Chapter three: Different people still make the same mistakes.

A/N: Thanks so much for the reviews – it's always nice to know what people think, so please keep them coming!

I hope you'll continue enjoying the story. Huge thanks to Ace!

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A journey of a thousand miles always begins with one step.

Grissom was alone in his office, sorting through the pile of paperwork that had lined up in front of him, threatening to fill every inch of space left, when he received a call.

He was actually quite relieved to hear that ring - anything that gave him a little break from the excruciatingly boring task ahead of him was very much welcomed.

"Grissom," he spoke into the receiver.

"Dr. Grissom, it's Judy," she answered with a high squeaky voice.

"Yes, Judy, what can I do for you?" he asked politely.

"You have a call on line three, I'll pass you through."

'Thanks," he thanked her and pressed the button with the number three, taking off his glasses in the process

"Grissom," he informed absently.

"Mr. Grissom," a tender voice answered from the other line, "this is Sharon Goodman speaking. I'm a nurse at Desert Palms hospital."

Grissom immediately tensed up. This wasn't how he was usually informed about cases involving victims that needed to be handled at the hospital, so it was quite odd that they would inform him in that particular manner.

"Yes? What's this about?" he asked, feeling a bit agitated.

"I am very sorry, but I have to inform you that Sara Sidle was involved in a car accident earlier tonight," she told him as gently as she possibly could.

His heart skipped a beat.

"You were registered as one of her emergency contacts," she continued.

In an instant, Grissom's entire world came crashing down on him, reducing him to the size of an ant.

Time seemed to stand still as he received punch after punch straight to his gut, until he thought he was about to get sick.

The oxygen in his lungs had dissipated, and his chest stopped moving.

A million thoughts passed thorough his head as one of the more dominant ones sent shivers down his spine and balls of fire through his nervous system, causing havoc and paralyzing him completely. That was the one about the end of his world, the end of everything he ever knew, everything he ever wanted, the end of him.

If he wasn't so much in shock, he probably would have gotten angry with himself for only thinking about himself at that moment. But he couldn't really help it, Sara was so much a part of him that it wasn't possible for him to think about her and not think of himself.

Sara was everything to him, even when he didn't want to admit it, even if he refused to admit it - she was everything, she was on his mind when he woke up, she was on his mind when went to sleep, she was on his mind even if she wasn't, somewhere, she was always there.

He was engaged in a strong battle - a battle against himself.

He had battled against these emotions, against these desires, but to no avail because he always ended up back in the same place, loving her, loving her from a distance, loving her in his dreams, in his fantasies, in his nights, and in his days. He had loved her so much that he couldn't imagine life without her.

He would lay in bed for hours thinking about her, imagining her beside him, and imagining her soft skin against his own, her moist lips against his. He imagined running his fingers through her smooth hair and sucking in a full breath of its scent.

He imagined pressing his head right above her heart and listening to it beat fast, watching her chest rising with each single breath - a breath that he would treasure more than anything else.

He imagined touching her, touching her like she had touched him a few years earlier in the pretence of wiping chalk off of his face.

Oh, what he wouldn't have done to be able to touch her in that way - to gently rub his palm against her cheek and feel her hot skin blushing under his, to touch her and do unholy things to her.

What he wouldn't have done to be able to see the look on her face when he did just that and proved to her that he was capable of human contact, proved to her that he was capable of that and much more.

And then when he had finally fallen asleep with a smile on his face, he would dream.

He dreamt that he had taken her to the beach and built sand castles with her, castles that withstood anything, ties and waves, man and nature, castles that would go on to stand forever if they were only allowed to.

He dreamed about her eyes, her smile, and her spirit; he dreamt about having her, her and only her.

He dreamt a lot of things, and when he woke up, and the smile disappeared, he started wishing.

He wished he could have just asked her out on a date and given her the best time of her life. He wished everything was different, and everything was possible.

He wished and hoped for so many things, but none of it mattered because for him, it was too late. He was too old and too accustomed to how things already were. His insecurities were already imbedded in him for so long that he didn't believe he could ever survive without them.

They were there for a reason; they were there to protect him, to keep him inside of his cocoon, and to shelter him against the world, against Sara. If they ever disappeared and allowed him to follow his heart, no good would have ever come out of it, for him or her. He was positive that he would never be able to live up to her standards or fulfill her needs. He thought that he would never be able to make her satisfied or happy, so he convinced himself that as soon as she found out who he really was, as soon as she revealed that he was nothing close to the enigma people considered him as, she would walk away. She would leave him, and she would break his heart, his body, and his soul. She would destroy him.

