Disclaimer: I do not own CSI : ( I'm using the characters for fun, I do not make any money with using them or themes of the show.

AN: Sorry for this being so late! Thanks to everyone who encouraged me to write! Especially Teryl, Vilja, GreenCat, Angelbaby, SaraSidleGrissom and Inlya!

Many thanks to Myra for beta reading :)

Summary: She crossed the line with the suspect, she asked him to sleep with her... and now they watch how a dead pig decomposes. you get the idea, this is about SLL : )

chapter 3

Sara walked over to the reception desk, leaning against it as she smiled at the young blonde in front of her. "Hi..." She spoke softly, somehow feeling insecure, still not used to all the new people around her.

Ten weeks had passed by since she'd arrived in Las Vegas, ten weeks that had been really confusing, stressing and full of work. And unfortunately tonight wasn't an exception.

The last days had been the worst in her whole time here, maybe in the whole time that she'd been working as a CSI.

She knew that this guy had killed his wife, she felt it, saw it in the way he behaved... and it drove her insane that they couldn't prove it. And it drove her even more insane that for Gil the case seemed to be closed or at least that, for him, their main suspect was not suspected anymore.

Judy looked up and smiled back at her. "Can I help you?" she asked friendly.

Sara nodded. "I'm searching for Grissom, you don't know where he is, do you?"

Grissom. It felt weird to call him by his last name... she had soon discovered that everyone here at the lab called him 'Grissom' not Gil, except for Catherine and Captain Brass, and not Dr. Grissom either, except for Judy, but she only did that when she was speaking with him. Sara didn't know if she should call him Gil. She was in no other position than her co-workers, only exception was Catherine, but she was the senior CSI after Grissom and a close friend of him, closer than Sara felt she could be. In addition to this he had given her the feeling that he did not want anyone to know about their 'history', maybe they'd suspect something if she'd call him Gil...on the one hand she knew that this was ridiculous, on the other hand she was not so sure...

She hadn't talked to him since their conversation this night,... maybe discussion was the better word... When the words had left her lips she hadn't been able to believe what she had just said. 'You want to sleep with me?' The way he had looked up to her... the way he had taken off his glasses, the way his mouth had dropped open... It all had mirrored the one question that had been in his mind, the one question she knew he had wanted to ask but hadn't because he hadn't dared to ask. 'Are you insane?' She had been able to see it in his eyes, he'd been shocked, shocked that she asked him to do something that, as he had made clear to her, would never happen again, not under any circumstances.

Inwardly she'd been smiling though, shocking him... that had been what she wanted, although she had been somehow disappointed about how shocked he had been. She didn't even want to think about what would have happened if he'd said 'yes'. Oh... that would be a secret fantasy of her from now on, him saying yes... asking her to come in and asking her to lock the door...

But in fact, she hadn't meant sleeping in a sexual way, even though she knew that he'd been thinking that. And clearing that up seconds later after letting him hanging in the air for a short moment had filled her with soft delight.

"I'm sorry I don't know where he is." Judy said and ripped Sara out of her thoughts.

"Oh..." Sara, back in reality, smiled insecure. "Okay, thanks anyways." She turned around to leave as she heard captain Brass's voice.

"He's outside in the yard, together with his girlfriend."

Sara felt her heart aching, 'girlfriend'? He had a girlfriend? She swallowed hard. "Uhm...okay, I guess I'll wait for him to come back in then." She said softly hoping that she could hide the awkward mixture of feelings that rose up in her.

"Oh I think that will take a little longer, Miss Piggy will need a while to decompose." He said with an expression on his face that showed his slight disgust by the simple thought of it.

Sara was confused. First girlfriend, now Miss Piggy... what the hell was he talking about? She threw an asking look at him, hoping he'd understand, hoping that she wouldn't have to ask him any further questions... she knew that her voice would be shaking from the first shock of Brass referring to Grissom's 'girlfriend'.

"He's trying to prove that Kaye Shelton has been dead for five days..."

Her heart was jumping and bright smile flashed over her lips. "How?"

"Dead pig, wrapped in blanket... video camera... timeline, something like that, you two are the scientists, I am the cop. We shouldn't try to change this, should we?"

Sara chuckled softly. "I think I'll better go and see if I can help him somehow."

Captain Brass smiled softly and nodded. "Good luck." He said and left.

Sara made her way through the hallway as she passed by the break room, thinking about taking a coffee outside with her, maybe Grissom would want some too. She entered and soon a thermos can caught her attention, with a soft smile on her lips she took it and poured fresh coffee into it.

After getting her jacket, bag and kit from the lockers room she found a blanket and decided to take it with her, it had been cold outside when she'd entered the building after she'd returned from the department and she figured that now it would be even colder. She didn't want him to freeze.

She felt sorry for what she'd said, better said for how she had ended their discussion. It was the way he was, he was not good with people, he was not able to show emotions... she'd have to learn to live with that. He hadn't meant it the way he had said it, he had been trying to calm her down and she'd made it worse. She wished she'd never started discussing this with him... but on the other hand, now he was outside, trying to prove that Kaye Shelton had been killed by her abusive husband. Officially he was doing it for the victim, but Sara couldn't help but feel that he was actually doing it for her. And that made her smile.

While leaving the building through the back entrance she felt like a teenager, feeling butterflies in her stomach and at the same time the fear that he would send her away, that he would find it somehow ridiculous that she was bringing him a blanket and coffee. She knew that he would indeed not think this, he respected her, he trusted her, respected her skills and also trusted in those. Otherwise he wouldn't have asked her to investigate where Warrick had really been when he had actually been supposed to be at court.

