For the rest of the week, Sara generally arrived to work an hour early, at 7:00. She didn't seem upset, Grissom thought to himself. Maybe it really had been just infatuation.

It was nagging at him, though. He had to know whether she really cared about him or whether it had just been the adrenaline rush from the explosion speaking. Sara seemed to be artfully avoiding him, though – somehow, every time he approached her when she was alone, either someone else appeared or she left.

After eight days of stealth, though, he finally managed to corner her in the break room an hour before shift started. "Can I talk to you, Sara?"

She harrumphed. "Doesn't look like I have a choice. What do you want, Grissom?"

Taking a deep breath, Grissom said, "I want to talk to you about last week. The night you asked me to have dinner with you."

"Oh, that?" she said brightly. "Yeah, sorry 'bout that. One of those nights, you know?"

"No, I don't know, Sara. Explain it to me."

She shrugged. "You know how it is, infatuation and all that. But hey, don't worry, you made it clear that – hey, Nick!" she called, interrupting herself. Ducking out from where Grissom had her nearly pinned against the wall, she threw herself at Nick and gave him a big hug.

Nick swung her around and kissed her cheek. "Hi yourself, Miss Excitement. What's up?"

Grissom watched in horror as it dawned on him that he may very well have lost Sara to a man he considered a good friend.

"Nothing," she said casually. "Grissom was just asking me about that night last week, you know the one."

Nick nodded. "Yeah. You didn't mind talking about it? You were pretty upset that night when I came over."

"Nah, I'm fine. I have something else to occupy my time thinking about," she said with a wink.

Grissom cleared his throat.

"Oh!" Sara said. "Sorry, Gris. Forgot you were there."

"Apparently so," Grissom responded. "Do you two have anything you should tell me about?"

"Nope," they chorused.

Grissom frowned. "If there's an office romance going on between you two, I need to know about it. If for no other reason, to cover for you with the rest of the staff." He couldn't believe the words coming out of his mouth. He was offering to encourage a relationship between Sara, his Sara, and Nick?

No, he reminded himself. She wasn't his Sara anymore. He wondered if she would have been if he'd said "yes" that night. Too late now, he supposed. Why did he always end up digging his hole too deep to escape when it came to his relationships with women? "Nick? May I have Sara back for a minute, please? You can have her again when I'm done."

That sentence could be a metaphor for the whole disaster that was playing out, Nick thought. "Sure, Gris. Sara, I'll be over with Greg when you're done." He grinned at her and left the room.

Grissom rubbed his forehead, where he felt a migraine coming on. "Sara? Are you in a relationship with Nick?"

"Oh, I don't know, Grissom. Let's just say we're seeing each other."

"When did this happen?"

"Is it any of your business?" she asked with a raised eyebrow.

"I'm your supervisor, Sara. I need to know what's going on with my CSIs."

"Fine, fine. Since . . . hmm, about a week now."

A week, Grissom's mind screamed. It had been approximately a week since he had told her "no." Had she run straight into Nick's arms? "A week?" he mused out loud. "So you were kidding when you asked me to dinner." He clamped his mouth shut, flushing slightly. He hadn't meant to say that out loud!

"No, Gris. I was serious then. But, like I said, once you told me that I had no chance, I decided to get on with my life." She smiled lightly. "I'm only thirty-one. Couldn't exactly spend the next fifty or sixty years of my life pining after some guy who thinks of me as a daughter."

Fifty years? Was she planning on spending the rest of her life with NICK? She was too good for him, Grissom thought angrily. Nick still acted like he was a twenty-year-old frat boy, not an adult with a serious job in law enforcement. Well, that wasn't exactly fair, he admitted to himself. Nick sometimes had bursts of insight. But still, he was just too brash and outgoing for someone like Sara.

What came out of his mouth, though, was, "I don't think of you as a daughter."

"Protégé, then," Sara said. "You know what I mean."

Grissom started to deny that too, then cut himself off. What was the use? She was lost to him now. She was in love with Nick, a thought that made Grissom shudder.

"Ok, then, Sara," he said, feeling like he was bleeding inside. "Go on and catch up with Nick. Just, Sara . . ." He stopped, unsure of himself. "If you ever need anyone to talk to . . . you know where I live."

Sara smiled wearily. "I know where you live, yeah. But I'd never burden you with my romance problems. You're not exactly the expert." With that parting shot, she headed out of the break room and started toward the DNA lab.

