A/N: Thanks again to those who need to be thanked, you know who you are. I do not own these characters, nor their backstory, I just play with them and stuff them in my doll house when I'm done. This fic maybe painful to those in want of a child, who are having a hard time getting their dreams to come through. You are in my thoughts. This fic is meant to be a one shot, but if it really means that much to you I might be able to squeeze out another chapter or two...

She marched into his office and locked the door behind her, not bothering to see if he was busy or if she was disturbing him in any way.

He had been reading and his glasses now dangled loosely from his thumb and index finger as he stared at her -mouth open- while she was shutting every blind in his office, before wheeling around.

"It's been enough," she said, more timid than her behavior would have predicted.

He stared at her in silence.

"We need to talk, and by 'we' I mean not only me, but you too."

She walked up to his desk and sat across from him in one of the two chairs meant for visitors.

He still stared.

"I'm waiting, you know," she said, while impatiently tapping her foot against his desk -which was driving him insane already- and cocking her head slightly.

"What do you want me to say?"

"Oh Lord, he can speak!" she said mockingly.

"Why are you here?"

"Ah! Good question," she sat upright in her chair, folding her hands on the desk in front of her, unaware of the fact that she was now copying his stance. "I am here because I need and deserve answers."

"Answers?"

"Don't patronize me like that, Grissom. It's been almost six years since I moved here. There has always been an interest, at least on my part, and you know it. And yet, after all this time you are still sending me mixed signals. What is it? Are you just flattered and that's it? I need to know."

He had gone pale and was staring at her while swallowing hard.

"Answer me," she said in a tone more demanding than pleading.

"It's not that I'm just flattered, but I just don't know…"

"… what to do about this," she interrupted, "I've heard that old record before Grissom."

He sighed and slowly chewed his bottom lip as if deciding on the best course of action right now.

"Since you don't know what to do about this," Sara said, "I'm going to tell you how we're going to play this game. I ask you questions and you answer. I do not want bull shitty replies, or Shakespeare quotes, I want straight forward answers."

His eyes slightly widened when contemplating her rules.

"I know that's hard for you, but I need this right now," she softly added.

He slowly nodded in consent and leaned back into his chair.

"Thank you. Now, why did you invite me to come to Vegas to investigate Warrick's whereabouts in the Holly Gribbs case, and more importantly, why did you ask me to stay?"

He pondered for a moment, and then answered, "you're a great CSI." He seemed quite content with his own answer, which was, in his opinion, pretty much straight forward, but it didn't seem to please Sara.

"You only asked me for that reason?" she asked.

"Yes…"

"Fair enough, now… why did you tell me you have been interested in beauty 'since you met me' when we were sitting at the ice rink?"

Grissom looked up at her. "You remember that?"

"Distinctively. Now answer the question."

"Because you asked me a question, and I answered in all honesty," he shrugged.

"Then what was it about me?"

He fell silent, not wanting to let her get that close, not wanting to share his innermost feelings. Not with her.

Her piercing eyes caused him to succumb.

"I had seen many a woman before you, that would be considered as beautiful by the majority of the population, slim, toned, large eyes, sparkling blue eyes. Then I met you, and the first time I laid eyes on you I knew that beauty -to me- isn't a perfect size or large breasts."

He stared dreamily in front of him. "It was your wit, your knowledge, your hunger for learning that gave you that ultimate something special. It was the fact that you weren't perfect. People would maybe consider you too tall or too thin, or they wouldn't like your teeth. To me, all of that made you beautiful."

Sara, who had been pacing back and forth in front of his desk now stood stock still and looked at him in astonishment.

It took her a while to find her voice, cocking her head first to one side, then to the other as if trying to see more of him by changing perspective.

"Were you attracted to me?"

Grissom rubbed his eyes and sighed, "yes."

"And when I came to Vegas?"

"I thought I could keep things professional, but…"

Sara grabbed the back of the chair she had been previously occupying and clamped down on it hard, draining the blood from her knuckles as she did so.

"Why did you say no?"

Grissom looked at her with a frown.

" When I asked you out," she added.

"I had just decided to go into surgery."

"You had surgery?" Sara nearly shouted, "for what?"

"Otosclerosis, I was going deaf."

"Right, and you didn't bother to tell me, or anything?"

Grissom just closed his eyes.

"I'm tired, Grissom, I can't take this anymore."

An uncomfortable silence settled between them for several minutes in which they exchanged glances and glares and nothing more. Eventually, Sara sat back down.

"Where do we go from here?" he suddenly asked.

"That depends. Do you have feelings for me?"

He slightly blushed as he opened his mouth to answer her and nothing came out.

"You don't have to answer that, I already know. I wasn't worth to risk everything you've worked for all your life, weren't those your exact words?"

The color drained from his face and he stared at her in horrified shock.

"I would've expected better from you, Grissom. I would've expected you -of all people- to know that the fact that two people look alike doesn't mean they're the same. I am not Debbie Marlin."

Grissom, obviously still in shock about Sara hearing everything he had said to their suspect in the Marlin case, who was -in a way- so much like himself it was frightening, whispered, "I knew you'd hurt me in the end."

"Right, so to protect yourself from being hurt, you decided to hurt me in stead. What in your mind was it that made that okay to you?"

Grissom shrugged slightly. "I didn't mean to hurt you, but…"

"But?"

"I knew that eventually you'd want to date someone younger than me."

Sara stuck out her chin. "And what makes you so sure of that?"

"I'm old, for one. I can't give you children."

That seemed to strike a chord with Sara and she leaped up from her chair.

"Children? That's what this is about, that you can't give me children?" she shouted, "did you ever stop to think that maybe someone doesn't want children, because they don't like them or they find themselves genetically inept?"

Grissom opened his mouth to speak, but Sara raised her hand to shut him up. "Did you ever think," she roared, "that maybe someone could've had a hysterectomy at age fourteen after being so badly injured during a violent rape in her foster home that she couldn't have children even if her life depended on it!"

Tears were now spilling down her cheeks and Grissom looked up at her in shock, then down to her lower abdomen, then up at her again.

"No… I didn't," he whispered.

Sara was now furiously rubbing her eyes and cheeks to get rid of the salty drops that were still pooling. "You should've thought about that, Grissom. You, who always tell us that we shouldn't assume, should have thought about that."

Grissom stood up from his desk, wanting to wrap his arms around her in that moment, to apologize, to comfort, but she wouldn't let him.

She pulled an envelope out of her back pocket and threw it on his desk, then crossed her arms.

"What's this?" Grissom said while looking at the letter.

"It's my letter of resignation. I can't work side by side with you any longer, Grissom. I can't take the tension and the pain. It's too much and I can't handle it anymore. I've waited for six long years to have a decent conversation about you, about me, about us, and look where it brought me."

She walked backwards to the door, unlocked it and laid her hand on the doorknob. "I'm sorry," she whispered.

Grissom, who was now holding her letter in both his hands looked up at her through misty eyes and said in an equally low tone, "I thought you loved this job."

"Not as much as I loved you."

With that she opened the door and left his office, leaving him standing behind his desk with a tear stained letter and a blurry vision.