Secret of Faith - Part VII

A/N – Huge apologies for the wait on this, I'm an idiot and completely forgot I'd written and not posted it. Many thanks to everyone who has read, enjoyed, and told me so.

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The look on Grissom's face when he stared back at her was more than enough to put a serious dent in her confidence, of which there had been precious little to begin with. He looked shocked. There was no other way to describe it. He was looking at her as if he would be more likely to open his door and find that carnivorous aliens had landed on his doorstep to take away his bugs. Was it so unexpected? True, they didn't have to go into work for a long while, but even so, could he not at least close his mouth? He looked rather like a fish and this seemed to happen around her rather a lot, more than normal. She couldn't help but think it wasn't a good thing.

Sara had returned to the townhouse with the intention of talking to him, because god knew they both needed to get so many things out in the open. She had been avoiding the thought of his admission up to this point. It had worked quite nicely thank you very much, until she got home, and realised there was nothing to distract her from herself. Her mind bombarded her with questions unanswered, thoughts that she hadn't followed through. Looks and touches seemed to linger in her memory pounding at her, demanding her to get something, make him come up with a more satisfying explanation.

She had tried to put them firmly at the back of her mind and attempted to concentrate on what she considered the present on the important things; like the fact that he had been kissing her. Now that was very much worth concentrating on. That was something to repeat if possible. This tactic however, didn't seem to be working as well as she had hoped and she had decided that meant that she should come back, talk to him, work out what the hell it was that was going on between them. Although considering it had taken five years to get this far, she was honestly not expecting too much. Rome was not built in a day; or so she had heard.

She sighed dragging her mind swiftly back to the present, he had still not yet said a word, and she was still standing on his doorstep. This wasn't looking particularly hopeful in that respect. Sara almost wondered what could have changed in the few hours she had been gone, not that much surely. It was either her imagination, or he had come to a conclusion. She raised an eyebrow at him slightly in an attempt to pull off 'jovial', "Can I come in?"

He seemed to shake himself out of whatever doze he had been in, losing the rather contemplative look that he had been wearing. He moved to the side wandering back into the house. It was clear to her that he had spent the past few hours mulling over the events of that day. It was at this point she allowed her mind to take in the possibility that even those few hours had given him the time to back away. She wondered if he had dismissed it all completely.

"I- we need to talk." She blurted, biting her lip when she realised how blunt she had sounded. He nodded; it wasn't like he could deny it.

There was a long silence. Sara was about to open her mouth when, to her surprise, Grissom beat her to it. "I'm sorry about today."

"You already said that." She said it without any trace of malice, but it was obviously not what she had hoped to hear. She had assumed he was talking about the drinking, but now she thought about it, he could well have been talking about them. It occurred to her the moment after she had replied and she nearly swore out loud. She breathed out as he continued, trying to regain her composure. She dropped her eyes from him down to the floor, following the lines of the tiles with her eyes.

"I don't always cope with things as well as I seem to. Every time I saw her, I saw you. I related to him in some twisted way and that's what scares me as well as the thought of losing you. That you would push me away, and that I wouldn't be able to deal with that. I couldn't risk-" He was rushing through what she supposed was a speech he had been preparing in his head since the moment she had left the townhouse earlier that day. Sara broke through his monologue before he could get any further.

"I was there." She paused, taking a breath and finally meeting his gaze. "The interrogation, I was there," the silence after her words thickened by the second.

Grissom huffed a long breath out past his lips. "You were never supposed to hear that." He murmured.

"I figured." Her eyes were trained on the floor. She rubbed the denim of the knee of her jeans, perhaps trying to focus on something other that him.

In some ways admitting to hearing his confession removed her safety net, put them on an even footing where she had previously had the advantage. She should feel more vulnerable like this, but oddly enough, she just felt relieved.

"I don't have an explanation for you Sara. I don't even have an explanation for me yet" He flexed his fingers in a tense gesture.

Sara let out a quick breath, her hand automatically straying to her forehead. Once again this was not going as she had hoped. "Well… when you get one, let me know," she murmured as she stood to leave. This was not turning out at all like she had hoped. It was an even more cryptic variation of the 'I don't know what to do about this' comment, which was not particularly comforting. That hadn't come to anything either. Every time this happened she fell a little bit further, and he was never there ready to catch her at the bottom. She walked away steadily, determined never to let him see how much he hurt her.

She had thought they had been getting somewhere. It turned out that she had been wrong, and had her hopes dashed yet again. It often seemed that for every step forward they took it was another five steps back again. It was like a game of Snakes and Ladders. Sara had never liked that game anyway. It ran on pure luck, something she never seemed to have much of. The silence was getting stale again, uncomfortable like she rarely experienced with him. Their mind-meld seemed to be on hiatus for today, and she didn't think it could have picked a worse time if it had tried.

Now she simply wanted to be physically as far from Grissom as she could be so she backed away swiftly. She had only just arrived and wanted out already. Anything that might limit her acute embarrassment, and more importantly give her time to pull herself together before she had to see him at work later. She had to see him every day from now on, and thinking of this, remembering what had been said was not going to help. She knew there was a reason people warned you about this.

"Sara," She stopped abruptly on hearing her name and resignedly turned back to face him. He looked as if he were battling to push the words out, his jaw shifted uncomfortably. "I don't want you to go." She felt the hope flare up in her chest again, before quashing it as effectively as she could. She was fairly sure he must have seen the anticipation light in her eyes. He continued, growing more confident, "I may not have all the answers yet, but what I do know- is that I want you here." The last few words were rushed, as if he were getting them out as fast as possible in case he lost the courage in those few moments.

Sara couldn't have pinpointed the exact meaning of his words, but honestly she didn't really want to anymore. It was a positive response and that was all that mattered. He wanted her, he wanted to try. Vague assent was better than nothing, and it gave her the chance she had always wanted. She could feel the statement hit home in moments. Her head was suddenly empty of all of her previous nerves, she could focus only on his words. There it was, hopes raised, again, before he would drag them straight back to earth with a bump. To remain even slightly stoic was more than a challenge.

She swallowed nervously and nodded with far more confidence than she felt, a tentative smile spreading across her face. As his hand trailed over her shoulder she couldn't help but lean into him, gravitating into his body as if drawn by an unseen force.

"What I don't understand," he paused moving back from her and rubbing the back of a hand over his beard and dropping his voice, "-why did you keep waiting?"

She seemed to think for a moment, her eyes never leaving his face. "I can't just switch off my feelings. It doesn't work like that," she then grinned, "-and I'm stubborn like that, you should know."

He nodded knowingly, "I never imagined you would wait this long for me."

Sara chuckled quietly, "Yeah, well neither did I."

End.