She slowly walked over to him, a wave of heat running through her as she felt his eyes on her. He took off his glasses and smiled softly. Silence, they didn't speak a word.

Breathing heavily she sat down next to him, handing him the thermos can. He smiled and she couldn't help but love that smile... the number of butterflies in her stomach had been doubled and her heart was racing. She honestly wondered how she should ever be able to be near him without wanting to be closer to him, closer than she ever could... as close to him as she had been back in San Francisco.

She unfolded the blanket and softly placed it over his back and around his shoulders; her arms were slightly toughing him and she wanted to twine them around him so badly. She didn't know how she found the strength to resist the temptation but she finally managed to sit down again and found her words back. "Thanks." She said softly and smiled at him.

He smirked. "You're welcome." He poured some coffee into the plastic cup and looked up at her afterwards. "Thanks for the coffee and the blanket." His voice turned softer.

She looked down on his notes, not able to stand the tension that rose up between them. "So...you need help with anything?"

"At the moment the only thing I have to do is watching...documenting from time to time, but within the next forty-five minutes there is really nothing to do." He shifted his weight and turned to her. "You don't have to stay here if you don't want to..." he made a pause as she looked up to him. "...I bet you have better things to do."

She shook her head. "I'll stay. I mean, if you want me to leave then I will leave, but... I'd really like to stay. I just moved here, I don't have any friends but you. This is the best I can do today." But were they really friends? Could they ever be friends?

"Did you find an apartment yet?"

She nodded "Yeah. It's a nice place, smaller than my apartment in San Francisco, but still nice. I don't need much space and to be honest I spend more time at work than at home... I don't need that much place."

He grinned softly. "I liked your apartment in San Francisco."

"I bet you did." She chuckled, feeling for the first time since she had arrived that they could just be together without any tension building up between them. Even if it wasn't visible, even if it wasn't obvious, but whenever she was with him, near him, there was this feeling rising up in her, a feeling that she couldn't really describe... it was like a mixture of slight awkwardness and on the other hand frustration and disappointment but also attraction and desire.

"Sara about what..." He started.

"...I'm sorry for what I said in your office." She interrupted him. "I... I don't know why I said it. I shouldn't have said it... I... I know that especially with our 'history', if you want to call it like that, this really seemed... I don't know... tasteless maybe. That's not the right word to describe it... but you wanted us to be only friends and with my first comment I probably gave you the feeling... I maybe seemed as if I wanted to..."

Grissom stared at her. She noticed it and that made her even more nervous.

"...and what I said afterwards... Grissom I really didn't want to make it sound... I didn't want it to sound as if I'd not respect the way you look at the cases, the tragedies behind the cases..."

"...Sara I..."

"...I have to accept that and... I have to accept that we are only friends and not more. It just still feels weird. I mean... we never had a relationship or something like that but... those two days that we spent together... I can't just... forget them."

"Sara I didn't mean our discussion about the case. I wanted to talk about your behavior at the suspect's apartment." He said softly, staring down on his hands.

She swallowed hard. Okay, this had been embarrassing. But at least she had said what in her eyes, had needed to be said. The only bad thing was that it had somehow been out of context, but now it was too late anyways. "About that... I... I am really sorry for that."

"We can be glad that he does not want to file a complaint against you." He said and looked at her, his eyes on her body making her shiver softly.

She nodded. "Will it have any... consequences?" She asked insecure.

"Not this time." He said softly. "But next time I will have to file a report about it Sara. I am not in this position long enough to be able to afford any incidents involving members of my team."

She took a deep breath. "I am really sorry. I lost my temper. I should have controlled myself better, I promise to get better."

He smirked and their eyes met for a second.

She felt tension rising up between them once again. This time she didn't look away, this time she knew that the only way out of this was to tell him why she hadn't been able to control herself anymore. "Men like him make me... go overboard. I... I just can't stand it when men think that there is nothing wrong with abusing their wives because for them they are only objects, property... property with which they can do what ever they want."

"I do understand your reasons Sara, that's why I won't do anything this time. But in case that it should happen again I will have to take actions against it. Even if I would not want to do it, I have no other choice."

"Even if you would not want it?" She felt her chest tightening.

"Please do not get me wrong." He pleaded softly. "Sara we are friends... but I can't make a difference between you and the others. I don't want to make a difference between you and the others. Privacy has nothing to do with the job."

"Do you regret asking me to come here... and offering me to stay?" She asked with shaking voice, her heart beating fast and painfully.

"You're the right one for the job. I know that you can do it. I do not regret asking you to come and neither do I regret that I offered you to stay. Sara you're one of the best CSIs I ever worked with and I hope that we will be able to work with each other for a long time."

She smiled, feeling the butterflies once again. "I'm not going to disappoint you again." She said softly.

Their eyes met once again and they remained in silence for a while, soft smiles slowly building up on their lips. After a while she broke away, not because she wasn't able to stand the tension anymore, but because she had to accept that they would be friends and nothing more. "I think the forty-five minutes are over." She said pointing at the pig.

He turned away for a second, then looked at her again. "Everything okay?"

"Yes." She faked a smile. Everything would be okay once she would stop getting her hopes up every time that he was near her, every time that he looked at her. Everything might be okay one day.

TBC

I know this chap was really not that good, I apologize! next chapter is going to be about Strip Strangler : )