Budding

Chapter Seven

Sara walked about her fourth crime scene within a month. She tried her best to avoid Grissom and the buzz surrounding Warrick and Catherine's simultaneous request for two weeks off. Everywhere Sara went, there was always some talk about the couple, or someone spouting a theory. They had become almost a legend at the lab, and the gossip seemed to be wearing down on Grissom because now Carvallo had heard about the rumors and he was coming in to talk to Grissom about it on the same night that Warrick and Catherine were due back to work.

In lament terms, the situation was bad, and the outlook was looking grim for Catherine and Warrick.

Sara sighed as she wiped her forehead. Her case had led her out to the middle of the desert, and she was sweating like crazy. It was a little known fact about Sara that she didn't like to sweat. Even as a teen when she ran track, she hated to sweat. She figured that was the girly part of her.

"Okay guys!" She called to the suffering coroners. "Pack her up!"

The body was that of twenty year old Michelle Francis. She was brutally stabbed to death and left out in the desert for dead. Sara was frustrated. The killer was pretty smart: there was no weapon, no trace of the killer on the young girl's body, no tread marks, no tire marks. Absolutely nothing to work with.

Sara turned the air conditioning in her Denali down to the lowest that it would go as she drove back to the lab. She craved a steaming hot shower to cleanse her body of sticky sweat and vermin that had attached itself to her.

She had not seen Grissom during a shift for three nights in a row. She knew that he was hiding from her and that she was still mad about him not assisting her with their case. Part of her knew that it wasn't about the case. She was mad because she knew that he didn't help her on purpose.

He's going to have to admit it sometime, she thought to herself. But I'm not going to wait forever.

Sara indulged, and she got her hot shower. She put on fresh clothes, and she left her hair down to dry.

She headed to the break room. She knew she couldn't go the other way. Grissom was in the break room, reading a magazine. This encounter with him was unavoidable.

She walked tentatively into the break room.

"Hey," she said rather flatly.

He looked up from his reading.

"Hey," he said, taking in her appearance.

"Can we talk sometime," she asked a bit nervously. "Like after work or something? I need to tell you some things."

"Sure," he said. "How about breakfast after shift?"

"Okay," she said quietly before turning around and leaving.

***

After a long shift, Sara met Grissom at and IHOP down the street from the lab.

When she spotted him, she waved him over.

"Hi," he said.

"Hey," she said quietly.

They order what they wanted and then once their waitress was gone, they looked around awkwardly.

"Grissom," she started, finally breaking the agonizing silence. "We need to talk about us…preferably about our working relationship."

Grissom nodded and prepared to listen.

"Frankly Grissom," Sara started. "I'm not happy anymore. The only thing that's keeping me here in Las Vegas are Nicky, Catherine, Warrick, and Greg. They're my friends and family. But if it wasn't for them, I would have left a long time ago. What is it about me Grissom?"

"What do you mean?" Grissom asked.

"I mean, what is it about me that keeps you away?" She asked, her eyes pleading for an answer, and on the brink of tears.

Grissom sighed. "Sara, it's not you," he said. "It's me. Just know that."

Sara nodded.

"How do you feel about me?" She asked.

Grissom looked down at his hands folded on the table. He had not addressed his feelings for her in a long while; at least not with Sara. How did he feel? He knew that he loved her, but he didn't know how to love her. If he could, he would have gone back to ten years ago and taken the opportunity to be with her, but he couldn't. He had to deal with the present.

"Honestly," he started. "I feel many things about you."

"Honestly Grissom," Sara said looking him dead in the eyes. "I feel that I love you."

He froze. He looked into her brown eyes, which really said nothing for they were rather blank. Her gaze made him shudder.

"Sara," he said. "We can't…I mean," he paused to sigh.

Sara felt tears running down her cheeks, but she didn't move to wipe them. This would be the only time she was not afraid to show her feelings.

He saw her tears and his heart ached. He wanted desperately to tell her that he loved her, but part of him didn't want to not for fear of getting talked about or risking their careers, but because she was young and she had her whole life to find love and happiness.

"Sara," he started again. "I've known you for many years. You're beautiful, smart, and you have so much potential. You have your whole life ahead of you. I know that you're unhappy, but I can't make you happy Sara. I'm letting you go because I want you to be happy."

Sara's tears were coming in torrents and she looked at him uncertainly and unbelieving of his words. Then, all of a sudden she uttered a sound between a laugh and a cry. She put on a smile and wiped her ever flowing tears.

"Thank you," she said, keeping her smile. "Thank you."

Grissom knew she broke and he knew that he was the cause, but he had to make himself let her go.

She got up and left.

***

As soon as Sara entered her apartment, she let out a heart wrenching scream that she wished Grissom could hear.

She covered her face and cried hysterically into her hands. She had finally told him the thing that she thought would make everything okay and he let her go. He flat out rejected her. Yes, rejected was a much better word.

She went to her bedroom and collapsed onto the bed and cried. She grabbed a teddy bear that her father had given her for Valentine's Day. She cherished it and she cried into its head many a night when she felt at the end of her rapidly fraying rope. She was teetering on the edge, she knew, and she thought about what Brass said about her small little habit. The next time she came home, she thought better of it, and resorted to crying her eyes out instead.

She desperately needed someone to talk to. Her heart was beating slowly and achingly. She knew that she needed help.