DISCLAIMER:Don't own it... No money made... Just for fun and enjoyment.

SUMMARY: Sequel to Displacement. The CSI team and their recently hired coroner Stephanie are back to work solving cases, sharing companionship and generally making their way through the dire world of criminal investigation with humor and friendship... This one will show the development of the relationship between Grissom and Sara and there should be some other surprises down the road as well. Romance/Drama/Angst/Mature Situations

RATING: M for Mature - I'm starting this one out at "M", since we won't be waiting quite so long for the smut this time out ;) Also, there is a sprinkling of language throughout the story.

A/N: Here's another long one... And I'll warn you, it gets a little raw on the emotions.

REVIEWS: I am always looking for ways to improve my writing, and your reviews let me know if I am hitting my mark. Thank you in advance for the time you take to review this story.


Chapter 21

His level of exhaustion kept his mind from registering that the entire house was dark as Grissom walked through the front hallway. He dumped his keys, phone and wallet into the tray at the edge of the breakfast bar and rounded the corner on his way to the fridge. It had been a long shift, and as he stood in front of the open door he realized how bone weary he had gotten. The whole week had been an exercise in patience and stamina. Grissom tried to sort out what he wanted to drink and why his week had been so hard on his resolve. He stretched his neck from side to side and settled on a honey-wheat beer from the back of the fridge. The air escaped the bottle when he removed the cap, and he let loose a deep sigh.

As he trudged from the kitchen into the living area, Grissom finally realized that all the blinds had been closed and there was barely any light in the room at all. He decided Sara had probably gone to bed after giving up on waiting for him, again. Grissom was going to stretch out on the couch to finish his beer before heading off to bed himself. He just wanted a few minutes of peace to clear his head, and his old couch had been a longtime partner in those endeavors over the years. This new couch had not been broken in yet, so he hoped it would prove itself as something more useful than the hassle it was to get into the townhouse.

The only thing he wanted was to get the last vestiges of this horrible day out of his head before joining Sara in bed. Grissom did not like bringing his work into that part of their world, and once he stepped inside the bedroom he shared with Sara, he never wanted anything weighing him down. That was the silent promise he made to himself when he and Sara began their relationship, and he always kept his promises. The problem was that sometimes he did not even known what it was that was weighing him down. That was the trouble he was facing as he kicked off his loafers and prepared to sink down into the sofa.

He had felt like a heavy blanket was weighing over him throughout the shift, and his interactions with his superiors, while horrific in their own right, were not the real cause for his foul mood. He had to admit, the one day a week that he worked without Sara was never pleasant, but even that was not the source of what was dragging him down tonight. Grissom thought that if he could just retreat into his mind for a little while, he might be able to pinpoint the source of his particular agony.

Grissom put the beer down on the coffee table and turned to drop down onto the sofa when a tiny ray of light squeezing through a bent slat of the blinds fell onto the face of another person already on the couch. He turned his head to the side as he watched the vacant face of the woman he loved, as she stared out at the closed window.

"Sara?" His voice was tentative, because she had not spoken or stirred since he had entered the house, and that worried him. A lump rose in his throat and he worried that something horrible had occurred, so his next words came out in a stilted timber, "Honey, are you okay?" His worry moved up to panic, and he cautiously sat down next to her on the couch, laying his hand over one of the knees she had drawn up to her chest before speaking again, "Sara, what is it?"

Slowly, she turned her head to regard him as he sat waiting for the worst. Her face remained blank, completely devoid of emotion and it deeply frightened him. Grissom had no idea what would have driven her to such a flaccid expression, but his mind was perfectly capable of creating a surprising number scenarios to tear his heart into shreds.

When she finally stirred from her stupor, she simply laid her head down on his trembling shoulder and sighed. The contact gave Grissom some hope, and the warmth radiated down into his heart as he continued to wait for her to speak. His heart was beating much faster and he was certain his blood pressure had risen as well.

