Disclaimer: I don't own CSI or any of its characters.

Summary: While swing shift has to work on several killings of a serial murderer,

everybody starts to wonder if Greg and Sara are not telling them something. (Sara/Greg)

Thanks to ObessedTWFan, remoob1513, Tripp3235 and Jorja White for their reviews.

And of course thanks to FongSaiYuk319 for beta-reading. Remaining mistakes are mine.

Chapter 8 - Not easy to understand

Unsuccessful, disappointed, and fed up with paperwork, Catherine left her office well after mid-night, only to run into Sara in the hallway. Despite her rather bad mood, remembering the conversation with Nick, she decided to be nice and try to make a friendly talk with the brunette woman.

Sara was carrying some files and had only greeted Catherine shortly, but the red-blonde woman smiled and began, "You had a nice day?"

Sara frowned briefly, but smiled then slightly, too. "Yeah, yeah, quite nice." She wondered where Catherine's friendly trip came from.

"You were out?" Catherine wanted to know.

"No."

Even if she had not known the true answer yet, Catherine could have guessed that something was not right, as Sara negated the question definitely too fast.

Catherine wondered why Sara did negate it, it seemed rather pointless to her, but she decided against further inquiry and she did not actually have the opportunity to ask further questions as Sara smiled briefly again, and then returned to a serious expression and hurried away.

She walked into the break room where she met Nick, who had lost track of time in a way, while chatting with Warrick, who had just departed and left Nick alone in the room. "Hey Sara," he greeted, cheerful to see her.

"Hey, Nick." Sara was much more pleased to see Nick than she had been to see Catherine in whose presence she always seemed to remember the occasions when both the woman had not gotten along at all.

She enjoyed chatting with Nick, who did not seem to be in a hurry to get home at all. She drank some coffee and while talking with the Texan she browsed the files she had brought with her, despite being on break.

"You work too much," Nick said suddenly, in a serious voice.

Sara smiled, continuing to reading the paper that lay in front of her. "Yeah, and I gotta go out more. I know that, Nick."

Nick laughed. "I didn't want to say that. I know that you were today-"

Sara opened her mouth to cut him off, negating it, but realized that it was pointless. She told herself that it did not make sense to act this way, after all she had only met Greg in a café for a conversation, nothing to encourage gossip in the lab, right?

Chuckling Nick stated, "Somebody saw you. No need for denial."

Sara frowned. "What if I just went somewhere alone?"

Nick grinned and inquired, "Do I know him?"

Sara shook her head.

Nick stood up from the couch, strode to her and patted her on her shoulder. "Take care," he said. Sara nodded silently and Nick left.

Some hours later Sara was walking slowly along the hallway. She had not seen Greg all night, as he was out on a scene with Sofia again.
Sara realized that Greg actually seemed to be paired up with Sofia more often than with her lately, and was slightly annoyed about the fact.

She could not deny that she liked working with him. Actually she had even told him that, she remembered, relieved that she had been able to be at least a little nice and open towards him, what sometimes appeared to be hard for her.

"Sara," she heard Grissom's voice from behind her. She turned around to face him. "Would you come to my office, please?"

Sara frowned slightly. "What's up?"

"I want to talk to you alone," Grissom insisted.

Sara nodded and followed him to his office, they entered it and Grissom sat down behind his desk. "Please close the door and sit down."

Sara did so, worried. What did he want to talk to her about?

"Brass told me about the hit-and-run," Grissom started.

"And?" Sara asked blankly.

"I wanted to make sure you're fine."

Since when did he care for her feelings? Sara thought, slightly irritated. But then she decided to be not unfair. "Yeah, I'm fine. Why do you ask?"

"If there are any problems …," Grissom began.

"There aren't any," Sara said decisively.

Grissom sighed and put down his glasses. He leaned a little over and looked at her intensively, with a worried expression. "Please don't go alone to crime scenes … and not in your free time either."

Sara's stomach turned to ice, while she felt her face getting hot.

"You know it's dangerous -," Grissom got never the chance to finish this sentence, as Sara was jumping up and running out of the office without any more words.

She ran along the hallway, barely realizing what was going on around her. She felt numb, the anger though quickly boiling up in her. It was focused on exactly one person.

She saw this person standing in the hallway some steps in front of her. Tears of anger threatened to come, but she suppressed them, swallowing the lump in her throat. She set on a despising expression and starred at him. After some seconds she hurried past him, the anger rising even more.

She gritted her teeth, as she was not far from crying. She would not cry in front of him, he was not worth crying, he was just like all the other guys that had betrayed her confidence, as he had told their boss of her working on the scene alone. She knew it had been stupid, dangerous actually, but that did not change the fact that he had told Grissom despite promising her not to do so, probably knowing very well what awkward situations it might cause.

"Sara," Greg called.

She did not stop. Another thing that fell in place for her now were Nick's questions earlier that night. Greg must have showed off with her meeting him, probably having a good laugh with his Texan colleague about it.

"Sara, what's wrong?" she heard him call again.

Sara began to wonder how much of her relationship with Greg was already going on around the lab, imagining embarrassed everybody knowing about her kissing him in the locker room. She should have known. Greg had flirted with her for years, the others never thinking he had a chance with her. It must have been great for him to tell them how she had fallen for him.

She turned around abruptly. "Don't play dumb, Greg," she spat.

"What?" Greg said helpless, his eyes widened.

"Do you know how awkward this was?" she yelled at him.

"What?" Greg repeated, wearing an expression of deepest puzzlement.

"What about Grissom summoning me to his office and telling me like a little girl what's dangerous," she declared infuriated.

"I don't under –, " Greg started, lost.

