Grissom was in his pajamas, tossing a pillow onto the futon, when Sara emerged from her bedroom later that day. He paused, looked up at her, then very deliberately looked back down at his bed and started arranging the blankets.

"I get the hint, Grissom," Sara informed him. "You're mad at me. I know. I just…wanted to ask you a favor."

Lowering himself onto the mattress, he looked at her enquiringly. "Oh? And what might that be?"

"Could we…sit?"

Looking pointedly down at himself, Grissom said, "I'm already sitting. Got any other requests?"

"Not like that. I mean can we just...I don't know. Just sit together and not talk and not fight?"

"I was getting ready to go to sleep. I have a long day of unpaid work to do tomorrow."

"Would you just stop? You're pissed, I get the message. Fine, give me the silent treatment - I don't want you to talk to me. I just want you to touch me."

Grissom's eyes must have bugged out almost as much as he felt like they did, because his reaction brought a suppressed smile to Sara's face. "Not like that. I'm not going to rape you. I just literally want to be touching someone. Holding hands, leaning against him." She paused. "Ok I didn't mean 'someone.' I meant you. I don't know how to explain it better."

"You want me to...touch you. Non-sexually. For no reason whatsoever?" he asked dubiously.

Giving up on trying to explain herself, Sara sat herself on the mattress next to him, moving slowly to allow him plenty of time to pull away. When he didn't, she scooted closer and tentatively laid her hand over his.

"Sara," Grissom said, pulling his hand away, "you know that conversation we had today about you using me?" When Sara nodded warily, he raised his eyebrows at her hand and continued, "You're doing it again."

"I'm not!" Frustrated, she stood up again and looked down at him. "I am not using you. We fought, Gris, and I'm upset by it, and I want to have contact with you so I know you don't suddenly hate me or something."

"I don't hate you. You obviously know I couldn't hate you even if I worked at it. I fail to see your point."

Infuriated by his purposeful obtuseness, she gritted her teeth and said, "Fine, then. Enjoy your sleep," then turned her back on him and headed for her bedroom.

"Sara."

Pausing in the doorway, she looked back at him and said, without allowing him to speak, "Maybe I screwed up a little - maybe. But that still doesn't give you the right to take pleasure in shooting me down when I try to make things better." With that, she moved inside the room and shut the door, perhaps a little too hard.

Grissom sat for a minute, thinking about what had just happened. Had he taken pleasure in it? Ok, well, a little - but he didn't know why that was so wrong, when she had enjoyed using him so much.

But he was losing sight of his goal, he acknowledged after another minute. He was getting so caught up in who was mad at who for doing what to whom that he was forgetting that his ultimate goal was to win Sara's affections, not to win the battles they fought. With a sigh, he stood up and walked to the kitchen, where he hunted out a bag of popcorn and put it in the microwave. He'd bring a peace offering when he went to her this time.

He was making himself a snack, Sara realized. He was sitting in her living room and nonchalantly cooking himself some popcorn, proud of having browbeaten her into silence. Disgusted, she snatched up the t-shirt she hadn't put on yet for fear of embarrassing him were he to walk in and apologize, and yanked off the light sweater she'd been wearing. It was tossed into the corner, soon joined by her bra and trousers as Sara, more hurt than she allowed herself to acknowledge, prepared to spend a night without the human contact she had tried to ask for.

Her first thought when she stood up from selecting a book from her nightstand and saw the doorknob slowly turning was "Oh for god's sake, not again." Her second was "This is his problem, not mine." Pretending she had seen nothing, she settled on her bed, leaning against two pillows, and opened the book to where she had left off. She heard Grissom's intake of breath as he saw her state of partial undress and, without looking up, she said, "In or out. Pick one."

"Huh?" was all Grissom could manage as he realized that he'd done it again, and this time it had been completely his own fault. Sara was lying on her bed in a t-shirt and, apparently, nothing else (though he refused to stare long enough to confirm that suspicion), and he hadn't even bothered to knock this time. He had no excuse!

She looked up and said testily, "I said, 'in or out.' Decide whether your precious sensibilities are offended and either sit down or leave me alone." That said, she returned her attention to Clive Cussler's latest.

Grissom inched forward, feeling like he was definitely missing either the lesson she intended to teach or the punchline she intended to convey. "I figured you'd be in bed already," he tried to explain, holding the bowl of popcorn out to her. "And covered up, I mean."

She was sick of him and of this. "If seeing me in my pajamas offends you so much, get the hell out. This is my house and this is how I sleep." She didn't reach for the popcorn.

Taking a moment to compose himself, Grissom looked at her face. "Can we call a truce, please?"

"You're the one who's mad at me, Grissom, remember? I'm 'using' you, and you're too good to listen to me apologize or even be friendly with me."

"You wanted me to touch you," he said tentatively, offering the popcorn again.

Taking the bowl from him with a sigh, she set it on the nightstand. "I did, yes. However, I've changed my mind since then."

"It's only been five minutes."

"You've changed your mind on bigger things in less time. Don't deny me the same right."

"I'm not trying to deny you anything."

Sara snorted. "Could have fooled me. Go away, Grissom - you've made your point multiple times tonight." Picking up the plastic bowl, she added, "And take your food with you."

Taking a deep breath, Grissom overcame his almost-overpowering embarrassment and forced himself to walk further into the room. "I'm not trying to make a point. I'm just going to try to give you what you asked for."

