Scully's A/N: Well, Holly brought the sap... but it can't be that easy, he should have to work for it damn it! And all of you reviewers... I expect tons on this chapter! Got it? Show Holly you mean business. Heh.

And yeah, some of you are beginning to notice that we leave little cliff hangers at the end of the chapters without telling the other... you can't even imagine how many calls we've made to each other after reading the other's chapter, beginning the conversation with, "You bitch!"

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She laughed, laughed long and hard, bracing herself on his shoulder. He was perched there, bewildered, as people look on in astonishment.

"Wha-what?" She gasped out, bringing her hand once again to her mouth.

"Are you insane? Are you? Really?" She gestured wildly with her hands, grinning to the point of explosion. "Grissom, really. Are you insane?"

He shrugged, embarrassed at being down on one knee in front of so many people. "I guess I am." He shrugged again.

"Three days after..." She bit her lips and grinned again. "This is so insane." She whispered. Sara bent down next to him and leaned her forehead against his.

"Griss. It's been... we're not even really toge-... what the hell is going through your head? You can't talk to me for... for years and then you pull this? Grissom. Gil, god damn it, what the hell are you... I think I might vomit." Sara paused, swallowed, and grabbed his face.

"I don't think you understand, do you even know what you're saying? Three days. Less, shit, I can't even remember. Avoid me all these years and... tell me you love me, I want you to look at me and say it." She grasped his face hard and then let him go, giving him free will.

He looked to the ground, to the ring, to her face. Several people had stopped to watch the encounter but they had tuned them out. "Sara, ... Sara, I..." He looked up at the people for a moment, closed his eyes and exhaled heavily. "Coward that I am, I love you. More than I'm..." He moved in as close as he could towards her ear. "Willing to admit in front of all of these people, but give me time."

He pulled back his hand on the back of neck, and they both grinned. "Gil, Griss... Gil... god..." Her head fell to her chest and she grinned wider than she had in awhile. "This... I know, the ring... you gave it some thought, but really. Are you being logical? I'll be the first to admit, I'm temperamental. Difficult. Griss, I'm a bitch when I want to be, and you're... you're so set in your ways... I don't... wouldn't... I know that if this started, I wouldn't, god, I wouldn't want this to end."

She held the back of his neck hard, her nails digging into the skin there, he, feeling both pain and pleasure. She spoke, her eyes closed, as he watched on.

"Don't rush into this because of me, and god, what about work? Neither of us want to leave and, jesus Griss-"

"I love you, Sara." He said, voice steady and even, surer of himself than she had ever heard him. But she plowed on, pretending like she hadn't heard him.

"Fifty years without change... what do I know... I mean... I'm just, just here." She peered up to him, her eyes seeming bigger from the tears pooling in them. "And I, I know you." She heaved a heavy breath into her lungs. "You change your mind like that." She snapped her fingers close by his ear and he jumped. But still, he sat on his heels and listened, though his calves and thighs had gone numb.

"I'm not sure... this shift... this change of heart is enough to... Griss..." She paused and smiled longingly. "Known you as that forever, loved you as it, love you as it. Griss..." A tear slipped out and she swiped at it violently. Sara Sidle didn't fucking cry. No, she didn't cry. She swiped at another.

"Oh fuck me." She spoke quickly. "You and I both know that I've never had anything like happen to me, like this. Griss, damn you, you're the only person I've really been in love with and-" She licked her lips, rambling on, as his eyes slipped closed and he grinned on.

His Sara, always so analytical. Pulling everything apart at the seams.

"I am, in love with you... I think I mean I can't stop thinking about you and, it's just not-" He cut her off by kissing her briefly.

She pulled away from him, standing up, bring her with him. They looked at the people who were gathered around then and moved off into a more secluded portion of the area. His head fell to his chest and he felt about thirty years younger. So insecure... so, so insecure.

It wasn't right, how willing she was to let her feeling spill over. She leaned over the edge of the viewing ledge and looked toward the pavement. So, so very far down. At the top... and the ground, reality, so far down.

"Gil," She continued, balancing on the hard, black steel, looking at the ground, her hands perpendicular to her torso, lip between her teeth. She swayed from side to side, attempting to keep balance, moving her arms as she did so. Grissom grabbed her arm and she fell from the bar into his arms.

He grinned, her expression was blank. "Sara, do you ever stop talking?"

She didn't smile, instead extracting herself from his arms. "No..." He grinned and pushed a section of hair away from her face. "Griss..." She began. "Did you do this because you thought it would be better this way or because you thought it was what I wanted or because it was what you wanted to do..."

