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Sara broke the silence first.
"Hey Griss, have you ever broken a bone before?"
His eyes flickered to her plaster casts. "Yeah, um, I broke my wrist when I was 10," he smiled at the memory. "I tripped over a rock."
Sara laughed, picturing Grissom as a child collecting bugs in the forest.
"How about you? I mean, before this." Griss said awkwardly.
Sara swallowed. "Quite a few."
Grissom noticed the change in her demeanor immediately and was almost sad that he had returned the question. Yet, the investigator in him desperately wanted to know more.
"Come on Sidle, astound me with your knowledge of anatomy." He prodded, trying to keep the atmosphere light.
Sara's eyes glazed over, just as they had during the difficult parts of Brass's interrogation.
"Well, I've broken my orbital bone, my jaw, my coccyx, my left and right radius and ulna, my left thumb and both ankles," she paused, thinking, "oh, and my nose twice."
Grissom's eyebrows furrowed. Children rarely broke their coccyx in the absence of an abusive guardian. He'd never known Sara to be particularly clumsy.
"How did all that happen?" he asked, leaning forward in his chair.
Sara sighed. "When it rains, it pours. I might as well tell you."
Grissom tried to meet her eye, but she avoided his expertly.
"Okay, here's my life in a nutshell. When I was 5, my father died in a car accident. My mother had a live-in boyfriend named Chuck who hated the fact that my brother and I existed and let us know it with his fists. When my mom and he would fight, someone had to fulfill his needs and for a while, he went to my brother, but after awhile, he decided that was gay so he turned his attentions toward me. When I was 12, I said something that really pissed him off and I honestly think he was trying to kill me. My mother killed him, was sent to prison and my brother and I went to foster care. I went through four different houses and only the final house was better than living with my mom and Chuck. So anyway, to answer you question, Chuck had a large role to play in breaking my bones."
Sara sounded detached as she recalled her story. It almost seemed like she was reading a script in her head, one that had been repeated to numerous counselors, social workers and law enforcement officials throughout her childhood.
"Sara, I'm so sorry. I wish that your childhood had been different," Grissom said earnestly. His visions of Sara at a church picnic with yellow ribbons in her hair were replaced by the nightmare of a gaunt child cowering from an abusive adult.
"Me too," she said, her eyes meeting his for the first time in ages. He tried to read her emotions, but it seemed like they were buried so deeply that they would only emerge in dreams or flashbacks.
"Anyway Grissom, I asked you about the bones because I was hoping you could help me toss some garbage bags over these bad boys," Sara said. "I'm desperate to take a bath."
Truth be told, Sara wanted to scrub her skin where those bastards had touched her. An image of herself as a seven year old child scrubbing away Chuck's memory flashed in her mind and she felt tears well up in her eyes.
Grissom returned with the garbage bags and proceeded to secure her casts in their waterproof pockets. His hands were tender and gentle, so unlike the hands of most men that Sara had ever met. She felt protected in his care.
Sara shook her head at the thought. 'Gil Grissom will break your heart again,' a part of her thought, 'you need to protect yourself and protect your heart.'
Grissom wheeled Sara toward the bathroom, discovering at the last possible moment that the chair was too wide to fit through the doorway.
"Griss, I can handle it from here," Sara said, rising on her one good foot.
She swayed with the effort and if Grissom hadn't stuck out a supporting arm when he did, she would have fallen. He was silent as he helped her sit on the toilet.
"Grissom, really, I don't need any more help. I'll be fine." Sara was annoyed.
Grissom studied her face for a minute before he nodded. "I'll be right outside if you need anything."
An hour later, Sara emerged from the bathroom. Her skin was flushed from the heat of her bath and her hair was dripping wet. She was clad only in a towel.
That's how Grissom saw her. A goddess on one foot. He was so preoccupied by the soft curve of her legs and the smooth skin above her breasts that he barely heard her request for clothes.
As he handed her loose grey cotton pants and a black t-shirt, she started to sway again and he caught her just as she lost consciousness.
"Sara! Dammit," Grissom said, although a part of him acknowledged his good fortune. After all, Sara Sidle was nearly naked and soaking wet in his arms.
After swearing several more times, Grissom carried Sara to the bedroom and laid her down on the bed. The towel had shifted in the course of their travels and both of her breasts were exposed.
Grissom looked down—he was still a man after all—and noticed their round perfection before his eyes focused on the dark fingertip bruises on each breast.
He quickly grabbed her t-shirt and pulled it over her head, careful not to touch any of her worst wounds.
'Now for the hard part,' Grissom thought to himself.
He eyed the towel bunched around Sara's waist and before he could stop himself, he pulled it out from under her.
Despite his best efforts to get her pants on as soon as possible, Grissom felt himself harden at the sight of her flat belly and rounded thighs. An image of those thighs wrapped around him in a flurry of pleasure passed through his mind, fueling his growing erection.
Just as Grissom maneuvered Sara's pants over her hips, she began to stir.
She opened her eyes and before her defenses could go up, Grissom was astounded by the depth of her pain and vulnerability. She looked innocent and betrayed.
"Grissom?" Sara mumbled.
"Yeah Sara, it's me. You passed out and we're in the bedroom now."
Sara gave him an odd look. "How the hell did I get clothes on?"
Grissom blushed and as the realization that Grissom had seen her stark naked descended on Sara's consciousness, she blushed as well. Then she started laughing.
"What?" Grissom asked.
"It's just, look at us. We're two grown adults, we're CSIs and we're both blushing and embarrassed about this. We see naked people all the time!" Sara laughed.
Grissom smiled at her. He wondered if his body would just be another naked body to Sara.
After several days of negotiating the house and munching on Grissom's culinary creations, Sara was bored. Her body still ached, her bruises had morphed into a hideous purplish-yellow color and Grissom still wouldn't allow her to listen to her scanner.
"You should enjoy your vacation, Sara. You need to get away from work," he chided her when he put in on a shelf beyond her reach knowing that she wouldn't hazard falling off a footstool or chair to get to it.
She bristled at the memory. She nearly died when she woke up and noticed that all of her forensic books and magazines had been stashed away. But she'd gotten her revenge.
Nick took the opportunity to visit her while Grissom was away and he snuck her some case files to review and some paperwork to go over.
'Desperate times call for desperate measures,' Sara grumbled to herself.
Yet Grissom had discovered those as well.
'He's determined to keep me bored!' she whined.
And that's precisely when her devious plot developed in her mind.
'If Grissom wants to torture me, that's fine,' she thought. 'But two can play that game.'
And so, Sara went through her closet and found her sexiest, comfortable outfits. She made an effort to smile and laugh. She wore perfume and rubbed Grissom's shoulders when he came home from the half shifts he was working.
Yes. Sara was enacting phase I of the seduction of Gil Grissom.