Author's Notes: This is a stand alone story. Just another typical moment in the lives of Grissom and Sara while at work, something that might happen, or might have already happened "off screen".

Just a Job

by Anansay

August 26, 2003

"I'm supervisor of this lab. I have to make sure this lab stays at least the second best. I have to make sure all of the CSI's know that I'm in charge of are good. I have to make decisions that I sometimes don't like because that's my job, Sara."

"So you only care about me because I'm a good CSI who works for the second best lab in the country which is run by you?"

Grissom sighed and ran his hand over his face, the other hand resting on a swung hip. "I have to think of this lab before anything else. If this lab goes down, I go down with it. My career goes down. Everything I've ever worked for goes down."

"Your job It's that important to you?"

Grissom stared at her. "My job is very important to me, Sara. You know that."

"More important than anything else?"

His eyebrows knit in confusion, his eyes searching hers for that elusive double entendre he knew was in that question. "It's important," he chose to say simply.

And now it was Sara's turn to sigh and rub her own face, wiping away her own frustration. She looked back at him and smiled, keeping her mouth closed. It was that smile, that 'whatever' smile that she gave to him when she chose to bite her tongue and end the conversation as it was. And then she spun on her heels and disappeared from his doorway. Grissom was left standing alone and wondering, once again, what the hell had just happened?

And, being tired of these never ending conversations that just went around and around, Grissom chose to do something he had rarely felt so compelled to do. He followed her. His shoes smacked against the tile floor as he stomped after her.

He found her in the breakroom, just setting herself on the couch, her hand reaching for a magazine. She yelped when his hand slammed down on the magazine. Her head shot up, her eyes wide with surprise and anger. "What are you doing?" she demanded.

"Why do you walk away from me like that?" he asked in return.

Sara sighed short and loud. "Because you never tell me exactly what you're thinking. It's always 'the lab this' and 'the lab that'. It's never what you want. The lab is not the world, Grissom. This lab is not life. But you act like it is. I'm trying to get a life, the life that I want. And you won't let me!" Sara was standing now.

"I won't let you? What the hell does that mean?" His face was so close to hers, she could smell the faint mint of his toothpaste along with the musky odor of sweat. It'd been a long arduous shift.

"You keep pulling me in, dragging me back with more and more cases. I'm Sara Sidle. I was born a human being, not an investigator. As much as I like my job, Grissom, I'd like to have a life that you told me to get!"

"It's not only me who has a responsibility to this lab, Sara. You do as well." Grissom's voice had dropped to that agonizingly patronizing tone he used when he was teaching something he felt was rather basic. It irritated Sara to no end. If she had shackles, they'd be standing on end.

"My responsibility does not preclude my having a life. Are you just waiting for me to quit due to burnout?"

Grissom suddenly looked worried. "Are you burning out Sara?" he asked in a softer tone.

"No! I'm not. Not yet, anyway." Why did he have to take that tone with her, the one that made her think he actually cared? It confused her too much. Yelling back at him was the only way she knew to quell those burgeoning feelings inside her.

"Well then what's your problem? Christ, I cannot understand you!" He was back to yelling again. Good, thought Sara. No more of that Mr. Nice Guy. It was too disconcerting.

"Well that makes two of us 'cause I can't understand you either!" She had brought her face up close to his. She could see all the little indentations that marked his face as unique from everyone else's. The little lines in his irises, she noticed, were pale grey and lent a mystical aura to the depths she perceived. His age and fatigue showed in the crow's feet around his eyes and by his mouth. All this she noticed and stored in the dark recesses of her subconscious as her conscious continued the berating.

His eyes in turn were searching her face, scanning here and there like a mad hummingbird, his mind searching for the next part of their conversation. He drew a blank. Her nearness had silenced the voices and all he knew was her fiery breathing on his skin and her sweetly pungent scent invading his senses. His eyes stopped on her lips and he saw them opened slightly, her tongue just peeking out from the darkness. His gut jerked in response, a crying out for contact.

"Well?" Sara was saying.

He brought his eyes back up to hers. "Well what?"

"What do you have to say?"

He stared into her angry and confused eyes. "I I want to continue this conversation elsewhere. This is not the appropriate venue for such discussion," he heard himself saying smoothly.

Her eyebrow rose. "'not the appropriate venue'?? We're talking about work at work, Grissom!"

