A/N: Forgot this on the first chapter...I don't own the characters...just borrow them for a little extra reading...

And Grissom snapped his cell phone shut. They crouched under the yellow tape and stood amongst the debris. Grissom's eyes narrowed as he looked around, getting a feel for the area surrounding him. His gaze stopped when it landed on Sara, her hair blowing in the wind as she narrowed her eyes, contemplating the scene too. Sara had grown a lot as a CSI since her arrival in Las Vegas. She had picked up her co-workers characteristics as well as learned from their individual skills. This made Sara to be on of the most talented CSI's he'd ever worked with.

Their relationship had become friendship and everything was going perfectly between them until that one day…the day when Sara asked him to dinner. It was the start of everything he could have dreamed. A little ray of light in the world of darkness his job proved to him existed, every day. Despite the fact of being a scientist and loving solving crimes, they were morbid puzzles and live proof – well not live actually…but proof none the less – of the destructive nature of human beings. Sara was a break from that. Although they worked these sometimes horrible cases together, she was his sunlight keeping his world from being completely plunged into darkness.

Presently, her eyes surveilled the scene before them and finally ended by meeting with his. Her eyes lost their narrow concentration as she realized he was staring at her. It's that look that keeps me coming back…There's got to be something more there. thought Sara, seeing, feeling the emotion in Grissom's eyes as he watched her with a distinct gentleness. Then Sara waved as she saw Captain Brass approaching from behind Grissom.

"Hey guys. Quite a crime scene you guys have drawn today…" he said, nodding to the chaotic mess of debris at their feet. "Where are you going to start?"

"You tell us Jim. Do you have any information for us at all?"

"You didn't think I'd leave you high and dry right off the bat did you?" he smirked.

"Superintendent's been having trouble with tenants in apartment 2A and 3A. One apartment above the other. Says they've been fighting constantly, complaining against each other almost every other day. He knew they were both bad news but couldn't evict them on no grounds so tried to placate them until one of their leases came up. 2A was supposed to leave in a month. I guess that wasn't soon enough. He's one of your DB's…" Brass said and gave a shrug.

"Who's the other?" Greg asked.

"This is where things get confusing…the 2nd vic is the guy from 3A." He gave a shake of his head as if saying 'No idea how that works out'.

"Ok well let's get to work. Greg, work with Sara and do a spiral pattern starting out and working your way in. I'm going to try to find the ignition site and go from there."

They nodded and turned to leave but Grissom called Sara back to him. He motioned her to get closer. When she got within an arm's length, Grissom looked over at Greg expectantly. For a few moments, Greg just stood there, looking at his boss, confused. Then he picked up on Grissom's cues, grinned sheepishly and walked a little further away. Sara turned back towards Grissom and found him standing only a few inches away. He was so close she could feel the heat emanating from his body, she could smell his breath. Suddenly she felt a hand press against her lower back and her breath caught in her throat. Twice in one day, Grissom's touch had inebriated her. She felt powerless to pull away and powerless to make the leap forward. She had taken that risk once and he'd turned her down. She looked at him, his eyes just inches away from hers, his mouth, so close…he leaned in and brought his mouth to her ear.

Sara drew in a quick breath and heard Grissom say, "I want you to purposely miss some evidence tonight. Work ahead of Greg and see if he picks it up. Don't make it obvious, but I need to see if he's ready to go solo."

Sara let out the breath she was holding, somewhat disappointed. She closed her eyes briefly and smiled inwardly at herself. You fool! You do this to yourself every time. You get your hopes up, waiting, hoping….and then you get crushed. He's never gonna feel the same what about you that you do about him. When she opened her eyes again after only a second Grissom had pulled away from her ear but was still only a couple inches away rom her face and his hand remained on her back. She saw his eyes glance down at her lips and then drift back up to her eyes again. This time the emotion in his face was unmistakable but Sara refused to let her mind indulge in it. She dismissed the thought and as she nodded and took a slow step back it registered that the loss of contact was evidently unpleasant for both of them. Grissom blinked and when his eyes reopened, he had regained the professional supervisor air he wore daily. It was the role she admired professionally, but hated personally.

Sara turned to find Greg and did, not far away. Satisfied that Grissom was heading inside the fallen building, Greg threw his arm across his forehead and exclaimed dramatically,

"I'm crushed! Oh! What ever will I do!"

Sara gave him an exasperated look and they began photographing and documenting the debris. They worked in silence, Sara, slightly ahead of him, like Grissom had asked. She mentally noted how much evidence there was and how long it would take them to separate what was relevant and what was not. She stopped in front of a piece of metal. It was cylindrical and had threading along one end such as basic plumbing would have. What stayed in her mind was that plumbing would usually break off in big chunks, only coming apart at the weaker spots. She made mental note of it and photographed it as she did everything else but did not say anything and waited to see if Greg would bag it. She continued placing markers to scrap and a few minutes later Greg called her over.

"Sara, does this piece look bizarre to you?"

"Bizarre how, Greg? I mean it's just piping like any old plumber would use…" She smiled inwardly while maintaining her confused act on the outside.

"Yeah, you can get this at any building store but ...installed plumbing would break apart at the weak spots; joints and re-curved areas...this piece...it's smaller than regular plumbing and the broken edge is smooth. No tool marks, so it wasn't cut." He looked at her, holding up the piece of metal in a gloved hand so she could see what he was referring to.

