"It's fine, Sue." All heads turned as first Sara's voice, then her body emerged from the guest room. "We both knew he was going to follow me here eventually."
"Sara . . ." Grissom began, and was cut off by Susan, who still looked like she'd be a lot happier if he were wearing handcuffs.
"You don't have to do this, Sara. I can make them leave, you know that."
Sara shook her head. "It's fine." Then, turning to Grissom and Nick, she gave them an unreadable look. "What do you guys want?" Both men noticed, though, that she didn't move any closer to them as she spoke.
"Umm," Nick mumbled, "I'll go wait in the car. You can just come out when you're done, Gris."
Susan momentarily pondered going with him and allowing the couple to have their privacy, but her worry for Sara won out and she decided that she wasn't going anywhere until she was sure that things would be ok. "I'm gonna go try to take a nap and give you two some privacy," she said. "But Sara, just yell if you need me and I'll come running."
Sara nodded. "Thanks." She watched Susan walk away and was surprised to find that Ben hadn't gone with her. "Go on," she told the dog, and flapped her hand at him. Ben's response was the raising of his hackles as he growled again at Grissom. "Ok, then," she told Ben, smiling a little, "stay. You can be my shield if I need one."
"I won't hurt you," Grissom ground out. "I wouldn't ever. Is that thing going to bite me if I come any closer?"
"I don't know if he will, but I just might," Sara said with narrowed eyes. "So you just stay over there, please, Grissom." When he did, she let out a quiet sigh of relief. "Ok, so . . . why are you here?"
"Is that all you have to say?" he said incredulously. "I've spent this entire night searching the whole damn city for you, and you want to know why I'm here?"
"Yeah, Gris, that's all I have to say as of now. If you don't like it, leave. I'm not stopping you."
Deep breath, he reminded himself. You're here to apologize, not to make her feel guilty or persecuted. He counted to ten, then spoke again. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean that to sound like it did. I've just been completely out of my mind with worry. I didn't know where you were, and I kept having nightmare images of you being mugged, beat up, killed . . ."
"As you can see, I'm fine," Sara said, but allowed her face to soften a little. "You didn't need to worry; I told you I was going to go spend the night with a friend." She swallowed, then added, "Besides, I don't think you really have the right to be worried about me leaving when it was fear of you that made me leave."
Grissom's eyes widened. "Fear? Sara, no, no!"
"Yes," she replied flatly, "yes. You scared the hell out of me, Grissom, and don't try to pretend you don't know it. Why do you think I'm staying on the other side of the room right now? I don't even know that you're not going to come after me now that Sue let you in here."
"I didn't mean to. Sara, I wasn't trying to hurt you. I was trying to hold you back from leaving. If I had known I was hurting you, I wouldn't ever have touched your arm."
"Maybe you didn't mean to. They never did. And they were always sorry afterwards." She closed her eyes against the memory of San Francisco that was assaulting her. "I can't tell myself that you're different anymore. That's why I'm here and not at home with you."
At least she was still calling it home, Grissom thought frantically. She was scared of him? Who were "they"? "Sara," he said as calmly as he could manage, "I would never . . ."
"Don't," Sara cut him off swiftly. "Don't make promises like that that you won't keep. This isn't just for me anymore; it's for the baby too." Still fighting the ghosts of the past, she slid down to a sitting position on the floor, cradling her stomach. "You don't understand, do you. Not at all."
"Then make me understand." He took a step toward her, frightened by the way she was curling in on herself, but was forced to stop when Ben set his body between Grissom and Sara. "Sara, can't you . . ." He motioned helplessly toward the canine.
"No." She looked at him with such intensity that Grissom almost backed away. "I can't protect myself from you, but he can protect me. So he stays." She sighed, knowing that he still didn't understand anything, and rolled up her sleeve. "See these?" she asked, pointing to the purple marks on her upper arm. "They're from you. You left bruises."
"I didn't mean . . ."
"Like I said, they never did."
"Listen, Sara. Who are 'they'? You told me that no one ever physically hurt you." He looked closely at her, noting her pallor and thinned lips. "I can't understand this if you won't tell me what's made you so afraid to begin with."
He was right. Sara hated the realization, but he really was right. Grissom needed to at least understand what had made her this sensitive to mistreatment. Taking a deep breath, she said, "Being beaten up is not something I'm proud of, Grissom. I don't go around telling people to get sympathy." She drew in another breath. "Do you remember Donny?"
"Donny? That man you, uh, dated? In California?" Grissom blinked. "He didn't . . . did he?"
Sara smiled a thin, bitter smile. "Don't want to believe it, huh? Most people don't. 'He's such a nice boy'," she mimicked. " ' He probably just didn't know how strong he was.' Do you know, Grissom, how fucking stupid it is to say something like that when the woman you're talking to has a sprained wrist and bruised ribs? Do you even realize how cruel that is?"
"I can only imagine," he said carefully. Then, after a moment's thought, "I never saw the marks on you."
"I never showed you."
He wasn't getting anywhere, Grissom realized. He'd managed to push whatever button it was that made Sara's walls come flying back up. "You could have, you know. I would have believed you. I would have . . . done something. To help you, to hurt him, maybe both."
"Yeah, well, you didn't. I didn't. No one did. So there are my scars, Gris, staring you in the face. Do you get it? Do you have any concept of how much you scare me now?"
He sighed and dropped to the floor, mimicking her position. "I guess I do, as much as anyone who hasn't gone through it can. But I don't know how to fix the scars, and I don't know how to convince you that I wouldn't ever hurt you."
Sara shook her head. "You can't. That's why they're called 'scars,' and that's why the cliché, 'Once bitten, twice shy' exists. Or, in my case, forever shy. There will never be a time in my life when I'm not looking out for signs that a man will hurt me."
Grissom felt utterly defeated. There was nothing he could say that would make Sara sure that he wouldn't hurt her, and rightly so. He had already hurt her, inadvertently or not. "What can I do, Sara? Tell me and I'll do it. Please."
Sara said honestly, "I don't know. I really don't. Maybe if I knew how to deal with these things, I wouldn't have such a messed up life to begin with."
"It is not your job to try to push away memories, sweetheart. That only makes things worse, and we both know it. Blame Donny; blame me if you need to. Just not yourself." Trying to gauge the look on Sara's face, he bit his lip. "So what does this mean?" he asked, trying to hide the desperation he felt. "Will you come home? Can I try to prove myself?"
" I wish I could say yes, Gil. I'm just . . . afraid. How can I go home with you, knowing that you've already lost control of your anger once? What if next time it's for real?"
"Sara," Grissom said slowly, "if I ever touch you in anger again . . . if you even think I'm going to . . . I want you to call the police. Lock yourself in the bedroom and dial 911. I want you to promise me that. I will willingly go to jail if I ever hurt you." He squeezed his eyes shut, wishing he knew whether his statements were worth anything. "Let me prove myself. Please."
Sara was silent for a long time. She wasn't looking at Grissom, she wasn't looking at Ben; she wasn't really looking at anything. She was looking inside herself. Could Grissom ever become like Donny? she wondered, digging for the truth within her mind.
Finally, as Grissom was allowing the reality that he'd driven her away completely to sink in, she spoke. "Okay."