"No. We're talking about you."

Sara stared at him. "We are not! This is work. This is you - as boss - not bothering to understand your CSIs at all!"

"You are my CSI -"

"I am not your CSI. I'm my own CSI. I can quit right now and go work someplace else as a CSI. You don't own me, Grissom. You never did and you never will!"

"That's not what I meant, Sara -"

"Then say what you mean! You're so good at saying nothing, you know that?"

Grissom pulled back. "I am not discussing this here, Sara," he said, his tone low enough to warn her that she was treading on dangerous ground. Angry Grissom was not someone to be handled lightly.

But Sara wasn't the backing down type. "Then where shall we discuss our little disagreement, Grissom?" Her overly sweet voice was not lost on Grissom and its dripping saccharine quality only served to further incense him. He grabbed her arm roughly and proceeded to pull her from the breakroom toward the exit. Feeling the beginnings of fear, Sara followed him for a moment, before regaining her composure and yanking her arm from his. Grissom turned around and glared at her. "I can walk, you know."

"Outside. Now."

Sara crossed her arms over her chest before sprinting in front of him and heading toward the exit. She was not the kind of woman to follow along behind a man like some subservient wife. With a sigh, Grissom followed her.

Outside the chilly night air smacked their faces and they both found themselve taking in gulps of the clean air. The bright lights lit up the sky like a child's christmas tree, but a few stars fought their way down and lent their minute light to the show. Sara stared at these stars a moment before hearing Grissom's footsteps behind her. She spun on her heels and barreled down toward Grissom. "So talk," she growled.

Grissom stopped and took a step back. "You think I don't say what I mean?"

"That's not what I said. I don't think it, I know it."

"Semantics, Sara."

"The wording can be everything, Grissom. You know that. When a grieving husband says he loved his wife, he probably did it. That one little word, Grissom, can make or break a case. Body language, words, it all means something. It's all clues to a greater picture, right Grissom?" Her taunting voice was not ingratiating herself to Grissom, but at this point Sara had no more cares in the world.

Grissom sighed loudly, his nostrils flailing and his eyes sparkling in the light of street lamps. "I always mean what I say. This lab does need you."

"I know this lab needs me, Grissom. I solve the most cases, remember? It wouldn't be number two without me."

Grissom peered at her, realizing her shrewd mind was making a stand. "That's right. That's why I'll do anything to keep you here, to keep this lab where it is."

Sara's eyebrow rose. "Anything?"

Grissom lowered his head and glared at her from beneath his eyebrows, expelling his breath in one long, loud sigh. "Sara" his voice warned. "There are limits."

"What kind of limits?"

"Whatever you're thinking about, it's not gonna happen."

"What's not gonna happen?"

"SARA!"

"Why are you yelling at me?" she asked innocently.

"I'm not yelling," Grissom pouted.

"Sounded like yelling to me."

"Well, not to me."

"That's because you said it. It wasn't directed at your ears."

Suddenly Grissom's hand flew into the air and he spun on his heels and stalked away from her to sit on the half wall in front of the building, his head hung low. "I give up," he said in a low voice.

Sara watched him walk away and wondered for a moment just what had transpired. She joined him on the wall, subconsciously placing herself close to him. It wasn't something she did deliberately. Her body just seemed to zone in on his and demanded absolute closeness. Their knees and shoulders were touching, but Grissom didn't move away.

They sat for a moment in silence, each lost within their own thoughts. Grissom tried to pinpoint exactly what the gist of the argument was and the only he could come up with was that Sara didn't believe him, or believe in him.

Sara, for her part, couldn't grasp any coherency to their clash of words. "Why do we do this?" she said quietly.

"I don't know," came his response, just as softly. "I'm tired of it, Sara."

"You're not the only one."

"If you want to leave, I won't stop you."

Sara tensed.

"I'll write up the best recommendation letter anybody's ever received. You'll be able to get a job anywhere you'd like, even the Yukon."

Sara had to smile at that.

"I want you to be happy." It came out so softly, Sara had to strain to hear it.

"I am happy, Grissom."

He looked at her. "You don't seem happy."

"Behind all this yelling, I am. Sort of."

"What do you mean, 'sort of'?"

Sara sighed. "I don't want to leave Grissom. I'm happy here. I like working here. It's good for my career -"

Grissom harumphed. "'career' uh?"

