A/N: Sorry for the long wait once again, I've been really busy with school, and now basketball season has started as well. I'll try to keep up better, but I can't guarantee anything.

Chapter 7: Realization

"So, Grissom, that taste any good?"

At Sara's teasing query, Grissom glanced up from his plate and shrugged. "It's all right," he replied, straight-faced. "Tastes a bit like something a rabbit would eat."

Sara glared at him. "Watch it mister," she warned, but at his innocent look she couldn't help but smile, and she rolled her eyes. "Just eat."

"You asked," he said, a grin flickering across his face as well. It felt good, sitting here with Sara and throwing words back and forth as if there wasn't anything wrong in the world. He had missed doing this; not only with Sara, but with the rest of his team as well. The thought rode a wave of melancholy through him, and he realized he had lost his appetite.

Sara noticed as he suddenly put down his half-finished burger, and his dull gaze strayed to the door. What is it now? she wondered, hiding a frown. But she had vowed she wouldn't push him about anything just yet, so she bit back the urge to voice her question out loud.

"Who's working my DB from the other night?"

The question caught Sara off guard, and for a moment she merely peered at him. He raised his eyebrow at her.

"Oh, sorry," she muttered sheepishly. "I am."

"And?" he prompted when she didn't go on and continued eating.

Sara shrugged. "And, I haven't had time to do much except talk to Doc Robbins about the autopsies."

"I always wondered what it was like pulling teeth," Grissom muttered darkly as he leaned forward. He raised his voice then, and slowed down his speech as though talking to someone of less than average intelligence. "What did Doc Robbins tell you, Sara?"

Sending a nasty look his way, Sara pulled out a few bills to pay for their meal. "He said COD was asphyxiation, for both vics…"

"Sara, they were stabbed…"

"I know," Sara interrupted, regaining control of her narrative. "They would have bled out if the perp hadn't suffocated them."

Grissom frowned as they exited the diner and made their way back to Sara's SUV. "Any idea what was used?"

Sara shrugged as she got into the driver's seat and started the vehicle. "Doc found a feather in Mr. Henderson's airway," she replied, "but I haven't had a chance to go over the crime scene photos or get back there to get an idea of what it could have been."

Tilting his head slightly to the side, Grissom leaned against the SUV's door, his frown deepening.

Rolling her eyes, Sara revved the engine. "Hey, Gris, are you going to get in, or do you want me to drive away without you?"

"Huh?"

"Get in."

"Oh. Sorry." Still with a thoughtful look in his eyes, Grissom carefully settled into the passenger seat and clipped himself in.

"Now," Sara said as she turned the vehicle towards the lab, "do you want to tell me what you were thinking back there?"

Grissom shrugged. "There were feather pillows on the bed."

"And?" Sara prodded, imitating him from earlier.

"With two of them and, as far as we know, only one perp, you'd think they would have managed to fight back a little bit."

"Not necessarily," Sara corrected him. "Mr. Henderson was hit in the back of the head – hard enough to leave an indent in his skull. He probably would have been fairly out of it."

"What kind of an 'indent' are we talking about?" Grissom questioned. They pulled up in front of the lab as Sara answered.

"Doc and I both agree; it looks like it's probably from some type of a ring."

"Mmmm," Grissom replied absently, but his mind was obviously elsewhere.

There was still half an hour until shift started, and as they entered the building they were immediately met by the unwelcome face of Conrad Ecklie.

"Good evening, Gil," he said, his face contorting in the little smirk he always seemed to wear when Grissom was around. He ignored Sara, who decided it would be best if she didn't stick around.

Nodding in acknowledgement of the greeting, Grissom was about to continue on down the hall after Sara when Ecklie reached out and grabbed his arm.

Grissom suppressed a frown of irritation as he turned back to the dayshift supervisor. "Something I can do for you?" he asked.

Ecklie shrugged. "No. I just wanted to ask how you're doing. You've been through a lot, you know. Wanted to make sure you're coping ok."

Grissom stiffened, his jaw clenching as he pulled his arm away from Ecklie. "I'm fine," he said harshly, "Thank you for your concern. Now if you'll excuse me…"

Once again, he moved to continue on down the hall, but Ecklie's voice stopped him. "I heard you had a bit of an accident last night in the morgue, Gil."

