Sara woke up with a start, cold sweat ran down her face, but she quickly realized where she was. She had been released from the hospital the week before and Grissom had offered to let her recover at his house. She had agreed to it mostly because she didn't want to be home alone.

She was sleeping in his bed, and he had been sleeping in his guest bedroom ever since she had come to his house. She looked around slowly; she had become very suspicious ever since that man had tortured her. He also haunted her dreams, along with the flashbacks from her childhood.

It was about eight in the morning, the time she used to fall asleep had become the time she was waking up, that amused her. She went into the kitchen and she got some cereal to eat. She had to go through three months worth of recovery to go back to work, and even then she still had to take a few tests to work as a criminalist again, she knew that she would have the worst case of cabin fever within the next couple weeks.

Grissom had been very sweet to her, he had allowed her to practically move into his house and to have free reign over his space, and he didn't complain about it at all. He loved her, she saw that and she liked it. They talked to one another every day, and he said that when she was ready he would take her out on a date.

Her physical wounds had finally healed, but she was going to have permanent scars from the cuts. Emotionally, she was recovering slowly, but she knew that psychologically, she would never fully recover, it had scared her too deeply, she didn't think that even her friends would be able to understand that about her. The worst part was that the man was not caught. They had massive amounts of evidence on the scumbag, but they couldn't find him, it was as if he had just disappeared.

She was getting chilled from thinking about him, so she went to a window and opened it, and she allowed the heat of Nevada to penetrate her skin, she liked that, it felt comfortable. She also looked around at all the flowers, cards, and gifts that lined the living room and kitchen of Grissom's house, her friends were so kind to her, she really appreciated that.

Grissom came home about half an hour later, and he smiled at her. He truly enjoyed having someone to come home to, even if she had taken over. He went over to her and kissed her forehead, then he gave her a bouquet of roses.

"Miss me that much," she asked.

"Of course, the lab isn't the same without you there."

"Well thank you. I have to see my therapist again today; she wants me to tell her more about how this affects me. Do I have to go?"

"If you want to be a criminalist again you do."

"I hate this, I go undercover, get injured, and now I might lose my job, it's not fair!" She was somewhat pouting, which amused him.

"Don't worry, you'll get the position back, they just need to make sure that you are ready."

"I am ready, I need to work, I'll go stir crazy if I don't."

"Yeah, and I'll be the one stuck with you."

"I thought you wanted to get stuck with me," she teased.

"That's not what I meant Sara," he said. Then he sat down with her on the sofa. He kissed her warmly. "I love you, you know that, I want to make sure that you're ready to return though. And there is no way that Conrad would let you go back without passing the psych testing."

"I know."

"Do you want to tell me what you're going to talk to your counselor about?"

"Why don't you come with me, I think that I'm going to need you today." He gave her a concerned look, so she said with a sigh, "I had a dream last night that involved him again. It also involved my childhood, which I never told you all of, so I want you to be there so that I can explain it all to you as well."

He nodded and he put his arms around her and hugged her. "It'll be ok, soon this will all be over and you'll be back at work with us again. We're going to catch him Sara, I promise you that."

"Thank you, you're so supportive."

"That's because I love you."

"Maybe it's because we love one another so much Gil."

"Probably."

They both smiled, and then he gently kissed her lips, she reciprocated the kiss and they were quite content with being wrapped in each other's loving embrace. Sara broke their kiss and said, "We need to get ready to go, unless you are too tired to come with me."

"No, I'll go, it's fine."

She smiled. "Good."

They prepared to leave for her psychiatrist's office and then they left. First her doctor did preliminary questions about how she had been doing for the past week, and what not. Then Sara had to talk about her dream, and her past.

"Last night I had another nightmare, they aren't that uncommon for me to have as it is, but recently they've been reflective of my experiences with that man, and with some events of my childhood."

"You've mentioned some events of your childhood before," the doctor said. "But you've never been willing to share it all. Are you willing to now?"

"Yes, that's why I brought Gil, so that he can help me."

"That's good, now please, continue."

Sara took a deep breath, and Grissom squeezed her hand tightly. "When I was young my father was very abusive towards all of us. He beat my mom, he beat my brother, and he beat me. He was always worse when he was drunk. I was six the first time he molested me, and I was too afraid to tell anyone. My brother was ten years older than I was, and he got out of there as quickly as he could, he didn't even notice me, but that may have been due to the drugs he was using. My father beat my mom so many times, and we kept having to go to the hospital so that she could get fixed up.

When I was ten he started to be more abusive towards me than he had been before. He tied me to my bed and he made me keep quiet or he would hit me, so I kept quiet, not that that stopped him from hitting me. He also played with a knife by laying it on my skin, he didn't cut me though, I think he was afraid of mom finding out. Then one day she walked in and found him doing that to me, she grabbed the knife and she started stabbing him. I think the number of times she stabbed him was about seventy.

The police came and took her away, and I was taken into foster care. I was permitted to visit my mom when she was in the ward for the criminally insane, I hated it there, and she did too. I knew that what she had done was to save me, but I still remember the whole ordeal. Her trial was in 1984, she was sentenced to twenty years in jail for the murder of my father, it was so light because she was saving me.

When I was being held captive that man was doing the same things to me that my father had done, and he was the embodiment of everything I had feared for so long."

Sara had started to cry, and so had Grissom, this time she had told her whole story, not just part of it, and he was heartbroken for her. "Now that I know why this affects you so much, I may be able to help you Sara, I think that we can get you back out there, it'll just take time."

"Thank you Doctor Klinefelt."

Afterwards Grissom drove them back to his place where he attempted to sleep, while she started to work on a crossword puzzle. She looked at him as he lay there, still wide awake, and said, "Babe, you need to get sleep or you won't be able to function tonight."

"Sure I will."

"Right, what's wrong, what do you need to talk about?"

"I should have known why certain cases set you off, but I never bothered to ask. I just let you deal with it on your own, and I've done the same thing to the others too. I'm a horrible supervisor, I should be concerned with you guys more."

"No, you aren't. Look, I wouldn't have told you anything except for the fact that I needed to, and now that we're together you deserve to know the truth about my past. We met at a conference, the first day that I was being trained to be a CSI. I was shocked when you wanted me to come here, but that meant that you saw potential in me, you didn't need to see all of my troubles to see me as a good criminalist. That's what a supervisor does, he looks for the qualities of a CSI, and if they have problems, it is up to them to work through them. All right?"

"I wonder what kind of a friend I am to you guys though."

"You'll improve." She sat down on the bed beside him, and she kissed him. "Look, no one is perfect, and if you accept that you'll always make mistakes it'll be ok."

"Why do my mistakes tend to hurt you," he pleaded.

"Because you love me, and you didn't know what to do about it." They kissed again, and he wrapped her into an embrace, then he nestled against her to fall asleep. As he lay there she gently stroked his graying hair, she was glad that his touch no longer frightened her.

She had a long road of recovery in front of her, but she had just made the first steps.

Meanwhile, somewhere else in Las Vegas, a man had been searching very hard for the only one of his victims who had gotten away, and he had found her.

TBC...

I know that it takes awhile for me to update this story, but I'm glad that all of you are patient in waiting to read the story. Mostly it's because I'm busy and I have other stories to work on because I started them first.

Thank you for the reviews! I always love reading them! Sidle Chick, CSI Kennedy, Inara Cabot, csifreak04, Jenn Sidle, Iamyourangelofmusic