Auld Acquaintance 4
PhDelicious

Disclaimer: still hasn't changed

A/N: I wanted to include some of this in "New Year's Notions" but it didn't fit within the confines (read length limits) of the Unbound Challenge. So here is an attempt to answer some questions; though I've heard that it just raises more (Thanks Joan!)…

Shrieks echoed through Sara's apartment; not the sounds of hysterical laughter as two friends reminisce, but the terrified screams of a child caught in a nightmare. They startled Mel awake and sent her scrambling out of the unfamiliar bed and across the hall into Sara's room. She perched on the edge of the bed and placed a calming hand lightly on Sara's shoulder as she thrashed about. It had been more than five years since Mel had been awakened thusly, but the actions still came automatically.

"It's okay baby. You're safe here." Mel whispered quietly, praying that Sara wouldn't wake herself up. If Sara woke up there would be no getting her back to sleep, but if she was soothed back to a sound sleep there were usually no more nightmares that evening.

Sara had warned her about the nightmares before allowing her to move in. Despite the fact that they'd already been friends for a while at that point the explanation that Sara had offered had been sketchy.

CSICSICSI

"Mel are you sure you want to do this?" Sara asked as they sat at a small coffee shop discussing what to do with the extra furniture that the move would create.

"Of course. It'll be so fun to live together, unless you don't want me…"

"No, it's not that. It's just…did Jessie tell you why he moved out?"

"He said something about being able to sleep better at Mike's than at the apartment, but I thought that was just 'cause they're sleeping together." Mel shrugged.

Sara smiled briefly. "That may be part of it, but the truth is, I have nightmares. Apparently I scream loudly enough to wake Jessie up."

"Nightmares? About what?"

"My childhood wasn't the best."

"Sara?"

CSICSICSI

But Sara had changed the subject and Mel had only been able to begin piecing the puzzle together after a week of listening to Sara's troubled dreams. It still surprised her how quickly she'd fallen into a pattern of going to bed a few hours earlier than Sara, waking up to soothe her through a nightmare, and falling back to sleep for the rest of the night. What amazed her now, as she sat looking at her tortured friend, was that she'd been able to keep that schedule for 3 years and that Sara had survived with almost no sleep since then.

Sara's sobs had quieted, but she was still restless. There would be no more sleep tonight; thankfully, it had already been almost 5 hours since they'd collapsed into bed upon returning to Sara's apartment. Maybe she'd be able to talk Sara into a nap later.

"Mel?" Sara's voice was hoarse and her words slurred with sleep. "Sorry."

"I guess they didn't go away when you moved huh?"

Sara rubbed her eyes and pushed herself up against her headboard. She dragged a hand through her hair and sighed before answering Mel's question.

"There's only ever been one thing that made them go away, and I don't have that anymore."

"Oh Sara." Mel moved to sit next to Sara and wrapped her arms around her friend, hugging her tight. "So you and Gil…?"

"We slept together a couple of times, just after I got here. But then he decided the lab needed him more than he needed me and he took the supervisor position permanently." Still recovering from her nightmare, Sara didn't bother to hide her pain.

"And yet you stayed." A hint of bitterness colored Mel's speech.

"I thought I could change his mind. Besides, we'd just had that big fight; I had nothing else to bring me back to San Francisco. And this was, still is, the number 2 lab in the country, besides the FBI. There was a lot for me to learn here."

"And now?"

"I got stuck. It was just easier to stay than to leave. Things went downhill for a long time. This past year has just been one close call after another. I've been attacked more than once and we nearly lost Nick in a revenge kidnapping. It changed all of us. Grissom's been different since then, more like the man I knew before I came to Vegas. I thought that maybe he was trying to tell me something with his Christmas present, but nothing happened and I figured I'd misread him again, until he showed up at my door last night."

"Tell me about last night…" Mel encouraged Sara to talk, knowing that even if they couldn't figure out Grissom she could at least help her friend understand herself.

"I was planning to…I don't know… test him, but we got called out to the accident. I spent hours processing the scene and the evidence, only to prove that it was an accident and to find out that my best friend was one of the people who'd been hospitalized as a result. I came home, and contemplated drinking myself into oblivion. Grissom's arrival made my decision for me. He drove me to the hospital; you know the rest of it."

"Yes, but what I don't know is what you left out, why you're not telling me, and how much difference it makes."

Sara began to get annoyed with Mel's prodding.

"What did I leave out? The fact that for the third time in as many years the man I love has watched me fall apart and each time it happens he stands a just little closer, holds on a little bit longer, and breaks my heart a little more." Sara's tears returned, though she would've sworn that she'd already cried herself dry that day. She shrugged despondently as she continued to answer Mel's accusation. "Why didn't I tell you? Because it makes no difference at all. I can't do this again Mel; I can't keep relying on him to put me back together. I wasn't enough for him then; how can I be enough for him now that he knows how broken I truly am?"

"Is that what you want Sar; to be enough for Gil?"

"It was everything I wanted, more than I ever expected to get, and so much less than it could've been that first time. What do I want? I want to be more needed than a job, more important than a body, more fascinating than a timeline."

"But?"

"Mel," Sara protested.

"I know there's a 'but' hanging off of that thought, so just finish it Sara."

"But if I were those things to him he wouldn't be the man I love, at least not the manifestation of him that I've known for most of my time here in Vegas."

"Grissom, instead of Gil," Mel stated, making the distinction that Sara had been tap dancing about.

"I suppose. Some days I doubt my memories of Gil. But every time I've convinced myself that he doesn't really exist, Griss does something to change my mind."

"Griss?" Mel had thought she'd been following Sara's logic, splitting the person they'd met in San Francisco from her boss, but this third personality was taking it a little too far.

"It was going to be our compromise; in the end it wasn't necessary. I only knew Gil and at work he has always been Grissom. I wanted to be special; he wanted to be inconspicuous. I'm not sure we ever really managed either one. You'd have to ask the guys?"

"I'd like that." Mel laughed at Sara's confused look. "To get the chance to ask the guys, to meet the people you work with."

"Really?" Sara perked up slightly at the thought of introducing Mel around the lab. "I thought you'd want to get back to San Francisco."

"I wasn't planning on going back for another week."

"Mel?"

"It's been tough Sar, always running into Jason at work, trying not to hear the newest set of rumors about his latest affair. Gary thought that some extra time off would help. Here's as good a place as any to take it."

"If you're supposed to be on vacation I probably shouldn't be bringing you into the lab like some 'Show and Tell' prize. Gary would fly out here and have my ass if I burned you out on vacation."

"It's not really burn-out; it's not related to the job, just to work. Besides, Gary doesn't care about me enough for all that."

"Melissa?" Sara dragged the name out into a curiosity filled warning.

"Let's just say you aren't the only one having supervisor-employee, unrequited relationship issues. I need more sleep before we do this again." Mel moved her arms from around Sara and stretched lazily, slipping down on the bed.

"Well at least we can be messes together. You know I think you're wrong about Gary…"

"Sleep, then talk." Mel interrupted, turning her back to Sara and settling down on a spare pillow.

"Fine." Sara pouted a little, ready to discuss any problem other than her own, but rolled over so that they lay back to back in her bed. Slowly their breathing evened out into an identical rhythm as the two tired friends drifted back into deep sleep.

TBC...