Chapter 1
The moment the motel came into view, Sara quickened her steps. She was shaking with cold and determination. Grissom kept with her step for step and when the finally reached the motel, Sara's breath was ragged.
"Stay here," Grissom ordered as Sara leaned against the wall of the motel office. She was sheltered by a high canopy but Sara could still here the rhythm of the rain coming down around her.
When Grissom reappeared with a room key, Sara shuttered. He picked up the field kit, took Sara's hand and led her quickly across the parking lot to a row of doors. When they reached number eight, Grissom unlocked the door and let Sara into the room.
She froze only a foot in the door. This was not her idea of a romantic room in the slightest. A queen size bed sat against the left wall and the t/v sat on the dresser at the bed's end. The wood paneling killed any sort of mood and Sara sighed loudly, dropping her laptop on the floor beside her. Grissom pushed her further into the room, closing the door behind them.
"You should go take a shower," he said, pointing to the door on the other side of the room, "Try to warm yourself up."
Grissom put the field kit down on the table beside the window. He watched as Sara slowly took in her surroundings, moving in the direction of the bathroom. He opened the field kit, offering her dry clothes, "You may need these."
Sara stopped on the other side of the bed and turned around to face him and he saw it, for the first time in months, he saw the emotion in her eyes. Something in his mind went off loudly and he handed the clothes out to her again. Sara gave him another weak smile as she took the clothes into the bathroom and closed the door behind her. God, he thought, How the hell am I going to do this?
Nick stood over a pile of broken glass in living room of the James' home. He'd already collected a few shards of glass from the window but he still felt that something about the situation was off.
"Warrick, take a look at this will you?"
Warrick moved up beside his partner, noticing the smudges of green paint on the glass.
"Paint brush?" he asked.
"I doubt it," Nick replied, bagging that particular piece of the broken window, "I think a paint brush is too light to do that much damage. Besides, why would there be wet paint on the handle?"
"Good point," Warrick said, moving back to the coffee table he'd been dusting for prints.
He and Nick hadn't gotten anywhere on this case. The perp obviously knew a little about the job because he hadn't left them with anything. The partials they'd lifted early hadn't matched anyone in the system or anyone in the James' family. Although, in Warrick's mind, that didn't rule the family out. Erin James, the oldest of the four children, had been away at school the night that the robbery had been taken place but Brass hadn't yet reached Erin's roommate to clear her.
"Warrick, what do you know about the heckle effect?" Nick asked suddenly.
"You could say I was an expert," Warrick replied, "Sara and I used it to get a guy a few years ago for killing his brother. Why?"
"Cause," Nick said, handing Warrick another shard of glass, "I think we've got a lead."
Sara slipped into the steaming bathwater and let it wash over her. She sighed heavily and leaned against the back of the tub, closing her eyes. She couldn't stop thinking about the man in the other room who she would be, somewhat unwillingly, spending the night with. And, if she knew Grissom as well as she thought she did, he was trying to come up with some excuse to get a second room.
He'd better not, dammit, Sara thought. She had spent months imagining what it would be like to lie in a bed beside him, to feel his arms wrapped around her. Sara wasn't exactly sure when her feelings for Grissom had become so intimate but the thought of him leaving her alone for the night hurt her. She felt the hot tears start to roll down her cheeks and she hated herself. He was her friend, and then he'd become her supervisor, and then there had been the adjustment period. It was that strange period in their relationship where Grissom had been forced to cope with the idea of losing his hearing and Sara had been forced to examine her feelings for him. She'd realized she loved him and he knew that he couldn't let her in.
The tears came harder at the thought of losing him and Sara sank deeper into the water. Before she could fight it off, the fatigue caught up to her and she fell into a light sleep.
Nearly forty minutes later, Sara emerged from the bathroom looking intensely too comfortable. Her hair was wrapped up in a towel and her face was flushed. She'd changed out of her wet slacks and T-shirt into a pair of faded jeans and another T-shirt. She rubbed her eyes and blinked up at Grissom. She smiled at him, "Shower's all yours."
"Did you even leave me any hot water?" he asked, smiling back, "You were in there for almost an hour."
"I took a bath, Grissom," she explained, watching his eyes widen at the thought, "I sort of fell asleep, sorry. But there should be plenty of hot water."
