Disclaimer: I do not own CSI

AN: two more chapters to go after this one... enjoy. : )

chapter 9

It was late at night when he woke up once again from a nightmare. But this time the dream had been different. This time he hadn't been dreaming of Sara lying hurt on the ground but of Sara lying dead on a table in the morgue. In his dream Doc Robbins had just opened her chest and he was searching for her heart. But it was not there. Suddenly Grissom had found himself standing next to Doc Robbins. The coroner had looked up to him and had asked him if he'd know what had happened to Sara's heart. He had shrugged and told him that he didn't know. Robbins then answered that maybe someone had broken it. He had swallowed hard and known that it must have been him. Then he'd waken up.

Grissom sat up and wished that he could turn on a light and could distract himself with reading. Reading textbooks had always helped him to distract himself from his nightmares. But now he couldn't read so he had to think of something else.

The problem was that he just couldn't think of anything else but Sara or things that were connected with her and their past.

He wondered what would have happened if he would have met Sara in that night. Or any other night. Actually it didn't matter when, but in that night he probably would have been even more emotional. Three years ago in that night he had asked her to marry him. And she had answered with yes. And then they had shared a lot of passionate kisses before he could even slip the ring over her finger.

It hadn't been easy for them to hide their relationship from their colleagues and friends but somehow they had managed to do so. He had known that it had hurt Sara that they had to keep it a secret, especially because he had managed to do that so well. Even while she had been fighting for her life, and not only her own, he hadn't been able to take care of her. He had been standing in secure distance, observing what happened but unable to push away everything that held him back from running over to her. He had done nothing but standing in the darkness while Warrick was kneeling next to her, while Warrick had been holding her hand, while Warrick had tried to keep her awake and had tried to calm her down while the paramedics were trying to stabilize her.

Not even in the hospital he had told anyone about him and Sara. Not even Jim. Not even Catherine. When the doctor had called him into his office the others had exchanged looks, he had felt that they were sensing that there had been something going on between him and Sara for a while without their knowledge. But they all had kept still and neither of them had ever asked him about it.

Not even now anyone of them officially knew that he and Sara had been married or in fact were still married.

He wished that he would have told someone. That he would have told his friends, that they all would have known it from the beginning on. He and Sara had been so happy together and until this moment he had always thought that it had been the accident that had destroyed everything.

He had wondered for years why she had left him and now it was so obvious. She had left because he hadn't taken care of her the way that he should have. He hadn't been there for her when she had needed him the most. Yes he had visited her in the hospital, he had spent a lot of time with her at home, but in the moment in which she had been lying there in her own blood, asking for him, scared that she would die, scared that she would die without him, alone… in the moment in which he should have been holding her in his arms, he had been standing far away from her, so far that she could not even see him.

Suddenly everything was so clear to him. Suddenly he knew why Sara had not been able to stay with him. He started to hate himself for what he had done or better said not done. And when he hated himself, how must Sara have felt all the time?

When he would have met Sara accidentally in that night she probably wouldn't have wanted to even see him. She would have turned away and would have left and he would have followed her because he didn't knew better. He would have followed her until she would have stopped and then she probably would have told him why she hated him so much.

And he would have been able to understand her. He would have been standing there, unable to decide what to do but starting to hate himself.

But somehow Sara had found the strength to visit him in prison. Maybe she did not hate him anymore. Maybe she had started to forgive him, or at least hated him less than before.

Maybe, when the trial went well, maybe he could try to talk to her afterwards, maybe he could try to tell her how sorry he was, maybe he could at least tell her that he regret what he had done. Maybe one day she could forgive him.

He wanted her back in his life. He knew he would probably never be able to win back her heart again, but he wanted a chance to be able to try it again.

He was scared of the trial. What if he would be pleaded guilty? He would spend the rest of his life in prison, he would never see Sara again, he would never get a chance to make good what he made wrong.

He did not kill this woman, he was sure that he did not do this to her. But all he could do was trusting into his lawyer's skills.

TBC