It has been a horrible week.
The only bright spot in this wretched week has been her. From the moment he hears her voice outside the hotel where he is pushing dummies from the rooftop, something inside him unspools, the heavy responsibility of leading his team through this tumultuous time suddenly bearable.
Holly Gribbs, a rookie on her first assignment, is dead. He has been promoted to a supervisory position he isn't sure he wants. And he has just been tasked with firing Warrick – a demand he has impulsively refused.
He watches Warrick walk down the hallway and decides to wait before informing his superiors that he has not, in fact, fired him. Will not be firing him.
Instead, he returns to his office, and stares at his cell phone in the dark.
The team is down two CSIs with Holly dead and Brass moved back to homicide. He won't fire Warrick, but it's possible they will strongarm him into imposing a temporary leave. That would leave just Catherine and Nick and himself. Three people to cover the busiest shift in the busiest crime lab in the country.
He flips open his phone and scrolls through his recent contacts, pausing at her name.
It makes sense, he tells himself. They need the help, and she is already here.
She has done an excellent job. Not that he is surprised. She is not just brilliant. She is also conscientious and dedicated. She does nothing half way. He knew even before he asked her to come that she would be thorough and fair in her handling of the internal investigation into Holly's death. That is why he asked her to come. Her report is evidence that he made the right decision.
He can still see Catherine's face when he announced to the team that he was bringing Sara in to do the internal investigation. Warrick and Nick were blank-faced, trusting blindly that he would choose someone wisely. But Catherine's reaction was visceral.
Last year, he made the mistake of mentioning Sara too many times in casual conversations with Catherine.
He doesn't realize he's doing it, doesn't realize how many stories suddenly begin, "I was talking to Sara and…" or how many new techniques are prefaced with, "I just read about this new method in an article Sara sent me…."
But, of course, Catherine notices. Of course Catherine, with no filter and loose boundaries, finally narrows her eyes and asks him, "Exactly how often do you talk to this Sara person?"
He rolls his eyes and scoffs, explaining Sara Sidle away as just "a CSI from San Francisco"; as someone he met at a conference a while back.
He never mentions her again.
There is no reason to avoid mentioning her — nothing shameful or wrong about their relationship. Their friendship. But he does not want to discuss it with Catherine. He did not then, and he does not now.
For weeks after that awkward conversation, whenever he mentions a journal article, Catherine grins slyly and asks if Sara Sidle sent it to him. He never does more than roll his eyes, and eventually Catherine stops bringing her up.
But Catherine's memory is long. And when he tells the team he's bringing in Sara Sidle, she doesn't hesitate. He can still hear the incredulity in her voice as she repeats, "Sara Sidle?"
Catherine is furious because she doesn't want anyone to investigate Warrick. Her loyalty is clear. But so is his. He would never bring in someone to hurt Warrick. She should know that. There must be an investigation. It's better that it be done by someone he trusts.
The phone buzzes, and it is her. It is as if she has read his mind. As if she knows he wants to talk to her but cannot bring himself to hit the call button.
She asks about the meeting with the lab director. About Warrick. And then she asks if he needs anything else.
He knows she means the investigation, but for one fleeting moment his heart answers with the unvarnished truth. You.
He asks her to stay. Just for a few weeks. Until they can hire some new team members. She says yes immediately, and he is both grateful and apprehensive. He loves having her here. He will miss her when she is gone.
A week later, they are working a kidnapping — a woman abducted from her multi-million dollar mansion. Sara is taking photos in the hall when Nicky arrives to pick up the audio of the ransom call, and he overhears them bantering about who has seniority; hears her taunt, "Who did Grissom handpick to work here?" confident that she is his favorite. She is right, of course. Though he would never admit it. Not even to himself.
A half hour later, they are in the courtyard, and he's holding up a rag for her to smell, teasing her about her rapidly-unraveling theory.
"I keep trying to be your star pupil," she admits with a bashful smile.
"That was a seminar, Sara," he says with just a hint of disapproval. "This is real life."
In his mind, they are back under the pier in Venice Beach, and she is smiling at him like he is some sort of god instead of just a mortal man who doesn't understand the rules of courtship and cannot seem to make a relationship work.
The moment passes, and they are back to work, untangling the clues, working in concert. It has been nearly a year since he was in her city, on her team, working her case, but it feels like no time has passed at all.
They communicate in gestures and eye movements, anticipating each other's thoughts before they can be spoken aloud. She stands so close to him that he can feel her body heat against his skin like a caress. She beams at him when they make progress — not the worshipful smile that makes his heart ache, but a playful, victorious smile that says they are a team and share in this small victory.
In the helicopter, above the vast Nevada desert, they watch a pack of coyotes on the heat sensors and then spot their victim, bound and gagged beneath the earth's surface.
In a blur, they are on the ground, hands in the dirt, digging and calling for her. And then their victim is free, and Sara is handing him the scissors he asked for to cut the bindings, and the paramedics are whisking the traumatized woman off to the ambulance.
He turns back to assess the site and finds Sara with her shoulders slumped, hands on her hips, eyes downcast, head hanging. He feels a rush of protectiveness that is unfamiliar to him in this context, reserved usually for victims or children. And before he can stop himself, he is cupping her cheek. Her hair is whipping in the wind of the rotary blades, soft and silky against the back of his hand. He strokes her cheek with his thumb, savoring the warmth of her skin, and she lifts her eyes to his.