He had tried to justify to himself that it was about the job as well, that it wasn't just his doubts and insecurities, but his unwillingness to indulge in an office romance, that had a justified cause, the cause being his work - a very important work, work that he had purposely, or unconsciously, allowed to define him, define what he was, who he was. Work that he thought he would lose if such romance ever evolved. Work that if he indeed lost, he would have been lost with it.

It was a reasonably justified cause for not going along with it, or so he told himself, but the coldhearted truth was that it wasn't about the job, it was about him. He was just too afraid, too damn afraid of her.

To him, the second scariest thing in the world was Sara Sidle - the first scariest thing in the world was Sara Sidle's rejection.

Being with her was just too much of a risk, and he wasn't prepared to live on the edge, he wasn't prepared to jump off of that cliff without a safety rope, and he knew that such a rope would never be included as a part of the deal if he ever chose to accept it.

Whenever a little voice inside of him would disagree and tell him that it was not too late, that it was not the end, that he could still do something, anything, but if he didn't do it soon, it would be, he shut that little voice off. He turned it off like it never existed in the first place. Even when her own voice spoke, even when her own lovely voice would say things that sent him up to heaven and back, he ignored it. He ignored her words, he ignored her voice. Her tone of voice was clearly conveying her true emotions, her desires, but he still ignored it, shut it off, and told himself that it was anything but real, anything but true.

He had doubted her, he had doubted her feelings.

After that, he would sink into a denial that made him think that Sara would always be there, ready for him to come around, to change his mind, to need him.

He was either naive, stupid, or both; he wasn't sure.

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The long silence had triggered the woman to respond again. "Sir?"

The urgency in the woman's voice startled him, shaking him from his frozen status and pulling him out of his trance.

He finally took a breath, picked up his jaw from the floor, and struggled to get his words out. "Is…is she okay?" he stuttered, utterly terrified of the answer.

"I'm afraid I'm not allowed to discuss her condition over the phone," she said softly but firmly.

"Look, I'll be right there, can you please just tell me if she's alright?" he begged her.

"I'm sorry Sir, I…"

"Fine, fine, thank you," he cut her off, making a hand gesture to empathize his point as if she was right there.

He hung up the phone so fast he nearly broke it, grabbed his keys, and rushed into the hall, almost slamming into Greg.

Greg had little time to react, and Grissom didn't even stop to apologize for the trail of papers that he sent flying everywhere.

"Hey! No running in the hall remember!" he shouted at Grissom's retreating form.

"Grissom!" he shouted again, "Wait!"

"What about the test results you wanted!" he mumbled into thin air, his eyes scanning the floor that was now full of scattered papers.

"That was weird," he said, furrowing his brows in confusion.

"What's weird?" Mia appeared out of nowhere.

"Grissom," he replied.

"Isn't he always?" she asked with a smile, and she was met with Greg's accepting expression.

"Good point," he answered and nodded.

"I've never seen him like this though," he added, finding himself speaking to himself again as Mia quickly disappeared from his view.

"Great, that's just great," he muttered.

"Thanks for nothing!" he shouted again, gaining strange looks from passing onlookers.

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Grissom had no time to stop and inform the others of the situation, and frankly he didn't really want to, he just wanted to get there and get there fast.

Come hell or high water, he would get there.

He made his way to his SUV, all while painting every possible horrific mental image of what had happened to Sara, to his Sara.

Every horrible scenario passed through his head except for one, one that he couldn't even get himself to admit possible, one that he would never admit to himself because if he did, he wouldn't even make it past the parking garage - he would just have a heart attack right then and there, and they would have to scrape him off of the road.

He reached the car and struggled to open the door with his keys. His hands were trembling, hell, his whole body was trembling. His heart was beating quickly, so quickly that he could hear it ringing in his ears. His breaths were rapid and inconsistent, and his head was ready to explode from the huge amount of things rolling around in it, making him more anxious than he had ever been in his life.

When he finally managed to open the door, he stopped moving and took a moment to calm himself down. Getting himself into a car accident would not help Sara in any manner.

He then entered the driver's seat and started the car, taking deep breaths along the way.

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The trip to the hospital seemed like an eternity. Not knowing what had happened to Sara was painfully excruciating and not knowing her condition was worse. It was tearing him up from the inside, piece by piece, part after part. If someone was to ever torture him, no matter how bad it was, it would never come close to how he was feeling at that moment.

Pain wasn't the only thing he was experiencing though, other emotions that he was trying hard to keep at bay were burning him. He could feel them burning him, fire on his skin and on his face, flames running up and down his body, making him hot, so hot. Since he had received that call, the colors on his face had changed from sickly pale to hot red.