The silence was deafening to him, and it roared in his ears like a thunderstorm on the ocean. He felt as though he was drowning in the silence and the only thing keeping his head above the tide was the feel of her on his shoulder. His breath caught in his throat when she snaked her arm in around his elbow and held onto his arm with both hands. When she heaved a deep sigh, he continued to hold his breath in the fear that he might not be able to draw in another when the words finally fell from her lips.

"Stop it." Her words were soft and almost timid. His mind raced with the thousands of meanings behind her words and what could have caused her to retreat into the darkness, but before it went completely over the edge she held him closer and spoke again, "Gil, don't… Don't go there… Ever."

He knew what she meant and he tried to calm down, but there was always that niggling doubt deep in the back of his mind; that she would one day walk away from him. She had proven to him in a million ways, she was not going anywhere, but the doubt always managed to stay alive, even when he thought he had buried it for good. He had no idea what it was going to take to finally snuff it out, just that he needed to figure out what it was before he created his own self-fulfilling prophecy.

Grissom took in a deep and calming breath and was finally able to find his voice again. "What is it, Sara?"

She exhaled sharply, then picked up his arm and put it over her shoulder so that she could snuggle in closer to him. He tightened his arm around her and pushed the hair back away from her face. As his hand brushed her cheek, it was moist and he knew then that she had been crying and he tensed at the idea of her in that much pain. She must have sensed his tension, because she looked up at him and then kissed his cheek tenderly. "It's not that, Gil… It's just-…"

He held her close to him, stroked her hair for a moment and kissed her forehead. "Sorry, I'm still working on that one. Steph was right… Having all your dreams come true takes some getting used to." Grissom felt as though Sara had shrunk away from him at the mention of Stephanie's name and that worried him. He debated about asking her if something happened at their dinner, but he sensed that Sara was working up to something, and he did not want to interfere with her disclosure. Instead, he brought his opposite hand up to her face and tilted her head up to his gaze. "Talk to me?"

Her eyes were filled with a pain Grissom could not recall seeing there before, and he knew that he had to take it away at all costs. A single tear blinked out of her eye and she parted her lips to speak, but the words seemed to have gotten lost as she looked into his eyes, and she turned away from him. When she buried her face into his chest and started to sniffle, he knew that she was crying again. He held her tightly and shook his head as he spoke, "Sara, honey… Please talk to me."

Her sobs seemed to cease with his final plea, and she drew in a deep and reassuring breath, before turning her head to rest it on his shoulder. "I want to… I just-… I just don't know what more I can do."

Her answer had him playing a thousand different scenarios in his head, but none of them made sense, and so he was forced to ask her what she meant. "I don't understand, Sara. What do you think you have to do?"

His words sparked indignation in her, and he knew it the moment she pulled away from him and looked into his eyes. "Obviously there's something I still have to do before you'll trust me. So, either tell me what it is, or tell me goodbye." His face became a mass of confusion, fear and hurt.

Grissom knew he trusted no one the way he trusted Sara, but she was operating under the impression that he did not trust her, and he knew it had to be his fault if she felt that way. "Sara, I-…"

"I can't leave you, so you'll have to be the one to leave, Gil. I just don't know what else I can do to make you trust me." She buried her face in her hands as she leaned forward onto the arms propped on top of her knees. Sara was in anguish and there was only one person who could bring her any relief. The problem was that he had no idea what was going on.

Grissom brought his hand forward and laid it on the back of her head, stroking her hair to try and provide her with some comfort as he worked up something to say. "Sara, I do trust you… More tha-…"

"Then why do you still think I'll leave you every time something happens?"

He could not deny her logic, but he also could not deny his natural instincts. Grissom was still having trouble believing that she loved him as much as he loved and needed her. His logical mind and his heart told him that he owned the keys to her heart, but that dark corner of his mind continued to whisper doubts to him. "Sara… I've been-… I'm not used to trusting my heart, and though logic tells me you're here for good, that doubt still has some purchase in the darkest corners of my mind. Sometimes, it has a loud voice and overrules what my heart tells me is true." He took a deep breath, and closed his eyes, before putting words to his next thoughts. "Sara, I trust you with my soul, probably more than I have ever trusted anyone else in my life."

