AN: I don't own them… I just play with them, very carefully so they don't break.

This is G/S, coz I love that pairing… may Geek love live forever and this story never happen!

Oh- 1 more thing- REVIEW! Pretty please?

Better to have loved and lost

Across the hallway Sara Sidle, CSI, stared at the man she'd loved for so long. SO many years of not knowing how to stop loving him, and yet, at the same time, not knowing how she could go on doing so. It was over, the pain, the doubt, the longing she held in her heart for more. Finally it was over.

"Goodbye Grissom," she said. The words causing a shot of pain to shoot through her. It hurt, but it was something that had to be done. She had to go, because there was no way she would ever get on with her life if she didn't.

Over the years there had been hints that he felt the same way, the comment about beauty, a thousand little glances she caught, a million and one little things that no one else but she could have possibly thought meant anything. But this was the end. She was leaving all that to go to another job. In all the years she had never understood how someone she loved so much could cause her so much pain and emotional torment.

With a wishful smile on her face her hand moved up to his cheek, mirroring the action she had performed so long ago. This time she did not feel the need to say anything, no excuses for touching his skin were forthcoming. Then, abruptly she dropped her hand. If she carried on like this there was a very real chance that she would not be able to force her feet to take those steps onto the aeroplane. This was goodbye, and it should be as painless as possible.

Tear tracks were still visible on her cheeks from her previous goodbyes to the rest of the team. Sad and filled with admonishments to write, phone, email and visit. Hugs and tears had been plentiful, as she'd said farewell to the people who had made her life here in Vegas pleasant and worthwhile: Nick, Greg, Catherine Warrick. People she would give anything to stay with.

In harsh contrast to that emotional goodbye, ironically, her parting with Grissom, the one who caused more emotions in her than all the others put together, was hollow, blank and cold. He had not said a word. And made no move to stop her. She felt like laughing at the cruelty of it all.

Without a word she turned and walked to the end of the corridor, not turning back. There was no point; by now he had probably already got back to work and forgotten all about her. Tears, which she'd thought she was in control of, began to spill over and down her cheeks in rivulets, retracing the paths of their predecessors. With one hand she dashed them from her eyes, determined not to show weakness to him now.

As she stepped out of the building and into the blinding sunlight minutes later, she waved at the taxi, waiting. She slipped into the back seat and gave the driver her address. Then and only then did she allow herself to look back.

"I love you, Griss…"

Back in the hallway Gil Grissom still stared at the door she had just walked through. Unable to believe she had gone, leaving him alone and empty. With unseeing eyes he looked around the building, through the windows, into the lab. It seemed so trivial, so pointless so unreal, without her presence.

A single solitary tear rolled down his cheek, the only one that had managed to escape him.

"I love you, Sara…" he whispered across the void between them, hoping she would hear and change her mind, but knowing that she wouldn't, that he had lost the one woman he would ever love and who would love him back in return.

~*~