AN: Thousand thanks to Alex for being the best beta reader in the world :hugz:

this chap is a little bit longer...but I hope you like it : )

chapter 10

Thankful that the day was finally over Sara laid down on the bed. She closed her eyes trying to forget everything else around for a while. She felt how Grissom sat down on the edge of the mattress, but she was too lazy to open her eyes again.

"We have a problem." He told her softly and she could hear how worried he was.

She hesitated for a second, but then she opened her eyes again and sat up. "A problem?"

"Three problems actually." He swallowed hard.

"And that would be?" Sara asked now also slightly worried.

"My mother makes you feel miserable. Or her questions. I...I feel so sorry for what happened during dinner tonight. I should have done something but I just didn't know what."

Sara smirked softly. "Don't worry about that. Really. It's okay. How should she have known. And to be honest, those things happen to me every day, I have to deal with it. It's not easy but it's getting easier. And..." she made a pause looking at him for a moment. She felt butterflies in her stomach, smiling to herself about the fact that he was worried because of his mother's questions. "...you did something. You held my hand. You showed me that you're there."

"I should have followed you, I should have checked up on you. I just let you leave and..."

"...you did exactly what I needed. You held my hand and then gave me the time that I needed to calm down. And...actually your mother's questions made me do something that I should have done much earlier."

He threw an asking look at Sara. "What?"

"I called my brother." A soft smile flashed over her lips. "And we talked, not much, but...we talked. For the first time in two years. And it felt so good... I never called him because I thought our past would come back and haunt me, I somehow...I somehow didn't realize that we should live in the future... and not in the past. But your mother was right... the bonds of a family are the most important ones...and that was what I needed to be reminded of." She brushed a strand of hair out of her face, a warm smile on her lips. "You can delete this problem from your list."

He whished that he could smile at her, he felt relieved that she had been able to jump over her shadow, that she had been able to call her brother and leave a part of her fears behind. But there were still these two problems that lay heavy on him. "Catherine knows it. Or better said, she saw us in the restaurant. She saw you with me and Mom... I don't know what she suspects, all I know is that she will not be able to keep this to herself."

Sara swallowed hard. "She thinks we are...involved?"

Grissom shrugged. "Probably. I mean it was an pretty obvious arrangement. You having dinner with me and my mother on Christmas Eve..."

"...could you loose your job if Ecklie would suspect us to have a relationship?", she asked with shaking voice.

He shook his head. "I doubt it. He doesn't have any evidence...maybe he'd decide to let someone else evaluate you, but he can't really do anything. It's only frown upon such a relationship, but it's not completely forbidden."

Sara nodded softly. "Could be worse."

"Do you want to be the main topic of the department gossip for the next months?"

"You know what I think about Catherine...but I really don't think that she will tell anyone about this. You two are friends, she knows that it could have consequences if someone would find out...I don't think she's like that. She wouldn't betray you. You helped her so often when she had problems with Eddie, she wouldn't dare to cause you problems on purpose."

"I love your optimism." He said softly, then looked at her. "My mother told me that I wouldn't deserve you."

"What?" Sara raised an eyebrow. "How can she say this? She's your mother! I mean..."

"...she said I wouldn't care enough, I wouldn't show you my feelings enough, I wouldn't be romantic enough."

"You should have told her that I would love you the way you are."

"I did. Didn't help. I think we..." he made a pause and swallowed hard. "...I think we need to touch each other more often in front of her."

Sara smirked, she didn't see a problem in this at all, kind of sweet of him that he thought that she would. "Okay."

"I know that...I mean you probably don't feel very comfortable with this and I wanted to keep the number of body contacts as low as possible because... I know you're already making so many sacrifices for me, you can't imagine how much I appreciate this, how thankful I am...and I...I really wanted to make it as easy as possible for you..."

"...Grissom..." Sara disrupted him. "...I do not have a problem with this. I agreed in helping you, I agreed to do you this favor...I wouldn't have done so if I would have a problem with those things."

"We should maybe make some kind of plan, like...you know when we touch or...kiss. Maybe a sign so that the other one is not completely caught off guard."

Sara raised an eyebrow. "You mean like, each time when someone says...for example 'tie'...we have to kiss and each time that someone says bubblegum we have to hug?"

"I'd choose other words, but that's a good idea.", he answered thoughtfully.

Sara cleared her throat. "I meant that ironically."

"Oh." He faked a smile. "I knew that."

Sara grinned. "Yeah yeah...I'd say that too."

Grissom rolled with his eyes. "Can we get back on topic please...this is really a serious problem Sara."

