Disclaimer: I do not own CSI

AN: Thousand thanks to Rhee for beta reading! You are really the best, thank you! Also many thanks to Myra, thank you for always being there!

so this chapter is about Rashomama, after this there will be TOYD, WTG and the Epilogue, means 3 more chapters to go after this one :)

Chapter 28

She smiled softly at herself while she was washing the plates. Grissom was in the living room, stretched out on the sofa; he was a little stressed out because of the long discussion he had with the Sheriff.

The Sheriff had still owed him a favor, so there wouldn't be any consequences for either of them.

"You really should have seen Nicky's face when he realized that his car was stolen." She said, trying to cheer him up. She dried the last plate and put it back into the cupboard.

"Oh yeah, I bet you had fun." He replied sounding a little bit tired.

She sighed and walked over to him. "Everything okay?"

He nodded and gave her a soft smile. Then he sat up, reached out for her arm and dragged her down to him. She snuggled close against him and slipped her arm around his waist.

"I bet you had a hard time trying not to laugh about him." He nestled his face against her neck.

She grinned. "You know me too well."

"Actually, when I'm honest, you really surprised me today." He confessed.

She pulled away slightly and threw an asking look at him. Now what was that supposed to mean?

"I always thought you'd be the type of woman who would want to marry." He trailed his fingers down over her upper arm.

She shrugged. "I'm not a fan of marriage. Way too often I saw it ending in domestic violence and death."

"So that means I better return the ring?" He asked while absent-mindedly drawing little circles on her shoulder with the tip of his middle finger.

"That is not a theme you should make fun about." She let her on hand drop down on his thigh.

"I'm not making fun of anything." His voice was suddenly soft and shy.

Sara felt as if she'd choke. He had not really planned to propose sometime in the near future, had he?

"Don't forget to breath Honey." He told her while a soft smile built up on his lips. He brushed a strand of hair behind her ear and softly kissed her on her cheek. "It's okay."

She felt how her whole body began to shake. "You did not really…" Her voice was shaking too much, she couldn't continue. She closed her eyes and told herself to calm down. She tried to take a deep breath but failed, instead the air filled her lungs through several, hectic little gasps.

He lowered his one hand to her hip and slipped his thumb under the hem of her shirt, caressing her soft skin. "I was raised very traditionally, you know. My mother always wanted me to get married one day, with three children and a dog," He leaned his head against hers. "My parents were, well I guess their marriage would be described as happy; my mother always wanted me to make a woman just as happy as she had been with my father. So she taught me to be a gentleman and taught me to cook and how to wash my clothes and to iron. I was taught to be the perfect husband, the problem was just that no one ever taught me how to actually woo a woman. That would have been my father's job I guess."

She smirked softly at him. She knew that he would be the perfect man to spend the rest of her life with, she just didn't like the idea of marriage, at least not marriage as it was seen by most people.

"Honey, if you fear that I could hurt you, physically… I… Honey I could never do that. And…" Now his voice was shaking.

"I know that you would never hurt me." She kissed him softly. "I know that you could never lay a hand on me."

"Then why don't you want to marry me?" He sounded a bit desperate now.

"I never said that I would not want to marry you." Gently she ran her hand over his shoulder. "I just… this is a general thing. I love you and you know that. I want to spend the rest of my life with you, I just don't understand why we have to be married for that."

He shrugged after a moment. "I don't know, but when we spend the rest of our lives with each other anyway, why should we not marry?"

She closed her eyes and swallowed hard. "Griss, the things we see at work everyday, all these tragedies… domestic violence, women killed by their husbands to shut them up before they could tell anyone that they were abused or simply killed because their husbands were in the mood to beat them up."

"But I am not like that."

"I know that," She brushed her lips over his. "I know that." Slowly she let her body sink deeper into his embrace. "Add my family history to all this, I mean not only my parents but my whole family. In six… no, seven generations no marriage could even roughly be described as happy. My brother went through his third divorce last year, my aunt Cindy had four husbands, one more abusive than the other, my grand-uncle Bernard killed his wife. I could continue but it's only getting worse." Yes, her family was pretty much cursed, that was why she had been clinging on to Grissom in all these years. In a masochistic way it had felt safe to love him even though he had always seemed as if he would never want to act on his feelings for her, no not 'even though'; because it had always seemed as if he would never act on his feelings.

The feeling of his palm rubbing over her back was a huge comfort to her. She did not like to remember her family's past, let alone talk about them. It always reminded her of all the crap she had to go through in the past, but it also made her love Grissom even more. She knew he would never ever do to her what her father had done to her mother, he would never lay a hand on her, he would never rape her, he would never attempt to kill her. Grissom was so caring, so gentle, so tender - in fact he was everything she had never dared to dream about and even more, she hadn't expected him to be like that. He might have hurt her mentally in the past but with every caring expression in his eyes, with every gentle touch, with every tender kiss he made this up to her, thousandfold.

"Honey, I know years ago I said something else but I changed a lot since then; I could make you happy." She had felt her chest tighten already when he had begun to speak. She framed his face with her hands and let her eyes meet his.

"I am happy. You already make me happy. Happier than I thought I ever could be." She kissed him softly. "I never thought I could be as happy as I am at the moment with you, so why should we change our…"

He ran his hand through her hair. "A marriage is not changing the way we love each other or how we treat each other, it would just express how much we love…"

"But we both know how much we mean to each other and others are not allowed to know anyway. When Nick made his comment about my thoughts about marriage I told him that I wasn't against marriage per se, just against the stupidity that surrounds it nowadays. People make their wedding ceremonies a public event because they want everyone to admire them, they marry for money or to usher in their career and in the past marriage was about possession or people were married by their parents because…" She spoke faster and faster without even noticing it.

"Honey," He held her with his hands on her upper arms now. "Honey calm down."

She sighed and leaned her forehead against his. "I'm sorry."

He gave he a soft smile. "Nothing to feel sorry about." He kissed her gently on her lips. "Honey I want to marry you because I love you more than I ever thought I could love someone. You are my life and I never thought that… that someone would ever manage to be my life, I never thought I would so easily be willing to risk my career to be with someone. My career has been the most important part of my life for almost thirty years but since you came into my life... I would give it all up for you." He sighed softly. "I sound so corny."

She felt the tears running down her cheeks but she couldn't help but smile. Smiling not only with her face but also with her heart, with her soul.

"I just think a marriage would be a connection that would last forever. Yes we could be together until the end of our lives without being married and if this is what you want then I will accept it but I know this is probably only my opinion because it was what my mother always taught me, but I think that a marriage would bring all this to a full circle. We'd not be incomplete without a marriage, but we…" He stopped and noticed the expression in her eyes. "I don't know how to argue rationally for marriage." He confessed.

"If this is so important for you," she sighed. "I promise I will think about it again, okay?"

The bright smile that built up on his lips was evidence enough, yes it was okay. She let her lips meet his and kissed him affectionately.

She might change her mind about weddings, if she and Grissom would marry secretly in a little chapel in Vegas or something similar and not because they wanted to save taxes or for any other purpose than to declare their love to each other. She did not know if she would ever feel good about marriages though, but time would tell.

TBC

feedback is very appreciated ;)