The alarm went off and Sara managed a muffled groan from under the blue quilt. Reaching out her long arm, pale digits fumbled to find the off switch. The fight to turn off the annoyingly loud beeping was part of her daily routine, a precursor to a run, shower and scrambled eggs. She liked routine – it kept her methodical mind happy.

Today though, she must have spent too long pounding the streets, searched too long for her shampoo, loitered over the paper at breakfast. She was running late for her shift. Marvelling at her ability to always almost arrive late, whether she was working days, nights or swing (she always ran late but always seemed to get where she was going just in time), Sara grabbed her jacket and that mornings unopened mail before heading out the door to another night of blood, sinew and bone.

So she made it as usual to the lab (with a slight detour to the coffee vendor on the street outside) with minutes to spare. A small smile played upon her lips as she imagined her colleague's shock if they knew that she, Sara Sidle, C.S.I. extraordinaire, struggled to adhere to shift starts. Shift ends, of course, she had no problem with. Doubles, triples, she could pull them with her eyes closed. She didn't do this job for the money or glamour (quite obviously). No, she did it because she loved it. Loved that she could help people. That when the evidence spoke to her, she was one step closer to watching justice be done. She loved the way she could lose herself in her work, loved the lab with its clean lines and ordered routines, loved the people…

There – that was the dangerous thought, the one she struggled to conceal. But how could she sublimate feelings so strong – not from the others, but from herself. Because letting people in was not something Sara did, at least, not any more. She wasn't going to make herself vulnerable. Not again.

Leaving her jacket in her locker, Sara carried her mail and Styrofoam cup of coffee through the catacombs of corridors that were the Las Vegas C.S.I. building to the briefing room where most of her colleagues were already settled.

Leaning back into her chair, Sara looked around her and wondered what life would have been like if Grissom hadn't asked her to join his line-up, if shed never left San Francisco. She had liked her life there, had been part of a team, but here in Las Vegas she had to admit she felt more like part of a family. The intimacy this suggested scared her a little, but over the last three years the people around her had become part of her life. She hadn't let them in, but she didn't need to, because they let her in. Catherine, so strong and vibrant, a mother to Lindsay but also somehow to Sara herself, backing her up, always there but never intruding. Nick and Warrick like brothers she never had. They played off each other, teasing and joking but always that undercurrent of friendly competition.

A door opening made her look up, and Gil Grissom walked into the room. For such a large man he made very little noise – light on his feet, as it were. Often he would appear behind her, apparently from nowhere. A soft voice too, no matter what thought it expressed. Sara watched him quietly. If Catherine were a mother, Warrick and Nick brothers, then that left the father position open for a certain male authority figure, and that brought up way too many Oedipal issues for Sara to deal with so soon after breakfast.

Instead, she watched as Grissom shuffled the case files in his hands and around her the chatter stopped.

"Ok. Catherine, Warrick, apparent body dump in the desert. Nick and Sara, you're with me. Kidnapping." Handing the teams their respective assignments he stood back and watched them. Catherine met his gaze with an arched eyebrow.

"Gee Grissom, monosyllabic much?"

This raised a smile form the other C.S.I.'s, Nick especially enjoying his superiors scolding. Grissom, however, remained impassive for a moment before returning Catherine's arched brow with a tilt of his head.

"Forgive my reticence," he began in mock apology, "but I just spent four hours meeting with senior members of the LVPD. The agenda? Good press, and how to get it."

Sara looked up.

"Sounds… fun." She smirked. With a wistful shake of his head he continued.

"We're coming at it from opposing angles. They look at a case and see a public relations success or disaster. I see evidence. And evidence isn't about 'good' press or 'bad' press." He stared at Sara and sighed. "Or about fun. It's about the truth. If I taught you anything, I hope it would be that."

With that mild admonishment he smiled and so did she, and Sara could have sworn she saw something other than a mentor's respect in his warm blue eyes and that he held his gaze for just a moment longer than was necessary, but she didn't allow herself to because she knew wishful thinking when she thought it.

Then, without another word, he turned and left, leaving the rest of the team with amused, if slightly bemused, expressions. They looked at one another for a moment, Sara feeling a slight redness in her cheeks. Catherine broke the silence.

"Oh, you know how much he hates the politics of this. Anyway, we have cases to crack." With a wry smile she rose and Warrick followed as the willowy blonde headed out into the hall.