"You were the one who wanted to have a signal."

He sighed and stood up, he walked over to his closet and searched for his pyjama, trying to set his thoughts on something else. Worrying about these problems didn't help anyways.

Sara shifted her weight and grabbed for her book, she leaned against the back of the bed, sitting cross legged on the mattress.

The room lay in silence for a while, only the sounds he created while rummaging his closet and the sound of papers rubbing over each other each time she turned a page were audible and created a slow rhythm.

"Maybe we should rehearse the kissing part." He said somehow still lost in thoughts.

Sara put her book down. Had he just said what she thought he said? "What?"

"I mean...not really rehearse just...the order of the different phases and..." he said now getting slightly nervous.

"Order? Different phases? Grissom we are talking about a simple kiss here. You don't need to make a dissertation out of it. It's really easy you know, you press your lips on mine, then open your mouth, stick your tongue into my mouth and..."

"I know how to kiss Sara." He cleared his throat. Opening his mouth to say something but couldn't because she disrupted him before the first syllable had left his mouth.

"But you thought that I wouldn't?"

"What I meant with rehearsing was not rehearsing how to kiss. It was more like...we are not allowed to make an uncomfortable impression and should try to not feel too awkward while...while we kiss."

"I don't recall that anyone ever felt awkward while kissing me." She said and winked.

He couldn't help but smile. Even though he'd rather held this conversation in a serious manner, but she managed so well to drive away the unpleasant feelings this theme brought up, that he was just thankful for her sense of humor. "We could sort of re-enact a kiss just to get rid of the awkwardness." He offered.

"Re-enact?"

"Yeah, let's try to see this as a case. We're not re-enacting a rape scene but a kiss."

Sara shook her head in disbelief. "We could also just kiss. I actually don't see a problem there." She knew he did not want to kiss her tonight, she didn't want to sandbag him into it, but she wanted him to admit that he was the one who felt awkward with the situation. She knew that he didn't feel awkward because it was her he had to kiss, it was more the situation, maybe also their history and that he knew that she felt more for him than she should.

He sat down on the edge of the bed, his body close to hers but not touching it.

This is so ridiculous. But she didn't stop him, she wouldn't complain about this, she loved being close to him and this did not happen on her responsibility, he had started it, she wouldn't stop him.

"Okay. So, I...place my hands on your cheek." He held his hands on the level of her cheeks, making sure that there was enough space left between them.

Although she felt incredibly ridiculous, the butterflies in her stomach wouldn't stop flying anymore. Her heart was beating fast and hard in her chest while she inhaled his scent.

She knew that his eyes were focussed on her but she didn't dare to meet his gaze, she knew that she wouldn't be able to stand the tension between them, it was already difficult enough.

"And then I drag your face closer to mine." He moved his hands away from her face, closer to his. Then he threw a questioning look at Sara.

"What?", she asked and raised an eyebrow.

"Your face needs to follow my hands."

It was so hard to not break out into laughter and the fact that he took this deadly serious didn't help at all. She cleared her throat. "Sorry." She tried to suppress the grin on her lips but it didn't work.

"Take this serious." He placed his hand on the level of her cheeks again and repeated his movement.

This time her face followed his. The temptation to not stop in an appropriate distance from his lips grew bigger and bigger and resisting the temptation cost her all her strength.

"And then our lips meet and you open your mouth."

"I do not really have to do this now, do I?"

"You already know the answer."

Sara sighed and opened her mouth a little. "Do you also want me to close my eyes?"

"Don't speak now." He commanded softly.

Sara swallowed hard, his voice had changed and she would swear that his lips almost brushed hers as he spoke.

The tension between them was almost unbearable, she felt her heartbeat in her throat and it ran through her whole body like a bolt.

Then she felt his hands on her cheeks, her eyes almost shut completely, breathing got harder with every second that passed by and with every breath she took.

All of a sudden he closed the gap between their lips. His hands pressed her face close against his and he didn't loosen his grip. He slowly ran his tongue over her bottom lip and she opened her mouth to invite it in.

He didn't hesitate to follow her invitation, his tongue began to dance around hers, sending showers of sensations through her body.

After a while he slowly pulled away from her. She opened her eyes and their gazes met. They stared at each other for a while until Sara broke the silence. "So that is what you call re-enactment?" She smiled and winked at him, causing a soft smile to run over his lips.

TBC

I hope you liked it : )

And thanks to everyone who reviewed so far! I can't believe I got more than 100 reviews so far! I am glad that so many people like my story... special thanks to the regular reviewers!