Her attention caught, Sara set the book face-down on her lap. "And why would you do that, when you just spent ten minutes insulting me and telling me that I was just using you as some sort of sex toy?"

"I didn't say anything about a sex toy."

"Grissom! You're ridiculous. Look," she said more calmly, "things are getting worse, not better. Maybe we should think about sending you home. I haven't even managed to get you off the cigarettes, and you've been here for two weeks."

"I don't want to go home, Sara," he said quietly, sitting gingerly on the edge of the bed. "I like being here with you."

"You could have fucking fooled me!" Sara bit out, completely fed up with his mood swings. "If not for your sake, maybe you need to leave for mine. Since you've been here, no one from Vegas has contacted me, my boss read me the riot act over having a guest here, and my staff is beginning to doubt my competence...hell, I'm beginning to doubt my competence."

"Who doesn't think you're competent?" he asked harshly.

"Doesn't matter." She turned onto her side, so that her stomach was almost touching his hip as he struggled to keep from losing his tenuous grip on the bed. "I'm sick of this, Grissom. At least when I was in Vegas I knew the score - you weren't interested; I was. Nowadays, we seem to be trading those positions daily. I'm just so tired of it. The last thing I need in my life is more instability."

Grissom was out of arguments. Instead of answering her, he picked up the remote control to her TV and pressed the power button.

"Do not tell me you just invaded my bedroom so you could watch my TV instead of the one you already have in front of your futon."

In answer, he pushed himself further onto the bed, forcing Sara to either move over to accommodate him or end up with him on top of her. "Nope."

"Then what are you doing?"

"Touching you," he said simply, pulling up on Sara's shoulders to lift her off the pillows. He slipped an arm under her neck, then allowed her to lie back again. With the hand that was now under her head, he brushed a lock of hair off her cheek. "How's this?"

"Grissom..."

"Shh. My turn to be apologetic until we turn the tables again."

"We shouldn't be fighting so much. There's someone wrong with that."

"Sara," he said seriously, looking down at her, "I distinctly remember hearing you say that you wanted to touch, not talk."

She opened her mouth to respond, then realized that she had, indeed, said that, and closed it again. Instead of speaking, she laid her head back against his hand, savoring the warmth it provided, and at the same time snatched the remote control from his hand. Flipping through the channels, she settled on Court TV, which was airing an episode of Forensic Files.

"For heaven's sake," Grissom said, surprised at her choice, "don't we get enough of this at work?"

"It's good for relaxing. Lets me go on autopilot," she explained. "Ok, now officially no more talking from either of us." She smiled slightly and relaxed as Grissom's hand continued to stroke her cheek. Unsure of where to put her own hand, which was trapped between their bodies, she laid her arm back toward their heads and rubbed at his five o'clock shadow with one finger. When this elicited no protest from him, she continued while turning slightly onto her side, facing him, and simply watching him.

"What?" he asked, bemused by her study of him.

"Shh," she ordered. Her hand drifted from his chin to his cheek and then back down, tracing his jawline.

Grissom could feel the hairs on the back his neck beginning to stand up from her gentle yet somehow intense touch. Growing more confident, he allowed his own hand to move downward to cup her shoulder, rubbing it gently and urging her closer to him.

The more he experienced it, the more he liked this no-talking-just-touching thing. It was as though now that they'd both shut their mouths, their hands could express the tenderness they felt for each other that their voices wouldn't.

He felt the shoulder he was touching lift slightly off the bed and found that Sara was turning more toward him. He was still flat on his back, while she was now almost completely on her side. She carefully switched hands so that the hand that had been touching him was now supporting her head while her other hand, which had been dormant, was used to touch him, and trailed the fingers of this hand lightly through his hair.

Shivering at her touch, he began, "Sar-" but hushed himself this time without being told. Uncertain of what to do now, he reached for the popcorn on her nightstand and set the bowl between them. Sara, distracted from her examination of his hair, looked down at the plastic thing now separating them and then looked back up at him, smirking. She took a handful of popcorn and raised her hand to his mouth. Grissom shook his head "no," but she refused to move her hand and began to pry his lips open.

Caught between laughter and distress, Grissom allowed her to stuff the popcorn into his mouth, then promptly reached down for his own handful, which he fed to his attacker. To his shock, instead of allowing him to have his hand back after he had put the food in her mouth, Sara caught and held it while she chewed and swallowed, then raised it to her lips. Afraid she was going to bite his fingers as revenge, Grissom tried to retrieve the digits, but Sara kept her hold and, closing the gap between it and her lips, kissed his fingers lightly.

His eyes widened. She had kissed his hand in an almost worshipful manner. What was he supposed to read from that? Sara was simply looking up at him, smiling slightly. For lack of anything better to do, Grissom picked up the bowl again and set it on the nightstand next to him. She was still just looking at him, and he allowed himself the indulgence of reaching over and cupping her cheek with his free hand. It was a giddy feeling, he reflected, just to be free to touch her after so long, and he became even giddier when Sara responded to his touch by throwing her arm over his chest and snuggling her face into his neck, then heaving a deep sigh.

Knowing that he was breaking their rule of silence, yet concerned about where this was going, he whispered, "Sara?"

"Hmm," she answered. "Not raping you. Might doze off, though - if I do, don't leave."

As if he wanted to be anywhere except here, with Sara clinging to him.