" 'Don't go to the scene alone'," Sara tried to quote Grissom in a fierce voice. "'And not in your free time either'. I thought he did not know," she spat, barely able to keep her voice down. "That was so embarrassing."

Greg's shoulders dropped, he closed his eyes shortly. "Well, it's dangerous after all-", he started in a calming voice, but was interrupted by the ringing of Sara's cell phone.

"Sidle," Sara answered it, trying to calm down a little for the phone call. After some seconds of listening she said, "Yeah, good," and shut the phone out.

She turned away from Greg and walked back the way she had come, Greg following after her.

She found Grissom coming out of his office, giving her a short look of concern. Sara decided to act as if the conversation some minutes ago had never happened. Greg had come to a halt next to her, wearing an asking expression.

"Brass called me some minutes ago," Sara stated, "he got a warrant for the house."

Grissom nodded. "Good. Take Greg with you."

Sara gritted her teeth, but said nothing. She hurried away, Greg on her toes. "Sar-,"

Without turning around to him, Sara hissed, "Stop it, Sanders. We have to work now."

They did not change a single word during the drive to the house.

Greg sat in silence. He had understood now why Sara was so angry, or at least he understood it partly. Grissom had obviously talked to her about her lone trip to the scene and she thought that Greg had told him about it.

Greg sighed silently, watching Sara, who was driving, out of the corner of his eyes. He had to make her understand that it had not been him. And he had to find out what else was behind Sara's fury. He did not dare to start the topic during the drive as Sara had to concentrate on driving. Yelling at Greg – something she would most likely do again, Greg assumed – would not be helpful for that.

Sara parked the car and Greg could see Brass standing together with two other police officers on the other side of the street. There was also a tall man with them who wore a suit and was talking angrily to Brass who listened calmly.

Sara got out of the car without acknowledging Greg's presence but slamming the door behind her shut.

When Greg walked behind Sara to the other side of the road, he could hear the suit-wearing man saying, "My client isn't in favor of an intruding into his property-"

Brass nodded calmly, "You've mentioned this before. And I told you already that we have a warrant. And I'm sure your client isn't in favor of dead bodies in his backyard either."

He saw Sara and Greg approaching and greeted them briefly. Pointing at the man next to him, he stated, "This is Mr. Dickson. He is the realtor of this house."

He turned to the man he had just introduced. "Now open the door please, Mr. Dickson."

Starting again to complain, the realtor did so. Smoothing his black jacket, he walked inside, Brass and the two police men and then Sara and Greg following them.

Both police men immediately walked into the next room and disappeared from sight.

"What are they doing?" the realtor wanted to know irritated.

"They clear the scene," Brass replied simply.

Mr. Dickson's face became red out of anger. "This is no crime scene," he declared.

"We'll see," Brass said laconically.

"That is impudent!" the realtor declared.

Brass's expression was calm. Matter-of-factly he said, "I'll explain it to you once more: the body of a murdered woman was found in the backyard that can be reached through the alley next to this house and we have reason to believe that she was killed inside this house."

"Rubbish. However, do I know her?" Mr. Dickson said coldly.

"Be careful," Brass declared.

Sara broke into the conversation. "We could not identify her yet."

"Maybe you can," Brass said eagerly.

Sara packed out some pictures that had been taken of the dead woman. Brass took one of them and showed it to the realtor.

"No, I don't know her and whoever this bitch-"

"Be careful, Mr. Dickson. I say it again: be careful what you're saying," Brass declared sharply.

Greg thought that this warning was appropriate in more than one way, as he could see that Sara frowned deeply, a very angry expression on her face. She already wanted to rip off Greg's head, so it did not seem to be a good idea to anger her even more.

At this moment the two police men returned. Brass nodded to Sara and she walked into the next room, Greg following her.

The room was completely empty, which was no surprise, as the house was not inhabited.

Sara walked to the far end of the room. She put on gloves and opened the window in front of her. She looked out of it and down into the backyard. Then she shut the window and Greg asked, "What are you searching for?"

"I found blood on the wall. I'm searching for the window where it came from, of course."

Greg nodded, remembering the night when they had found the blood on the wall. He followed Sara in the next room that lay on the right side of the previous one. Greg noticed that it had two doors leading into it like the other room where they had been before and that in contrast to the previous room several pieces of furniture stood in there. One door was on the left side, through which they had just entered the room and one was opposite of the window, on Greg's right side.

Sara walked to the window and opened it. She looked out and then she opened her kit and got out the luminol that she used to spray the window frame.

Greg watched her silently. Sara looked up to him. "Don't stand around. Get to work," she snarled.

"Sara, whatever it is, I'm sure we can talk this out."

"Sanders, you're at work, I'm in charge and I tell you to move your butt and get to work."

Greg fell silent, opened his kit and put on gloves. He strode to the window where Sara was standing. He looked at the frame of the window. The luminol showed traces of blood; Sara took a sample and bagged it.

At the edge of the frame she could see white fibers that looked suspiciously like the fibers that she had found on the body.

About ten feet away from where Sara was standing, on direct line between the window and the door on the other side of the room, Greg found what looked like a piece of cloth. He crouched to pick it up. "But Sara-"

"Shut up, Sanders, or you'll be in trouble," Sara spat in a very angry tone, still using the impersonal surname.

She said nothing more.

Greg stood up, still looking on the piece in his gloved hands, though his thoughts were not completely there.

He looked up from it to Sara. "Do you-," he started, but then he froze. What was happening here? Why did Sara stare at him? Why was her look so full of hate? And why - Greg had to remind himself to breathe - why was Sara pointing a gun at him?

TBC