Disclaimer: Characters contained within do not belong to me, dontcha know?

Author's Notes: Thanks to everyone who's still reading my little story. I appreciate all the sweet feedback.

Giving Up

by Kristen Elizabeth

Grissom handled the pliers with all the sensitive skill of a surgeon preparing for the first cut. He adjusted his grip, anchored his target, readjusted his grip, took a moment to prepare…

"Are you going to cut the lock or what?"

He glanced at his partner. Sara sat at his side, arms tightly crossed over her lab coat as she waited for him. "No moment of reverence for the deceased girl and the secrets she tried to lock away from the world?" She shrugged. "All right, then." With one clean snip, Grissom did away with the tiny padlock.

Sara immediately reached for the diary. "Finally." She began flipping through the pink pages. "Okay…she dotted her 'i's' with hearts. Under normal circumstances, that might make me puke."

"The last few entries will likely tell us the most," Grissom noted.

Nodding impatiently, Sara stopped at a particular spot and spread the diary out in front of them. "This entry's dated two weeks before she disappeared." Clearing her throat, she read, "'The unthinkable has happened and I can't tell anyone. I always thought it could never be my problem. I wish I knew what to do'."

"She doesn't mention what's happened?"

Sara turned a few pages back. "No. The entry before that…she's just talking about a party." She paused. "Maybe whatever it is happened at the party."

"Let's keep reading before we come up with any theories."

"Two days later…'I went to the place Amber told me about and I feel a lot better. She's a good friend. I know she won't tell anyone. I'd die if my parents found out. I just want to put it all behind me now'," Sara continued reading.

Grissom removed his glasses and pinched the bridge of his nose. "I thought girls kept detailed diaries. This isn't giving us much of anything."

"Not all girls keep diaries," she snapped. "I never did. I mean, what was I going to write in one? 'Dear Diary, today a girl in school tried to start a fight with me because I got an A on the math test'."

He half-smiled. "I nearly got beaten up over a show-and-tell ant farm. Kids are ruthless."

"And yet people keep breeding." Sara shook her head. "We need to find this Amber. She knows what happened to Julia."

"I'll get Brass on it." Seconds slipped by in awkward silence. "How are you, Sara?"

She raised her arm and waved it around. "No more cast."

"I did notice that," he replied, dryly.

"Well, no offense but it's hard to tell what you might or might not have noticed, Grissom."

"I know I can be somewhat…obtuse."

Sara snorted delicately. "Somewhat."

"Have I done something to make you angry? Recently?" Grissom sought out her eyes, but she purposely looked away. "You seem very on edge."

"That's me, on the edge." She stood. "I haven't been sleeping well the past couple of nights, that's all. Nothing more."

He didn't believe her for a minute, but he let it go and changed the subject. "Well, with the roommate's blood on the diary explained away…"

Sara cut in. "We're really buying that she cut her finger trying to break into it?"

"There's no evidence to prove otherwise." He took a breath and continued, "With that question out of the way, we need to focus on what's probative."

"The pubic hair, the diary, the new witness." She stood up. "Got it."

Grissom didn't want to watch her walk away, but his eyes were drawn to her like she was a flame and he was a moth. Right then, he would have given anything he owned to be able to see into her thoughts. Or at least for the ability to be able to ask her the right questions to get her to talk. The past week had been hell between them, and while he blamed a lot of it on himself and his comments to her in Julia's dorm room, there was something else. Something that was entirely Sara. She'd been carrying around an extra weight lately, like there was something on her mind that she couldn't reconcile.

If she didn't let go of it soon, Grissom wasn't sure what would happen to her, but it probably wouldn't be good.

He sighed and looked back down at Julia's diary. The hearts dotting her "i's" were rather annoying.

In the women's bathroom, Sara splashed her face with cold water. The shock was like a slap, but she took it without wincing. With water dripping off her chin, she stared at herself in the mirror. There were dark circles under her eyes. Admittedly, that was nothing new, but they'd never seemed so prominent before. Her cheeks were pale; she hadn't bothered with makeup that day. Or the day before. Or the day before that. What was the point in dolling herself up? There was no one to impress. The last time she'd carefully prepared her appearance, she'd woken up the next morning in a hotel bed feeling like a two-dollar whore.

