Sara emerged from her bedroom a few minutes later, in a full set of pajamas and a robe. Grissom, still trying to figure out what he should be thinking about, didn't look up at her from his position sitting on the futon.

"Hey," Sara said softly. "You ok there?"

Grissom looked up but determinedly fixed his eyes on a point over her right shoulder. "I should probably be asking you that question." He paused to think for a moment. "I'm, uh, sorry. I knocked, but I didn't think I heard anyone answer. I thought you were already asleep, so I was just going to come in quietly and find a . . ."

"Whoa," Sara said, holding up a hand to stop him. "Stop panicking; I'm not going to start screaming about how you traumatized me. Hell, for all I know you've seen me like that before in the locker room at work."

"I didn't . . .!"

"Shove over," she interrupted him, motioning for him to make room for her on the futon. Grissom moved to the far side of it, teetering over the edge.

Sara sat, then touched his arm. "You can move back over. I'm serious, it's not like I'm afraid of you now."

"Maybe you should be."

"What, because you're a ravening beast who's going to jump me now that you've seen me naked? Got news for you, Gris – if you were going to do that, you'd have done it already. I'd be pinned on my bed or something."

Grissom flinched and moved an inch further away from her. "Don't talk like that, please."

"You're really upset," Sara said wonderingly. "What the hell? If anyone's going to be upset here, it should be me."

"I just grossly violated your privacy," Grissom muttered. "Wouldn't you be worried if you did that to someone?"

"Ok well first of all, I don't feel grossly violated, ok? And second of all, right now I can't think of a guy I know who would be traumatized to have me see him naked – except maybe you. Probably you. So no, I wouldn't be too worried if I were in your position."

Grissom didn't answer her, focusing his attention on his shoe rather than her.

"And I already told you that you don't need to be worried about me. I'm fine with it. There, problem solved!"

"Okay," Grissom said, a challenge evident in his voice. "Then why don't you tell me why you're so okay with it? Why aren't you worried about me being . . . whatever. Ravening."

Sara ducked her head to the level of his, placing it squarely in his line of sight. "I'm not worried about that, Grissom, because if you wanted that, you could have had it at any time during the last few years. You didn't, so I can therefore deduce that there's no impending danger of you changing your mind now."

"What's in my mind and what I do are two different things."

"No kidding. In that case, why don't you try telling me what's in your mind, and maybe then I'll be able to think of a way to straighten you out."

"I can't do that," he said repressively.

"Why, because you think I'll be offended that you still have the image in your mind? Listen, not to be intrusive or anything, but I figure you probably haven't seen a naked female – one who was alive – for at least 5 or 6 months. I'd be surprised if you weren't still seeing it."

"Sara," Grissom ground out, "would you stop prodding? I really don't want to discuss this."

"Yeah, well, we just had a big discussion about how you need to start talking to me instead of Catherine, and not talking about it at all isn't an option because you know that if you don't talk about it with someone, you'll just start feeling even more guilty about this, and then you'll pull away again and we'll be back at square one. Which, might I add, YOU made the move to get past."

Grissom gave in and finally met her eyes. "What exactly do you want to hear me say, Sara? Yes, I saw you undressed. Yes, it wasn't at all an unpleasant sight. No, I'm not going to attack you now because I saw you like that."

"We already established that stuff," she said, shifting her position so she was almost facing him. "Why don't you try just venting. Let me put it this way – if Nick, or Mark, or even Will, had been the one to walk in on me, I think I can safely say that they wouldn't be sitting her like you, all kinds of panicked. Nick would probably be embarrassed, Mark might feel guilty . . . but they wouldn't retreat into themselves like you're doing right now. So why are you so different?"

He sighed. "We already talked about this."

"Let's talk about it again."

"Maybe I'm reacting so differently because I think of you differently, then. I already told you about my . . . feelings about you. I don't think it's so wrong for me to be more concerned about it than one of your friends if he were in my position."

Sara shrugged. "You might be surprised by who's interested in what. I'm not saying that to make you jealous," she added hastily, "but I'm just saying that you might not be as different from every other male in the world as you think. You are male, Gris, even though you seem to be trying to ignore that fact."

"Why are you so ok with this?" Grissom hissed, whipping around to glare at her. "Don't you have any modesty?"

Sara drew back in surprise, blinking. "I . . ." She swallowed. "I'm not listening to this." Without waiting for Grissom's response, she shoved away from the futon and ran to her bedroom.

There was silence for a long minute as Grissom tried to process what had just happened.  "Sara?" he finally called. "I'm sorry, ok? Come back."

Sara's "No!" was followed by the sound of her door shutting.