She reached over the coffee table, withdrew a thick manila envelope from the other side and tossed it back at him before slapping him with her next words, "Then how can you look for another job without even mentioning it to me?"

He removed the envelope from his lap and saw the return address: The Jeffersonian Institute, Washington, D.C. All of the air left his lungs when he understood what was happening. Sara believed he was trying to leave her, and that he had not shared any of his thoughts about changing his career path with her only made it worse. "That's not what this is Sara, I swear."

"Look at the back before you say anything else." Her words cut him to the quick and he flipped over the envelope to find a handwritten note.

Grissom took his reading glasses out of his pocket and looked down to read the note on the envelope:

G-

Here's the offer for the fellowship… Hope to see you soon… Too much to catch up on.

Always,

-T

There was nothing ambiguous about the note and Grissom knew exactly why Sara thought he was abandoning her. He had no idea that his friend would take his emailed response as a signal that he, indeed, wanted the position, but the fact that she took the initiative to secure the offer for him should not have surprised him. His friend had long felt that his working at the Las Vegas Crime Lab was a terrible waste of his talents (which struck him as odd since she spent so much of her time working for the FBI and other law enforcement agencies to identify remains around the world). However, he did not have time to dwell on the motives of his friend at that moment, because he had to explain himself to the woman seated on the couch with him.

"Sara, I am not trying to leave you… She mentioned the fellowship to me last week and I guess she spoke with the director to make me an offer. I get offers like this all the time." And while that statement was true, he was not ready to admit he was actually entertaining the notion of pursuing those offers since his last confrontation with Ecklie. There was more than enough damage control for him to deal with right now, without bringing his mid-life crisis into the mix, as well. "I've actually had several offers this week alone." That was also true. Ever since the lab rankings report was released, Grissom had been offered jobs in several cities, but they were all director positions, and he never wanted to be a director.

She did not lift her head from her hands, and her muffled words were almost indecipherable, but with his trained ear, he was able to make it out. "Why is she trying to get you out to D.C. then?"

"She's been after me to get out of the municipal crime labs since she was a grad student. She's a firm believer in pure science; which I find amusing, considering her close relationship with the FBI in IDing human remains." He almost chuckled at the thought, but the gravity of the situation did not allow him that luxury.

"What does she do?"

He felt some comfort in the fact that he could understand her words better, which meant she no longer had her face buried in her hands. "Oh, well she's a forensic anthropologist at the Jeffersonian. But she also does a great deal of consultant and ad hoc work around the world.

Her next words had trouble escaping her throat, "Is it T-…"

Grissom's mind exploded with the answer before she even asked the question, "God No! It's not Terri." He had been so caught up in his own doubts that he had completely forgotten about the possibility of Sara having doubts.

He watched as she sighed at his answer, as though a great weight had been lifted from her shoulders. "Who is it?"

"A former student, colleague and a general pain in the neck. And she is quite possibly the only person I know who is worse with people than I am; which is most likely the reason she and I get along so well." That time he did chuckle a little, because he knew his statement to be more truthful than either of them would like to admit. "Temperance sticks to research and the dead for a reason."

Sara's head popped up at the mention of the woman's name and she turned to regard Grissom with a question, "Brennan?"

He looked at her with a startled expression, "Yes, as a matter of fact… How do you know her?"

"I don't, really… I just attended a lecture she gave in Cambridge, but I do know someone who works for her." Sara's voice still held some of the surprise she was experiencing.

Grissom filed away that bit of information for later reference, because he had other things to do before he and Sara were finished with their conversation. He reached out and put his hand on her shoulder, but she turned her head away from him again. "Sara, I wouldn't do anything without talking it over with you… I promise."

