he could hear the quiver in it. "Why won't you touch me?"

He heard the need in her voice, and he also heard the insecurity. It hurt. They used to be able to communicate their wants and needs - they had worked hard to develop that language between them. To hear her so fearful to try was painful. "I'm sorry," he said, placing his hand palm down on the counter between them. "I didn't know that-," he started. "...I didn't think you were ready, for that."

Sara blinked, and he could see she was fighting tears. I wish you weren't so ashamed to feel, around me, he thought. She had been both emotionally fragile and similarly guarded since they had plucked her from death in the desert, and he wished she could trust him enough to be vulnerable.

"Well, I want..." she started. "I want to be ready. I am ready." She finally managed to look him in the eye, and he nodded, feeling the similarly pressing desire and affection for her and the determination he could see flash behind her eyes. Ready or not...

"Okay," he agreed. He finished his beer, standing to take both their bottles and put them in the recycling before returning to her. Taking up the full volume of his courage, he held out his hand. "Shall we?"

They had become used to him undressing her, but he took extra care this time. He normally removed her clothing with the same detached air he would undress a corpse during autopsy prep. It wasn't that she was dead to him in those moments, only that he never wanted her to feel pressure or uncomfortable for the care he was taking with her. She had already had so much of her dignity stripped away from her. He didn't want to be one more person adding to that.

Tonight was different. Her plaintive request was simple - she wanted him to touch her as they had before Natalie had thrown their lives into disarray. She wanted to believe the wholeness of their relationship could survive what was done to her.

She wanted to believe that all of her had come out from under that car, and he wanted to believe that, too.

He removed her shirt, first, helping her hold her arm away from her body tenderly as he slipped the arms off one-by-one. Next, her jeans, gently guiding them down her legs. She was shy. He hadn't seen her be shy about her body before, not like this - curled forward over herself, arm cradled against her stomach.

Truth be told, he was nervous, too. They hadn't had sex since the night he had told her the story behind the gold necklace - before Natalie abducted her. Between the Seroquel, the trauma, and the exhaustion and relief of her return… neither were ever in the mood. Grissom did well to hide his more biological urges at waking up next to the woman he loved, managing his expectations and keeping his desire hid, knowing it was something that would just add to her anguish.

Standing behind her, hands gently holding her upper arms, he kissed her on the neck. "Get into bed," he murmured against her skin, and then kissed her again to confirm it. He reached down and held open the covers for her to crawl in, still wearing her bra and underwear, as he made quick work of his own shirt and pants and crawled in on his side. He reached for her body, careful to avoid her still healing arm, and let his hand rest on her. He was feeling for resistance, but found none, even though she was barely looking at him for her anxiety.

"Sara," he whispered. "Can you look at me?"

She did. He smiled. "Hi," he said, and she replied with the smallest twitch of a smile of her own.

In the post-desert days, he took every tiny moment of genuine joy… no matter how infinitesimal… as a gift. He pressed lightly into her side with his fingers. "Is it okay if I come closer? Can I kiss you?"

She nodded, and - heart in his throat - Grissom retraced an old, familiar pathway to her body that he had once taken almost daily. He pulled her closer to him, pressing his body up against hers, leaning down to kiss her as her chin raised to kiss him back. It felt like his heart was going to crush itself under the force of simultaneous and dividing emotions - relief, love, desire, grief, lust. Her mouth felt like coming home. He let his hands roam, tenderly feeling the shape of her - oh, he'd missed her… fingers dancing over her thin frame and the edges that hadn't been there weeks ago. Still, grateful for them all the same, he closed his eyes and deepened their kiss as he tried to remember her body in braille.

For the first time in weeks, he felt the softness of her without the oh-so-familiar suit of armour; he felt her warmth, the embers of her spirit spark for oxygen feeding them. As the temperature rose in their joining, his courage did, too. He pulled back as his hand came up to touch the lining of her bra, fingers brushing just underneath her breast. She nodded, closing her eyes and swallowing as though gathering courage, but she was smiling lightly still - as though remembering a fond memory from long ago. He reached behind her to unclasp the bra, gently guiding the straps over her shoulders and down her arms. Her nipples were hard. Grissom touched her, looking into her eyes, searching her for any hesitation as he forced himself to stay present with her.

"Tell me if… if you need me to stop," he managed, voice raspy. Sara shook her head, her smile still uncertain, but she moved closer and kissed him again. Awkwardly, she reached her good hand up to clasp his, bringing it to her belly and setting it there, her body language clear. Touch me.

