I have an evil friend name Anni, she keeps me locked in a closet; I have a beta named Lauren, she gives me lettuce and pats me on the head. All mistakes are mine.

Sara Sidle didn't wear mascara; if she did, he was sure that he would be the one to make it run. Darks stains on the carpet, that's what would haunt his dreams. Pathetic in the way that her spirit was constantly, around him; he could reach out and seize it if he wanted to.

He never did.

Lately, he'd been so consumed with retracing his steps and trying to remember back to the time when he had fallen, back to the time when he'd just let gravity take him. He was already to the bottom when he decided to fight it, attempt to claw his way back to stable ground.

Deep in thought, he barely noticed her form as she passed by his office. But that particular cadence of footsteps had him out of his seat and following her.

She burst through the doors of the lab, her bag bouncing at her side, looking so full of life he wondered if touching her really would stop his heart. "Sara, Sara, wait!"

She spun around to face him, her hair tousled, bags under her eyes, he wished nothing more than to curl her into his body and keep her there; just keep her. "What's up?" she asked genially, sweetly.

But then… he didn't have anything to say, couldn't think of even one thing to say to her. He stood there, looking at her. After a moment, she glanced around her, wondering if something had stopped him from speaking; there was nothing. So, she stuck her chin out a little and asked, "Griss?"

Stepping forward, Grissom brought his hand up to her cheek, thumb perched on the corner of her mouth.

He passed a thumb over her lips, eliciting nothing but a blink from her. A deep breath, cleansing and full in his lungs, helped relieve some of the long-standing tension in his bones. "Okay." It was his turn to blink as he stepped back a bit. "Okay," he repeated and dropped his hand to his side.

Sara released her very own sigh, nodded sadly, longingly, and turned back towards her car.

He watched her go, his body was once more held down by the phantom weight settling back into his bones. It took a moment to rationalize his actions but he moved forward the distance separating them and grasped her arm, spinning her around again. Facing her was much harder than he thought it would be.

She saw hesitation in his gaze, a fraction of fear etched into his face. She saw confusion there.

But before he could question it or analyze exactly what he was going to do, he tilted her head up, freckles glinting in the early morning light, and kissed her.

Mouths were gentle, partly open, just enough to get a hint of each other's taste, just enough room for tongues to tease and then retreat.

If they hadn't been slightly hidden by her car, Grissom surely would have put a stop to what they were doing.

Sara's keys clattered to the ground and her hands shook with the sudden rush of endorphins. A tiny whimper, a ghost of a thing, escaped her. It flitted to his ear and he, taking that as a sign of some sort, moved forward and pressed her body against the car with his.

A gasp passed between their mouths and neither could tell whose it was. It didn't matter. In that moment, Grissom would have liked to simply melt into her or perhaps to sublimate, to encompass the whole of her being.

Moments later, just as she was beginning to trust the real pressure of his mouth, he pulled back, a hand smoothing over her hair. He whispered, "Have a good morning." With a brief touch of his fingers upon her lips, he left. He left her dangling between arousal and utter confusion.

It went on that way for months. He would catch her in the locker room, leaving the lab, entering the lab, getting a cup of coffee in the break room. They couldn't help it; there was no explanation, they simply couldn't help it. He even stopped by her apartment one morning just to kiss her.

Anyone could catch them, anyone could stumble upon the impromptu lip locks and that would be the end of it. Grissom was kissing her, knowing that she wouldn't stop him.

And Sara, as upset as she was that he was pretty much stringing her along, was always on edge, waiting for the next kiss. The anticipation kept her awake at nights, wondering if he would steal one away from her the next day; her body thrummed in the evening when he would hand out assignments, pass by her in the halls, work with her in the layout room.

She had never really thought about being the one to initiate an encounter. It simply didn't seem right. But she wasn't complaining, especially when his cool, chapped lips would slide against hers and in that moment she could pretend that everything was as it should be.

They never discussed it, never looked at each other any differently, just went on covertly kissing in hidden corners at random intervals. It worked for them; she was getting a slice of she wanted and he was getting a slice of what he wanted and neither wanted more.

Or so they told themselves.

One evening, in the car, on the way to the lab from a scene, he turned to her and with a bit more desperation than usual, grasped her lips with his. And this time, well, she moaned deeply, allowing her lips to part much more than they usually did. Then their tongues tangled, their hands became involved, and the windows got steamed up.

Neither one of them realized how far they had gone until Grissom, in a move to relieve the awkward position he had twisted himself into, leaned back and accidentally beeped the horn. They both jumped.

"Maybe this should stop," Grissom posed, starting up the car and opening the windows so that he could see through the condensation.

Sara nodded and composed herself. "Maybe you're right."

Once back at the lab, they separated, each going off to log and process their evidence. 'Glad that's over,' Grissom thought as he shrugged his jacket on in the locker room. 'Good to get that out of my system.'

Sara was thinking the same to herself as she entered the locker room. That is, she was feeling relieved until she saw him, and he saw her.

She was feeling relieved until he had backed her into an unused corner of the room and had begun to suck on the pulse point in her neck.

That's when the entire ruse of a game combusted and ran screaming to throw itself out of a window"No more of this here," Sara managed to stutter, though she was clutching his head to her neck with brute force.

Grissom grunted an answer but continued to suckle away at any and all skin that was bare to him. It felt so incredible that she almost didn't shove him off of her when she heard people enter the room.

But she did shove him off and forced his back against the wall with the palm of her hand. The chances were unlikely that anyone would think to check as far back as they had gone, past the showers, but it was by far a better idea to be safe than to be sorry. Waiting for the voices to pass, they sneaked glances at each other.

They hadn't been thinking; they'd never been thinking…

She was completely rumpled and flushed. He looked disoriented and his hair was sticking up everywhere. They look like they belonged together, right there in that corner.

Heavy breaths were constricted to short, shallow breathing as they waited out the moments for the newcomers to leave. When they did, long moments later, Sara hung her head while pushing her hair back behind her ears. "That was close."

Grissom nodded, murmured a low, "Yeah."

They looked at each other. And then Sara launched herself at him, pressing him back against the wall, tangling her tongue with his, finding immense pleasure in the sheer simplicity of kissing the one person she loved. "I don't want to stop," she sighed, taking his bottom lip between her teeth and tugging.

"We have to," he mumbled. "We have to leave, shift's over." Sara let him go and stood back, the sadness in her eyes creating one more fissure in his heart.

She pulled back all the way and nearly pouted. "I wasn't done."

"Excuse me?"

"We only kiss here, on the job, on the clock. And if we clock out… I wasn't done," she muttered by way of an explanation.

Grissom smiled and smoothed down her hair like he had the very first time he'd touched his lips to hers. "We don't have to confine it just to… here, you know."

Sara was gone from his presence in a matter of seconds. "Race you back to my place," she called over her shoulder and was gone.