"But you've obviously talked to someone about it… Why didn't you feel you could trust me with this?" Her conclusion pained him, because he had kept his doubts from her out of some foolish idea of protecting her from his depression. However, he quickly understood that his attempts to spare her any pain had caused a rift to form between them: a rift that he had unwittingly created and desperately needed to repair.

He leaned forward on the couch and attempted to find her gaze, because it was the kind of statement that could never be said to the back of someone's head for the full weight of it to be understood. "Sara…" She turned her head upon hearing his voice so close to her ear, and he continued, "It was never about not trusting you… I just didn't want to hurt you, and I certainly didn't want you worrying about something that I wasn't even sure about yet. I'm just… I'm having trouble with my position at the lab right now… You know that, without my having to say a word about it."

He looked deep into her eyes with his next statement, "But I would never entertain something so monumental without your involvement. I am not leaving you, ever. It would be tantamount to committing suicide for me. No man can live without his heart, and you have mine; forever." He knew in an instant that his words had made an impact, because Sara turned and reached for him. He drew her into a close embrace and felt some of the tension easing out of her as they sat there in each other's arms.

His fear and torment had taxed him after such a trying day and with Sara firmly in his arms he leaned back into the couch, working to get them both into a reclining position. Sara sensed his motives and followed his cues, rolling onto his chest as they fell back into the sofa. However, Grissom had the sneaking suspicion that they were not done talking and so he kissed the top of her head and asked, "I know we both agreed this wouldn't be easy, but does it always have to be this hard?" He felt her jaw move against his chest and knew instinctively that she was chewing on her lip, as she struggled with something else she wanted to say. He decided it was time to ask about her night, because he knew that there was something else which had brought her to the fragile state he found her in when he entered their home. "So, how'd your dinner go?"

She nuzzled into his chest before responding, as though she was seeking out more comfort before discussing the elephant that was sitting in their living room. "The dinner was good."

"What did you have?"

"Grilled portabellas over rustic bread, some artichoke hearts and seasoned butter beans. It was really very good. Maybe I should get her to teach me a little cooking." Sara was working up her nerve, so Grissom decided to play along.

"You could just pay attention when I'm cooking… It would be the same thing."

He could feel her scrunching up her nose with her confusion before she asked what he had meant by that. "I don't get it."

He chuckled a little at her statement. "Well, she was about eight or nine when I started taking culinary classes… She went with me to every class, so I imagine it would be the same as taking lessons from me." He felt her whole body stiffen at his mention of Stephanie and it worried him. "What is it, Sara?"

She pushed up off of his chest and looked him dead in the eye. The seriousness that played across her face told him that she was ready to talk about whatever it was that seemed to be darkening her spirits that night. "Are you sure you trust me, Gil?"

His breath caught in his throat when she asked him for reassurance, and he knew that he needed to go all the way on the tangent. "Sara, I trust you with my heart and soul. I have placed more trust in you than I have ever done with another living soul." His last thought was to himself, But maybe it hasn't been enough.

She took a deep breath and broke his gaze by looking down, "Then why haven't you ever told me about Michael?"

His brow furrowed with deep lines to show his complete confusion. "I talk about him all the time… Mac has been at the top of my mind since Stephie arrived in Vegas… How can you-…"

She shook her head and stopped him from speaking with the touch of her finger to his lips. "Not her father, Gil… Her brother."

In an instant, his entire world melted away from him, and time no longer had any meaning. His mind was impacted with a tremendous wave of anguish at the mere mention of the boy, and his heart began to ache with the same unbearable agony he experienced that fateful day so long ago. It was such a long tim-… It was seventeen years ago… Today.

