Chapter One

Another dawn and Sara Sidle was already awake, as she always was. She wasn't sure just when she had started taking a daily run just as the sun would rise and claim the horizon for fire, for now it felt as if it had always been so. Or perhaps she willed it to have always been so, creating an abyss between what was and what had been. She hadn't forgotten. She merely chose not to remember.

Another dawn, and it was getting colder. Autumn was in the air and in the sea, growing restless by the turn of seasons. She watched it it battering against the shores, a caress of water that was never quite gentle, sometimes even violent in its passion. Wave after wave after wave, carving their slow mark into rock and sand and land. Sometimes, she wondered if the sea would claim all, take and take until there was nothing left. But then, the sea also gave - rain to bring life, currents taking warmth where cold would otherwise reign and sometimes even land back.

No life without the sea, then, for all it might also hurt.

The sun was a faint heat in her back as she returned to her home, the last hill up always leaving her breathless and awake. Lights were starting to come on among her neighbours, awakening to another day in greater Boston. Not for the first time, she wondered

For a moment, she paused at her doorstep, watching the sun glimmer off a distant skyscraper, breaking the light and showing all the colours the sun hid within. Perhaps this was going to be a beautiful late-summer day.

Perhaps. She had long ago learned that the little hopes were much easier to bear when they came to nothing, and possible to live on when they did not.

Perhaps it was going to be a beautiful day and no one would get murdered and there would be no blood for her to feel.

The kitchen was dark as she had left it, the fridge humming its lonely tune and one red light blinking insistently on her answering machine. Work only called on her cell, and she found herself expecting James's voice as she pressed play.

"Sara, it's Warrick. Please call me. Something's come up."

She stood utterly still for a moment, hand still on the lightswitch. Warrick. Warrick, who she had not spoken with since calling to half-heartedly congratulate him on his marriage to Catherine - was it a year ago already? A year and a half? She chose not to remember. Easier not to. Easier to make the cut clean and clear, not remembering...

For a breathless moment, his fingers across her cheek, his gaze embracing her. For a moment of hope, his lips against her skin and no wall between them. For a moment, Grissom and Sara and nothing else.

"This is a start," he whispered, voice filling her. "This is a start for us."

For a moment, she believed him.

She shook the memory away, picking up the phone without hesitation. Warrick could be calling about a million things. Greg might have been promoted. Nick could finally have married. Ecklie could finally have decided to run for President. A million reasons.

He answered on the third ring, voice tired and so familiar she could almost feel the Las Vegas sun, as if she was there with him. "Brown."

"Sidle."

"Sara! I wasn't sure you still had the same number."

"I'm still in Boston. Still in Vegas?"

"Of course. You know me. Listen..." He hesitated, and already she could feel chill creep up her spine. He wouldn't hesitate if it wasn't about Grissom. "There was an accident. Grissom got hit by a car. He's going to live, but it was a close call."

"That's good," she muttered, her hands like claws as she clutched the phone. He couldn't die. He could never die, even if she didn't want to be reminded of his life. He couldn't.

"He've been asking for you."

Breath.

"Sara?"

"It's been three years since..."

"I know. I know you don't owe him anything. I know," Warrick repeated, sounding apologetic. "I just thought you should know anyway."

"Yeah. Thanks. I have to get to work. I'll... I'll call you later, okay?"

"Sure."

And with a click, the past was gone again and she stood in her dark kitchen, the sunlight only starting to crawl in and across the floor. She stared at it, trying not to think, not to feel, just be still. There were memories everywhere, as if the abyss had been bridged and they had found their way across. She had never forgotten. And she had tried so very, very hard to never forgive.

"Shit," she whispered and leaned her head against the counter, feeling the cool of it against her forehead. So tempting even now to forgive it all and rush to his side and only because he had spoken her name. But no one had ever said her name quite like him, even the memory of it alluring. Still she had walked away. She had. She should call Warrick back and tell him never to call about Grissom again, that Grissom could go to hell as far as she was concerned, but that would be a lie.

She lifted her head, walked out of the kitchen, showered and was out of the house in ten minutes, her body so used to the morning's routine she didn't really need to think about what to do.

It would have been easier if there hadn't truly been anything between them but unfulfilled pauses and longing gazes. It would have been easier if she didn't remember the feel of his beard scratching against her thigh, the feel of his palm under her fingers, the rise and fall of his chest as she rested in him. She couldn't forget what had been burned into memory.

The air was warmer as she stepped out again, the sun having begun its work of the day. The car gleamed brightly in the light, still looking almost like new from the wax James had given it. It was a good life she had started here. A good job, a good home, even good friends. Or perhaps comfortable was a better word. A comfortable life.

And now...

The car door was hot against her back, warmed by sun and summer. In contrast, his body was cooler, almost shade as she leaned against him.

"What are we doing here?" she asked, his breath warm on her neck. She could almost smell Lake Mead stretch out behind them, the waves of light breaking against it.

"We're watching you in sunlight."

"Grissom..."

He kissed her, the taste of her still on his lips from the last kiss, reminding her that to him, she was ever beautiful, in sunlight and darkness and all the shades of dawn.

"I am," he whispered and she believed him.

Another day, and Sara wasn't even sure she had been living the past three years.