Hi, my name is Leslie and I take these characters so far out of canon that I deserve to be stabbed in the eye with an ice pick. And I can't get the effing Click 5 out of my head. That's why you get this travesty. Thanks LK, Marlou and Lauren.

Sara had the next night off, so he wouldn't be able to see her at the lab. Problematic for his newfound sense of comfort in her presence. It was insane but... he wanted to see her. He needed to see her... feel her, kiss her... Synapses fired off rapid thoughts in his brain and he attempted to gather them all together into a semblance of coherence.

Kiss her? Well... yeah, he'd like to kiss her. He'd like to do more than just kiss but he didn't want to push her, not after all that had happened. Grissom was willing to wait, just as he had made her wait. After all, it was only fair, and he was all about fairness since she'd been the one to give him one last-ditch chance.

It was overly generous of her and lucky for him that he'd been able to come out of his own shell and actually try this time. Fate was mocking him and irony was his friend. He needed to just stop replaying everything over in his head and just… just… go with it.

Damned if Grissom wasn't the little toaster that could this time around.

He needed her (still didn't have a definitive answer as to the 'why' of that) and he didn't quite know how to get her, so he did what was logical. He went to her apartment.

Simple.

That was his first real leap in the right direction and if his hands weren't so busy holding the steering wheel in a vice grip, he would have patted himself on the back.

His soft knocking pulled her from the depths of her bedroom, her David Gray and the boring plot she had found the need to submerge herself in. Sara pressed her palms against the cool wood and glanced through the peephole, her heart and breathing both speeding up as she saw who was waiting outside.

She thought she was past all that; apparently she had underestimated the unique power Grissom held over her. In that moment she decided to up the strength of her bugman repellant and watched as his mouth twitched up into a nervous smile.

He thought she wasn't going to answer. Well, no harm in letting him sweat one more moment. Sara's hands fell quickly to her hips as she squinted at him through the tiny hole. He carried the wait of purpose in his shoulders and his brow was furrowed with worry. Seconds ticked back and Sara made no move to open the door so he turned to walk away.

The push-pull thing had to stop.

Quickly, she unchained the door and bid him hello.

Grissom smiled, actually smiled, a genuine thing that made her stomach lurch. "Good evening." He said it with a waver, like he wanted to say something else... but he didn't. Grissom simply watched her with soft eyes.

"Want to... come in?" Sara moved away from the door and watched as he moved inside; she was glad he'd chosen to ignore the flippant tone of her voice. Something was hanging about his shoulders, some eagerness. And he was antsy, his hands shaking a bit as he continually licked his lips.

Unsure of what to say, Sara stood in front of him, hands on her hips, mouth upturned in an expectant, yet soft smile. 'The ball is in his court,' she had to keep reminding herself, 'the ball is in his court.'

"Sooo... hi?"

"Where do I begin?" he asked quickly. Really, he wanted to know where he stood, but it came out wrong and he didn't quite know how to fix it.

Sara smiled at him, realizing for the first time that maybe he really didn't know. "I can't teach you Grissom, it's not a science."

His hands tucked securely into his pockets, a familiar resting place for them. For the first time in years he felt incredibly awkward and out of place. "This is awkward," he voiced, something within him breaking free with the rather small admission.

It was awkward there, true, the both of them standing in Sara's living room, shifting from foot to foot. And it was obviously he wasn't going to say something, so she did.

"Yeah, it uh, it is." She stepped directly in front of him. "You know what's really awkward though?" So she was taking the lead again, so what?

Grissom shook his head.

"The first kiss," she explained, innocently. "The first kiss is always wracked with nerves and is so ... well someone will be a klutz and noses will bump and..." Sara lifted her right hand to his left arm and began lightly moving over the skin there, to reassure the both of them. "So maybe if we just got that out of the way, it wouldn't be so... strange." A flicker of a smile toyed with his lips, "I mean, if that's okay with you."

"Oh," he had that look on his face that he got when she caught him off guard. Of course it was okay with him; why wouldn't it be okay with him? "Oh, uh..." He was a bit nervous as how to proceed, not because he was a bad kisser or anything of the sort he just wanted I to go about this particular step in their almost-relationship in exactly the right manner. It had to be perfect, he wanted it to be perfect.

"But you have to do it at this point," Sara whispered anxiously, her other hand reaching out to grasp his. "You understand why... right?" And with that, she thrust him back the ball, leaving him to do what he wanted with it.

'Take the lead,' she demanded, pleaded in her head. 'God damn it Grissom, take the damned lead!'

Instead of simply nodding, as she thought he might, he stepped back and replayed her words in his head. This meant something, this was crossing a line. This, this was jumping in the deep end of the pool with no swimmies.

This could be everything.

So she waited, waited while he thought out her proposition. She owed him at least that.

"C'mere," he growled, pulling his hand out of her grasp to wrap around her waist. Tentatively his other palm began stroking her hair. "Is this awkward yet?"

Sara gasped a bit at the warm breath cascading down over her cheek. "Na-no."