Sara smiled a wide, gap-toothed smile and said, "I agree. Bag it." Greg smiled and frowned at the same time. He took an evidence bag out of his pocket and bagged the fragment. He identified it and returned it to his kit. This game continued for a few hours and remembering that they hadn't heard from Grissom in a length of time, Sara decided to call him.

"Grissom." Her boss answered after the 2nd ring.

"Griss where are you? Did you find the source of the blast?"

"No. Not yet. I'm presently searching the 2nd floor. When a bomb explodes, it affects everything in a 360 radius...spherical...right?" he asked rhetorically but she answered anyways. "Yeah."

"Well that's why I'm searching the 2nd floor. 1A, 2A and 3A were affected but nothing above that. How's Greg doing?"

"Great...uh..." she was unsure if her younger counterpart was listening.

"Is he picking up on everything you're leaving behind?"

"Yes, everything." She silently thanked her boss for reading her mind.

"Good. I thought so. Well I'll let you know as soon as I find something concrete and I'm..."

Sara heard a breaking sound through the earpiece of her cellphone and distant crashing sounds behind her immediately following. She heard Grissom's grunt and drop his phone. The connection was lost.

"Griss?" She demanded through the phone. "Grissom, answer me!" Nothing. Panicking, Sara ran past Greg toward the apartment building her camera in hand. Brass spotted her from a distance and when she didn't respond after hearing her name, he called on two firefighters and followed her into the building. She took the stairs quickly, nimbly. It was obvious that she was an avid runner, she didn't even slow when approaching them.

"Grissom?" she called out. No answer still. "Grissom, please..."she sighed heavily, her whole soul crying out with it, "please answer me..."

A small voice answered her from behind a piece of flooring that had fallen from the upper level. The firemen stepped in front of her and hefted the debris off a wincing Gil Grissom.

"Damn it! Gil, you ok?" Brass asked, obviously relieved to find his friend in one piece.

"Yeah...I'm alright." he lied. Sara stood where she was, staring at him. She seemed to be made of wax, not moving, like a statue in a museum, except for one single tear rolling down her cheek.

"Sara, Honey, I'm ok. Really." He soothed, trying to convince her. But Brass contradicted him by ripping a sleeve off his shirt and wrapping Grissom's left arm. Grissom looked down at his arm and noticed a deep gash across the top of it. It was bleeding heavily. He winced as one of the firemen helped hem to his feet.

Only a few steps were needed to bring him to Sara's side and with his good arm he brushed his thumb over her cheek, wiping away her tear. She gave him a weak smile, slightly comforted, and placed her arms around him tightly in a hug.

As much as she told herself that she was giving up on the idea of being with him, she couldn't deny her feelings. When she had heard the loud crashing sound behind her, her heart had seemed to stop beating. Her breath had caught in her throat and she had panicked. Panicked at the thought of losing a friend and panicked at the thought of losing the one man that could've possibly been 'the one'. And now that she knew he was ok, now that she could see him with her own eyes, alive and breathing, she started to calm down and the reality of it all hit her like she'd been the one trapped in the crumbling building. All her feelings came gushing forth and it took all her will power not to simply blurt them out to avoid losing the opportunity.

She had almost lost the opportunity to tell him exactly how she felt and she didn't want to risk it again. But now was not the time. They had to get out of here as they were loudly reminded by the crashing she heard around them.

"Get out of here now! Let's go! Let's go!" the firemen yelled. A startled Sara released Grissom's neck and they turned in the direction of the stairs. Grissom stopped suddenly and stared hard at an area on the rug, or what was left of it. A bell sounded in his mind when he recognized the burn pattern across the floor and up the wall where the two connected. Immediately, he turned back to Sara, pointing at the spot he was focused on. Before he could ask her to take a couple shots, she had seen the burn pattern and had her camera in hand. She had snapped five shots when the last fireman ushered them urgently out of the building, Sara taking snapshots the whole way out.

Grissom sat on a stretcher while the paramedic tended to his arm. A few feet away Sara sat on the steps at the back of the ambulance, her head lowered against her chest, deep in thought. Grissom watched her, wondering what she was contemplating. She seemed to transition seamlessly through a myriad of facial expressions from happy and calm to worried, then embarrassment. He knew he should say something to reassure her, to thank her but he simply could not find the words. She suddenly seemed to snap out of her reverie and looked up at him. A tight, half-smile touched her lips and she looked around, then back to Grissom she said, "I'm going to find Greg and take our evidence back to the lab..." And in a hurry, she was gone.

Still surprised by her quick disappearance, Grissom sat on his stretcher another few minutes before getting up and heading over to Brass' unmarked vehicle. It was time. He could no longer ignore the way he felt about Sara and his mind was made up that today was the day.

"Jim?"

"Yeah, Gil?" Grissom hesitated but then mentally kicked himself into gear, "Can you drive me back to the lab?"

"Sure. Your guys done here?"

"Uh...no. But we need some more supplies." It was a lie. They were always fully stocked. Nonetheless he hoped Brass would buy it. Despite the captain's creeping suspicions, he agreed and they both got in the Taurus.

The drive back was pretty silent but Jim Brass broke it by asking, "Does this have anything to do with what happened in that building?"

"Huh?... No." Grissom answered quickly. A little too quickly.

"Gil, what do I do for a living?" Grissom just stared at his driver.

"I interrogate people Gil. You don't think I have some idea when they're lying?" He asked calmly, a smirk forming across his face. Grissom didn't say anything and after a few minutes Brass continued, "You have to tell her Gil. Tell her before it's too late." Whether it was because of his career or because he was a good friend, Jim Brass was a convincing man.

"That's the plan." was all Grissom had to say.