"What the hell are you talking about?" Grissom snapped, spinning around to find Ecklie right there in front of him. He was feeling both fear and anger as he stared at his dayshift counterpart; why did his 'accident' concern Ecklie? And more importantly, how the hell did he know?

At the obvious anger on Grissom's face, Ecklie's smirk became more pronounced. "I think you know what I'm talking about."

"No, actually," Grissom replied stubbornly, "I don't think I do." This time, he forced himself to turn and walk away. He was very proud himself for resisting the urge to use his fist to carve a hole from one side of Ecklie's face to the other.

"You aren't going to be able to pretend everything's all right forever, Gil. Sooner or later you'll have to admit you need help."

Sara, standing about halfway down the hall, felt herself go cold inside when she heard Ecklie's parting shot. How could he say that to Grissom? How the hell could he just say that?

She forced herself to calm down however as Grissom went storming past her and disappeared into his office, slamming the door behind him. One of them had to have their head on straight and it appeared that, for the time being, it would have to be Sara.

"You ok?" Sara let herself into Grissom's office, keeping her movements slow and her voice soft. She almost smiled as she realized she was approaching him as though he were a wild animal. She would have smiled, if the situation hadn't been so serious.

He stood at the other end of the room, arms folded firmly across his chest. Sara could see how tense he was from the door, and she sighed. "Grissom?"

"How did he know?"

"What?"

Grissom whirled to face her, anger on his face and in every line of his body. "He knew about what happened yesterday!" he yelled. "How did he know? You said you wouldn't tell anybody!"

Sara frowned at that, and felt herself getting angry as well. "I didn't tell anybody, Grissom," she snapped. "I said I wouldn't, and I didn't!"

"Well then how the hell did he know?"

"I don't know," Sara replied. She was trying to keep her temper in check, but she wasn't having much luck. "David saw it; he told Catherine. It might have leaked out…"

"Great, so now the whole lab knows!" Grissom exploded. "God damn it, Sara, I don't want the whole lab gossiping about my personal life! It was supposed to stay quiet."

"Grissom…"

"It's bad enough that everyone thinks I'm going to go nuts on them. I don't need this right now!"

Grissom knew that he was being unfair to Sara. He was blaming her for something that wasn't her fault. He was probably hurting her more than she would ever admit, as well, but he couldn't stop. His rage had taken over him, and when he saw the anger on her face as well all he could think was that he had to wipe that look off her face. She had no right to be angry with him.

And then, as he continued to yell, the anger disappeared from her face to be replaced by pain and an awful sadness that ripped into him.

You've hurt her again, the little voice in his head murmured, and he flinched. His angry tirade came to an abrupt end as she pulled back from him.

Without a word, she started towards the door, and Grissom froze. He wanted to tell her to stay, to apologize, but his mouth was dry, and wouldn't seem to work. Please stay, he begged her silently. Please don't leave me.

Her hand was on the doorknob now, and an inexplicable fear ripped through him. A sharp, stabbing pain grew in his chest, and his office spun before him as he realized he couldn't breathe. Sara! He wanted to call her name, but he couldn't. God it hurt. Why did it hurt so much? Breathe, he thought frantically, just breathe. You're all right. But he couldn't breathe. He wasn't all right. His chest hurt so badly, and everything was going dark…

Sara was almost out the door when Grissom gave a strangled gasp behind her. She was going to ignore it, and leave him here until he had cooled down somewhat, but then she realized that something really was wrong. Turning, she paled as she caught sight of him. His whole body was shaking, and he was hyperventilating, his eyes wide with fear.

Sara grabbed him as his knees gave out, holding onto him until she had managed to pull a chair over and sit him down.

"It's all right, Grissom," she murmured soothingly, rubbing a hand over his back. Though she was as scared as him by the outbreak, and was almost hyperventilating herself, she forced herself to take slow, deep breaths.

"Grissom, I want you to breathe with me," she told him, hoping he could hear her as he fought for breath. "Just focus on me, Grissom."

Grissom locked into the rhythm of Sara's breathing, his hand tightening its grip on her sleeve as another stab of pain hit him hard.

"It's all right," he heard her murmur again, and he closed his eyes against the many emotions he felt as he realized she was as scared as he was.

It took a few minutes, but finally his body obeyed him again. His hands still shook slightly, but he was able to maintain a steady pace of breathing, and the pain subsided to a dull ache.

With a shaky sigh, he pulled back from Sara. "I'm sorry," he whispered, ashamed.

