She was weak.
That was the only reason she could find to explain why she was pulling up outside Grissom's townhouse in the middle of the morning to research butterflies.
She could have left it, gone home and slept. She had internet, she would have survived, she would have been fine.
But this was Grissom, who she had never been able to really deny, which was why she was inside his home- feeling slightly awkward and slightly thrilled, with her shoes off, sitting on his rug surrounded by various thick butterfly reference books and Grissom was so close, so attentive that she was just going to ignore the oddity of the moment and enjoy it.
"Are you sure about this?"
Grissom had sat close to her, closer than an employer should but no closer than she invited him to. He had cooked her breakfast, looking like a true geek in an apron that could have come from the lab and matched her flirting word for word. Perhaps if she closed her eyes it would be easy to pretend that she was still an awkward grad student with no true path, flying in every direction at once and that he was still the sweet and oddly intense guest lecturer he had been when they first met, feeding her need to learn and, accidentally maybe, the needs that she would one day think could only be sated by him.
His kiss had not shocked her when it landed tentative and soft on her lips. If she was honest, a small part of her had been expecting it, and had been since the tense phone call that he called her to Las Vegas with.
It was him though; and if she were blind she would still know him from this kiss. His lips testing and definite, his taste warm and bitter from the coffee he had served her, the remains of the brown sugar glaze from the pancakes a sweet tease on her tongue.
She was in a bad position, she knew. Making out with her boss- her hot and cold boss, on his living room floor and she'd thought briefly about getting up and out but then he'd moved down to her neck, soft sweet pressure and the brush of his beard over her collarbone, and she had never been able to come back from that.
p>
One heavy warm arm around her middle and the rest of the man almost hanging over the side of his bed was what she found when she woke. Sara had almost laughed at the informality of it - he was so constrained awake that it made sense.
Dappled in the yellow light that leaked in at the edges of his blinds his big boned frame had looked magnificent, a sleeping lion. The pale bed sheets contrasting his darker skin, and she resisted the urge to run her hands over him.
The strain of life left his features in sleep, lending him the illusion of youth, but without his personality animating his face he looked older too. It jarred her.
Sara tried to pull back, but his lips were on her neck doing delicious things that she lacked the will to put a stop to. How many nights had she dreamt of this? And here it was finally happening, and God help her, she was not backing away now.
Her hands explored his shoulders, his neck, caught her fingers in the curls at his nape, pulling him down into her, but his hands were on her waist pulling her up into him and she let him lead them up till they were standing, awkward and shy with the knowledge of their next move.
In his sleep he smiled mildly into his pillow and Sara wondered absently as she dressed if he was dreaming about roller-coasters then frowned, hoping it wasn't a woman.
But it was hours past noon and she had sleep to catch up on and laundry to do and an aversion to Grissom waking and finding her still there, if she couldn't predict his reaction, she'd rather avoid it completely. The morning had been too good to lose to him scowling and pulling away.
Maybe when she could gage his mood, she could enquire as to an encore.
When she licked her lips she could still taste the salt of him.
P>
Her work with her PEAP councilor had moved past her brush with alcohol as a coping device, almost through the issues that Nick's incident had brought to the surface and, pleased with her own growth, had begun exploring other facets of her life that affected her personality.
Two years of her life seemed lost to a dark tunnel of doubt and pain. Her childhood's dark scars had spread and clung to unrelated parts of her life, damaging her relationships and leaving her claustrophobic and scared to move beyond the four walls of her apartment.
One of the many boxes she had vowed to get outside of.
"I used to be better."
"Is that a medical diagnosis or a comment on your abilities?"
Sara sighed as she walked over to the large window in her therapist's office. The view was wide and faced away from the tangle of the city. Just being able to cast her gaze over something not splashed in neon lighting soothed her, helped her gather her scattered thoughts.
"Maybe better is the wrong word. I wasn't so…scared. I'd do things just to be able to say I had. I didn't over-analyse every move I made. Didn't think my life to death."
"It sounds like you miss that."
"No, not really. It was probably just as unhealthy as how I live now. I just wish I had some of that fearlessness back again."
The manicured garden below seemed like a good metaphor for it all. The vast expanse of green and strategically plotted blooms of colour spread wide.
To look out at them always gave Sara a sense of untapped potential blooming large within herself.
p>
She spent that night at work caught in a state between panic and satisfaction, alternately congratulating and cursing her moment of spontaneity. She hoped Grissom would not react badly but deep down she knew that if she had the chance she would not change what they had done.
Grissom hadn't been in contact, not to reassure but not to rebuke either. She could only assume that they were ok. She would know one way or the other soon enough.
He could call. She would wait. Anticipating him answering her in the monotone he favoured for moments he found too awkward or intense sat like a cannonball inside her chest.
p>
The next night she had put herself together with an even clearer eye on professionalism though. She felt the need to justify herself through her wardrobe, and wondered if Catherine ever felt the same urge - a moment of grand reveal to a colleague leading to an extreme retraction behind the safety of a dress-code.
It was important to her for Grissom to see only CSI Sara. Not the woman he lay back on his bed and traced with his fingertips as though fragile evidence.
She almost hesitated as she arrived for assignments, finding him already enthroned at the head of the table. Head pulled up and expression as neutral as she could manage she'd entered, casting out a greeting. His gaze was cool and unaffected, neither good Grissom nor bad Grissom but something flashed for a moment in the back of his eyes as he looked at her, before sinking away and it hooked her in just a little more than she wanted.
"Are you sure?"
"Yes Sara. I have more resources at home anyway."