A/N This chapter is another response to an Unbound challenge, first and last lines provided. This time I'm 29 words over the limit. I'd like to thank Cybrocat and Frumpy for Beta-ing this chapter for me, and for their encouragement when I was worrying excessively over it.

If I owned CSI, this plot would be happening in the show, not in fanfiction.

"You always look before you leap don't you?"

Sara blew out her breath, looking up from a stack of photographs. Sophia stood in the doorway to the layout room, lounging against the frame. She looked calm, comfortable; to anyone glancing by it seemed liked she owned the place. The ease with which the other woman stared at her irritated Sara, "Excuse me?"

"You," Sophia wandered into the room then, glancing at the photos Sara was scanning with a magnifying glass. "You always map everything out, always have a backup plan. Very…safe."

Sara reached out slowly, moving the stack of images out of Sophia's reach. "Does this have something to do with the case?" She paused, glancing up, "Because I wasn't aware we were working on it together."

"Would you object to that?"

A shrug, "If that's what Grissom wants. He is the boss." Sara looked up, recalling the scene Greg had described in their supervisor's office and couldn't contain a smile. "Or, did you forget that?"

The other woman sighed, "No. I haven't. So," She shrugged, mimicking Sara's gesture of a moment before, and walked around the table reaching for the photographs. "I have been instructed to apologize."

"And?"

"And, I apologize."

It took an extreme act of will, but Sara managed to refrain from rolling her eyes. "Save it, Sophia. Apologies really only count if you mean them. Not if you're instructed to give them." She held out her hand for the pictures, not moving her gaze from the blonde's. She might have felt, briefly, yesterday, some level of guilt for her part in the confrontation with Sophia a few days before, but that was quickly melting away. "I do have a case to solve. If you don't mind?"

"Of course. Always the case first." Sophia handed the pictures back to the other woman. "Always looking. Do you ever leap, Sara?"

This time she couldn't manage to keep her eyes looking forward, instead they strayed heavenward. "So…this is about me, for some reason? I'm just trying to do my job here. In the interest of getting my job done," she paused, looking up at Sophia. "Though it is not any of your business. I leap. I have leapt. I will leap. Can I get back to work now?"

"Sara…" Sophia sighed, "Look. We have to work together. If not this case, another. So I'm going to be direct, here. Why can't you get along with me?"

"Excuse me?" She knew she was repeating herself, but this conversation was not going as she had thought it might. "I'm not really sure where you came up with that. And…I don't really know how you letting me get splattered with paint equates, in your mind, to me not getting along with you." She stopped, looking at the woman, "I'm fine, by the way.
Since you asked."

"It was a little paint. A…joke." Sophia smiled, "You don't take jokes well?"

"Funny ones, sure." She lifted one of the pictures and returned to her earlier perusal, hoping the blonde would get bored, and leave. When she didn't, Sara sighed, and looked up. Sophia wasn't leaving. "You said, once, that you miss…being trusted. Do you think you're making headway at that?"

Sophia stiffened, "You don't want to be trusted?"

Honestly, and probably, if she stopped to think about it long enough, sadly, Sara really didn't care. It had mattered to her once that Warrick trusted her, that Nicky did, and Catherine. It still mattered that Grissom did, though she wasn't sure she'd ever gain that back. But she just couldn't bring herself to care if Sophia did. And that, she supposed, was the fatal flaw in her relationship with the other woman. She just couldn't bring herself to care. "Depends on by whom, I guess. But," she moved the photo aside, and lifted another, "You didn't answer my question."

"No." Sophia stopped then, moving to one of the stools and perching on it, "But I guess I know when I'm fighting a loosing battle."

"Really?" Sara's hands moved over the photographs, sorting them to piles, though what criteria she used wasn't obvious with mere observation. "Maybe," Her voice came slow then, in that lazy drawl that so many lab techs had tried, and failed, to place. "Maybe you should be the one thinking about looking before you leap, then." Sara glanced up and met Sophia's eyes calmly, no hint of humiliation or timidity. She was silent for a moment, weighing her words carefully. "No one owes you anything here, Sophia. Not me. Not Greg. Not Grissom. I'm sorry Ecklie demoted you. He's an ass. I'm sorry it took you this long to realize that. But…it's really not my fault he blindsided you. I'd appreciate it, if you didn't take that out on me."

"That's what you think?" Sophia was the first to look away, unused to not being the one in control of a conversation. "That this is about Ecklie?"

"Ecklie. Not getting Days, or even Swing, supervisor. Getting caught up in…whatever it is he's doing. Whatever." Sara shrugged, "Just…leave me out of whatever it is. And while you're at it, leave Greg out of it too." She was quiet a moment, "And Grissom."

At the mention of the supervisor's name, Sophia's brow went up. "Ecklie worried that Grissom's team did too much to protect him."

Had he? Sara hadn't quite understood what had been the new assistant Director's logic for breaking up the team. "That's crap."

"Is it?"

"Yeah." Sara pulled back from the table then, all pretense of work gone from her posture. "It is. Ecklie's probably never worked on a real team in his life. He can't recognize something good when he sees it." He probably never would. "Do you?"

When Sophia just looked at her, Sara sighed. She had to admit, she didn't always trust the rest of her team with everything that made her…Sara. But she trusted them as much as she could. And she knew, at least as far as Warrick, Greg, and Nick were concerned, they trusted her. "This team is a chance to understand that, Sophia. This isn't your last chance, but it's the best one."