When his mind finally worked its way out of the whirlwind of emotions, he instantly registered that he was sitting smack dab in the middle of the anniversary of the day that changed his life forever. In his mind's eye he was transported back to that night when he discovered the bruised, battered and mangled body of that precious little boy, of the faces of his dearest friends as he was forced to tell them that their only son was gone, of the terrified and heartbroken face of his eight year old goddaughter as she struggled to understand something no child should be forced to endure, of the months stolen from that little girl as her parents struggled to come to terms with their grief, of the countless hours he spent protecting and caring for that little girl to prevent the same fate befalling her and of the unspoken grief he forced down into the dark recesses of his own heart.

His entire body began to tremble with the sudden emergence of those memories; memories he never felt he had the strength to deal with on his own.

He was lost to those memories and he was only brought back by the insistent voice of a woman, as she repeated his name over and over again until he was brought back into the present. "Gil… Gil… Gil… Gil, talk to me!"

"I ah… Um… I…" He struggled to breathe in the air he was certain no longer existed in the room. "How did… When did you… Where did y-you hear ab-about that?"

Sara was completely unprepared for what she witnessed as she asked Gil about the boy. What she saw scared her more than she could have ever imagined. The terror and the agony she saw playing through his eyes made her heart contract with the knowledge that she had just caused him immeasurable pain. She had always known he was not good at dealing with difficult subjects, but it was not until that moment she understood that he not only avoided them, but he pushed them completely out of his conscious mind. Once she understood that fact, she realized another frightening fact; he had never dealt with the boy's death. Gil was reacting as though his grief was just as strong as the day it happened, and while the horrible grief she had witnessed from Stephanie the evening before had been overwhelming, his agony was tenfold more powerful in the absence of any kind of closure for him.

Instinctively, she reached up and wrapped her arms around his neck and clutched him to her as close as she was able, before she answered his timid and stuttered question. "Stephanie… She was having a rough night because of it, and she told me what she knew, which wasn't much." She did not look up from her embrace of him, but she felt him choking back a sob for a moment. "She's never really dealt with it, Gil… And I'm guessing from your reaction, she took that cue from you?"

"I um… I did… I mean… She was so youn-… I was so y-… It was jus-…" Words were failing him and Sara wanted to cry, simply because he was having so much trouble saying even one sentence clearly. Instead, she rolled off of him and sat back down on the edge of the sofa where his feet were resting. She took his left hand in order to lead him to sit up and then she guided him to lie back down with his head in her lap. She knew that he needed support to deal with those memories, and it was her turn to give him comfort. Once his head was resting atop her lap, she began to stroke his hair gently, stopping only to softly caress his ear or cheek for a moment, before returning her attention to the calming motions of running her fingers through his curly hair.

She leaned over and kissed his temple before whispering to him, "Take your time… I'm not going anywhere."

There was something in the way she spoke to him that made Gil relax just a bit before he expelled the breath he had apparently been holding. "Sara, I don't know where to-… Well… Is she okay?"

Sara shook her head. Leave it to Grissom to worry about someone else first. "You saw her… What do you think?"

He took her right hand and kissed it tenderly, "That she's trying to lose herself in her work." He turned his gaze up at Sara for a moment, "Did I have to teach her all my bad habits?"

A fragile smile appeared on her lips and she answered with the most heartening thing she could have, given the circumstances, "She says that it wasn't so much teaching as imprinting." He nodded at her analysis of the situation.

"What did she tell you?"

Sara shrugged, because there just was not much to tell him. Stephanie had experienced the tragedy as a child, and she had never gotten up the nerve to learn anything about it as an adult, so she still had a child's perspective of the whole thing. "Not much really… She was young, and she says she's never been able to bring herself to research it at all."

He nodded once again. If anyone was going to be able to tell her what had happened, it would have to be him. "I can believe that… It was the worst year of all of our lives."

Sara returned to stroking his hair and she could feel him relishing in the contact as he dealt with those long buried demons. "What really happened, Gil?"

He took in a deep breath and let it out slowly to ready himself for the tragic tale. "Michael was… He was a… Such a beautiful child."

