Summary: Sara has to make a decision and is finally waiting again. One-shot. Sara/Greg

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

Rating: K+

Spoilers: Very mild spoilers for season six.

Waiting

Gil Grissom felt uncomfortable. Very uncomfortable. He did not feel very different than he had felt in similar situations before, situations when a human being had forced him to make himself clear on personal matters, not on theories, scientific facts or pieces of evidence.

But what made it even worse was that it was Sara who was standing in front of him, having already ranted for several minutes, though in a for her comparatively quiet voice.

But what would put this experience in Grissom's personal archive for worst social experiences ever was that Sara's agitation was caused by Grissom's behavior towards another human being, Sofia.

He made an effort to lift himself out of his uncomfortable feeling, trying to concentrate on what Sara was saying and to ignore the sparks that seemed to fly from her, while her eyes seemed to pierce him.

"So, what is it about Sofia? You think because she's no direct co-worker anymore, you can-,"

"Sara," Grissom managed to interrupt her, noticing silently that this conversation, that had at least started work-related, had gone in a completely personal direction now.

This moment of thinking Sara used to continue. "Wait, you had already no problem to ask her out for dinner when she was still working here. How could I forget? You never had a problem doing so with her, quite in contrast to go with me-,"

"Sara," he cut her off again, his feeling of awkwardness rising again, his mind searching for a way to get out of this situation.

"Okay, let's have dinner tonight," he suggested and realized that he had succeeded in one point: getting Sara speechless.

Sara Sidle was standing there, nailed to the spot and was starring at her boss, lost for words.

She had used a lot of words in the previous minutes in a discussion – as long as you could call it discussion at all, as she was the one who had mainly talked – that had started completely work related, but had now gone so far off the original topic that Sara could have kicked herself for abandoning her intention never to lose a relationship related word to Grissom again, not to think about, or even hope anything in this direction again.

She had told herself a hundredth times that she was over Grissom, that she did not need him, but she had realized that it was very hard to let something go after several years, although this reluctance to let it go had maybe caused her to carry this torch for so long.

Now Grissom had asked her out for dinner and she did not know what to say. She would have agreed joyfully for the largest part of the last five years, but now it was different.

She had completely forgotten about the original purpose she had followed with this conversation, contrasting thoughts rushing through her head.

On the one side there were these that reminded her that she was over Grissom, that she had moved on, and that it was unfair of him to ask now, after several years, on the other side there were these, that Sara called "reason" at this moment, these that told her that it was childish to turn Grissom down, to not take this invitation only because it was so late, to not want it anymore now, because she had actually wanted it so much earlier.

And so she decided to give that what she had spent a lot of the past years wishing for finally a chance. "Okay."

Two hours later Sara was on her way to the DNA lab, when she saw Greg coming out of it and remembered suddenly something that gave her the turn in feeling uncomfortable.

She and Greg had agreed to go to the movies in the evening. They had planned this already for a week, and Greg had been looking forward to the evening, and Sara had suspected that his joy about it was a little more than about an evening between friends.

She had completely forgotten about it during her conversation with Grissom. She groaned inwardly. She would have to call it off and the expectation of disappointing Greg so much made her very hesitant to do so, but she had no choice, as she could not be at two places at the same time.

Greg saw her and smiled. Sara stopped in front of him, cursing inwardly.

"Uh, Greg," she hesitated. "About tonight… I'm sorry, but we can't go tonight, of course you can go alone, I know you want to see this movie… but I can't, sorry," she babbled.

Greg did not look as disappointed as she thought he would, though he might hide it, but it gave Sara at least a little relief.

"Okay," he said.

Sara looked downwards. "Maybe another time."

"Yeah."

His mono-syllabicity showed Sara that he was apparently more disappointed than he had seemed to be in the first moment.

He smiled weakly and left into the other direction.

At the end of her shift Sara met Greg again on her way outwards.

He talked about some work-related matters and appeared as normal as Greg usually was normal.

"Greg, I'm really sorry about tonight," Sara nevertheless started again.

Greg stopped. "Sara, don't. You don't have to apologize. Enjoy yourself tonight," he said, smiling slightly.

Sara's mouth stood open. "You know?"

Greg shrugged. "Yeah. Sometimes I have to walk by Grissom's office, you know. I can't help it."