" -and it's good for me, too. I like working with you." she finished.

Grissom swallowed. She likes working with me, but His mind wouldn't let him finish the thought. It was too painful to go there in his mind these days. He'd felt her pulling away for some time and it hurt him. The other side of him told him it was his own damn fault for refusing her that fateful evening not so long ago. "I like working with you too, Sidle."

"Back to each other's last names?" Sara said, a hint of humour in her voice.

"Why not?"

"'Cause it makes you feel safe?"

Grissom turned to look at her, questions in his eyes. "What do you mean?"

She returned his look with a strong one of her own. "Last names mean no personal stuff. It's safer. Right, Grissom?"

It hadn't escaped Grissom's attention that he was the only one who was addressed by his last name. Nicky Warrick Catherine Sara and then Grissom. Just Grissom. His family name, not his. His own name just felt so personal. But wasn't that the point? "I'm not an open person, Sara. You know that."

Sara said nothing, just waited.

"It's just it's not me."

"I know, Grissom. It's not you." Sara looked at him again. "You know why you're an entomologist? You're like your bugs, you have this huge thick carapace over yourself - a protective shell - that keeps everyone and everything out. No one can get in unless you let them in. And you don't let anyone in."

Grissom sighed. "Sara, you don't understand -"

"You're right, I don't understand. How can you live so alone like that?" she asked him, not really expecting an answer.

"I like it," he answered

"You like it. What - you like being alone? You like having no one to talk to but your bugs? Why? 'Cause they don't talk back? They don't ask for things that you can't give them? You give them a place to live and food and that's that. That's the extent of your giving." Her voice had been rising steadily throughout her diatribe and now Sara was speaking loudly enough for passersby to stop and look at them.

"Sara" Grissom growled in a warning gesture.

"What? Oh yeah, your bugs never yell back at you, I forgot. You're not used to this kind of two-way interaction. You just walk into the breakroom, hand out assignments and then leave to your own scene. Or hide away in your office."

"Sara" came the warning again.

But Sara didn't heed it, only turned her head to face him dead on. "What? Don't like looking in a mirror? Don't like what you see?"

Grissom's hand landed roughly on her thigh and his fingers dug into the flesh beneath the jeans as his eyes glared into hers. His nostrils flared with each forceful exhale and a muscle jumped just above his lip giving him an almost snarling impression. Sara kept her gaze steady on his, meeting challenge with challenge. She forced her leg muscles to relax and kept her groan of discomfort to herself. She wasn't one to let on that there was pain in her, whether physical or otherwise. Finally, Grissom swallowed, closed his eyes and his hand relaxed. His fingers flexed to the ends of the knuckles before removing his palm from her leg. But Sara's hand was faster and she kept his hand on her leg, her hand lightly covering his, telling him to keep his hand there. But the touch was light enough to let him know she wouldn't force the issue if there were strong feelings to the contrary. His hand stayed on her leg, his fingers resting against the fabric of her jeans.

"Are you afraid?" Sara asked, her voice low.

"What?"

"You're touching me. Are you afraid?"

Grissom glanced down at their hands. "Why should I be afraid?" he asked, bringing his shielded eyes back to hers.

"Are you going to run away?"

"What do you mean?"

"Everytime we even come close, you find some excuse and run away."

"I've never run away."

"Not literally. That would've been too obvious. But you don't stay."

His hand began to tremble against her thigh. "There's work to be done. All the time."

Sara harumphed. "All the time, you take that so literally, Grissom. What's a minute here and there?"

"Cases depend on us dealing with the evidence as soon as it comes in, Sara. You know that. We can't play games at work, this is serious stuff."

"And you don't think I know that?"

Grissom sighed. "I know you know that, it's just -"

"Just what?" Sara said, bringing her face closer to his.

Grissom stared into her eyes a moment, lost. "I can't do it." The words came out so softly, his lips barely moved.

"What?"

Grissom pulled his hand from beneath Sara's and sat back. "I can't do this, Sara. I just... can't." And then he got up and disappeared into the building, leaving Sara outside alone in the darkness. She sat a moment longer, her mind digesting the recent fluky conversation she'd just had with Grissom. And she realized they hadn't made any ground at all. They were still on square one, still dancing around each other with the trepidation of personal survival. With heavy sigh, she pushed herself to her feet and followed in Grissom's path, back to work.

~*~