Disclaimer: Characters do not belong to me.

Author's Notes: Thanks to everyone who's reading; I appreciate it so much.

Giving Up

by Kristen Elizabeth

I close my door at night,

But she gets in all right.

I held her hand too tight,

Too hard to make it right.

Sara hadn't purposely been avoiding Nick since the fateful date on which he had set her up, but it just became the easy thing to do. Their shifts rarely overlapped; the drinks and breakfasts they used to enjoy after work were all but abandoned. It was certainly easier to evade Nick than it was to do the same with Grissom.

But once Nick realized he was being avoided, it was impossible to shake him off. Sara found this out one day as she caught up on her paperwork in the relative privacy of the autopsy room. Unless it was being used, the sterile and serenely quiet place had become her sanctuary. She could escape the company of her co-workers and the weird stares she'd been getting lately and focus on her work. It was one of the only things she had left in her life, after all.

That afternoon, she wasn't alone in the room. A body lay in repose underneath a white sheet, her only company for the early part of the evening. Truthfully, it didn't creep her out as much as it probably should have. It was just a body. At least she could be sure that it wouldn't want to interrupt her in order to tell a joke or share an unsolicited piece of office gossip.

She had just settled into her routine when the swinging doors swung open. Her head shot up, and she nearly fell off the metal exam table upon which she sat, cross-legged.

"Sara Sidle." Nick entered, his arms folded, a faint frown on his conventionally handsome face. "Have you given up on the living entirely, now?" He gestured to the body.

"The living have given up on me," she replied.

"What?"

"Never mind." Sara uncrossed her legs and stretched them out in front of her to shake out the pins and needles. "I have permission to be in here from Doc Robbins, just so you know."

Nick raised an eyebrow at her. "Are you sure you're just not more comfortable hanging out with the dead?" After a pause, he continued. "You never told me how your date with Kevin went."

She swallowed a lump in her throat and avoided his eyes. "He didn't say anything to you?"

"Kevin's not the type to kiss and tell." He smiled broadly. "But I'm the type to be curious. So…how did it go?"

Part of her wanted to tell him the truth, even if he sided with his college buddy, which instinct told her he probably wouldn't. But who was she to ruin Nick's friendship just because she'd come down with a bad case of morning-after regrets? She took the easy way out and lied.

"We had a nice dinner. There just wasn't any…"

"Spark?" he guessed.

"Substance," Sara said.

"Gotcha. Well, can't blame me for trying." He glanced around at the mostly empty room. "I don't want to picture you living like this for the rest of your life. You're my friend, Sara."

His words were honest and they touched something deep within her. Sara could count on one hand the number of times she'd cried at work, and most of them had been within the past couple of weeks. She felt the hot sting of fresh tears and tried her hardest to head them off. But it was to no avail.

"Sara?" Nick crossed over to the table. "Hey…are you crying?" She shook her head, but it only made the tears fall faster. "I was just kidding. I know you're not going to end up alone. You're too great for some guy not to fall for you."

She let him pull her off the table and surprised even herself when she let him hug her. His arms were warm like a big brother's should be; she could almost imagine how safe his real sisters must feel with Nick around.

Sara opened her eyes and abruptly pulled back. "I'm sorry, Nick."

"I'm the one apologizing here. I barged in, distracted you, then made fun of you."

"Yeah." A frown tugged at the corners of her mouth. "You did!"

Nick laughed in his good old boy way. "I'll let you get back to work. I just wanted to catch up. I miss working with you, Sara."

"I miss it, too, Nick." She managed a smile of her own. "Thanks."

He was about to leave when he turned back around. "I think Grissom's looking for you, by the way."

Sara sighed. "Of course he wouldn't actually come looking for me himself," she muttered under her breath.

"He's been all over the lab," Nick continued. "I just don't think it would occur to him to look here."

"That's sort of the point of being here."

"I say, stay put. Make him work for it." He pushed open the door. "It's about time he should."

After he left, Sara bent over the table, supporting herself on her elbows. She let her cheek sink down to the metal before she remembered just how many bodies had lain there, and in how many various stages of decomposition. Sterile or not, the very thought made her stand right back up.

She glanced at her watch. If she hurried, she could make Lawton's seven p.m. group session. From one sanctuary to another.

Grissom gave up looking for Sara after his fourth trip around the maze of corridors that made up his lab. If she wanted to hide, he'd let her. Although she'd regret not having been available once she found out what Brass had been able to learn about Julia Sommers from Amber, the girl mentioned her diary.

As he headed back to his office after his fourth lap, he ran into Sofia as she came out of it.

"I was just leaving you a note," she explained in her usual, aspiring seductress voice. "Brass said you were heading out into the field."

