Disclaimer: These characters are not mine and I'm sorry for stealing them and being so mean to poor Grissom and Sara

This is my first fanfic and it starts off kind of slow but stay tuned, it will get much more exciting in future chapters.

Sara Sidle walked through the halls of the Las Vegas crime lab in a daze. After solving a particularly heart-breaking case involving the abuse and murder of a five-year-old boy, she was ready to go home and wash the horrible memories away with a bottle of vodka.

"Sara," she heard a voice call out. She turned to see her supervisor Gil Grissom standing behind her. The flirtatious new addition to the graveyard shift, Sofia Curtis, was hovering behind his shoulder.

"Yeah, what is it?" Sara asked, trying to sound casual although she was grimacing inwardly. Seeing the new blonde criminalist in such close proximity to Grissom still irked her. Grissom had resisted a relationship with Sara for over four years, supposedly because he was afraid of losing his job. She had almost come to accept that fact. However, when Sophia was demoted to the graveyard shift, Grissom had acted as if fraternizing with this subordinate was completely within his rights as a supervisor. The pair flirted almost constantly.

"Good work on the Maltin case," said Grissom.

"Uh, thanks," replied Sara, wondering where he was going with this.

"Look, I know how emotionally affected you are by these types of cases, Sara. I know I've told you this before, but you need a diversion from work." Sophia smirked from behind Grissom. Sara pretended not to notice.

"I'm fine Grissom, I can take care of myself," Sara said as she rolled her eyes.

"Gil, I'm sure Sara's fine. You should let her handle it on her own," Sophia simpered, delicately placing a hand on Gil's arm. Gil? Sara thought angrily, since when are those two on a first name basis? She could barely stand the sight of them any longer. Muttering her goodbyes, Sara rushed out of the lab in into the fresh, early morning air, trying to hide the tears that were streaming down her face.

Sara slammed the door of her apartment and tossed her purse to the ground. She stormed into her kitchen and grabbed the bottle lying on the counter. With shaking hands, she brought it to her lips and took a large gulp of the alcohol-ridden beverage. This is sad, she thought to herself, I'm an anti-social workaholic with no life who comes home to an empty apartment and drinks until passing out.

Child abuse cases always brought back horrifying memories from Sara's past. She had always struggled with the pain of those recollections. However, the moment that had pushed Sara to her breaking point was only about a year ago. The CSIs had been investigating a brutal murder in which the victim looked shockingly similar to Sara. Grissom became obsessed with finding her killer. They eventually caught the man who did it but they were unable to send him to a trial due to lack of evidence. Sara had watched, unseen to Grissom through one-way glass, as the man talked to the killer.

"It's sad, isn't it, doc? Guys like us, couple of middle-aged men who've allowed their work to consume their lives. The only time we ever touch other people is when we're wearing our latex gloves. We wake up one day and realize that for fifty years we haven't really lived at all. But then, all of a sudden ...we get a second chance. Somebody young and beautiful shows up. Somebody ...we could care about. She offers us a new life with her…but we have a big decision to make, right? Because we have to risk everything we've worked for in order to have her. I couldn't do it ..."

Through this speech, Sara could see that Grissom was relating to the killer. All of a sudden she realized the seriousness of her own experiences with Grissom. For years, she had flirted lightly with him, and for years he had turned her away. This was an explanation of sorts to Grissom's behaviour, an explanation that Sara knew he would never have the courage to tell her.

The thing that bothered her most about this whole situation was that Grissom didn't even seem to realize he was the one driving her to drink. The horrifying memories of abuse from her past didn't help, of course, but she had lived with them for a long time. Sara had been living in a fragile state for many years. She was constantly on the edge of a breakdown. Grissom was the last straw, the thing that had pushed her over the edge. The sad part was that she really used to love him.

Sara knew she had to do something about this soon. She was aware that she was dying slowly and that he was the one killing her. Her feelings of love had long ago turned into intense feelings of hate. He had acted so high and mighty, telling her to get a life. As if he had one. As if he didn't know that she was already so close to death that she could never live again. She could show him how a girl could die!

No wait, that wasn't right. She would only end up hurting herself that way. She wanted to hurt Grissom, to hurt him the same way he had hurt her. She wanted to shake him, to see him lose control.

Sara smiled, a smile with no humour in it, only malicious hate. She was already dead, she decided, so whatever happened to her or the people around her from this point on meant nothing. She wouldn't show Grissom how a girl could die, she would show him how a girl could live.

TBC