Chapter 5

Could it be a Mistake?

Sara woke slowly, succumbing to the morning sun blinding her from her surroundings. She instinctively reached for the opposite side of the bed where she found no comfort. There was no indication that last night actually took place other then the wrinkled blue shirt Grissom had thrown across the room earlier. Her stomach sank as she began to feel like a one night stand.

"He didn't even have the decency to wake me up and explain where he was going first?" Sara searched the abnormally large bedroom for a note or an explanation of where Grissom had run off to. She decided to make herself be useful and clean up the bedroom before moving on the kitchen to start breakfast. As she bent over to pick up one of the comforters which fell to the floor, she winced in pain.

"I guess we were a little too rough last night…" Sara noted, as she neatly arranged the bed to her liking. She quickly made her way to the kitchen as her stomach began to rumble in objection. Sara didn't even remember eating last night; she figured that her attentions were quickly diverted after meeting their neighbors. A slight shiver made its way down her spine as she recalled last night's chain of events, she still didn't believe it was real. What had changed his mind so suddenly? A smile formed on her lips as she recalled Grissom's released passion. "Damn him for being so sexy, it's so hard to stay mad at him. It doesn't mean I'm not still going to give it to him when I see him…"

A creek from the front door startled her thoughts.

"Grissom?" Sara questioned as she made her way quickly to the living room. Surprisingly she was greeted with another stranger.

"OK…So I'm guessing it's alright just to walk into anyone's house in this part of town. Very odd" Sara noted.

"Hi, sorry for startling you…My name is Elizabeth Nouvelle, I'm friends with the Labteccs? I just came over here to invite you to a little get together tonight over at my home. It's a welcoming party for you and your husband. Will you be able to attend? The party starts at 8…" Elizabeth nervously smoothed out several strands of her auburn hair which previously had several seeds from a dandelion weed trapped in amidst. Her sharply chiseled chin made her appear to be suffering from an eating disorder, yet her bags of groceries of junk food in her hands made Sara believe that she was just suffering from an abnormal metabolism. A flick of red on her scandals is what caught Sara's eye.

"Yeah sure… Umm do you mind if I ask where you bought your sandals, I would just love to pick up a pair." Sara tried not to break her cover by asking to take a swab of the stain which lay on the right side of the sandal.

"I actually don't remember, I bought them last spring." She flashed Sara another eerie smile before shifting her eyes from side to side looking more uncomfortable by the second.

"Do you mind if I take a picture of them? I'm just going to show the photo to the shoe stores and hope I can find something similar…" Sara was rewarded to the nod of Elizabeth's head before searching for her camera. As Sara left the room, Elizabeth searched the space for a phone. Successfully finding her target, she grabbed a bugging device from her purse and quickly hooked it to the wires inside the phone. She barely managed to pull off her task before Sara bolted quickly back into the room.

"I finally found it…We still have a lot of unpacking to do…" She noted before clicking three photographs of the sandals. When she felt she had a satisfactory amount of documented evidence, she placed the camera back on an end table to find that Elizabeth had already vanished.

"This place is getting weirder and weirder by the minute…And where the heck is Grissom?" Pushing her anger aside once more, she went back inside the kitchen to find Grissom sitting on a chair with a blank expression drawn on his face.

"Glad to see you finally showed up…" Sara bitterly retorted as she poured herself a cup of coffee before dropping angrily into a seat in front of him.

"Not now Sara…Are you alright?" Sadness still loomed over him as dread began to fill his stomach.

"Umm, what do you think? I have the most incredible sex of my whole entire life with the only man I have ever loved and then I wake up to find that he leaves me in the morning…I'm officially a one night stand…Is that all I mean to you? A quickie before bed?" Her face was flushed from anger as she waited for his response.

"You love me?" Grissom shook his head in shame as he got up and walked outside. Sara immediately followed.

"Of course I do Grissom! You think I would wait practically a lifetime for just anyone? So yeah…I suppose I do love you…" Sara crossed her arms and tried to fight back any tears. She wasn't going to break down this easily. He should have apologized by now.

"Are you in pain…?" Grissom whispered as his back was still facing Sara as he looked out into their backyard. Several palm trees swayed gently in the wind, making his whisper barely audible.

"What do you mean?" Sara innocently replied as Grissom finally turned around to face her. His eyes were bloodshot from crying and his hands held indentations from making a tight fist for hours on end.

"Did I hurt you last night Sara…Please tell me the truth…"He lowered his head in redemption as he finally felt more exposed then he had felt in more then thirty years.

"Grissom everything you did was what I asked for…The pain that I experience in the morning is my fault as much as it would be yours. What I'm mad at is how you could just leave me here, especially since we're on a case." Sara tried to hold Grissom's gaze, she failed miserably. His attention was focused on her wrists more then anything, which held bruises from being held down during last night's lovemaking.

"You don't deserve me Sara…Last night was a mistake, I'm sorry. Let's just do what we have to do on the case and then go home." Grissom walked quickly away from Sara without an explanation and left their property through a wooden gate at the end of their lot. A trickle of tears made their way down her face as she realized she may have lost him forever. It was her own fault. Their love making wasn't real; their house wasn't real, nor was their first kiss. It was all just obtained under false pretenses; he did it just for the case. This was all just for show, all for the name of the game. Grissom was right, last night was a mistake. She should have moved on and forgot about him long before this operation.