CSINut214's A/N: This chapter goes out to Elisa, for reminding me why I got into this in the first place.
Sara's mind was racing as Grissom carried her to the bedroom. I should stop this now, before it goes any further. He's doing this for all the wrong reasons. I need to talk to Peter.
She bit her lip at the thought of her new boss. She'd left a message on his home phone earlier that evening; a long, tortured message about how they weren't meant to be. It's better to end it now, she'd said. If we wait too much longer, the breakup could affect our working relationship, and neither of us wants that. It'd been a chicken-shit way to break up with him, seeing as he'd been on the way to the restaurant at the time.
But Grissom didn't know, couldn't know. Only his wild-eyed jealousy, his unraveled possessiveness had brought them to this point, and she was ashamed, humiliated that she would sink so low as to accept it. Loveless passion, and it might be enough to last her a lifetime. In any case, it would have to be.
He stopped abruptly at the threshold to her room, staring in, transfixed.
"Grissom?"
His grip on her had loosened slightly. He set her down gently on the bed, then turned away.
She breathed his name again, horrified that he was leaving her. But he wasn't, he wasn't. Instead he swiveled around slowly, taking in her bedroom.
This was it, this was where she slept at night. She was wrapped in that navy comforter every time she called him, and she fell asleep with her head on that pillow. He fingered the gauzy curtains with their uneven hems, and wondered if she'd sewn them herself. Did Sara sew?
Grissom moved over to her dresser, running his palm over the surface. Framed photos sat in a neat line. Nick and Warrick playing a video game in the break room. Greg wearing a turban, posing next to a bemused Brass. And a photo of himself, too - bent over with gloved hands, gathering evidence at a crime scene. He picked up the frame, shaking his head slightly. His was the only candid shot, and he knew that if she'd asked him to pose he would have refused. She must have known it too.
There were two framed insects on the wall -- megistogaster linearis and palamneus fulvipes. A giant damselfly and a forest scorpion. And he knew, then. Knew without a doubt, and he wept.
She lay on the bed, feeling naked and exposed. "Grissom, what-" She caught sight of the tears. "Hey… hey, come here."
Surely, he thought, surely limbs weren't intended by God to be this long. Expanses of arm and leg, wrapped around him, cradling him as he clung to her.
"I'll leave the lab if you want me to," he said softly, and she stiffened. "I will. I'll leave the lab, and my friends, and Las Vegas, and entomology, and… meat, I'll leave meat behind too. Anything you want. Just don't ever make me leave you."
She stroked his hair, ignoring the fluttering in her chest. "You don't mean that. Your work is your life."
"No," he said, pulling back to gaze at her. His eyes were dark and wet as they searched her face. "No, work's not my life."
Sara watched as he leaned in to kiss her. She closed her eyes, waiting for the demanding onslaught of pushing and probing. It never came. Instead he gently kissed her forehead, her chin, her cheeks, her eyelids. Then he was running his fingers over her collarbone and following the trail with his lips, and she fought the tears back.
"Griss, don't," she begged. "Don't start something you can't stop."
He drew up to look her in the eyes, his expression so intense she fought to breathe. "Why would I have to stop?" he asked. Then he was back at her collarbone, and she couldn't help it. Deep, gut-wrenching sobs escaped her. For what she had, and for what she'd lost.
The sound tore at his heart. Pulling back, he lay next to her, spooning her from behind. "This is what I wanted to do every time you called me crying," he said, smoothing back her hair, kissing her temple. "This is how you should fall asleep every night."
She cried harder. He didn't know what he was saying, what he was implying. Finally, she had to tell him: "I ended it with Peter."
He froze in his motions, just like she'd known he would. He'd be doing the math right about now, realizing that she wasn't a prize to be won anymore. She was just Sara, plain old Sara with the bony knees and thin lips, crazy workaholic time-bomb Sara with the sordid past. Swallowing the lump in her throat, she stared at the wall, waiting.
Grissom's heart rate quickened, and he felt a familiar surge of adrenaline. It reminded him of when he'd gone on the world's tallest roller coaster, only this was stronger. It was the feeling he'd get right before the plunge, that moment where life and death merged into a rush of wind and weightlessness. He leaned close to her ear, tasting fear and life, whispering, "Sara, I'm in love with you."
She sighed, then, a breath she might have been holding for years. "What about the blonde?"
He was kissing the hollow between her neck and shoulder. "We broke up months ago."
"Because she wasn't smart? Wasn't interesting?" The slow scratch of his whiskers tickled her sensitive skin.
"No," he replied slowly. "Because she wasn't you."
She expected him to resume what they'd started on the couch, but he just wrapped his arms around her and lay his cheek against her hair. "Go to sleep, honey," he murmured. "You've had a rough night."
Her whole life, Sara had thought that her hips and ribs and arms and legs were all misshapen, with their oddly placed grooves. Now, as Grissom's arms and legs molded perfectly against her, she had to wonder if they were made for each other. "Hey Griss?"
He hummed sleepily against the crown of her head, sending shivers down her spine.
"You know I love you, right?"
"Course," he said drowsily. "You've got bugs on your wall."
She started to say he wasn't making sense, but then he ran his thumb over her belly button, and she felt his breath on her neck. And she hoped, god, she hoped, that nothing would ever start making sense again.