He was eager to oblige, thumb hooking into the elastic at her hip, doing all that he could not to unceremoniously tear the underwear from her. He pushed the blankets down to their knees, feeling her confidence developing, and helped her shift onto her back so he could slide the cotton off her body down over her legs. When he turned back to her, he kept his eyes only on her, knowing she felt vulnerable and exposed and that it was the first time for both of them in this new frontier of healing.

"You okay?" He asked. She nodded, and he reached for her. He embraced her first, hands above her waist, holding her gently.

They didn't need to rush. He didn't need to rush. They had all the time in the world… time they had been gifted by a miracle of her strength and his team's determination to find her. Still, he kissed her more urgently then, as he traced the familiar path lower, lower, until he felt her softness beneath his fingertips. She shivered, breaking the kiss to place her forehead on the uppermost part of his sternum. Her breathing was shallow, and as he held her to him, he could feel the hurried beating of her heart.

Grissom touched her lightly, simply tracing a path up and down the line of her, feeling for wetness and warmth. She shifted closer to him, a light whimper tumbling from her open mouth, her lips tickling the skin on his chest. "More?" He murmured, his own lips in her hair, and he felt her nod. Gently, he rolled her onto her back, leaning down to kiss her as he shifted over her body for leverage. He waited for her to open to him, legs moving so he could attend to her needs with more pressure, more force.

He felt her moan under him, each sound of pleasure from her stoking his desire, pushing him forward. He stroked her up and down, circling over her clitoris and then back to her entrance, only lightly dipping inside her before returning. "Is that good?" He asked, partly because he wanted her validation, partly because he wanted to make sure she wasn't faking it for his benefit.

"Uh-huh," she mumbled, breathless, and she sounded genuine. He shifted from using one finger to two, gently applying pressure upwards as he slid his fingers inside her. With his other hand, he reached for her good one, clasping it tightly to him as he moved to be on top of her more squarely for leverage. She still had her eyes closed, and he leaned down to kiss her on the edge of her cheekbone then pull back.

"Sara," he coaxed her, tenderly, to look at him. She did. She met his gaze with any number of conflicting emotions clouding her vision, and he saw her struggling. He could see she was both there with him, and somewhere else, and he wondered if it would be safer for them both to stop.

"I love you," he reassured her, his voice nearly a whisper.

It happened fast - tears in her eyes and then she shut down, all open doors slammed shut. "S-stop," she stammered, and he immediately withdrew his hand and lifted himself off her body, as fast as he could. He watched, horrified, as she tried to curl herself onto her side away from him, her good hand shaking violently as she covered her face with it, cradling her injured arm to her naked body. Her breathing was no longer shallow and light, but fast and ragged, and she was hyperventilating.

Gil wiped his hand on the side of his boxers and reached out over the sheets between them.

"Honey, it's okay," he tried to comfort her, wearily. They'd been in this cycle before, and it didn't break his heart any easier each time. "Can I touch you?"

She shook her head immediately. Crushed, he accepted her needs, shuffling away a little so he could sit up.

"Breathe, Sara," he murmured the reminder. He was genuinely worried about the rate at which she was breathing. He knew her heart rate would probably be nearing tachycardia - she needed to calm down. "Remember what Caroline told us. Count backwards. Find something in the room to focus on."

Grissom hated himself for feeling exhausted… for feeling angry. Not at Sara, but just the situation they found themselves in. She doesn't deserve this, he found himself thinking, over and over and over. It didn't help anyone - it certainly didn't help her - but he couldn't help thinking it, anyway. He wasn't sure how much more erosion his soul could take from watching her suffer; but he was certain he would endure it no matter how much more there was. For her.

Forever.

Those thoughts, that morning, felt like forever ago.

With her knees tucked to her chest, and her injured arm cradled inside the cocoon of her body, Sara slowly began the long climb down from her panic attack and into the familiar ocean of her grief. The tears came, heavy and despairing, and she wished they would just drown her… she thought back to the moment where she wondered if she really would drown, under the car, in the deluge. She couldn't remember what kind of fire had her burning to get out of there and survive, against all odds. She'd survived. So where was that woman now? Where was that fire to survive?

Extinguished, under all the tears.

She could feel Grissom behind her back, aching to touch her, to comfort her. She wanted him to, as well. Desperately; she wanted her body to accept his touches under their old pattern of safety. How could she tell him that she still felt like every moment of affection from him felt like a lie? Not because he was lying, but because the world didn't feel real to her. Not anymore.

It was as though she had transcended the barrier between life and death to visit and be visited by her father that night, and ever since, nothing in the blueprint of her life - or her love - felt true.

And now, she couldn't even physically feel pleasure or comfort with the one she loved. Who loved her, unquestioning. It was like her body could respond, but she was numbed at a certain depth, and beyond that - nothing.

