"Calm down, Gris! I keep telling you, I knocked the shit out of him and he barely hit me with the end of a punch. I know how to fight, I wasn't in any danger." Sara sat back against their couch, waving a hand dismissively.
"Not in any danger? Have you finally lost whatever sanity you had left, Sara? You were lucky, not 'not in danger'. What if the man had had a gun? My god, Sara, I'd be arranging your funeral right now instead fixing your breakfast." The stark look on his face told Sara that it had been a very real thought of his.
"I'm not gonna die, Gil. He didn't want to kill me, anyway, so even if he'd had a gun he probably would have just winged my arm or something to get me off him."
Grissom leaned over the counter that divided his living room and his kitchen and pressed the heels on his hands into his eyes. When he took them away and opened his eyes, he looked into hers for the first time since they'd left CSI. His usually clear blue eyes were bloodshot and hooded. "Would you really take that chance, Sara? Do you feel confident enough to risk your life betting that he wouldn't shoot to kill?"
Sara was quiet, knowing Grissom was right. "No," she finally said. "I wouldn't. I guess I'm just not used to having someone else who would really be affected if he had hurt me. When you're alone, then you can do what you think is best. You know how all the single police officers volunteer for the most dangerous jobs. I have the same mindset. Or had, I guess."
Grissom ran a hand through his hair. "Well next time you decide to try to get yourself killed, think of me, ok? Maybe you won't mind your being dead, but I sure as hell will. You're giving me gray hair, Sara."
Sara managed a smile. "Your hair is gray already, Gris. Don't blame that on me. And I'm sorry about this afternoon, ok? It was instinct, and it's gonna take a while for me to change that."
"What if we have children, Sara? You can't put yourself in danger like this." The words flew out of his mouth, completely bypassing his brain. Grissom's eyes registered surprise and embarrassment when he realized what he had just said.
Sara's mouth hung open. "Children . . . kids?" Her eyes widened. "I didn't . . . I mean, I haven't . . . that wasn't even crossing my mind, Gris. I was more worried about leaving you alone."
"Forget I said that, Sara. I don't know where it came from. I didn't mean . . . um, well I did mean . . . but not . . ." He stopped, realizing that he had no idea what he was trying to say.
"There are always risks in this job," Sara said in an attempt to change the subject. "I can't avoid them, you can't avoid them. None of us can. Ok, maybe I could have handled the guy better, but there was nothing I could have done differently that would have made him not come after me."
"You could have been working a different case. If it had been Nick, Warrick, or me out there, we could have defended ourselves. You're putting yourself in a lose-lose situation."
"Excuse me? What did you say, Grissom? Did you just tell me that I can't defend myself and that I should let one of the big, strong men do the hard jobs? Well why don't you go ask that man if I can defend myself. I caught him by surprise because I'm female. If he had come after one of you, he would have been prepared for a fight and probably would have brought a gun. And then one of you could have been killed."
She jerked her hair back angrily and knotted it into a bun to get it out of her face. "And I seem to recall that out of all of us, me and Warrick are the only ones who haven't had a suspect get the drop on them. You, Catherine, Nick – you're the three who keep getting in trouble, not me."
Grissom made throttling motions with his hands, wishing vaguely that Sara's neck were within reach. "Well, Nick and I came out of it ok both times. Catherine just had a scratch. You're different."
"A scratch, Gris? She was bleeding like a stuck pig. And I'm not different. The only difference is that you have a vested interest in me. You need to get over that. Not over me, of course, but over this desire you seem to have to lock me in a closet and go slay the dragons all by yourself."
"I don't want to . . ." He stopped, reconsidering. "Ok, I do want to lock you at home sometimes to protect you from yourself. There's nothing wrong with that. Other than your luck with suspects, you get yourself into more scrapes than anyone I know. And what about that time you would have killed that man who killed his wife if I hadn't held you back?"
"We're going in circles, Grissom. You just gave an example of how I do know how to fight against a man."
Grissom sighed heavily. "Listen, Sara . . . you know how much I love you. Or how attached to you I am, if you don't want to hear 'love'. If you died or got hurt on the job, it would be my fault for putting you on the case that got you that way. Then not only would I have to deal with the professional guilt, but I'd have to deal with losing someone who's more important to me than anyone I've ever known."
Sara walked to the counter and leaned on it across from Grissom. Her face was an inch from his as she spoke. "I'm not going to die. I have no plans to die until I'm at least ninety. You don't need to worry about me when it comes to this stuff. I'm tough. You can't go to school in Boston and not be; you know what that area is like once you step off campus."
She took his face between her hands and repeated, "I. Am. Not. Going. To. Die." Grissom didn't respond, just looked at her, and she dropped her hands back to the counter, laying her head down on one arm. She heaved a sigh. "That's my argument, Gris. If you're not convinced, then there's nothing I can say to change your mind. Trust me, please."
Grissom didn't know what to say. Of course he trusted her, but trust had nothing to do with the fact that Sara had no idea how quickly things happen when you're in danger. She could be shot before she could even react. If Sara died while she was working, he didn't know if he would ever be able to do the job again, knowing how it had claimed her.
"I believe you, Sara, but I can't lose the protectiveness. I'll try to, I don't know, tone it down. But I will always worry about you, and there's nothing either of us can do about that. Call me selfish, but I don't want my house to ever be empty again."
