Grissom called Brass as soon as he walked in his front door. Damned if he was going to get himself in trouble while making things easier for the guy who caused this in the first place!

"Did you explain it to her?" Brass asked when he picked up the phone, not bothering to say hello.

"I tried," Grissom said, then let his voice trail off suggestively. He wanted to drag this out, torture Brass as much as possible.

"...And?"

"She ran out before I could explain it to her. I'm not doing that again, Jim. She hates me enough as it is, I don't need you giving her more reasons to."

Brass was shocked. Grissom was an effective guy; when he'd asked him to speak to Sara, it hadn't really occurred to him that Grissom would fail. Sara almost always listened to him. "You must have said something wrong to her," he accused, trying to think of a reason, any reason, to blame this on someone else.

"Dammit, when was the last time I said something right to her? I'm not doing this again, I told you. If you want her to know the truth, you call her up and tell her."

"But Gil..."

"Do it, Jim. I'm going to check with her tonight, and if you haven't done it by then, I'm marching her over to your office and standing there while you apologize."

Brass gulped. "At least give me a hint on how to phrase it. You know her better than I do!"

"Do it," Grissom repeated, and gently lowered the phone into its cradle.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Sara had just changed into sweats in preparation for a few hours of relaxation when her doorbell rang. Her first thought was Grissom! but she immediately discounted that. What reason could he have to come to her apartment? Unless it was to apologize...which he never did.

With a sigh, she stood up and shoved her hair back from her face. "Coming!" she called to whoever was on the other side of the door. Whoever they were, they were currently knocking in a jaunty rhythm. She checked the peephole. Brass? Was he here to deliver another lecture? She swung open the door.

"You're only allowed one lecture a week, Detective, and you've already hit your limit."

Brass shuffled his feet, aware that Sara had not invited him in, as custom usually dictated, and was, in fact, blocking the doorway. "No lecture this time," he told her with a weak smile. "Actually, I'm here for an apology."

"You're what?" she said incredulously. "There's no way in hell I'm apologizing to you. I didn't do anything wrong! Why is everyone jumping down my throat today, anyway?" She would have continued on in that vein, but Brass distracted her by raising his hands in surrender.

"You've got it backwards! I'm apologizing to you, not the other way around."

Sara blinked. "Oh. Uh . . . apologizing for what, exactly?"

"Look, can I come in? Your hallway, though clean, isn't exactly the kind of place I like to hang out."

She shook her head. "No. First you tell me what's going on. Then maybe I'll let you in."

He sighed, mentally cursing Grissom for not taking care of this already. "I came to apologize."

"You already said that."

Crossing his arms, he gave her a sour look. "I'm trying to be nice here, and I gotta tell you, you're making it difficult."

She shrugged. "I'm a difficult girl. Now explain."

He took in a deep breath, let it out, and spoke: "Well, you know what I told you last night? About the rumors?"

She nodded and waited for him to go on.

"It wasn't exactly . . . true."

Sara's eyebrows shot up and her eyes narrowed. "Which part, exactly, wasn't true?" Her voice was had taken on a dangerous, silky quality.

"Mostly . . . well no, not mostly. All of it."

She stared at him. "Excuse me?"

"There isn't any rumor," he said, hoping to get through the rest of this quickly. "I made it up."

A stunned look spread over her face as she began to understand. "Why?" she asked, eyes wide. "Why would you do that to me? Did I do something to you?"

He hated this. "No, you didn't do anything. I, uh, was actually just trying to keep you in my office so I could talk to you about . . . things."

"You were going to give me another lecture on alcohol," she translated.

"Uh, well, yeah." He looked pointedly at his watch. "Oh damn, look at that. I've got to get out of here. I'm really sorry, Sara." He jogged down the hallway and, just before going through the stairwell door, he looked back and said tentatively, "I'll see you at work tonight?"

Sara slammed her door and stumbled to the couch, flopping down on it with a loud groan. Did he have any idea how much he had hurt her? She'd spent a whole day thinking that people thought that she . . . and Grissom . . .!

Finally, she just threw back her head and screamed.

Feeling a little better for having got that out, she closed her eyes and tried to think. Had Brass mentioned this lie to anyone else? Was there now an actual rumor starting?

Then something dawned on her. Grissom had known what the "rumors" were about before she told him. He was in on this.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

A furious pounding on his door roused Grissom from the troubled sleep he'd fallen into on his recliner. Cracking open one eye, he wondered who in the world would bang on his door in the middle of the "night."

"This better be good," he muttered, rubbing his neck where his awkward sleeping position had left it stiff. "What?" he growled when he pulled open the door.

Sara was standing on the front stoop. "I woke you up?" she said.

Sara? What the hell...? "You should be asleep too," he managed with a vague nod. "You have to work tonight."

"I might be providing one of the cases tonight."

That got his attention. "I beg your pardon?"

"I said," she began, advancing on him without warning, "that I might be providing one of the cases tonight. Depending on what you have to say for yourself in the next five minutes or so."

He automatically backed up a step, but he was still too drowsy to try to puzzle out what she had just said. "In," he ordered, motioning her in the door. "If you're going to murder me, don't do it in front of the neighbors."

"Fine." She followed him through the foyer, waiting for him to say something - to ask what the hell she was doing here.

He didn't. He just sat down in the recliner he'd vacated only a minute ago and looked at her expectantly. When she didn't move to sit down anywhere, he shrugged and waited.

After thirty seconds, she lost patience with the staring contest. "Are you going to ask me why I showed up at your house for no apparent reason?"

"I was considering it," he acknowledged, running a hand through his rumpled hair. "But are you going to tell me, if I ask?"

"Why don't you tell me," she said acidly. "I had a visitor tonight. Want to take a guess as to who it was?"