The fact that she felt so comfortable going in and out of his safe haven at work bothered him more than just a little. But he knew she'd had a hard time adjusting from supervisor to underling. He could try and give her a bit of leniency.

"We have a lead on our former Jane Doe from the desert," Grissom told her. He moved past her to retrieve his field kit. "I can't seem to find Sara, though."

"The Jane Doe you connected to my old case?" He nodded and Sofia continued, "I could come with you."

He stopped for a second. "It's my case with Sara."

"But she's not here. And I'm familiar with it." Sofia leaned across his desk. Close. Too close. "Where are we going?"

"Lawton, can I talk to you for a minute?"

Sara had purposely lingered over putting on her coat as the doctor briefly spoke to another group member. But now that the woman was leaving, she took her chance to approach him.

"Sara," he greeted her warmly as she caught up with him in the abandoned reception area. "I was so proud to hear you respond to Andrea tonight. She needs all of our support if she's going to get through this."

A blush colored her cheeks. "I just wanted her to know her options. And…I couldn't stay quiet anymore."

"Maybe you'll feel up to telling your story to the group soon." She nodded noncommittally. "What did you want to talk about?" he asked.

She blew out a soft breath. "I need to know something. About how many of your…the people in these groups…how many of them go on to have normal lives…and relationships?" Sara hesitated. "You don't need to name names. I just…need to know."

Lawton took a moment before answering. "Sara, if you're asking me what your chances are, I can only tell you that you're a vibrant woman who's on the path to surviving a painful ordeal. You're no less normal than someone who's getting over a break-up. Or recovering from a traumatic injury. There's no reason for you not to believe in your future whole-heartedly."

"I wish it was that simple," she whispered. "But I never had normal relationships to start out with. Fleeting crushes in high school, some minor, non-threatening dates in college, and one disastrous attempt at a real connection with a guy I thought I could trust. And then there's…" She stopped.

"There's…what? Or who?"

Sara shook her head. "He's…I can't talk about him yet."

Lawton nodded patiently. "In time, then. For now, Sara, just understand this. You are taking the right steps. You just have to let them take you where you're going, instead of trying to see the path ahead of you before you even start down it. Do you understand?"

"I do. It's just frustrating."

"That's why you have all of us." He reached into the inside pocket of his coat and pulled out a card. "This has my home phone number on it. If you ever need anything, Sara, please don't hesitate to call, day or night."

She took it with trembling fingers. "Are you sure? My first physics professor made this mistake, and ended up getting an unlisted number. I tend to…over-talk."

"There's no such thing," he assured her. For the first time, she took note of how his voice was just deep enough to soothe, but not startle. He had a nice voice. A trusting voice. It reminded her of another voice she knew way too well. A voice she used to seek out for comfort. Sara's chin dropped to her chest. Lawton reached out, his fingers barely brushing over her skin as he lifted her face back up.

A cold rush of air swept into the office as the door opened, revealing the very last person on earth she expected to see at that moment.

Sara was the last person on earth Grissom expected to see when he arrived at the Professional Counseling Services office with Brass and Sofia. But there she was, standing unnervingly close to a tall man with dark brown hair. A hundred questions flew through his mind, but only two were anywhere near coherent. What was she doing here? His eyes narrowed. And who was she letting manhandle her?

"Sara," Brass was the first to break the silence. "I thought Grissom couldn't find you at the lab."

"I…" She licked her lips and took a step back from her companion. "I was…I mean…what are you all doing here?"

"Are these your friends, Sara?" Grissom bristled at the man's question. If anyone had to explain their connection to Sara, it was him.

"Co-workers," Sara answered. "Just co-workers."

Sofia glanced at Grissom; he could feel her eyes all over him. But he couldn't tear his own eyes away from Sara. "I'm CSI Curtis. That's CSI Grissom and Detective Brass, from the LVPD. We're here as part of the investigation into the death of Julia Sommers," he heard Sofia introduce them.

The man with Sara frowned. "Julia is dead?"

If he didn't already know that he and Sara were connected on some deep, disturbing level, Grissom would have been surprised when she blinked and focused on the man at the same time he did. "You knew Julia?" Sara asked him.

"She was a survivor," he told her in low, confidential tone that made the hairs on the back of Grissom's neck stand up.

"Who are you?" he blurted out before he could stop himself.

Brass sighed. "I see those people skills are really coming along, Gil."

The man held out his hand. "Dr. Lawton Forbes. I'm the primary counselor of this facility. Julia Sommers was one of my counselees. I'm terribly sorry about her death; she was a lovely girl."

Grissom regarded the doctor's hand with the same disdain most people gave to his bug collections. "One of Julia's friends informed us that after she was raped, she came here for counseling." His gaze flickered back to Sara. "Is that the only kind of counseling you do here?"