The vivid mental images of Sara in a car, drunk again, made him angry, furious even. How could she? How could she knowingly enter a car while drunk, knowing that it would be the end of her career if she was caught for a DUI again, knowing that she could end up in jail or worse, knowing all of that and still…

Then a thought he never believed he would ever consider struck him like a falling tree. What if she did it on purpose? What if this was more than a cry for help, what if this was all a part of a plan, a plan to get herself killed?

Ecklie's words penetrated his mind and started replaying in his head over and over again, making him shudder.

"She's a loose cannon with a gun."

'Is she?' he asked himself, 'would she go this far?'

Would she go to those lengths to put herself in harm's way?

Did her painful past finally come back to not only haunt her, but take possession of her, ruin her? Had she reached the point of no return?

After the "how's" and the "what's," the inevitable "why's" came falling at him like an asteroid hitting the Earth, dissolving it into a thousand little pieces. Why would she? Why would she feel like she needed to do that? Why didn't she ask for help? Why wasn't he there to help her? Why couldn't he pull his head out of his ass long enough so he could take notice, pay attention, treat her like she deserved to be treated, and love her like she deserved to be loved. Why, why, why?

As he heard those questions repeating themselves in his head over and over again, he started feeling incredibly stupid.

'Gil you're being ridiculous,' he scolded himself, 'Sara would never do that, not in a million years.'

Feeling his anger towards Sara waver slightly and his anger towards himself rising, he snapped out of his self pity mode and tried thinking logically. He reminded himself again that it was Sara, S-A-R-A for crying out loud. Sara Sidle for God's sake, she wasn't weak or fearful, she was a strong independent woman who never took crap from anyone, including himself.

So yeah, she was reckless at times, and yes, she had made mistakes, stupid mistakes, but everyone made mistakes, and it was becoming blatantly obvious to him that he did as well.

He tried to reason with himself and convince himself that she was probably fine and that he was getting worked up for nothing. He theorized that maybe it was just a small incident and that maybe it was nothing more than a little bumper to bumper accident. 'Everything will be fine,' he tried to sooth himself, 'Everything will be just fine.'

With that he had managed to calm himself down to a certain degree.

It didn't last long though, and he started to panic again, pressing hard on the accelerator. He was desperate to get there, desperate to find her walking and breathing, desperate to find her alive so he could tell her all of the things that he ever wanted to say to her. There wasn't any other option, so many things were left unsaid, and so many things were begging to come out into the open, begging for release.

"Come on, dammit!" he cussed when he hit a red light.

'Please, God, don't let it be too late.'

Just like that, he found himself praying, praying after a hiatus in prayer, praying like he had never prayed before.

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After another few nerve racking minutes, the large, white building finally loomed into view, and he breathed out a heavy sigh of relief.

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"Sara Sidle?" he asked loudly as he rushed up to the information desk in the lobby.

"I was told she was brought in after an accident," he continued, breathlessly.

"Yes Sir, can I see some ID first, please?" a young woman behind the desk asked, her eyes thoroughly scanning Grissom.

"Uh, yes, of course," he replied, his hands searching through both of his pockets.

He found his driver's license and quickly handed it to her.

"Patients name?" she asked.

"I already told…" he cut himself off, "Sidle, Sara Sidle," he continued.

"Just a moment," she said, spelling Sidle to herself as she carefully entered each letter into her computer with her long manicured fingers.

It didn't take long for Grissom to get very annoyed. He released an exasperated breath and wondered why the hell it was taking her so long.

He then looked at his watch for what was probably the sixth time in two minutes and prepared himself to give the woman a mouthful of his increasingly pissed off mood.

After she had confirmed Grissom's identity and matched it to the emergency contacts that were listed in front of her, she looked up.

"Ok, here we go," she announced, saving herself from a potential blow up.

"She was taken up to the ICU, third floor, try the elevator," she informed him with a slight smile.

"Thank you," Grissom told her quickly as he headed down the hall without giving her a second glance

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He only realized that the woman had mentioned the word ICU when he stormed into the elevator like a devastating tornado ready to destroy anything in its path, anything that stood in its way. He didn't give himself any time to digest the meaning of it; he just pressed the right button as quickly as he could and started preparing himself for whatever news that was awaiting him in the ICU.

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The elevator doors opened, and he stepped into a different world. There was a scenery of bright florescent lights, strong smells, and loud beeping sounds that made him want to return from whence he came. He wanted to run away like a little child and avoid everything that was undoubtedly about to hurt him like he had never been hurt before.

He took a deep breath and proceeded a little further down the hallway.

Taking small steps and deep breaths, he reached another desk and looked around. He noticed the very large amount of hospital equipment lying around everywhere. Unfortunately, it was probably only deserted for a short while at a time.

There weren't as many people as he thought would be in a place like that, so he figured it probably wasn't a very busy night.