Grissom winced, but acknowledged that she was right. Who was he kidding? He hadn't had a serious relationship with a woman since he worked in LA. Sighing heavily, he made his way back to his office and fell into his desk chair.

Catherine, as though sensing something was wrong, entered the room a minute later. "You ok, Gris?"

"Yeah," he said. "Migraine."

"That's not 'ok,' idiot. Where're your meds?"

"Bottom drawer. But I'm not taking them now or I'll be out of it." He shrugged, the regretted it because of the pain it caused in his head. "I'll be fine."

Catherine sighed. "At least take an OTC painkiller, then. Take something, or you'll be no good to the rest of us all night."

"I'm no good to half of you anyway," he said with a bitter smile.

"Huh?" Catherine shrugged when he did 't answer. "Just take the damn pills. I'll help you out if you get dizzy."

Grissom did as ordered. After checking his mouth to make sure he'd swallowed them, as though he were a child, Catherine patted his shoulder gently and left him alone.

Just as he was beginning to relax with the drug's effect, a knock came on the door. "Yeah," Grissom mumbled, in too much pain to care who it was. Until, that is, the door opened and Nick appeared. Grissom sat straight up, stiffening.

"Uh, hi," Nick offered. Grissom only looked at him steadily, so Nick continued. "I just wanted to, uh, make sure you're ok with me and Sara. I know how close you two were."

Were. Not any longer, Grissom's masochistic brain reminded him. "Well apparently she was closer to you than I thought," he said nastily.

Nick swallowed. "Yeah, that was what I was worried about. We were only friends, you know. Then last week, you . . . you know. Told her there was nothing there. So I took her out for a drink so she could relax, and it kind of went from there."

Told her there was nothing there, Grissom thought. Every word Nick said was reverberating through his brain, and not because of the headache. Had he really come off as though he were telling her that he didn't care? Apparently so. Sara believed he thought of her as a daughter, and Nick thought Grissom didn't care for her at all.

"She gave you every chance," Nick said defensively, unable to tolerate the silence any longer. "And you pushed her away one time too many. She's not a yo-yo, Grissom, and there had to be a time when the string broke. Last week was it. And now she's seeing me, and she doesn't have to wonder about whether I care about her or not."

"I know," Grissom said. "And I hope you treat her well, Nick. You'd better treat her well. I'll know if you don't." He hoped he sounded threatening and not just bitter. If Nick didn't take care of Sara, Grissom didn't know what he would do, but it probably wouldn't be pretty.

"I will," Nick said. "I, uh, guess I'll be going now. You look like you have a headache. Sorry." And he was gone.

Grissom leaned back once again, amazed to find there seemed to be tears pricking at his eyes. Whether from physical or mental pain, he didn't know, but he hadn't cried in years. Just went to show, he supposed, that Joni Mitchell had been right. It always seems to go that you don't know what you've got 'til it's gone.

Ten minutes later, the door to his office flew open with a bang. "Are you STUPID?" Catherine's angry voice demanded.

Grissom managed to open one eye to the light. "Excuse me?"

"I just saw Sara kissing Nick."

The eye closed. "Yeah, Catherine. They're dating."

"I repeat: are you stupid?"

Grissom sighed. "And why would I be stupid this time?"

"HELLO! Sara? Nick? Sara kissing someone who's not you?"

"It's a long story, Catherine. The end result is the same. If you see her kissing anyone, it'll be Nick and not me."

Catherine stared at him, open-mouthed. "You're kidding. You're just gonna . . . give up on her?"

Grissom waved a hand. "There's not much I can do about it now. I can't exactly steal her from here and lock her in my house."

"That's sounding like a good idea right now, Gil. I can't believe this. You're just going to let Sara slip away?" She sank down in a chair, genuinely distressed by the thought.

"As I said, Cath, there's nothing I can do now. Sara made her choice, and she seems to be happy. I'm not going to try to take away that happiness now that she's found it."

"She's rebounding, Grissom! She thinks you don't care!"

"Actually, she thinks I see her as a daughter rather than a love interest."

"Same difference. I can't believe this," she repeated. "What did you SAY to her to make her do this?"

Grissom opened his eyes. "Listen, Catherine. Sara is her own person. I can't make her do anything. If I could, my life would be a lot easier. I can't, though, and she's happy with Nick. I can't change things now. And I forbid you to treat her badly, Catherine," he said, reading her mind. "She's free to make her own choices. I don't want her hearing that you disapprove."

Catherine sighed. "This isn't right, Grissom."

"In real life, Cath, there is no 'right'. There's only 'true'."