Sara patted her face dry with a paper towel. How had she managed to mess up so badly? Hadn't her near DUI taught her anything about drinking? When she drank, she tended to lose some of her control. She made bad choices. She got behind the wheel. She let herself fall into bed with a stranger.

She hurtled the crumpled up paper into the wastebasket with all of her might.

"Nice curve," Catherine said as she entered the bathroom. "Ever play softball?"

Sara closed her eyes briefly. She was not in the mood for Catherine. "I'm not joining the lab's team. I don't care how badly the PD team needs to be taken down."

"Please. Do I look like a woman who spends her Saturdays running bases?" Catherine set her purse down on the sink next to Sara's and rummaged through it until she found a tube of lip gloss. "Either you're here really late, or I'm here really early."

"Grissom and I were working. We must have lost track of the time." Through the mirror, Sara watched Catherine carefully apply a coat of gloss to her lips. "I'll get out of your way."

"You're not in my way," Catherine said. She capped the gloss and turned her full attention onto the younger woman. "So. What's been bugging you for the past week or so?"

"Bugging me?" Sara folded her arms defensively. "Nothing's been bugging me."

"Uh, yeah."

Her all-knowing tone irked Sara to no end. "Even if there was something bugging me, how would you know? I haven't seen you in weeks."

"I hear things, Sara."

She rolled her eyes. "God, sometimes this place is just like being back in junior high."

"Actually Nick did tell me something awhile back about setting you up with one of his friends." Catherine pushed her perfect bangs out of her eyes. "How did that go?"

Sara looked down at her shoes; the black boots clashed with the mint green tiles. "I'd rather not talk about it."

"That bad, huh? Weird. I would have thought all of Nick's friends were like him. Gentlemen and all that."

"There's no such thing," Sara muttered. Her arms tightened around her slender frame protectively.

It was a subtle move that Catherine immediately picked up on. "You sure you don't want to talk about it?"

"No offense, but it's really not any of your business."

Catherine smiled slyly. "None taken. But isn't it true that the most interesting business is usually none of your own?" Sara had no reply. "Look, I'm not going to pretend that you and I have some sort of female bond that compels us to gather in the ladies room and dish about men and shoes and tampon brands, but if something's really bothering you, it's probably best to get it off your chest. And really, who else are you going to talk to? Sofia?"

"Hell no."

"I didn't think so," the older woman laughed at Sara's vehemence.

Sara glanced up. "Why do you care? You don't even really like me."

"I don't have many girlfriends, Sara. Okay, any really. Even when I danced, I was mostly in competition with women for whales and tips. My only real girlfriend died a long time ago and I never found a replacement for a lot of reasons. It's a lot easier for me to be friends with a man than with a woman."

"I can see that."

"So would you give me a break and let me have a girl moment here? It might do us both some good." Sara replied by shrugging her shoulders. "And just so you know," Catherine continued. "I haven't actively disliked you in a long time."

"Well. That's something, I guess."

The decision to tell Catherine about her date and what had happened on it came quickly and before she knew it, the story came flooding out like some internal dam had broken.

"It wasn't rape," she finished up. "I never said no."

"You were drunk," Catherine laid it out in the simplest terms. "You weren't in the right frame of mind to say yes or no."

Sara shook her head. "It was my choice to drink. He didn't force the champagne down my throat."

"He might as well have."

"I wish it was that simple. I almost wish I could point my finger at him and cry 'rape'." She bit her lip. "But I can't. I enjoyed it. Well…most of it."

Catherine sighed. "C'mon, Sara. You know better than that. Let's put it this way. What would you say to a sixteen year old girl who told you this same story?"

"I'd tell her…she was raped," Sara admitted in a soft voice. "But she would be a minor. I am definitely not."

"Sara…"

"I won't report it, Catherine." She stood up, her body visibly trembling. "Don't ask me to. It was a mistake, not rape. I should have been...more controlled. I can't justify an accusation of rape to myself, much less to anyone else."

"Look at yourself, Sara. You're a wreck."

"Thanks, girlfriend."