Sara said nothing.

"Hey, I'm happy for you, that you get what you want, don't you?" he said, trying silently to convince himself of that. "So, be happy as well, okay?"

Sara nodded and Greg walked into the direction of his car. "We can go to the movies another time," he said, though not so convinced himself of what he was saying.

Greg left the movie theater in a melancholy mood. He had went alone, as he had really wanted to see the movie, doubted highly that he and Sara would go another time, and had thought it as pointless to stay at home pondering.

It was his night off and he made his way into a bar, sat down there and ordered a drink.

It remained untouched.

He was not even in the mood to get drunk, it was only another item on his list of pointless things. And this list was very long this night.

He tried to convince himself that he had anyway hoped too much from the evening together with Sara and that this was the reason that he felt the disappointment so hard.

He knew that he had hoped it to be a first step. A first step to something between them that started as friends but went farer.

At this point he had never expected that his hopes would be dashed by Grissom. Not anymore.

For the largest time of the past five years he had expected Sara and Grissom to get together, though he had never seen so many signs of affection from Grissom's side, but that did not seem too surprising considering Grissom's character.

He had seen that Sara wanted it and for a long period of time he had even buried his own hopes so far, that he would have been really happy for her, if she had gotten what she wanted, if she had been happy.

But during the last year, his hopes had come up again. Maybe they would always stay only friends, but maybe they would move on to more.

But during the last shift had happened what Greg had never expected anymore.

Grissom had asked Sara out and she had agreed, shattering Greg's hopes to an uncountable number of pieces.

He groaned. It was not possible that he was jealous on Grissom. And actually he was not really. He probably was supposed to be, but somehow he felt that he was not, they were not exactly rivals, they never had been, as Greg had not been on Sara's radar anyway.

Sara had now gotten what she had wanted for so long, and he, Greg, would only be a side mark from now on.

He swallowed down his drink in one large gulp.

He left and noticed that it had started raining cats and dogs outside. He walked along the streets, having no intention to go home so soon.

It was about four in the morning when Greg finally made his way home.

It had rained the whole night, but had stopped now. Large puddles had formed on the sidewalk, and when Greg was approaching his apartment complex, he skipped lightly over one after the other, not caring what the few people that were on the way at this time of night might think.

"How old are you?" he heard suddenly a slightly amused voice and looked up.

Sara was standing there in front of his apartment complex and the best word to describe her was "wet". Very wet.

"What are you doing here?" he asked irritated. "And why are you so wet?"

Sara shrugged. "It rained," she stated the obvious.

Greg frowned. "Don't say you stood here all night…"

Sara shrugged again, but did not say anything.

Greg had a thousand questions, but decided to take action at first and get Sara into the warmth.

He opened the door to the apartment complex and shoved her inside. They made their way to his apartment and Greg let Sara inside.

He strode into his bed room and returned with an old tracksuit of him. He handed it to Sara.

"Please change your clothes, before you get a cold," he said, though he thought that that was probably too late already.

Sara went into the bath room and returned some minutes later. Greg had made some coffee in the meantime and handed Sara a cup now.

"To warm you up," he said.

They sat down and Greg watched her silently, taking a nip from his own cup from time to time.

Finally he asked, "How was your night?"

"Wet." She chuckled.

Greg frowned, but rather amused. "What did you do last night?"

"I waited."

"Didn't you go to dinner with Grissom?"

"I did."

"But why…?"

After some seconds of silence she continued.

"I have been waiting for him for years," she said quietly, stating only what Greg already knew. He hoped that she had not come to him to talk about her relationship with Grissom, as he did not know if he would be able to endure that.

"But last night I waited for you."

Greg starred at her, wondering if he had understood her right.

"We went to dinner, and it was nice, yeah, but I realized that what I want has changed."

Greg still starred at her, but then he hugged her, knowing now that he had understood her right, enjoying her warmth, unbelieving, but joyful, that he was holding her.

Sara leaned back, looking at him smiling. "So, you were at the movies alone?"

Greg grinned. "Yeah."

"But we can go together tonight, if you want."

He kissed her and she did not draw back.

Sara grinned and Greg continued. "I don't mind to see the movie again. It was quite good."

The end