Grissom stared at her and pulled her toward the elevator. She didn't pause, followed him, and allowed him to take her to the ground floor, to the car.

She was confused, utterly confused, as he opened the door for her. She made a move to protest but he placed a finger over her lips and ushered her into her seat. Patiently, she sat as he clambered in, turned the vehicle on and drove away, far away from the city. Sara looked at him from time to time, tracing the slight worry lines of his face with her eyes.

He veered off the road, fifteen minutes out of the city and slowed from sixty to twenty-five. Sara looked from the darkened foliage of the passing scenery to her pilot. "You know, if you're going to kill me, can you at least, give me a moment to set my financial documents in order. It is only eight on the east coast..." She trailed off. Gil shot her a sardonic glance and turned his attention back to the road.

She sighed and fell back into her seat, crossed her arms over her chest. Quickly, he pulled the SUV over, swinging her into the door.

"Couldn'ta just given me a simple answer." He heaved, jumping from the car, walking around to let her out. She glared at him and hopped down.

Taking her hand, he led her through the brush to a low clearing, a rock, that looked over an expanse of canyon. Sara resigned herself to being led until she was introduced to the view... then she gasped.

"Remember?" He asked, squeezing her hand.

Sara chuckled and was brought back to five years earlier, to when he had driven her out to the cliff, told her to get out of the car and follow him. She had, without question, and they had ended their trek at the cliff, overlooking the canyon, the moon high in the sky.

She'd felt young and inadequate then, though she shouldn't have. An empowered female, she felt that she could conquer anything then, anything but him.

She remembered him pushing his glasses back up onto the bridge of his nose and casting a glance at her. She discerned that it had been vaguely expectant. He'd asked her then, on that rock, to tell him what she saw. In few words, she'd expressed the entire expanse of land, the sky, the ground, him, in perfect startling detail.

Her chin fell to her chest as she remembered. "Of course I do."

He was skeptical. "Do you?"

She shot him a glance and looked to the sky. "Ground parched, no rain for at least three weeks, not a drop. The vegetation is wilting, more than it should be. We're about a thousand feet up and the air is too crisp for this time of year." She recited from memory. "Storm coming on. And it's three days from the new moon. A time for a big storm."

Sara crossed her arms over her chest, cutting herself off from the chill of the air. Glancing at him with a confident grin, she continued. "And it's bright, good light, easy to commit crimes without artificial light, easier to get away with it."

He nodded urging her on. "And it's humid, but just slightly, prints, footprints will hold longer in this atmosphere." Sara wracked her brain attempting to recall what he had said next. But he hadn't said anything. She was still speaking. "But you already knew that." She grinned, turning to him. "Why did you bring me here Griss?"

Five years prior he had told her that he had brought her there to test her, on the spot, no preparation.

He spoke then, moving forward. "Sara, marry me, just... just marry me." He threw his hand up, pulling the black, velvet box from his pocket once more.

Sara was caught off guard at his second attempt and stumbled back. "No!" She screeched, laughing.

He withered a little bit, smiling, moving to stand. He stalked towards her and backed her into a dry trunk of a tree. "But Sara..." He wiggled the box in front of her. "You haven't even taken a look at the ring yet." He smirked and tilted his head in his patented Grissom manner.

She shook her head, closing her eyes as her mouth erupted in a grin. "Won't affect my answer." She promised, but cracked her eyes open as he cracked the box open.

Peeking down, she whimpered. "No fair."

"No fair?"

"Attempting to ply me with expensive jewelry."

"I'll ply you with my lips if you'd like... and how do you know it's expensive?" He asked, dropping his lips beside her ear, heaving out hot breaths on her skin.

Sara laughed against his shoulder as his lips toyed with the skin of her neck. "It's a... oh... every, every woman knows."

Grissom laughed against her and pulled back, staring her down, feeling more bare than he'd ever felt before. "Sara, stop being so... just marry me, okay? I love you... you, you love me..." He looked to her eyes to confirm his statement. "And, damn it Sara, you know I'm not good at this. Take the damn ring."

His head fell and he thrust the box at her. She smiled and shot back, "Put it on me."

His expression was blank as he fumbled with the emerald cut ring. His hand shook as he eased it on her finger.

Sara, the investigator, held her hand out in front of her and wiggled her fingers. She looked from him, to the moon to the base of the canyon. She frowned.

"Sara..." Grissom drew, grabbing her un-ringed hand in his.

"Yes, yeah, I'll marry you." She whispered, not looking at him, but the moon.

"This wasn't what I was talking about when I was saying you should let go, Gil." She said, her face directly in front of his.

"Don't care."