Sara interrupted him, hoping her information would be welcome news, "I know… I saw a picture."

He turned in her lap and looked up at her with a bewildered expression, "But how? We got rid of all the photos."

"Not all… Stephanie hid one from you… She still keeps it hidden in a drawer." Sara was still confused by the loss of the photos, so she felt compelled to ask about it. "Why did you get rid of the pictures?"

He rolled back over to stare out into the living room, unable to bear her gaze as he explained his actions during that horrific time in his life. "You have to understand… Beth was not herself. Neither was Mac, really. They both blamed themselves for what happened, which was ludicrous, but that was how they felt. Beth fell into a horrible depression… We even had to have her admitted to the hospital for a while, because we were afraid of what she might do. I told Stephanie that she was sleeping in her room, but the fact was that she was in a catatonic state for more than a month. She couldn't even make it to the funeral. Before she came home from the hospital, Mac and I collected all the photos and put them away. He kept the door to Michael's room locked and everything else in the house that had been the boy's was taken out. We operated under the 'out of sight, out of mind' principle."

Sara had to wipe away her own tears as she listened to him talk about the tragedy. "So, Stephanie never knew what was really happening?"

"I guess not… Mac and Beth didn't want her to have to deal with the realities of it, and I respected their wishes. Mac spent all of his time with Beth or sitting up in Michael's room. He took a leave of absence from the PD and Beth stopped teaching for a long time. It was probably six months before she could spend more than five minutes out of her room, so I stayed there for Stephanie. I hung all my clothes in the laundry room, slept on the couch and when I wasn't teaching a class or working on my Ph.D., I was with Stephanie. Actually, I recall her coming to class or the lab with me on several occasions, as well. I made sure she got to all her classes, lessons, practices and games. I cooked for her, and washed her clothes. We did our homework together every night. She became my whole world, and I did everything I could think of to care for and protect her. But, I was so young, and had never been around many children growing up, so I really had no idea what I was doing most of the time. I'm sure I've scarred her for life, but there wasn't anyone else there and I couldn't leave her to deal with her parents alone. Not when they were both so consumed by their own grief." He shifted uneasily and brought his hand up to his face to try and wipe away the tears that had fallen. However, the moisture had already made its way to Sara's lap, so she knew he was crying. "It was my own guilt that made me feel the need to make things right for her."

That statement made Sara's heart jump into her throat. "But Gil, how could you have blamed yo-…"

"Why did I have Mac come with me to Redding? Why did I have to stop for lunch, instead of just going straight home? Why didn't I drive that extra thirty minutes to pick up Michael before Beth got out of class?" His words came out like accusations and Sara knew that he had been holding onto that pain for a very long time. "I was being selfish with my time, Sara… And that precious little boy paid the price for my conceit."

She reached down and cradled his head in her arms and gently rocked him as she tried to calm him down from such a revelation, "Shhhhh… You can't blame yourself, Gil… It just happened, and you have no idea what would have happened if you had changed any of those things."

They stayed like that for a while; Gil weeping quietly as Sara tried desperately to console his wounded spirit. But, he finally found the strength to continue. He needed to finish his tale, he just did not know how. She could tell that he was on the verge of another revelation, so she decided to get another piece of the puzzle. "Gil, what really happened to Michael? Stephanie only overheard someone say that he was taken from the day-care by someone posing as his uncle and that he had died."

His voice took on a monotone quality, and Sara knew that he was speaking on autopilot at that point. "The year before, I had helped Mac with a child abuse case. Kid was found in a landfill and we IDed him from the Social Services records, which led us to the father. We had been able to positively match the impression of his boot heel to the skull fractures on his son's body. Mac made the arrest, and that was the last we heard of it until after Michael-…" The words caught in his throat and he had to swallow before he could continue, "Had been found... Seems he had a good lawyer and was sent to the state hospital, where he was declared cured ten months later. It was then he started stalking the family. And the only member of the family that was vulnerable to him at anytime was Michael, for that one hour a week that he might be at the campus day care center. Everyone else was either with another member of law enforcement, or surrounded by people in general. Michael was just a victim of opportunity for that guy."