"Yes," the man admitted. "We decline to use the term 'rape crisis center' to describe ourselves, but at our core, that's what we are. Julia was only here for a couple of sessions before she stopped coming."

"You never tried to find out why she stopped?" Sofia asked.

"Our services are here when they're needed. We try not to force them on anyone. When people stop coming, they usually have a reason that's none of our business."

"Yeah, well, Julia stopped because someone raped her…again…and dumped her for dead in the desert," Brass injected, dryly. "It would have been nice if one of you had called to check up on her."

The doctor nodded. "In retrospect, I wish we had been able to. But our services are, above all else, anonymous."

Throughout this exchange, Grissom's focus never swayed from Sara. Underneath the weight of his stare, she'd shrunk back a bit, her arms now crossed tightly over her chest as if to protect herself. From him? Just what had happened to her? And why had it lead her here? There was really only one answer, but it filled him with such an unfamiliar sense of rage that he was loath to dwell on it for too long.

Still, he wanted answers. He needed answers.

"Sara…" he started, stepping towards her.

She threw up her hands like a force field. "I can't…be here right now."

He caught a whiff of her clean linen scent as she ran past him and out the door. Ignoring the looks the other three were giving him, which ranged from curious to annoyed, Grissom followed her out into the cold night.

Sara stopped running when she reached the end of the parking lot and the start of the paved road. Cars zoomed in front of her from both directions, throwing up gusts of wind and sand. She hugged her arms around her body and threw back her head. Above, the night sky was a canopy of twinkling stars, somehow visible even with the nearby Vegas lights. The moon was a Cheshire cat, smiling down on her. Sara closed her eyes when she heard her name.

"Sara," Grissom repeated. He'd stopped less than ten feet behind her. "Talk to me."

"Is that an order from my supervisor?"

"It's a request. From a friend."

She laughed, shocked by her own bitterness. "Sorry. I just find that funny."

If she'd turned around, she knew she would have seen him tucking his hands into his pockets, his defense mechanism. But she didn't. She couldn't. Not yet.

"Funny?" he asked. "Why?"

"It's not really," Sara replied. "I don't want to talk about what you want me to talk about."

"And what do you think I want you to talk about?"

He was using his teacher-to-student tone. God, she hated that. "It's not going to work, Dr. Grissom. I'm not your student anymore."

"No. No, you're not."

Sara turned to face him just as a car sped by; the wind whipped her hair across her face, making the dark strands dance. "Why are you out here?"

"I…" His hands were already in his pockets, so all he could do to delay answering was to stutter. It was still adorable, even after all the years she'd seen him do it. "I need to know…"

"If I was raped?" She let the words settle between them before continuing, "I wasn't." His shoulders visibly relaxed. "I let a man use me for a night of sex."

His frown returned. "Sara, what I need to know is…"

"Who he was? No one important. Where it happened? A hotel room. If I liked it?" Sara paused. "An orgasm is just a physical reaction to pleasurable stimuli."

Now he was decidedly uncomfortable, and she took a bit of pride in the fact that she could throw off his cool, seen-it-all-twice attitude. "Sara, all I need to know is if you're all right."

"If I'm all right?" she repeated in a near whisper. "You know something?" She smiled back up at the moon. "I don't even know what 'all right' is anymore. But it's certainly not what I am at this moment." Sara met his eyes, the blue pools she used to swear she could drown in. "I'm not all right, Grissom."

He advanced towards her, and had she not been standing at the edge of a heavily trafficked road, she might have stepped back to keep the distance between them. But she couldn't and he approached her until he was standing as close to her as Lawton had been back in the office. "What can I do?"

"Nothing." She swallowed. "That's just it. What I need…you can't give me. If you could, you would have already, a long time ago." A moment passed. "I'm not worth the risk."

Grissom's eyes clouded over, like a sudden storm turning the sky dark. "How long have you known what I said in that investigation room?"

"I heard it all for myself."

He ran his hand down his beard. "You weren't supposed to."

Sara lifted her shoulders. "I'm glad I did. Or else I would have eventually started hating you. Now…"

"Now…what?"

"Now I know what I need to be all right. And it's not you." She looked back the brightly lit sign over the counseling center. "It's in there."

"Sara." He moved even closer, until she could feel the warmth of his body heat. "What does this all mean?"

"It means…I'm on my path. It means you don't have to worry about me anymore. It means I can do this…" Sara closed the space between them and touched her lips to his in a soft kiss that was pure, but hardly innocent. She ended it after only a second by stepping around him. "…and finally tell you, Gil Grissom…I'm over you."

I'm not a haunted mind,

I'm not a thoughtless kind.

I'd do it if I could,

I hope you know I would.

Buffalo Tom

To Be Continued