Disclaimer: Same as before.

Warning: If you don't like long S/G interactions with plenty of UST and a PSV or two, don't read further. You might want to skip this chapter all together. It won't hurt the plot too much. This one's for the GSR'ers.

Sara didn't remember how they'd gotten to Grissom's townhouse. She'd been there to drop off reports, evidence, but never had she been invited in. She found herself drawn to a collection of butterflies, immobile under glass.

"They were all dead when I found them," Grissom said quietly from the couch. He had a glass of water in one hand and a remote control in the other. Suddenly Sara could hear the sound of rain in the background.

"You found all of these?"

"I've been collecting them since I was a child."

"Reminds me of a book called "The Collector"," Sara said, reaching out to trace the edge of a butterfly's multicolored wing through the glass.

"Yes," he replied, glad to be in work-related territory again. "A man tires of collecting butterflies, so he starts collecting beautiful women. He was a lover of beauty, above all. He was fascinated by it and he wondered if beauty was connected to life force. He wondered if they would still be beautiful if he took their lives. So he killed them. But mine were all dead when I found them."

"Your butterflies or your women?"

"Both, as of late." Grissom watched, a smile pulling at the corners of his mouth, as Sara walked off the room, pacing the length and width of it, studying his paintings, his music collection, his butterflies. "Sara?"

"Yeah?"

"What are the dimensions of this room?"

"10 by 14. 140 square feet. Why?"

"Stop working for a second and let me in." The words surprised him even as they came out of his mouth. They had surprised her as well, and Sara sat down in a chair opposite him.

"Look," she began. "That thing back there it won't happen again."

"Sara, I'm still not entirely sure what that thing' was."

There was a long pause before Sara replied. "Do you want me to tell you?"

"I have an idea already."

"Dangerous territory, Grissom."

"If you want to stop, we'll stop."

"Stop what?" she asked, although they both knew what he meant.

"I think you've met Marc Danvers before."

"His name was Marc Evans at the time. But, yes."

"You were involved. Intimately?" He asked, uncertainty evident in his voice.

"Yes."

"You were 23."

"22. How did you know?"

"When we met at that first seminar, you were 25. You'd just had a birthday. A man brushed past you and your entire posture changed. Defensive posturing. His hand accidentally touched your sleeve and you had to fight for control of yourself. You looked like you wanted to run from the room."

"You remember all that?"

"I watched you. You fascinated me," he said simply, before quickly plunging ahead. "You were intimate, things ended badly, you left him–"

"He left me."

"Curious."

"What?"

"Sara" Grissom paused, studying her from across the room. This new information was puzzling, incompatible with what he knew about Sara, her life, and her personality. "I feel that this conversation might not be entirely appropriate."

"Gris, I don't need you to be my boss right now. Just be my friend?"

He sighed. "I'm not very good at this."

"You're better than you think. So. He left me."

"You were living together?"
"Yes."

"I still don't understand."

"What?"

"Why anyone would leave you."

It was that deer-in-the-headlights look. The same look she'd given him after he'd told her how she taught him to appreciate beauty. Like she doubted her ears. Or doubted his sanity.

"I wanted him to go," she said quietly, and the story that began the day she bought the book and ended the day he left her with it came pouring out.

"I don't understand," he mused again, after she'd finished. "Why didn't you just go?" His voice was quiet and she marveled at the tender, nonjudgmental tone he'd used. "He hurt you." A nod. "Physically?"

"Never seriously."

"You know better than that."

"I was a different person back then." She explained.

"Of course you were. It was ten years ago. People are dynamic, fluid. Without change, if life is static, if we don't keep learning" He shook his head, running a hand through his gray curls. "I don't know. We die, I guess."

"We die anyway."
"Sarcasm becomes you."

"I what?"
There was a long silence as Grissom wondered exactly where the boundary lines were drawn between them. With Nick, Warrick, even Catherine, he knew what function he had to serve. He was a mentor to Warrick, almost a father to Nick. Sometimes he was a protector to Catherine, but just as often she went to bat for him. She was more his equal than anyone else in the department was was and he'd learned to respect and value that. But Sara

One day he found himself scolding her, pushing her to find a life outside of work, at the same time knowing he had none of his own. He'd treated her like a child who needed his schooling. Yet on another day, he stepped over the line between them, blurred the boundary, and he didn't even blink. It was a natural thing, to be honest with her, to speak without guarding his thoughts.

"I'm confused, Sara."

"Confused."

"I don't want to intrude. You have the right to keep some things private. But I have questions."

"Why did I stay?"

"You're a fighter, Sara."

