Disclaimer: CSI belongs to Zuicker &Co., Alliance Atlantis, and CBS. As far as I'm concerned, Gil Grissom and Sara Sidle should belong to William Peterson and Jorja Fox, but nobody asked me.

A.N.: This chapter brought to you by "Bloodsport", by the Sneaker Pimps. Apologies for taking so long to update; things come to me in bits and pieces, and I've already started the next chapter.

Still unbetaed, all mistakes are mine.

Feedback: I'm still amazed there are people actually reading this. Thank you for your kind words, and please feel free to nitpick and clobber me over the head with anything you dislike.

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She hadn't called him on his visit to her place, somewhat loopy and confused. It was puzzling, reassuring and disquieting all at once. Did she want to forget it had ever happened? Did she regret what had been said? Did she think he'd been literally stoned out his mind? Or did she want to avoid upsetting the fragile equilibrium they seemed to have reached?

This was why Grissom never took any time off. Everything would just go round and round in his brain, with no end in sight. His hearing, the precarious balance of the team, Sara, of course, then and now and again and again.

He'd watched her change, grow into her own as an investigator, into her thirties. Sara, so tempting, always there, straightforward and mysterious and ultimately dangerous.

He was neither stupid nor socially inept. There was no clear policy on personal relationships at the lab, but he was her immediate supervisor, he was fifteen years older and between the both of them they probably had enough hang-ups and neuroses to crash and burn any relationship.

Of course, talking to her about it could make things easier, clearer, finally putting it all on the table might actually...

It had the potential to blow up in his face and do immediate and irreparable damage. Of course he was terrified. They were both very private, closed off, defensive, with a healthy dose of passive aggressive. Opening that can of worms properly, in one fell swoop, could kill everything.

Grissom groaned and buried his head in a pillow.

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Mindless tasks allowed her to let her thoughts wander, and filling out forms in triplicate certainly didn't claim all of her attention.

They had too much history, Sara realized. Too many stumbling points where they'd fallen on their face, too many botched attempts at connecting.

Pushing always sent them straight into a wall. Anything explicit crashed.

She'd stayed in Las Vegas because of the fantastic job opportunity; her new supervisor, the adorable scientist who blew her mind on too many occasions, the guy she had a pretty impressive crush on, had just been a bonus.

The folly, arrogance and optimism of youth. I can't believe I was that young four years ago.

Grissom had been the first and only person who had reached out to her on an occasion that usually made people shake their head or offer inane advice or barely sincere offers to "talk".

He'd told her to get a diversion and then gone and done everything in his power to help where it mattered. He'd disregarded his findings and stayed up all night with the pig and never pried once. It had been the first time she'd felt he might be able to really get her, in all the ways that mattered. And for a while, it had been really good. Flirty and playful or brisk, determined, grim; she'd felt like they were in "it" together, whatever "it" was.

And then we completely lost sight of each other. We lost "us".

He'd made her feel like whatever their disagreements, at the end of the day, he understood where she was coming from, as if he felt the pull just as much.

She'd fallen in love with what she knew of Grissom, but it had been layered on top of everything else. Romantic love was fragile and difficult and precarious, too fickle for Sara to make it her sole focus.

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Gasping for air, biting back a scream, Sara crashed out of her nightmare. She was actually surprised it had been that long since the last time her subconscious had taken her out for a spin. With Grissom recuperating, the whole night shift was so busy, she was usually exhausted enough to fall into a dreamless sleep every morning. She could barely remember what she'd been dreaming about; darkness, breathless terror and a feeling of being helpless were all that remained.

Throwing off her pajamas in the bathroom, she felt too many joints complaining. Turning, she stared at her reflection in the mirror above the sink. Being a CSI was not easy on the body. Sure, they all had nice asses and toned leg muscles, but knees, back and spine took a lot of abuse. Not to mention irregular meals of whatever was on hand, erratic sleep schedules, eyestrain, coffee by the gallon...

Sara stared at the mirror and wondered what he saw when he looked at her properly. She wondered whether, now that her body didn't have a twenty five year old's resilience, whether she'd manage to avoid ulcers, arthritis, high cholesterol, hypertension, and which case would put the first grey hairs on her head.

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Driving home too many hours later, she thought back to when it had all fallen apart.

He'd been jealous and possessive, she'd been defensive and resentful, pushing and provoking at times, convinced that something had to give. Their friendship gave, all right.

It had taken her much too long to recover from the emotional hangover to realize that he was too important, and they were both too old to let romantic potential ruin something that felt comfortable, familiar even quietly beautiful at times. But Grissom had seemed adrift, wrestling with himself over issues deep enough to emotionally expose himself in front of a perfect stranger, and she hadn't known how to reach him. So she'd kept her distance.

She'd thought she had herself together after the lab explosion, but Susanna Kirkwood's death had awakened something monumental, and no amounts of mental discipline, of avoidance helped.

She'd felt dwarfed and alone, about to be eaten alive, and she'd plunged down the rabbit hole. Work, exercise, sleep, or more work. She kept running and working, completely losing touch with her colleagues, with anybody, isolated by this weight threatening to suffocate her.

Nightmares used to have triggers; they became a constant burden, vague and all the more terrifying for it. Ms. Control Freak Sidle would not resort to sleeping pills; she had fallen back on a couple of beers to accompany her last meal before bed and had managed to relax enough for a few hours of peaceful slumber. Work had remained her main outlet and she couldn't have told Grissom why she would have been unable to come in; how would she have even breached the topic when he'd barely waited for her acknowledgment before hanging up? Then Brass had noticed, she'd stopped and there had been no more reprieves.

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TBC