Sara gave him a weak smile. "You're forgiven. For yelling, anyways; you don't have to apologize for what just happened."

Grissom looked away, and Sara frowned in frustration. "Grissom, it's not your fault."

"I shouldn't have…"

"Shouldn't have what? Acted like a human being?" Sara retorted. "As if you could have acted any other way."

"Sara, you don't understand," Grissom said quietly, but she cut him off again.

"You're right, Grissom, I don't understand. I never will understand, but that doesn't mean I don't care. It doesn't mean I can just sit back and pretend that this all doesn't make a difference to me, and it doesn't mean that I'm going to let you just ignore this and hope it goes away. That isn't going to happen, Grissom, no matter how badly you wish it would."

There was a long moment of silence as Sara waited for Grissom to say something. He didn't, and he refused to look her in the eye. In the end, Sara decided it would be best to leave him alone for a bit. Leaning forward, she gently touched his face, trying not to frown as he flinched.

"I'm going to get to work on our case, Grissom," she said as she stood. "I'll be in the layout room. Whenever you're ready… You'll need to pass out assignments soon, too. Shift starts in a few minutes." With that, she squeezed his shoulder reassuringly and left his office.


As she sat in the quiet of the layout room, going over the photos and the notes that Greg had taken at the crime scene, Sara tried to push all thoughts of Grissom to the back of her head. Needless to say, it wasn't working.

He's having panic attacks, she scolded herself, aren't you going to do something about it?

No, was her reply as she stared hard at a photograph of the victims. Not yet. He needs some time.

What are you waiting for, a sign from God? You want him to pass out in front of you before you'll do anything? Oh, wait, forgot, he's already passed out. So you want him to admit he needs help, so you can say 'I told you so.' That's it, isn't it?

No! I just want… God, I don't know what I want. I want him to be all right. I want things to be back to normal.

Sara's conversation with herself was brought to a halt as Grissom chose that moment to inch his way into the room, a thinly veiled look of trepidation in his eyes.

"Uh, hey," he murmured.

"Hey," Sara replied absently, trying to act as though everything were normal. "Come to help me solve the case, Watson?"

Grissom tried to force his lips into some semblance of a smile, but failed miserably. With a sigh, he shrugged and pulled up a stool beside her. "Find anything?"

Sara shook her head. "Not yet, but here's the mold of our vics skull." Handing him the piece of evidence, she turned her gaze back to the pictures before her.

As he studied the mold, Grissom frowned. The shape of it looked familiar… And then suddenly he remembered. "Sara, this mold looks exactly like the ring that was on the neighbour's hand."

"Hmmm?"

"The mold," Grissom repeated impatiently, "it's shaped the same as the neighbour's ring."

With a frown, he began shuffling the pictures that were laid out, searching for the one he wanted. "Where is it," he muttered, frowning.

"What are you looking for, Grissom?" Sara asked. "Maybe I can help."

"Pictures of the neighbour's hands…"

It was Sara's turn to frown. "Grissom, I've been through these photos a hundred times; there aren't any pictures like that."

"What?" Grissom stared at her. "Of course there are; why wouldn't there be? We took swabs from his knuckles, it only makes sense we would have…" he trailed off suddenly as he thought back. "We would have taken the ring, too."

"There's no ring with the evidence, Grissom," Sara said.

There was a tense silence for a moment, and then Grissom got to his feet. Turning, he strode out of the room; Sara was forced to jog to catch up as he made his way to Greg's DNA lab. Greg, unfortunately, had chosen to come in a few minutes early, and now he cowered under Grissom's furious gaze.

"Why didn't you take pictures of the neighbour's hands?"

"Grissom, I…"

"Wasn't it obvious that you would need to? We took swabs, Greg; he said he came into contact with our killer. How could you not think to take pictures? And you didn't get his ring, either!"

"I'm sorry! You didn't tell me to so I just…"

"Don't try and blame this on me, Greg. The pictures were your responsibility."

Greg suddenly seemed to process what was going on, and he stood up, his face turning as red as Grissom's. "I know this is partly my fault," Greg snapped, "but it sure as hell isn't completely my fault. You were supposed to be supervising me, Grissom. You were supposed to be telling me what to do, but you were so frickin' out of your mind you couldn't even think straight. I was too busy looking out for you to be trying to figure out the God damn procedures."