"People fight because they have to, Grissom. It's learned." She rearranged her limbs, pulling herself further into Grissom's chair. "Have you ever felt indebted to someone? You felt like you owed them your life, your very existence?"

*Every day, * Grissom thought. "I understand what you mean, yes."

"I'd gone to a bar. Someone put something in my drink, I don't know." Sara noted the growing concern on Grissom's face but plunged ahead. "The next thing I know, I lying on the pavement, I can't make my eyes focus and this guy's got his hands all over me." She shivered, forcing herself back to the present. "And then I woke up in Mark's apartment. Spare bedroom."

"He was a Good Samaritan."

"Yeah. At first." She considered saying more but decided against it.

"Sara. You know I should take you off the case."

"Why, I." Sara sighed, realizing she had no more energy left to fight with him. "Yeah. I know. I guess working on another case might be better."

Grissom dropped his glasses on the table, rubbing the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger. "Sara I am slowly developing a theory about the Baby Danvers case."

"People are creatures of habit, Grissom." She looked at him. "What you said about change it's true. We do need to grow and learn. But on the inside, we're animals."

"You're saying a leopard doesn't change his spots."

"I'm saying that Maggie Danvers isn't just a suspect. She's a potential victim."

"I didn't see any evidence of that," Grissom said, even as he thought of how Maggie cowered in the interrogation room. "No bruising, no lacerations, no evidence of facial fractures, fresh or otherwise."

"The bruises won't show. They'll be on her stomach, her thighs." Sara traced an old scar on her leg through her jeans. "She'll have been a survivor of sexual abuse, rape, incest."

Grissom nodded, finally understanding Sara's relationship with this man. "He came upon her at a time when she was most vulnerable. He exploited that, abused her trust."

Sara wasn't sure if Grissom meant Maggie Danvers or her. "A man came upon her, saw her, and just for fun destroyed her,'" she quoted.

"Brecht? Or Chekov?"

"Chekov. The Seagull. Act 4. The scene where Nina's come back to Constantine, desperate for him to notice her, almost begging him for his affection."

"Yet he's so involved in his own life he can't even see that all she wants is his approval."

"Love. She wants his love."

"Sara you don't seem like a Chekov fan."

Sara blushed, the flush creeping from her cheeks up to her hairline. "I was Nina, junior year of college."

"You never mentioned it."

"It didn't come up."

"What else hasn't come up?"

"So many things." She wiped her sleeve across her face and Grissom realized she was crying. Puzzling. "I can't believe I've let you see me like this," she murmured.

"I see you as I've always seen you."

"I'm a wreck."

*One tear does not a wreck make, * Grissom thought. "'I'm not concerned that you have fallen. I am concerned that you arise.'"

"Maya Angelou?"

"Abraham Lincoln."

"A wise man."

There was a long silence that Grissom was reluctant to break. "Thank you for telling me."

"No, Grissom. Thank you for caring."

"Can you continue on the Baby Dole case?"

"I yes."

"Get some sleep. We'll work on it when you're more rested." He shrugged. "A fresh perspective."

"Sleep--here?"

Grissom could almost see the headlights reflected in her eyes. "Oh. Of course not. You can use my room."

"You want me to stay here. In your apartment."

"Condo."

"Fine. Where's your bathroom?"

"Off the bedroom. Towels in the linen closet in the hall."

Grissom watched as Sara disappeared down the hallway. He hoped she wouldn't notice the slight pinkish cast to his towels. Laundry accident. He'd meant to replace them, but somehow it wasn't high on his list of priorities.

-----

"I hear Sidle had a major breakdown last shift. You night shift science nerds certainly seem to have high rates of mental illness."

"Look, Eckley, I don't know what you're talking about," Warrick cast a glance in Eckley's direction, hoping to make the man's head explode simply by staring at it. "Any grave yard shift meltdowns are probably from the stress of picking up your shift's slack."

"You know, she's going to have to pay for the damage she did to the locker room."

*Be glad you weren't around, or it could have been your face. * Warrick pushed the thought away. "I have work to do," he said, heading for ballistics.

"Well, Sidle should start to feel better real soon with Grissom attending to her needs personally," Eckley spit, accentuating the words "needs" and "personally." He was satisfied to see Warrick stop in his tracks, although the man didn't turn around. "I have it on good authority that they left together."

"Oh, really." Warrick shook his head and continued down the hallway. He was constantly amazed by how low Eckley would stoop.

"Her car is still in the lot. You know, any inappropriate contact between Grissom and Sidle could be grounds for dismissal for them both," he called.

"Eckley, isn't there some high-ranking ass that needs kissing?"

Eckley's face contorted and Warrick could tell, even from a distance, that he was enraged. "Don't say I didn't warn you," he groused before disappearing down a corridor.