For a few minutes Grissom didn't speak. The image of Sara partially submerged in a tub of warm water kept dancing across his mind and he couldn't shake it off. When he finally snapped out of it, Sara was lying on the bed, on her stomach, half asleep.
"I'll be out soon," he said quietly, leaning over to brush hair from her face, "Go to sleep."
Sara mumbled something into her pillow and Grissom knew that she would be out of it for a while. He closed the bathroom door behind him, stripped of his still damp clothing and climbed into the hot shower.
"Hey Brass!" Nick yelled from down the hall. The young CSI came sprinting toward him and Brass turned to him as Nick asked, "Did you reach Erin James?"
"No, but I did-" Brass said, handing Nick a sheet of paper, "speak to Katie Kayle, Erin's roommate."
"And?"
"And Erin James hasn't been back to her apartment in at least four days," Brass told him.
"Really?" Nick asked, slightly more interested.
"Ms. Kayle claims that she hasn't seen Erin James since Sunday evening," Brass explained, "Apparently, Erin James got a phone call Sunday from her brother-" Brass flipped to a new page of notes "-David. Erin told her roommate that there was a family emergency and left in a hurry."
Nick smiled, "I think we need to talk to David James."
Sara stood hidden in shadows inside Debbie Marlin's apartment. The resemblance between them was uncanny and it frightened Sara. She watched as Debbie walked around her apartment, changing the sheets on her bed, lighting a path of candles down the hallway and into the bathroom.
Fire hazard, Sara thought.
Sara heard a bell in the distance and watched joy spread across Debbie's face. The woman walked carefully to her front door where she let in her date. The man kissed Debbie and Sara didn't see much more as they exited the room and headed toward Debbie's bedroom. However, just because she didn't see it didn't mean that Sara couldn't hear it. The horrid screams and Debbie's cries. The precise sound of a knife cutting deep into human flesh. A waterfall of blood splashing onto the floor. She could hear the bodies being dragged from the bedroom to the bathroom, the sound of blood soaked clothes sliding across the tiled floor.
A scream of her own welled up in Sara's throat, forcing out all the anger and pain she felt. The emotions took over and she had lost all control again. . .
The sound that awoke Grissom was not a pleasant one. At first, he wasn't sure exactly what it was that he was hearing, but when he realized that Sara was sitting straight up in bed beside him, he knew what had happened.
"Sara! Sara, honey, wake up!" Grissom grabbed Sara's upper arms, shaking her lightly, "Sara, please, wake up!"
Sara's entire body shook and Grissom knew instantly that she was no longer trapped inside her own head. Tears were smeared over her cheeks and her mouth was still open but no sound was coming out. He tightened his grip on her arms, forcing her to turn slightly and look at him.
"Sara, are you all right?" he asked.
Sara took a deep breath and blinked repeatedly before she spoke, "Can you still tell me that it's 'just empathy'?"
Sara pulled herself out of Grissom's grasp, crawling out of the bed. She moved to sit at the table under the window and rested her head in her hands. She was still shaking visibly.
"I'm sorry, Sara," Grissom said quietly, "I guess I just didn't understand."
"There's a lot you don't understand," Sara snapped without thinking.
"Do you want to tell me about it then?" Grissom asked, "Make me understand?"
Sara didn't look at him, didn't want to see the emotionless expression on his face. She hated that look, hated it when he pretended that nothing mattered, nothing effected him. Why the hell did she have to be so damn effected by her cases? Why couldn't she be like everyone else and just let go? Because, Sara, she thought, This is your punishment. This is what you get for being human.
"Sara," Grissom said again, now getting up from the bed to sit across from her at the table, "Make me understand."
Sara sighed, rubbing the heels of her hands hard into her eyes, "They're nightmares, Grissom. Cases that I've worked coming back to haunt me, reminding me that I didn't save them, I haven't saved anyone."
"Sara, that isn't what we do, we don't save people," Grissom told her, "We save their families the pain of knowing that the person responsible for the death of their loved one is still out there, still capable of taking someone else's life. In a way Sara, I guess we do save people. We save people from being hurt by the people we help put away."
Grissom watched Sara, waiting for her to say something more, but only heard her pain.
"I know that it's hard for you, Sara, but-"
"Do you? Grissom, you have no idea," Sara said, still not looking up at him, "You don't let your cases get to you, you don't feel anything. I can't keep myself from getting involved, you know that. I once told you that I wished I could be like you, I still do, because it hurts so much."