He paused a moment and Sara took the opportunity to place a gentle kiss on his cheek as she leaned down again. "We picked up Stephie on our way to the house after our trip. I was so anxious to show her the new specimens I had found, that I couldn't wait to see her."

Sara gave him a chance to catch his breath again, by revealing something about her conversation with Stephanie. "Yeah, she remembers that. She keeps those butterflies with the picture of Michael." When he turned to look at her again, she could see a glimmer of hope in his eyes, and it was too much for her; a tear escaped.

When the tear fell onto his face, he wiped it up, to make it mingle with his own, and then he brought his fingers to his lips and kissed them. His next move endeared him to her even further. He touched his fingers to her lips in a gesture of sharing that touched her deeply.

"Really?" She just nodded her answer, for fear that her voice would fail her since her heart was so full of emotion in that moment. "That's good to know…"

He turned back to face away from her as he continued. "Beth told us to not worry about Michael because it was arts and crafts day at the day care and Michael would be having such a good time. The bastard chose that as the time to take the boy. He had managed to steal an SFPD ball cap and showed up telling the day care people that he was the boy's uncle. Michael didn't want to go, but the day care worker had already dealt with numerous children who would rather slop around in the paint than go home that afternoon, so she didn't think anything of Michael throwing a fit about the man. When Beth arrived, she was told the boy's 'uncle' had picked him up. And even though Beth knew she had told me not to, she figured I had done my own thing anyway, so she stopped at the market and then went home."

He inhaled sharply and then deliberately blew out the breath in a long string before he could continue. "I was upstairs with Stephie when Beth got home. When Mac asked her where Michael was, she screamed. I made Stephie stay where she was, and then ran downstairs to find out what was going on. They were both shell-shocked, and for some reason, I kicked into autopilot. I think that was the first time I had ever really done that, and sadly, it would not be the last time. I got the PD involved, they were at the day care before I had even gotten off the phone. I had a description in under twenty minutes, and I told the other officers about the Dad and got his court appointed social worker on the phone to find out where he was, which was when I learned he wasn't taking his meds. It didn't take me long to figure out what he had planned and, for some reason, I went straight to the park near the campus where we would take the kids all the time."

She felt his whole body turn rigid and Sara knew the worst was coming. "My God, Sara… It was the most hideous thing I had ever seen. My entire mind left me in that instant, and I'm sure I contaminated the scene, but all I could think about was keeping him from being left like that. They actually had to ID the body from the dental records, because my recognizing the clump of hair that was left wasn't enough for court. Sara, there wasn't a square inch of his body that wasn't t-…"

That was his breaking point and he began to sob violently. Sara did her best to hold him to her, but he was inconsolable in that moment of sheer agonizing grief. His whole body shook with each sob and Sara, too, was crying by that point. To know that Gil had been carrying those horrific images around in his head for years broke her heart. To know that he carried the burden of that boy's torn and battered body with him, buried so deeply that he had never shared the burden, tore her apart.

She had always known, whatever it was that made any case involving a child torture to him had to have been the most horrendous thing she could imagine, but never in her wildest machinations could she have imagined something so unbelievably devastating, as was the source of his pain.

They stayed like that for a long while, until he was finally able to let loose of his grip around her legs. But, instead of leaving the couch, when Sara stood up, he just laid out on his stomach, and buried his face in his arms as she wiggled into the space between him and the back of the couch, so that she could continue to offer him what comfort she was able to provide. They finally fell into sleep as she slowly rubbed circles over his back and his whimpers finally died away. Both of them needed the sleep after such a long and emotionally draining day. As she drifted off into slumber, Sara thought to herself that there would be plenty of time for them to recover when they woke up later. We have the rest of our lives for healing old wounds, together.