As soon as he had said it, Greg froze. He couldn't believe what he had just done. Breathing hard, he waited for Grissom to blow up; waited to hear the words 'you're fired.' But they never came, and when he finally worked up the courage to look Grissom in the eye he didn't see fury there. All he saw was fear, and pain, and realization. Then, suddenly, that look was gone, and Grissom was like stone.

"I trusted you to come out in the field, and you blew it," he said hoarsely. "Don't think you're going to be seeing anything but the inside of this lab for a long time."

Turning, Grissom walked out of the room, leaving a stunned Greg and Sara behind him.

"Sara," Greg blurted, "I didn't mean… I didn't mean to say that!"

"Take it easy, Greg, it's all right," she soothed, giving him a pat on the shoulder as she turned and ran out of the lab after Grissom.


Grissom ignored the looks people shot his way as he hurried through the hallways of the lab; his only thought was to get out. He had to get out.

He took the stairs to the roof two at a time, and when he reached the top he was out of breath and light-headed.

"Shit!" he swore as kicked the concrete ledge that surrounded him. It sent a dull shock up his leg, but he didn't pay attention as he continued to kick it. This couldn't be happening to him. He had been so sure that he would get back to work, and everything would be ok. Work was his distraction. If he just spent enough time immersing himself in it, he would forget what had happened and everything would go back to normal. But now it was affecting his job. Greg had been right; it wasn't his fault. It was Grissom's fault. He had been in no condition to return to work, but he had insisted. If he had even been thinking half-straight he would at least have taken a seasoned investigator with him to do the heavy work, but no, he had to take Greg, because Greg wouldn't ask questions. He had screwed up, badly, both with the case and with Greg. Well, things look good for you now, Gil, he thought angrily. What kind of a guy tries to pin his own mistakes on a poor kid like Greg? All he ever tried to do was help you, and you turn around and use him and then screw him over. Real nice, Gil.

"Shit!" he swore again.

"Swearing doesn't become you, Grissom."

He whirled at Sara's voice, feeling anger race through him as he found her right behind him. "Don't sneak up on me like that," he snapped. Why the hell did she have to follow him everywhere?

"I didn't sneak up, Grissom," she said calmly, "You were just too busy trying to knock over the building to hear me."

Grissom didn't reply, so Sara continued. "I'm going to guess you were beating yourself up for freaking out at Greg."

"Sara, go away," he growled.

"So I'm right. You want to tell me about it?"

"No."

Gently, Sara turned him to face her, and he was suddenly too tired to resist. "You realized that if anyone is to blame for this, it has to be you, because you were the one who insisted on working the scene, even though you knew you weren't up to it. And you were the one who insisted on taking Greg, even though you knew he was a rookie who would need to be watched."

"Sara, it's not like that," Grissom protested, but she shook her head.

"Don't, Grissom. I'm not angry. Just disappointed that you thought you could get away with this."

They stood silently for a moment, Grissom's eyes closed to hide his pain. Then, almost involuntarily, he leaned into her, wanting to be held.

Sara was surprised at first, but she hid it well, and carefully wrapped her arms around him.

"I didn't," Grissom whispered.

"Didn't what?" Sara asked, her voice a whisper as well.

"Didn't know I wasn't up to it. Not really. I thought work would distract me, not remind me of it."

With a sigh, Sara rubbed her hand over his back.

Finally, she spoke. "I don't think you should work tonight, Grissom. You have a lot of paper work to catch up on that should probably keep you busy; I'll keep going on our case. And I think… I think you should apologize to Greg. He needs to know that you understand it wasn't his fault. And I think you need to do it for yourself, as well."

Grissom didn't reply.

"Grissom?"

"Just… give me a minute," he murmured, and Sara could practically hear the tears in his voice as he trembled slightly in her arms.

"All right," she reassured him, continuing to rub his back, "Just take your time."

It was so strange standing there, holding Grissom like that, that she felt fear rising in her. The Grissom she knew would never do this; he would never allow her to touch him, let alone hug him and comfort him. The Grissom she knew would never talk to her like this.

This whole thing was making her realize just how little any of them knew or understood Grissom, and the feeling that accompanied those realizations wasn't pleasant.

Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, Grissom pulled away.

"Ready to go?" she asked softly, straightening the collar on his shirt.

Grissom nodded, and rubbed his sleeve over his face. "Yeah," he said hoarsely, "Let's go."

As they made their way down from the roof, Sara almost wished they could just stay up there forever. Up there, everything was simple.