Grissom didn't respond to that. He knew that it wasn't true anymore, that he couldn't keep himself from getting involved in certain cases. When Debbie Marlin had been killed, he'd spent three days processing evidence from her apartment. He'd forced himself to find out who'd killed her. But he hadn't known Debbie Marlin, not before her death, it had been her resemblance to Sara that had kept him on that case. He didn't sleep for three days while he worked that case. He'd noticed that about Sara, when she was emotionally involved in a case, she wouldn't sleep for days.
"Tell me who you were dreaming about Sara," he said suddenly.
She hesitated, then looked at him for the first time since they'd sat down, "Debbie Marlin."
Grissom's heart froze in his chest. He wasn't sure he'd even heard her right.
"Debbie Marlin?" he repeated, "You didn't even work her case, Sara."
"Yes I did," Sara said, "Not much of it because you made everyone keep me out, but I ran her prints and checked the perimeter. I was at her house, I saw her face, Grissom. She looked just like me."
Grissom didn't speak. He sat there, staring at Sara as though she'd just slapped him in the face. He hadn't even thought to ask if she'd seen Debbie, he didn't know that she knew.
"I've dreamt about her, too," he said before he could tell himself not to, "And you."
Sara's heart suddenly went into overdrive. He dreams about me, she thought, that's new. She was in shock. He'd just expressed a very personal though with her, this was very unlike Grissom.
"How do you want me to respond to that?" she asked quietly.
"You don't have to say anything, Sara," Grissom told her, "I just need you to know that I've weekend in my resolve. I got involved, Sara."
"Just because you dream doesn't mean you're involved," Sara said, "When you have nightmares, when you hear a victims screams while you're awake, when you exhaust yourself going over the same evidence day after day, that's being involved, Grissom."
Sara's voice broke on his name and she wiped hard at her eyes as fresh tears formed.
"Sara, I-" But Grissom stopped himself. He couldn't tell her. He couldn't hurt her anymore. He knew that, if he told Sara the truth, if he told her how he felt, going back to work would kill her.
Sara sat perfectly still as Grissom moved around the table to take her hand. He dragged her to her feet and led her back to the bed, "Go to sleep Sara."
"How'd it go with the James kid?" Warrick asked as Brass and Nick entered the breakroom.
"He says he's got an alibi, but we're still looking into it," Brass explained.
"How about an analysis of the paint we got off the glass?" Nick asked.
"Everyday house paint," Warrick told him, "Interior. Greg's working on the brand now."
"We've got David James' prints to match to the partials we lifted from the counter and window sill," Nick said, "But we've got to find the paint-"
Warrick's pager matched Nick's in volume and the both said to Brass, "That's Greg."
When Grissom awoke for the second time during the night it was not to Sara's screams. However, she wasn't in the bed with him. Sara sat at the table under the window, her laptop open in front of her. Her face was illuminated by the open screen and she just stared at it.
"Sara?"
"I heard what you said that night," Sara said, her voice barely above a whisper, her eyes still focused on the laptop, "In the interrogation room, I heard what you said to Dr. Lurie. I was behind the mirror, Grissom."
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 ever worked for in order to have her. Grissom's own words rang in his ears. I couldn't do it.
"What would you like me to say Sara? That I think I'm in love with you? That I wish that I had taken the chance while it was still open to me?" Grissom asked, "I can't, Sara. I can't tell you that because I don't know."
"Damn it Grissom, you know how you feel so just say it, please," Sara's words were full of pain, "I need to know that this wasn't nothing."
"That what wasn't nothing, Sara? We haven't done anything," Grissom told her, not sure who he was trying to convince, Sara or himself.
Then she cried again. This time her tears were harsh and burning. She wasn't angry or afraid, she was hurt. Grissom was her friend, the closest one she'd had in ten years. In a way, she had loved him the day she'd met him. She had attended his lecture on a whim and it had changed her outlook on things, on life. She'd found someone like her, someone so in love with their work that it was their life. In Sara's mind, Grissom was the only person who understood her, who knew what her work meant to her, who knew what exactly her life was like. But at that moment, he could've been a complete stranger.
"What've you got, Greg?" Nick asked, finding the over-eager lab tech bent over a microscope.
"Take a look," Greg told him, stepping back.
