Italics is Grissom's inner thoughts
He made excuses. It wasn't right. It wasn't professional. It wasn't good for her. He wasn't good for her. And gradually, the excuses overwhelmed the truth. Bit by bit, he forgot what he was trying to forget.
He forgot that she loved him, and he'd rejected her. And not for any of the sensible, appropriate reasons he told himself, but because he was afraid. Afraid of what she stirred in him. The passion he thought he'd reined in long ago. The control he felt slip in her presence. The disorder and passion and emotion she brought to his carefully defined, delineated, precise world.
He was afraid of Sara.
But that was months ago. He'd even got over the shock of seeing her dead, seeing her double dead. He'd carefully forgotten how shaken he was, how he stayed in that house, close to where the not-Sara had died, until he knew the truth. He'd firmly, ruthlessly repressed everything he felt. And in the dawn, when the pale light would slip through his shades, and he'd lay awake, all subterfuge stripped away, the truth before he told himself it was for the best.
He loved Sara
It was wrong to love Sara
It wasn't good for her.
He was her supervisor, he had to protect her.
She was young, and foolish, and didn't see how unsuitable he was as a lover for her.
So he had to stop it, now, before it got too far.
He did not love Sara.
Except there comes a time when every man must stop making excuses. And Grissom's came one night, in his office, alone. fully concentrated on his work.
The phone rings, and he answers it. The man on the other end asks if he knows a Sara Sidle.
Apprehension begins to stir in Grissom's chest. No phone call at this time of night can be good. And then the words.
"She has been involved in a incident...in her car."
And no excuses can save Grissom now. Because in the ten seconds between hearing those words and learning she is alive and unhurt, at least physically, fear has taken hold. And the excuses shrivel and fall away, and all that is left is truth
Sara. Oh God, Sara. Let her be ok. Please, please, let her be ok. Not Sara. Anybody but Sara.
Sara.