"I'm so sorry," she managed, in between sobs. She couldn't find anything else to communicate the despair with. He doesn't deserve this. He's dealt with enough. "I don't know what's, what's wrong with me-"

"Sara," he said, his voice firm and warning. The high-pitched drag of her lungs grasping for air finally slowing, and she wrestled with her heart to calm instead of pulling her back into unconsciousness. "There is nothing wrong with you."

How could that be true, though? How could the one thing she had once always longed to hear from him, now caused her physical pain and panic?

"Please… sweetheart," she heard him sigh, behind her. "I want to help you. Please, let me help you."

How? She wanted to scream at him. How can you, how can Caroline, how can ANYONE help me?

A familiar dread was creeping in from under the door she'd bolted against it. Was this it? Was her trauma going to be the final straw for them? After everything they had worked to move past, all of the trust they had built… was she broken beyond repair?

She couldn't bear to think about whatever the answer to those questions was. She just cried, until it felt like her face didn't fit her skull properly, until she finally wore herself out enough to go to sleep.

Grissom held back on his tears until he saw her body relax beneath the covers he had pulled up over her, until he'd slipped out of bed and padded into the bathroom. He washed his hands, his face, and then leaned on the bathroom counter for a moment to breathe. She's going to be okay, he tried to tell himself. She just needs time. She needs to know you're not going to leave her, that you can stay for this, too.

The pamphlet Caroline had given him had walked him through regression; that violent trauma could do this. Sara had never grown up in a stable household and a trigger this big could set off all her abandonment anxieties at once. That's surely it.

He crept out of the bathroom and down into the kitchen, brewing a pot of tea, briefly considering taking another beer from the bottom shelf of the fridge. He'd prepared for any eventuality when she came home from the hospital. Anything she wanted, or needed, he wanted to have at the ready.

Only he didn't have everything she wanted, or needed. He didn't have safety, or the ability to erase what Natalie Davis had done.

Gil picked the second brochure, PTSD and Partnership, taking the pot of tea up to their room and setting in the corner in the chair as he had before. He had read it over twice, and considered retrieving one of his forensic journals, when he saw her stir out of the corner of his eye. He lowered the paper to his lap, folding his hands to wait patiently for her to wake.

She opened her eyes and looked over her shoulder for him, obviously noticing his absence in bed with her, then turned to see him in the chair. "Oh," she mumbled. "Hey."

"Hi," he smiled, gently. He tipped his head, waiting for her to speak, to set the parameters of what she needed.

Sara gathered the covers tighter around herself, clearly still hyper-aware of how naked she was, how vulnerable she'd been. She buried her head in the pillow, and he was worried she was about to start crying again. "I'm sorry," he heard her muffled admission, and he leaned forward and set the book on the nightstand between them.

"Sara," Grissom said, slowly. He waited. One brown eye opened in his direction, then another. "You have nothing to apologise for."

She shook her head and closed her eyes, and he lifted himself from the chair so he could kneel beside their bed, his face level with hers. He reached up to take her good hand and hold it, and she didn't withdraw it, so he leaned forward and kissed her fingers softly. "You have nothing to apologise for," he repeated, emphatically. She nodded, understanding, and he leaned on the edge of the bed. He stroked her fingers with his thumbs, enjoying being closer, enjoying the fact that she didn't seem to mind being touched by him.

"Did I hurt you?" he asked.

Sara shook her head again, eyes cast downward. "I don't. I couldn't-," she managed, before she stifled another bout of tears.

"Okay," he nodded. "You're on a lot of medication at the moment. It's understandable."

She shut her eyes again, forcing herself to breathe through her nose. "I hate this."

Her tone was so deeply familiar, so deeply her, that he couldn't help himself from smiling at her declaration. "Me too," he joked, squeezing her hand, and she looked up at him.

"It's going to take some time, Sara," he told her, releasing her hand so he could stroke his fingers up her forearm. "I'm not in any rush. I'm not going anywhere."

She nodded, then, and seemed the tiniest bit relieved. Relaxed, she closed her eyes again. "What do you need, right now?" he asked.

Her eyes were clearer this time when she looked at him. She was all there - present, open. "I think... let's just get some sleep."

Gil nodded, standing so he could crawl into bed behind her. Unsure, he waited on his side of the bed, until she tipped her head up to look at him over her shoulder. "Gil?" she said, half questioning, half a demand. He reached for her and curled around her back, and she reached for his right hand with hers, clutching it against her chest. Within minutes, he felt her still as sleep took her, and his heartrate slowed in keeping. He let her steady breathing hypnotise him into deep, desperately needed sleep, as he wondered at her courage to continue.

TBC