Nick peered into the scope at a slid covered in green paint containing tiny silver flecks.
"Everyday house paint, Greg?" he asked.
"So I missed it," Greg shrugged, "I don't do that very often, give me a break. Look, the silver stuff isn't visible to the naked eye. But it's not really incriminating evidence. The paint's a special brand, magnetic stuff, interior paint though."
"So there should be a wall somewhere out there covered in green magnetic paint," Nick said sarcastically, "Thanks Greg."
"That's not all I got," Greg said, holding a sheet of paper out to Warrick. "You can only get this particular brand of paint off the website. I did a background check, Erin James placed an order for two gallons of this about a month ago."
"So, Erin James was home when the B n' E took place," Brass concluded.
"There's more," Greg said, "There was blood mixed in with the paint."
"Looks like we got ourselves a homicide boys," Nick said, "Thanks Greg, and I mean it this time."
"Sara," Grissom said, attempting to coax her into a more calm state of mind, "Sara."
"Stop saying my name like it means something to you, Grissom. You've made it perfectly clear that we're nothing more that colleagues. That's fine," Sara snapped, finally looking up at him, "But don't say my name like that and then push me away."
"I don't know how else to say your name," he said, resisting the urge to throw a 'Sara' onto the end of the statement.
"How about with a little less emotion? Or not at all," Sara suggested.
Grissom watched in silence as she stood from her chair to grab her poncho. Sara pulled the plastic over her head and yanked open the motel room door. The rain was still coming down hard and Sara became silhouetted by the light in the motel parking lot.
"I'm sorry that I fell in love with you," she muttered, closing the door behind her.
For a few moments, Grissom sat on the edge of the bed, staring silently at the door. He pinched the bridge of his nose, feeling the on-set of a migraine. He tried to contemplate Sara's parting words but couldn't think of anything logical. He should go after her. It was cold and dark and still raining. Besides, where would she go, they didn't really know where they were.
He stood up, straightening the sweatshirt that he wore and pulled on his own poncho. He opened the door and dealt with the rain.
When Nick, Warrick and Brass arrived at the crime scene of their B n' E, they were in search of a body.
"Erin James comes home to find her brother waiting for her, thinking something terrible happened to her mom," Nick theorized.
"But the mom is fine," Warrick continued. "It's her brother whose got the problem. He's pissed at her, for God knows what reason, and they get into it."
"As all brothers and sisters do."
"I don't know about you," Warrick said, shining his flashlight in Nick's direction, "But my sister and I never tried to kill each other."
"You know what I mean," Nick explained, "They were screaming and yelling and ended up swinging. You can't tell me that you've never wanted to take a swing at your sister."
"Just cause I thought about it, doesn't mean that I ever did it," Warrick told him.
"But when we talked to David James," Brass interjected, "He was coming down off a pretty heavy high. His pupils were still dilated and I could smell the marijuana."
"So the brother is under the influence when Erin arrives."
"Maybe that's why she's pissed," Nick said.
"All right, so who's blood's on the window?" Warrick asked, "Erin's or David's?"
"I think we need a warrant."
Grissom looked around, squinting hard against the rain and lack of light. Sara couldn't have gone too far, she'd only left the room a few seconds before he had. She wasn't within his line of sight as he searched the parking lot. He then turned to glance along the row of motel room doors. At the opposite end of the row, Grissom noticed a small room, enclosed with glass and realized what Sara was staring at. Vending machines. She must be starving.
Grissom turned around, walked back into their room and exited for the second time, with his wallet. He locked the door and began to walk toward the room.
Sara's stomach growled loudly at her as she patted her pants pockets in search of change. She hadn't eaten anything in nearly twelve hours. The one day I skip food to sleep, she thought.
She hadn't even noticed Grissom coming toward her. He held his wallet in one hand and three one-dollar bills in the other. He held the money out to her.
"I didn't think to ask if you'd eaten anything," he said to her, "I'm sorry."
"Not your fault, I hadn't really thought about it myself."
Sara took the money from Grissom's hand and moved forward to put one of the bills in the machine in front of her. She pushed a couple of buttons and seconds later was holding a steaming cup of black coffee. She stepped aside to let Grissom have a turn with the coffee machine and put a bill into the next machine. From this one, she got a candy bar and two bags of chip.
"Hey Grissom."
"Yes, Sara."