"Okay," he mumbled as his lips fell to her cheek and began softly pressing on the warm skin. "Okay," he said again as he kissed the side of her slightly-parted mouth.

"More," she whispered and he covered her mouth with his. Neither of them moved, just stood pressed against one another. After a moment she sighed, her body relaxing right into his, lips shifting over his. He too sighed and wrapped her up tighter.

Slipping his mouth open, he caught her bottom lip between his teeth for a moment and when her gentle whimper escaped, he slipped his tongue against hers. With that move, her hands came right up and grabbed around his neck, hanging on, keeping her body flush against his.

There was no room for breathing, no room for apologies or second thoughts; there were just lips, teeth and tongues and two hearts attempting to tear out of too-tight chests.

Grissom pulled back, dropping light pecks as he retreated, allowing them both to catch their breath without separating.

Sara licked her lips, stealing the taste of him from her skin. "So that wasn't so much awkward as... um... wow."

Belatedly, he simply nodded, stepped back and ran a hand over his face. "Wow, as in good wow, I hope..."

She released a deeply amused laugh. "Yes, good, very good... wow…" And with that she stepped forward, took his face in her hands and kissed him again, recklessly this time, deep and thorough, hot and incredibly slick. He tasted real to her, real, warm, human and irresistible. His mouth, god she could spend forever right there, tasting him.

His hands couldn't quite decide where they wanted to be. They went from holding her shoulders to her face, neck, hair and finally landed on her hips. Grissom's thumbs slipped under to the skin of her sides and began gently rubbing as she took complete control of the kiss, leading him through it bit by bit.

She found delight in his neck, kissing along the edge of his whiskers. At points she dipped into the vee of his shirt and kissed there, licking her way back up to his neck and lips. There were tiny groans and little pants and more than one episode of laughter.

It seemed that Grissom couldn't get enough of the skin of her collarbone and demonstrated so by continually detouring there, lapping up the salt from the slight sweat that had broken across her skin. He'd actually forgotten how fun it could be to make out with someone and decided making up for lost time could be the best solution to his problem.

They ended up on the couch and she straddling his lap as their frantic kisses began to cool and simmer and ended up long and languid and sweet. It all ended in a tangle of limbs and sweaty foreheads pressed against one another. Heavy panting accompanied the last of the fleeting touches.

Sara slithered easily off of his lap and plopped herself down on the couch. "Whew, that was a workout!" she exclaimed, grabbing his hand and lacing her fingers with his, while with the other she swiped at her brow.

He huffed out something like a laugh and let his head fall to the back of the sofa. "I'm going to be sore tomorrow," he said, his head lolling to the side to glance at her.

And she couldn't resist, she had to lean over and give him one last quick smack on the lips. "So, I'd say we got kisses number one through, like, two hundred-give or take-through with," Sara reasoned and Grissom nodded and they both just sat there for a few more moments, letting the reality of their actions sink in.

"You're a good kisser," she said lazily, stifling a yawn with her palm.

Grissom grasped the hand she was using to cover her mouth and kissed the skin on the back of it. "Oh, so are you. I think I almost died there a few times."

Again, silence fell over them and they could hear the soft strains of music filtering from her bedroom. It was almost beckoning them inside, but it was too much for them. They both tilted their heads at the same time and understood the possibility before them: they could have gone in there and really explored the depths of what they had just begun to uncover.

But there would be time for that later.

"Will there be later?" He asked, voice hushed, but far from pained. He'd learned to accept at that point, the real prospect of her leaving… and he would understand. All he wanted was to know; treading water in purgatory was killing him.

"Hmmm," and her eyes slipped closed and she smiled. "Depends what's waiting for me later."

Much to his surprise, Grissom's voice broke when he spoke. "Me," he rasped out, "All of me."

"That's a tad much to commit yourself to," she began, "Even I know that."

That gave Grissom pause. He didn't expect her to reject that. "I want to, I want you to understand that I want you to get all of me, even if I don't myself." But even that sounded wrong to him. "I don't know. I don't understand what I have to give, if I have to give anything."

Shaking his head, he passed rough hands over his eyes. "But…" he tried, slowly, "Whatever I know to give, whatever I learn to give, is yours to have, does that… is that all right?"

A small chuckle erupted from her that sounded like it got stuck in her throat on the way up. It was followed by another and another and finally a full blown bout of laughter that he didn't know what to make of. "That uh," she squeaked out, "That…"

Reaching out a hand to his thigh, she broke out with, "How can you say you're not good at this? That's… so reasonable I don't…" Kissing his cheek, she leaned her head against his shoulder. "I don't think I'd ever ask for anything more."

Enveloping her in a loose hug, he exhaled slowly into his hair. "And all of this only took five days… amazing," he mumbled as she chuckled into his neck.

"Should we see where the next nine days takes us?" Although their brief make out session had been wonderful, the both of them needed something far more concrete to stand on.

"Mmm," he agreed, stroking the skin of her upper arms. "It'll be an adventure."