Title: The Difference
By: Amanda
Feedback: sweety167yahoo.ca
For: Karen, karbear1
Rating: PG
Spoilers: Season 6
Disclaimer: I don't own anything CSI…I just play with them. Usually they like it.
Pairing: Sara/Grissom/Greg
Summery: Grissom observes Sara and Greg to find the truth.
Completed: May 17, 2006
Notes: It's been a while since I cracked open a CSI fic. I just hope it goes smoothly.

Easy. Free. Casual.

It's almost simple the way they can send time together. After every shift they go for breakfast at the diner. Sometimes alone. Sometimes with Nick or Catherine. And, on occasion, as a team.

Sara laughs then.

I've seen her. So bright and open, so much like the woman I used to know. Nothing at all like the stranger she's become.

And Greg will touch her.

I've seen him, at the diner, and at the lab. His hand on her shoulder. His hands over her eyes, for one of their jokes. The way he'll hug her after something especially exciting or trying, or just after a regular shift. And she laughs and smiles at him. Just for him.

They've been naked.

Or, so I've heard. After a case, something about fear of contamination and safety, and still everything is carefree. Close, but carefree with them.

They're friends, buddies, equals. And nothing settles into a gap between them.

Not even the way Greg used to look at Sara, with schoolboy lust in his eyes, the way he still does, has made things uncomfortable. He'd dolt on her, hound her for dates and drop every sexual advance, and still, they're friends.

It's never easy. It can never be casual. And there is always a price.

I turned down dinner, or This. I don't go for breakfast with her. Not even with her and Greg. I wait until everyone goes…or I take an order to go. And I never sit in the booth next to her, or across from her. There's always a distance. A safe distance.

That's how I see her laugh now. In stolen images. In moments that are not mine to witness, that are not for me. Not anymore.

She no longer laughs for me.

There are only a handful of times I've touch her. In all the years of knowing her. But with each one…I remember them. Clearly. Each time her skin ever brushed over mine I can remember. I can reconstruct.

That one moment. The almost brazen way she brushed her fingers against my cheek. Dust. The excuse, or the cause, I don't know. But the light, feathered brush of her skin against mine I remember. It's never carefree. Not easy. And not even without a price.

We paid for it in court. Our reputations were questioned in one simple touch. Our relationship. Our friendship. Even the simple act of knowing each other was questioned by one touch.

But was it ever simple?

There are times we can't help it. After the lab exploded I cradled her hand in mine. So fragile, but still so strong. So defiant. So very Sara. A hand up. An offer of steadied feet. Or recreating someone else's passions.

But never a touch just for the sake of touch.

And still, it has never been easy to pull away.

And it's never the same afterwards.

Ever action means something bigger, even when we don't know it. We don't intend it. Or do we? She wanted to leave, years ago, run away before it all shifted and contorted into all this. This unrecognisable mass. I didn't want her to go, wouldn't let her. I couldn't ask, not in words, but thinking a token could say it all. Did it say more?

And why did I take Sophia out? When I can't sit across from Sara, alone?

We were friends. Once. Years ago, and miles from Vegas. Than correspondents with email and calls, and interesting cases. And now, co-workers. People we pass in the hall. Sometimes we nod, sometimes toss a veiled comment at the other. Never really address the other.

The question remains, it nags and twists. How do they do it? Greg and Sara. They remain close, carefree and simple

He never hurt her, never rejected her. Never left her wondering where she stood, or if she did at all. And she's never asked him too.

But that's the difference, isn't it? Sara never loved Greg.

End.