"Can I have another dollar?" She pointed to a pop machine, "Water, for when the coffee's gone."
He smiled at her, handing her another bill, "Makes sense. I don't suppose chips and coffee go very well together."
Sara got her bottled water and watched Grissom get a candy bar from the other machine, "Is that all your going to eat?"
"I ate dinner just before we left for the scene," he told her, "I'm not very hungry."
"Oh," Sara looked down at her food. "I actually slept today."
"I knew there had to be a logical reason for you to skip a meal."
Sara smiled to herself. That's the Grissom that I know, she thought, but the second we walk back into that room I'm gonna lose him for the paranoid one. She looked up and caught Grissom staring at her again.
"What?" she asked quickly.
"Nothing," Grissom replied, smiling at her again, "Let's go."
He took Sara's arm and led her back toward their room. She was so afraid of him in that moment that she was shaking and he could feel it.
Nick and Warrick stood inside the James' home. They were in front of the broken window and Nick held a spray bottle containing luminal.
"If there's blood here," Nick said, "then Erin James is here, too."
He sprayed the wall around the window as well as the shards of glass laying at his feet. Everything began to glow; the glass, the window sill, the walls, the carpet.
"Someone was killed here," Nick told Warrick.
"What do you want to bet it was Erin James?"
Where am I supposed to go now? Sara thought. Grissom was within arms reach of her, sitting just across the table. I know him well enough to know that this is how he'll deal with 'us', he'll pretend that the conversation never happened, that everything is back to normal.
"Sara?"
She nearly jumped out of her chair. She spilled a little bit of coffee on the table and glanced up at Grissom, "Huh?"
"Are you all right?" he asked, "I mean, can you go back to sleep?"
"Yeah, actually, I'm exhausted."
For a few moments neither of them spoke. The watched each other, both trying to analyze what the other was thinking. Sara gave up first, Grissom was a rock. If he didn't want to let anyone in, he wouldn't. Sara, however, wore her heart on her sleeve when it came to Grissom. Anything he could have needed to know was reflected in her eyes.
It wasn't until his skin touched her's that Sara noticed Grissom had moved. He was kneeling in front of her chair, leaning on the arm rests. His mouth was on her's and Sara was frozen to her chair. Was she dreaming? Or was Grissom kissing her? It took a moment of clarity for Sara to realize that she could feel the heat of his body on her's and she opened her mouth to kiss him back.
"Nick, come take a look at this!"
Nick moved around the side of the James' house and came to a stop beside Warrick in the back yard. Warrick shined a light on the side of a garbage can along the fence.
"That looks like blood to me," Nick said. He reached for his kit and pulled out a swab. He slid the Q-tip down the side of the trash can and capped it. "I'll take it to the lab, have Greg put a rush on it."
"You wanna open the can?" Warrick asked, glancing at Nick.
Nick nodded and Warrick's hand went to the lid.
Grissom moved away, breaking the kiss first and Sara couldn't contain a small moan of protest. The taste of him rested on her lips, coffee and chocolate. She was afraid to breath, afraid that it would all disappear and Grissom would be nothing more than a figment of her imagination. But he didn't leave. He'd taken a step back from her chair, but he wasn't gone. Sara reached out for him.
"Grissom, please," her voice hadn't even worked, her lips had simply moved.
But Grissom could read the emotion in her eyes. What the hell did I do? he thought. This was Sara, not just some women. Sara knew him too well already, she knew his quirks and his logic and this was too much. He had kissed her, he'd made intimate contact with the one person he knew that he couldn't have, no matter how much he wanted her. They worked together, he was her supervisor and she was his friend. If they had any relationship beyond that, everything would have to change. He looked at her then, her lips swollen and eyes full of fear, It already has.
Grissom took her hand but didn't speak and Sara's worry grew. He pulled her to her feet and they stood only inches apart. Neither moved, they only breathed. She would only have to move her head a little to put her lips on his again but she didn't, afraid of how he'd react. She watched thoughts and emotions jump in his eyes. He was letting her in, slowly, but he was.
"Grissom, I-" Sara began, only to have Grissom's mouth stop her.
When he stepped back this time, he spoke first, "I don't want to hurt you, Sara. I just want to sleep."
He pulled her down onto the bed with him, lying on his back and watching her lay her head on his chest. She slung her arm around his waist, closed her eyes and took a deep breath. Seconds later, she was asleep.