Three hours later, Sara awoke with a start.  She felt as though she were being held down and then she remembered.  Grissom still had a hold on her as she lay against him with her head on his chest and with their hands still entwined.  She had never fallen asleep that fast with someone else beside her.  But then Grissom wasn't just anyone.  Deep down she knew she really did trust him, even more than she did Jarod and that said a lot.  She tilted her head slightly to glance at his face.  He slept with a soundness that astounded her.  She had never been able to sleep that soundly.  She couldn't allow it.  She unwound her fingers from his hand and gently lifted his arm off from around her.  Then she quietly left the bed and went to take a shower.

            Grissom hadn't woken up by the time Sara returned to the bed, dressed only in her robe and had her hair up in a towel.  As she glanced down at the sleeping form of Grissom, she removed the towel and shook out her hair and fingered through it.  'It would be so nice to lay back down again.'  He really did care about what happened to her.  Memories came rushing back to her of that day on the airstrip, her gun pointed at his face.  Tears streamed down her face as remembered.  'It was so wrong, so very wrong.'

            Grissom woke up from Sara's rustling around the room.  He squinted slightly to see her at the end of the bed watching him.  He wasn't sure what to do, 'If I move, it might startle her and then she'll clam up again.'  But when he looked closer at her face, he saw the tears flowing freely.  He didn't know what she was thinking about that would cause the tears but he did know he could comfort her.  He slowly sat up and saw the recognition on her face.  He hadn't startled her.  He held out his hand to her and motioned her to come back to the bed.

            Sara slowly made her way to his side of the bed and let him take her hand as he pulled her down to sit next to him.  She reached up with her other hand and ran it through his hair and down along his cheek as she choked out in a whisper, "I'm so sorry, Gil."

            He had never heard her call him by his first name before and it sounded like music to his ears.  "Sara, why? You didn't do anything."

            Sara averted her eyes and tucked her chin into her chest as she spoke, "At the airstrip, I'm sorry.  I never wanted you to see me in that position."

            Grissom didn't move as he talked, not wanting her to pull back from him, "From what I understand, you had no choice.  You reacted instinctively, to protect Greg and the others.  Correct?"

            She shook her head, "No Gil, I always have a choice except when I am in mode.  I didn't have to do that.  It's just that when I make the decision I don't go back on it.  Doing so would only mean death, and that's not an option."

            'In mode must mean that hypnotic trance she was in.' Grissom could understand her actions in some ways and yet in other ways he couldn't understand any of it.  He wanted to, more than anything, but he wouldn't until she told him more.  Pushing her for the information was his only option now.  "Sara, tell me about you, your childhood...your training."

            Sara moved swiftly off the bed as he spoke.  She turned to look at him but he didn't see the belligerence or anger in her eyes that he had seen earlier that morning.  Instead he saw fear and that scared him more than anything.  "No, Gil, please, I can't, I just can't."  She shook her head to try to convey to him how hard it would be.  He stood and was drawn to her by the fear he saw building in her eyes.  The anguish he now felt for what she must have gone through made him choke on the question.  "What did they do to you?"  He startled himself by the tone in his voice.  The pain he felt in his heart at the thought of her childhood was too much and he could feel the build up of an uncomfortable moisture in his eyes.

            Sara saw the pain she felt reflected in his eyes as it made them an even darker blue and the catch in his voice was something she had never heard in him before.  That was something she couldn't handle.  She closed the distance between them by one step.  He pulled her to him in an intense embrace and they stood there clinging to each other.  "It hurts too much to talk about.  It will just bring more pain.  I don't want you to feel that Gil."

"Sara, I want to know.  I want to understand what happened to you, to understand you."  He gently tilted her head up to look at him as he said, "Please talk to me.  Don't keep shutting me out."

            Sara saw the want and concern in his eyes and it was enough.  She would tell him if for no other reason than to erase the pain in his beautiful blue eyes.  She let him lead her to the bed and soon found herself lying against his side once again but with her back to him and her head cradled in the crook of his shoulder.  He turned into her and put his free arm around her stomach.  "How old were you when you were taken?"  He coaxed her.

            "I'm not sure.  I think about four maybe five."  Sara took a deep shuddering breath and then continued.  "I was so scared, I didn't know anyone and even though the man that had taken me from my home seemed nice I still didn't feel right.  I knew they weren't my family.  I soon learned how not nice the man was.  The first couple of days I was coddled and comforted and then wham, it stopped.  Grissom, I don't know what to say, I..., how much do you want me to tell you.  Do you want details or just the reference?  Because I don't know if I can speak of it."

            "Sara," As he spoke he tightened his grip around her.  "I don't want you to say anything you aren't comfortable with saying.  I want to know what happened to you but I don't want it too tear you apart doing so."  He leaned down and kissed the top her head.

            "I became so desensitized to the treatment that to this day I still don't feel as much disgust toward child abuse as you do or as I do about women's abuse.  I think it's because as a child my mind accepted it because I didn't know it wasn't supposed to be that way but when I got older I knew it was wrong."  She took a deep breath and continued.  "As you know, I have a high tolerance of pain.  That was something I learned to deal with through the years of training.  I remember so many of the incidents but can't seem to recall all the injuries.  By the time I was seven I already had several broken bones including my collarbone, both of my arms and legs, five ribs and at least a couple concussions.  Some injuries were from training exercises and some, well, they weren't."

            Grissom laid there as he rubbed her back in a soothing circular motion, and listened to her recall the buried memories.  A couple of times he wiped tears away from his face.  The pain he felt for what she had went through almost seemed too much.  'How could anyone do that to a little girl.'  He wished he could've been there to release her from it.

            After awhile, Sara stopped speaking.  Enough had been said.  She ended without talking about her memories of the 'hole'.  Grissom knew that had been the hardest thing for her to take and it still didn't register with him because of his love for the tiny creatures.  "Sara, I know it's hard but can you tell me about the hole and the bugs? What kind they were and in what way you were sick after being down there?"

            Sara shuddered and when Grissom felt it he wished he could take back his questions.  Going deeper was not what she really wanted to do but the thought that maybe if he could tell her something about those bugs and help her get a handle on her fear caused her to want to talk about it.  She told him the descriptions and then told him how they left her with swelling and the rashes and sometimes she would be taken out of the 'hole' in a coma state.  Grissom nodded at her descriptions and how they affected her; that's precisely what he expected after she described them.  If there truly were as many as she and Jarod said, then he was surprised she wasn't dead.

            "Okay, no more, let's stop there."  Grissom said as he realized his shirt was wet from her tears.  At his words, Sara sat up and looked over at his red eyes.  She hadn't realized he had been crying also.  'Oh God, he's hurting too.'  She thought as she reached up and wiped a watery escapee from his face.  They stared at each other for a long moment as their faces were drawn closer to each other and both of their eyes darted to the other's lips.

            Sara nearly screamed when a knock was heard at her door.  She jumped out of the bed and shook off the uneasiness she felt as she walked out into the living area and opened the door.

            Grissom heard a man's voice and wondered who it could be so he followed her.  What he saw was Sara in a bear hug with a man.  He heard her sharp breathing and wondered who it was that caused that reaction.  Then she and the other man broke apart, both wearing smiles on their faces.  Grissom couldn't believe his eyes as he stared at the young man he barely recognized.