Catherine sighed again at the sarcasm. "Well, you look like one, at least. I could pack my entire wardrobe into those bags under your eyes. And thin might be in, but you're getting downright skinny."

"Say the woman who could cut glass with her hipbones."

"Okay, no more talk! Just listen." Catherine approached the taller CSI. "You're an intelligent, independent woman. And it must be killing you knowing that someone took advantage of you." A sudden shimmer in Sara's eyes gave away the truth. "If you bottle all of this up much longer, you're going to explode. And with Ecklie in charge, any meltdown could mean the end of your career."

"I don't…" Sara closed her eyes and twin tears spilled down her cheeks. "I don't know what to do."

Catherine's first instinct was to comfort her with a motherly hug, but she was pretty sure that Sara was not the hugging type. So she merely patted her arm. "We'll figure it out."

Neither woman had noticed Sofia entering on silent feet, and neither of them noticed when she left the same way.

When Greg first heard the rumor that Sara was on the verge of a metal breakdown, he laughed. It was absurd. Sara had issues, sure, but who didn't? So what if she flipped out on a wife abuser or serial child molester every now and then? He dared anyone to see everything Sara had over the course of her career and be able to maintain perfect detachment. Even Grissom had pressure points. Put him in a room with a dealer who sold to kids and he was a different man.

The next time he heard the rumor, he was in the break room, searching for his misplaced ham and cheese sandwich. Intuitively, he knew that Hodges had probably eaten it, but when he picked up on a hushed conversation between two lab techs, he kept up the search in order to keep listening.

"God, the breakdown thing? Yesterday's news. Now the reason behind it…that's new."

"Reason? You mean it's not just the job?"

"Not even. I heard…" The girl paused dramatically. "…that she was raped."

Greg nearly knocked over a neat row of Catherine's yogurts.

"Oh my god! No way! Not Sara Sidle, Miss I-Wear-A-Gun-Like-Other-Women-Wear-Earrings!"

"One and the same. Apparently it was a date thing, that's all I know."

"But…I thought she was dating…"

There was silence for a second, and Greg suddenly felt quite visible.

"Um, you know…we should get back to the lab."

He heard the techs scramble to gather up their stuff and as they left, there was the unmistakable sound of giggling.

Greg stood up and slammed the fridge door shut. Bracing his hands on the cool metal, he swore out loud. Rumors were one thing, but out right lies were another. Especially when they involved a friend.

His legs ate up the hallway with angry strides until he reached Grissom's office. The door was open and he entered without knocking.

"I think you need to do something about all the gossip around here," Greg announced. Grissom looked up from his paperwork with a confused frown. "We're the number two crime lab in the entire country, right?" he went on, undaunted. "We should all be professionals. And professionals don't gossip like teenagers, do they?"

Grissom removed his glasses. "Professionals also don't wear T-shirts that say 'Buck Fush' to work."

Greg's cheeks turned pink. "Hey, you laughed at the time." Grissom arched an eyebrow. "Okay, you smiled." He paused. "You didn't make me change. My point is that this place is starting to remind me way too much of the seventh level of hell I used to call adolescence."

"Should I send out a memo telling people to curb the conversations, or would it be all right if I just bought the lab a Coke and taught them to sing in harmony?"

"What does that even mean?"

The older man shook his head ruefully. "Before your time, I see." He stood up. "I'll bring the excess of gossip up at the next supervisor's meeting."

Greg gave him a look. "Everyone knows you don't go to those things."

"Greg, I haven't been home in almost twenty-four hours and I'm running solely on coffee and a ham sandwich someone left in the break room. What is it that you want?"

"I just don't like it when people say insane things about my friends and other people believe them. And pass them on." Greg dug his hands into his pockets. "I mean, we all work really hard around here and we deserve each other's respect. Sara alone has more solves than…"

"What does Sara have to do with this?"

Grissom's sudden interest came as no surprise to Greg. "You haven't heard then?"

"If I have to ask, obviously not."

His boss had infinite amounts of patience, but right then, it sounded like his patience was coming to an end. "Um…it's nothing. Like I said. Just some insane things."

"Greg." Grissom fixed a hard look onto his newest CSI. "Tell me exactly what you've heard. Right now."

To Be Continued