The Way We Were (revised)

Summary: Grissom and Sara's tempers flare, but the truth may hurt more than they thought.

Rating: T

Disclaimer: Nope despite a rewrite, I still don't own them

Pairing: Grissom and Sara

Spoilers: Up to and including Nesting Dolls is fair game

A/N: A new chapter! Thanks for the reviews, they are very greatly appreciated.

Chapter 2

Work became monotonous, it held no joy. His team was gone, and any remnants seemed to be disappearing before his eyes. Sara began to fade into the background, her eyes held no sparkle, no determination. Just lifelessness. Her work would never suffer of course, he though she would rather die than allow that to happen. But she held no passion for doing the right thing, for the victims. The fire in her heart seemed to be going out before his eyes. They were nameless faces to her.

A new case, a new day, avoiding Sara at every chance he got. He didn't know how else to function, so he resorted to what he knew best. He retreated. He stopped talking to her, never met her eyes. It never ceased to amaze him however, how professional she remained. They were not best friends, sure, and the tension was uncomfortable at times, but everything that was said remained in the confines of Sara's apartment, and he would not take that away from her.

He still wasn't really sure why he had decided to got to her apartment that night, a momentary lapse of concentration on his part, where he decided he needed to fix her pain. A night where he had decided that he needed to know if she was getting any better, or simply slipping back into her routine.

A knock on the door had awoken Sara from her slumber on the couch. Rubbing her eyes, she thought the pizza she had ordered an hour ago had finally arrived. Stumbling over her coffee table, she rubbed the feeling back into her legs, as the knocking became insistent.

"Alright, Christ, you're the one that's bloody late" she responded whilst opening the door

"You better not be expecting me to pay full price for…Oh" She shuffled from one foot to the other nervously eyeing the man standing in front of her.

"Grissom…uh you're not exactly who I was expecting" she self-consciously closed her bath robe, still confused at his sudden appearance.

"Was there something in particular you were after"

"No" Ahh…the man of many words makes his appearance again she thought.

"Would you like to come in then?" she moved out of the way of the door to allow him entry into her home. He shuffled past her, brushing her arm on the way through.

"I did have pizza coming, but uh…apparently Joey's pizza delivery needs to be re-evaluated" he moved around her home, assessing something.

"What has you so intrigued?" she questioned

"You moved your furniture around"

"Yeah, needed a change I guess." he continued to move around her home, touching this, admiring that. She couldn't understand why he was at her home; nothing overly spectacular had happened at work, open and shut cases. She had spent most of her night catching up on paperwork. Her mind was at a blank to understand why-

"This needs water"

"What…sorry?"

"This plant, it needs water"

"Oh yeah, I water all my plants at night, so don't worry, it'll get watered. I'm not killing it." He released the plants leaf from his grasp, moving to observe her CD collection. She continued to stand behind her arm chair, hands folded across her chest, as if Grissom was prying through her mind by poking through her house.

"I love you" he stated bluntly

"Excuse me?"

"I love you" he repeated

"Don't you dare say that"

He closed his eyes at the memory, rubbing his temples. She had caused him some slip-ups before, honey, beauty. But he had promised himself he would never tell her that. He wouldn't place that kind of a burden on her. But in her home, with his plant on her shelf, she in her bathrobe, with no makeup on, skin aching to be touched and loved, he needed to try and give her that. He needed to give her what no one else had in her life, and he couldn't stop himself. God, all he had wanted to do was help her, and he ended up making things so much worse.

If he could get through his lifetime without having to hear that kind of pain in her voice again, he would thank the heavens. She looked so utterly defeated; he couldn't stand it. This powerful woman, that inspired him, challenged him, looking so…crushed. She had to physically push him away, it was tearing him up inside that he had done that to her. He had caused her to push him away. 'Congratulations Gil' he breathed 'you finally did it. You made her push you away, you made the one piece of beauty, innocence, one of the only people in the world that loves you, push you away'

Grissom sat in his office, in the dark confines of his torments. He couldn't rid himself of her, she was everywhere, she was his breath of life. He watched her, swiftly moving down the hall, her head bowed, keys in hand, ready to return home, passing by everyone without a wave or goodbye, and he realised something. He realised what she had become, what he had helped her to be. Sara had turned into Grissom, isolated. A ghost. She was him.

Life as it seemed, is not without its own sense of irony

TBC

I know I'm not deserving of your trust right now, but if by chance you change your mind, you know I will not let you down. I don't believe anybody feels the way I do about you I do now. There are so many things that I want to say to you, but I don't know how. Sara, I wish that I could go back to the start, and tell you everything, everything that I wanted to. But I can't.