"Are you okay?" he asks, removing his hand and squelching the ridiculous, inappropriate urge to hold her.
She nods once, and then shakes her head ruefully. "It never ceases to amaze me what people will do to each other," she says. Her voice is hard and sad and betrays her disappointment with the entirety of the human race.
She turns and begins barking orders to the uniformed officers over the roar of the helicopter, and their investigation continues.
Later, back at the lab, he is reassuring Catherine that she is not making her daughter weird, though he thinks he of all people is an ironic choice to be the authority on what it takes to make someone not weird. And then Sara interrupts, poking her head out of the garage. "Hey, Grissom!" she says brightly, holding aloft a roll of duct tape. "Could you come tape me up?"
She disappears back into the garage, not waiting for his assent, and he cannot stifle the smile he knows is coming. Something about her, everything about her, just makes him want to smile. He knows Catherine will not miss this, so he turns to her and raises his eyebrows, smirks, and makes a joke of his response. "I love my work," he says. And then he grins.
"It shows," she says as he walks away. Her voice is subdued, and he wonders whether she is just bored, or if she suspects there is more he is not telling her.
In the garage, Sara in the passenger seat of the suspect's car, they are quiet as he leans in close and tapes her hands in front of her, as the victim had been taped when they found her. Neither of them says a word, but their gazes linger, heavy with unspoken feelings.
Sara walks him through her theory, demonstrating the impossibility of the lambskin fibers on the back of the victim's sleeves unless she was seated, unrestrained, in the passenger seat. Unless she is not a victim at all, but a co-conspirator. He is impressed, yet again, with her thought process, her ingenuity, her tenaciousness. She is brilliant. She was born for this job.
She continues, positing her theory that the victim was never unconscious because she never inhaled the halothane on the rag they found at the crime scene.
He can't stop himself from smiling. He knew she would untangle this web of lies and come to this conclusion eventually. He is proud of her, and she is clearly proud of herself. Her eyes sparkle as she holds his gaze, waiting for his praise.
"How pleased am I that I got a sample of her blood?" he says with a smile, revealing that he's already one step ahead of her.
Her head falls forward in defeat, but she is laughing. She wants so badly not just to be his best student, his favorite CSI, but to be his equal. To be his better. She will be someday. He has no doubt.
"So you can go check at the lab and see how that turned out," he finishes, grinning at her and raising his eyebrows playfully.
"Damn it," she says, still laughing. She stands, and suddenly they are so close, and he is dizzy with pleasure at having her in his space. "I wanted to carry the ball over the line."
He could lean forward right now and kiss her. She is close enough to kiss, and he suspects she would be equal parts shocked and thrilled.
He does not, of course. Cannot. He cannot kiss her at work. Cannot kiss her at all.
Instead, he drops his head, averting his gaze, and smiles wryly as she brushes past him, headed for the lab. His cheeks are suspiciously warm.
There is, of course, no halothane in the victim's blood. Between that and the enhanced audio of the ransom call that reveals her voice in the background urging the kidnapper to hurry up, the case is a slam dunk.
They confront their victim-turned-suspect, effortlessly taking turns speaking, explaining their theory, presenting their evidence in a beautifully choreographed dance.
He is seated opposite the suspect and her husband. Sara starts the conversation standing behind him, but once she sits on the couch beside him, his whole body gradually shifts until he is facing her, a reluctant spring bloom searching for the sun.
After shift, they go out to breakfast. Sara is staying in a hotel, expensing all her meals, and since she came here at his request, it's only good manners that he share some of those meals with her, so she is not eating alone. At least that is what he tells himself as she stirs her coffee and watches him, a comfortable silence settling around them.
He didn't realize how much he would love these moments.
For a moment, on the couch, and in that booth, he allows himself to imagine a future where this is his life. Working with her. Eating with her. Simply being in her presence.
When he walks her to her car an hour later, he feels the heaviness of the decision he is about to make. This long-distance friendship they have, it's not enough for either of them anymore. He feels them both reaching for something more.
She leans against her car door and looks up at him, waiting. His gaze falls to her mouth.
He takes a deep breath and hesitates, imagining for a moment both possibilities. Schrödinger's kiss.
If he kisses her, if they do this – try to turn their friendship into something more – he knows how it will end. He knows how that always ends.
Later, he will swear it is not intentional. Not a conscious decision. He will tell her that his decision to ask her to stay was not a desperate attempt to keep her close without risking his heart. That he asked her because the team needed her. Because he liked working with her. Because it was a good career move for her.
But they both know the truth: he is not brave enough yet to make this leap.
Whatever the case, he trades one future with her for another. He raises his gaze from her lips to her eyes.
"Move to Vegas," he says. "Come work for me. Join my team permanently."
Later, she will claim that she hesitates because she is thinking about her life in San Francisco. Her job. Her apartment. Her friends.
But they both know the truth. She understands that she is exchanging one future with him for another. If she works for him, if he is her boss, that changes things.
But she has spent three weeks in this new life, working side by side with him, and she cannot bear to give it up for the possibility that he will someday be brave enough to take a chance on her.
She nods, and he smiles, equal parts relief and anticipation flooding through him.
Two weeks later she returns to San Francisco just long enough to pack up her apartment and process her resignation at the crime lab. He holds his breath the entire time she is gone. And then she is back. And he can breathe again, and their new life begins.