Grissom waited, listening, but no more sounds came from the bedroom. What had just happened? Well, he knew what had just happened, but . . . what was it about his last question that had sent her running, when she'd seemed amused by the rest of his protests?

Well there was no way he was going to be able to sleep now!

Grissom took a moment to compose himself, then stood up and walked slowly toward Sara's room. "Sara?" he asked, knocking. "Sara, you know I'm not going to turn this doorknob now, so please just open the door so we can talk?"

"Why don't you just open it yourself?" she answered from behind the door. "Since I have no modesty, you can be sure I won't mind, even if I'm prancing around naked."

"I didn't say I thought that," Grissom said through the door.

"Might as well have."

"I didn't."

"Does it matter?"

"Yes!" he exclaimed. "It damn well does matter, Sara. I'd like to talk this out if you'd just open the door!"

Sara's voice came from directly on the other side of the door. "You never want to talk anything out, Grissom. I'm so sick of this."

Grissom paused, regrouping. A list of possible endings to this confrontation ran through his mind, and few of them were good. He might as well just take the direct route. Reaching out, Grissom turned the knob and opened the door, childishly satisfied to her it thump into Sara on the other side.

"You're dressed anyway," he announced as he walked through the doorway.

"What if I'm not?"

Grissom raised an eyebrow. "I'm looking at you and you have clothes on. That indicates to me that you're dressed." Taking her arm, he cajoled, "Please talk to me. I'm trying to master the whole discussion thing, and I can't fix my mistake until I know what I did wrong."

Sara sighed. Pulling her arm out of his grasp, she walked over to the bed and threw herself onto it, facedown and arms over her head. "Okay, talk," she muttered into the blankets.

"Why did you get so upset at what I said, all of a sudden?"

"Because, Grissom," she said flatly, raising her head a little, "you once again displayed how much you don't know about me. You, once again, made it sound like I must naturally parade around naked – with all the men that I'm obviously kissing in my spare time."

Grissom started to deny it, then thought better of it. After a moment, he said slowly, "I don't think those things of you. I don't know why I keep throwing them up at you, because I believe – I know – that you're not like that. You wouldn't kiss other men, or walk around naked to get attention."

"Do you really believe that, Gris, or are you just saying it because you know it's what you're supposed to say? Because every time we have this fight, you end with saying you don't believe I'm like that . . .  and then the next time we fight you start right up again."

Sara put her face back into the blankets, not really expecting a sensible answer, and when she felt the bed next to her give, she fought the urge to look up.

Grissom assessed his position on the bed, then slowly lay down, copying Sara's position, a foot away from her. When she didn't respond, he slid his hand up to touch her arm. "I'm trying, Sara. I am."

"You're not trying hard enough."

"I'm trying. I can't do any more than that." He groaned. "This is why I stayed away from you for so long. I knew we couldn't do this."

"Couldn't do what?" Sara asked sharply, turning over and studying his face. "What exactly do you think we're doing? Because the last time I checked, we were just trying to have a civil conversation, not planning our life together or something."

"We were discussing – we started out by discussing – your modesty or lack thereof. I don't think that's something you talk to everyone about."

"You know what?" Sara said, squeezing her eyes shut. "This was a bad idea. I don't know why I asked you to come here, anyway."

"You know what?" Grissom echoed harshly. "Maybe you shouldn't be so hard on me, how about that? If you're so obsessed with me, why are you so quick to declare that things won't work?"

Sara was silent for a moment. "We suck," she finally muttered.

Grissom blinked, unsure that he'd heard her correctly. "What?"

"I said that we suck. We're incapable of acting like humans around each other. We lack the necessary social skills."

"Not necessarily," he protested. "We're just rusty. And I happen to think we're being pretty human."

"Come on, Gris. Normal people wouldn't even be in this situation, let alone fighting about it."

"Nah," Grissom said. "We'd be like Stepford CSIs if we didn't fight like this."

"Well . . ." Sara said pensively. "If that's true . . . then how would this ever work? If we fight constantly, I mean."

"We don't fight constantly, Sara. We only fight about a few particular things. It's just that the things we fight about tend to be the thinks we think about most."

Sara lay back onto the bed. "You know what, my brain isn't up to this right now. I need sleep."

"I know. I'm sorry for starting this – and all for a blanket. I should have just slept cold."

"Oh, come on," Sara teased. "If that had happened, you wouldn't have anything tempting to dream about tonight."

Grissom's jaw dropped. Sara smiled and pushed him off the bed. "Go on, sleep."

"In a second," he said. Leaning back over the bed, he lightly kissed the corner of her mouth. "Ok, now I have something to dream about."

When Grissom shut the door behind him, Sara looked around the room incredulously. Smothering a laugh, she asked the wall, "Did he just say something romantic?"