Before he could say anything to the male figure that was occupying the space behind the desk, a man in a white lab coat emerged from behind one of the doors.

"Hello, Sir," a mild tenor voice greeted him, "can I help you with anything?"

"Yes, I'm looking for Sara Sidle. I was told she was brought in here," Grissom answered the younger man, his voice shaking.

"Are you DR. Grissom?" he asked, noticing the raw emotion on the older man's face.

"Yes," he replied with a gentle nod, his voice sounding quiet and sad but determined.

"I'm Dr. Miller," he spoke, extending his hand, "I work in the ER. I treated Ms. Sidle when she came in. I was just checking up on her actually."

Grissom's shook the other's man hand as his mouth went dry; his body's way of responding to his own desperate situation.

"How is she? Is she alright? Did she hurt anybody?" he asked quickly.

As the words escaped his lips, he regretted them dearly, wanting to take an extra minute, an extra week, to prepare himself for facing his deepest fears.

"No, no, she was involved in a hit and run. She…"

"What?" he interrupted after his heart plunged to his feet.

Completely mortified, he asked his next question.

"What are you talking about?" he hissed at the doctor, his face now cemented into a frown, his mouth twitching with disgust.

"Sara wouldn't do that," he insisted, shaking his head in dismay.

"That's not what I meant," the doctor responded, his hands rising in defense.

"She was brought here by a good samaritan," he started explaining.

"Apparently she was hit by a drunk driver, but I was told by the police that the guy turned himself in earlier."

"They have him in custody as we speak," he added, trying his best to reassure Grissom.

It took a long moment for the words to register in Grissom's mind as a wave of panic washed over him again. His eyes grew wide, and his body became paralyzed once more.

Suddenly, every ounce of animosity he saved for Sara and himself was directed at that person - the man that had dared to hurt Sara. He dared to hurt her and run away like a coward, leaving her to fend for herself, leaving her after he hit her with his car and caused bodily harm.

If he ever laid a hand on that man, it would take a whole police squad to stop him from killing the bastard.

The image of Sara wasting away somewhere, lying lifeless on the cold hard pavement in a pool of her own blood, broken and alone, shattered his heart into a million tiny pieces. He thought no one would ever be able to mend it.

He swallowed the lump in his throat, and for the first time that night, he struggled against the tears that were stinging his eyes, tears that had built up from the moment he received that dreadful call, tears that were threatening to leave his body completely drained.

He blinked hard, trying to shake his mind from the shocking images that he was sure he would never be able to forget.

"What's her condition?" he asked with a face filled with fear and worry, his blue eyes staring intensely through his glasses at the doctor's weary expression.

"Well," Dr. Miller began, "she arrived here with severe injuries, but we were able to stabilize her," he continued, his voice low but steady.

"She had to be intubated at the scene, but we removed the breathing tube earlier, and she can now breathe on her own."

Grissom's frantic brain immediately filled with questions, and he somehow managed to get one of them to travel from his brain to his mouth, voicing it out loud.

"What sort of injuries?" he asked, concern evident in his voice.

"She sustained a serious concussion, several broken ribs, a fractured leg, and some mild internal bleeding that was fortunately handled without any surgical means."

As Grissom heard the words, one after another, hanging onto every vowel as if the other man was in slow motion. His brain replaced one devastating image with another, creating a screen of total blackness that circled him and made him want to go to sleep and never wake up again.

"Other than that," he continued, "she had quite a few abrasions and contusions to the lower part of her body."

The room was now spinning and colors and sounds blended into one swirling entity, making him dizzy, and for a short moment, he thought he was about to pass out.

"Considering this type of accident, I'd say she was extremely lucky. It could have ended a lot worse, and let me tell you, I've seen worse."

"I expect her to make a full recovery," he finally added.

For the first time that night, Grissom's pulse started to slow down a bit, and a wave of relief washed over him, a wave that he more than gratefully accepted.

"Can I see her?" he asked almost inaudibly, looking a bit lost as well.

The doctor responded with sympathetic smile. "Sure, I believe she's awake."

"I'll ask one of the nurses to take you in to see her," he offered.

Grissom thanked him and began following the young nurse that was now leading him through dark corridors and well lit rooms.

"Right this way, Sir," she guided him.

As they stopped near the glass door entrance of Sara's room, the nurse regarded him, told him that Sara was inside, and that he only had a few minutes. He thanked her, nodded his agreement, and prepared himself for every possible horrible scenario his mind could come up with.

He released a long breath and tried to focus on what lay behind that door.

He then took a deep breath and stepped hesitantly inside.

'One step at a time,' he instructed himself, 'one step at a time.'

TBC…

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A/N: I have no medical background so I apologize if anything is not correct.