He finally made the connection. Brass had talked to her, and she'd figured out that Grissom had been gone along with it. Damn! "Brass," he said tiredly. "I told him to talk to you."

"Would you like to explain to me why you and he thought it would be a good idea to feed me a complete lie? Maybe you thought I wasn't getting enough stress in my life?"

"I didn't do it! Jim made it all up. I had no idea he'd even talked to you until he called me when you left."

" 'After the fact' still counts, Grissom," she pointed out. "And why did he call you?"

"He may be slow, but he's not stupid. He could tell he'd screwed up and upset you."

She shook her head disbelievingly and, refusing to be distracted, repeated, "And he called you . . . why?"

Grissom sighed. "He wanted me to deal with you."

"But you didn't. Instead, you continued to lie to me."

"I -"

"And you told me you were looking at it as 'an interesting experiment'."

She hid it well, but he could see that the wound had cut deep. "I'm sorry," he said helplessly.

"I don't understand you, Grissom. Why did you have to lie to me? Brass asked you to tell me the truth. I wouldn't have blamed you; you would have been delivering the truth about something that wasn't your fault. Instead, you played along when I talked about it." Her face hardening, she asked, "Was it fun for you, to put something over on pathetic, workaholic Sara? Was that it?"

"No! No, it wasn't 'fun' for me. I . . . I just . . ." He sighed. "I just didn't want to upset you."

"Well, you did."

"I can see that. And I apologize, really. It wasn't well done of me."

His acknowledgement of this threw her off-balance. She had come to his house prepared to rant for as long as it took, knowing that Grissom rarely admitted he was wrong when it came to dealing with people. She hadn't taken into account the possibility that he might actually apologize with little prompting. Now what was she supposed to do? After a few seconds, she just nodded to him and said, "Ok."

Grissom blinked. " 'Ok'? That's all you're going to say? I'm apologizing to you, Sara!"

"I know," she said, faking a calm she didn't feel. "And thank you for that." There was no reason for her to stay here now that he'd apologized, she reminded herself. If she hung around, it would just be awkward. Giving him what she hoped was a casual, friendly smile, she headed for the door, saying, "So I guess I'll just . . ."

"You don't have to go," he said quickly, trailing behind her. "Really."

"You know that would just make things weird," she said quietly. "I should go. I'll see you at work." Reaching for the doorknob, she purposely turned her face away from him.

Before she could turn the knob, he covered her hand with his own. "Stay," he said, trying not to sound like he was pleading. "For a couple of minutes," he added when he saw her hesitate. "You can leave if things get 'weird'."

Slowly, she pulled her hand out from under his and returned it to her side. Without turning to face him, she said, "What for?"

That threw Grissom. He didn't have a reason to give her; he was operating mostly on impulse at this point. "Well . . ." She stiffened at the sound of his voice, he noticed. Not good. "Because I'd like to . . . talk to you."

"Sorry, but I'm not up for another lecture, from Brass or you." She reached for the doorknob again.

Not giving himself time to think about it, he put his hands on her waist and gently pulled her back into the foyer. "Please."

She jumped at his touch and spun around to meet his eyes, forcing him to move his hands. "You just want to talk? No lecture or questions about my . . . problems?"

"None."

Letting out a breath, she allowed herself to relax a little. "Ok. For a few minutes."

"Good," he said, holding in a sigh of relief. "Come back to the living room?"

She reluctantly followed him back into the room, her mind working furiously the whole time. Sitting down on the leather sofa he motioned her to, she jumped right into the heart of things. "What do you want to talk about?"

Grissom thought about that for a second. What did he want to talk to her about? "I really am sorry," was all he could come with at the moment.

Sara wasn't impressed. "You already said that. And I said it's ok."

"I know. I just wanted to say it again, because now that I've talked to you, I can see that you're hurting."

"I'm not hurting," she said reflexively. She had a lot of experience denying things when it came to Grissom. After five years, it was starting to come naturally.

"You came to my house in the middle of the day, more furious than I've ever seen you be at someone who's not a criminal. Either we hurt you, or you're about to go 'Ed Gein' and I'm just your first visit of the day."

His mention of the serial killer startled a laugh out of her. Eyeing him appraisingly, she said slowly, "Now that you mention it, you might make a good lampshade."

Only Sara, he thought. Only Sara would not only catch the reference, but turn it back on me. "Not bad," he told her. "But don't change the subject. We were talking about how Brass and I hurt you."

"Brass could be a wastebasket," she said, not wanting to return to the real subject of discussion. "Actually, two wastebaskets."

"Sara, come on. Talk to me."

She looked at him like he'd grown a second head. Since when did he invite confidences? "You're not interested in what I have to say, believe me."

"Yes, I am." Catching her dubious look, he leaned back in his chair and sighed. "Really."

"Since when?"

"Since now," he said firmly. "Now, can we please focus?"

"On what?"

"On you, to start. I told you that I could tell I'd upset you; you denied it," he summarized. "I responded that I could tell from your demeanor that you'd been hurt."

"And I deny that too," she said flatly.

He wasn't getting anywhere. Time to mentally regroup. "Would you like a cup of coffee?"

Unprepared for the sudden subject change, she just stared blankly at him for a few seconds. "Coffee?"

"You do drink coffee, right?" He couldn't possibly get such a small thing about her wrong . . . could he?

"Yes, I drink coffee. You know that. You just caught me by surprise. I was expecting you to go on telling me how I was feeling."

She scored a point with that one, and Grissom winced imperceptibly. "Well then, this is good. I'll make coffee and you can start telling me how you were feeling, instead."

"Grissom!"

"Fine. For the duration of the coffee drinking, I won't bring up what happened today," he allowed. "But no fair dragging the drinking out for hours."