When Grissom prepped his boat to leave the San Diego marina, he hadn't anticipated he'd ever Sara Sidle again. But when he saw her walking down the dock towards his boat, he could still remember how his heart leapt in his chest. And when he held her in his arms, he remembered believing he'd never let her go again.

But the reality was, it wasn't that easy to roll back into each other's lives. It didn't take long for Sara to feel the comfort of Vegas tug at her heart. The place where she left her friends, her career, her home. And for Grissom, well…he had to adjust to the complete one-eighty transition of his world. From going completely isolated on a boat for weeks at a time, to now sharing every bit of space he had. It didn't matter how much they loved each other, it was a transition difficult even for the best of relationships.

And while they both knew that the other's love was genuine, it wasn't without defect. Both of them horrible communicators with years worth of pent-up conversations begging to be discussed. It didn't take long for the storm to roll in on their sunset paradise. As the weeks passed on and the filter of what felt like a second honeymoon faded away, so did their patience with one another.

Sara and Grissom were sitting at the back of the boat, cataloging the samples they had just pulled up when the alarm went off in the cabin. Grissom popped up quickly, wincing as he waited for his knees to catch up with him. Sara watched him as he pulled a sheet off the printer and studied it closely. He'd look at his map sprawled across the counter and then back to the paper in his hand. Sara could see his jaw tighten and relax as he studied. It was as if she could see the tension begin to cascade over him. They had spent days tracking down this particular school of fish and she had the feeling there were about to have to abandon it.

"What's wrong?"

Grissom stepped out of the boat, exasperated. He stared up at the clouds and let his hands drop to his sides in defeat.

"The storm is rolling in faster than they thought. We have to go. We have to pull up whatever we still have down and get out of here."

Grissom looked around the back of the boat, his mind cataloging the steps he needed to take to get them out of there quickly and safely. Sara was doing her best to stay calm, but with the tension in his face, she couldn't tell how much was frustration with having to leave, and how much of him was scared for the weather to come. Sara had only been on the boat for a little bit and had been lucky to this point to not have to deal with any bad weather. She'd have to follow his lead and the lead at the moment made her uneasy.

"What do you need me to do?"

"Nothing, I got it. You can go below deck. Wait it out."

"Gil. Let me help."

Grissom couldn't help but sigh loudly, looking annoyed as he pointed to the vials in her hand and the notes he had left on his chair.

"Just…try to wrap that up. Get all the information as best you can on the vials and throw them in the cooler. I'll take care of the rest."

Sara knelt out of her chair in front of the cooler and went straight to work, reading his notes and jotting the data down quickly on the vials. Her hand cramped as she gripped the pen, desperate to write legibly enough to decipher later. Grissom was gathering up the loose items that were laying about the back of the boat, throwing things into storage containers haphazardly.

The clouds that seemed to have been miles away were now on top of the them. Sara was writing the last of her notes when a single drop of water splashed on the ink displacing it across the page into a black faded circle. She paused and looked up to Grissom who was holding out his hand letting the rain hit his palm. Grissom looked to her, his eyes already tired.

"We have to go."

The rain began to fall softly as Sara threw the materials into the cooler before she slammed it shut and shoved it into the entryway of the cabin, slapping Grissom's notebook on top of it. Grissom tossed her an extra rain jacket before throwing on his own as he made his way to the front of the boat to pull up the anchor. Sara jogged to the back of the boat and began to pull up the lines that were still thrown over the rail. Sara could feel the rope scratch into her hands as she yanked the lines up quickly. Her hair was sticking to her face as the rain started to fall harder. Grissom returned to the back of the boat to see the lines had tangled on the deck. He leaned next to her and took the rope from her hands.

"Here, just let me get it."

"No, it's okay, I got it."

"No, Sara. just leave it."

His voice was raised and more stern than she cared for. Sara let go of the rope and stood quickly. Wiping the hair from her face, she scowled and took a step back. Her eyes glanced across the boat, squinting as the rain hit her face with an unpleasant force. She was trying to see what else needed to be done before they took off. She saw the mess of rope she had tangled on the deck and realized now why he had snapped. Dropping to her knees, she began to lay the lines into repeating figure-eights, coiling them properly while Grissom pulled up the last of the rope.

"I'm sorry, Gil. I was just trying to get them up fast. I wasn't paying attention."

"It's fine, Sara. Just next time, let me do it."

Sara sat back on her feet, exhausted and defeated. Grissom stood quickly and headed towards the cabin to start the boat, grabbing onto the railing for support as the boat swayed beneath him. The water that had collected on the deck had made it slippery making it nearly impossible for Grissom to catch himself when he bumped into the cooler that Sara had shoved into the entryway of the cabin. Grissom tripped over it and launched himself onto the floorboards, the slick vinyl of his jacket sliding him across it until he slammed his shoulder into the cabinet.

"FUCK!"

Watching in what felt like slow motion, Sara closed her eyes and hung her head as the water blew off her lips with her sigh. When she made her way to the cabin, she grabbed onto the door frame and watched as Grissom worked his way off the floor.

"Gil, I'm sor-…"

Grissom looked to her and held his palm out, stopping her where she stood.

"Don't…just…[sigh]…just don't."

The salty tears that welled in her eyes mixed with the rain that had fallen on her face and it made her eyes burn. Sara shook her head and walked out of the cabin back onto the deck. The rain pelted against her jacket, her hair sticking to her face once again as the wind blew across the boat. Grissom's face dropped and he went after her, knowing he needed her inside before they could take off.

"Sara, get back inside. It's dangerous out here!"

"Why do you do this? Why do you always push me away?"

Grissom's eyes squinted as if doing so would help him hear her over the rain crashing around them. The curls of his hair were flatten against his head as he ran a hand through his hair, buying time to process what she just said.

"I was frustrated, I'm sorry. Look, get back inside!"

"I'm not just talking about the damn boat, Gil, and you know it!…Every time it gets a little rough, you clam up and you push me away. You find a reason to go through it alone."

"Hey!… You left me, remember? You went back to Vegas on your own. You're the one who didn't come back."

"I left to help our friends! And you were supposed to come with me. THAT…was the plan!YOU…changed the plan! Not me!"

"My work was elsewhere, Sara, you knew that! I couldn't just leave. But you could. Ecklie said it was only temporary… you could've come back!"

"To what?! Twice I came back to visit you and somehow left feeling like I had spent NO time with you at all. So caught up in your work, you barely noticed I was there. You may have left Las Vegas, but you never left the lab, you just replaced it with something else!"

"We could have fixed it! We could have spent more time together if you hadn't just given up!-"

"I didn't send those papers…you did. You. Left. Me. You gave up on us long before I signed them!"

The silence between them was deafening. Somehow louder than the storm and water around them. Sara shook her head and threw her arms up and down. The long sleeves of the rain-soaked jacket smacking her legs as they extended past her fingertips. The tears that had been streaming down her face as she yelled where now lost in the rain that was still falling hard between them. Sara's voice cracked as she mustered up the energy to say her final piece.

"All I ever wanted was to love you, Gil. For you…to let me love you. Why was that always so hard to believe? Why couldn't you trust that?"

Grissom felt his raging pulse begin to slow down as Sara's words sat heavy in the air. He dropped the tension in his shoulders and stared up into the cloud-filled sky as the rain fell onto his face. As his breathing slowed, he lowered his head and hung it down, his chin almost touching his chest.

Sara watched him in agony. Waiting for him to respond, she worried that this is where he'd say something she didn't want to hear. But he couldn't deny the truth that she spoke. For all the time he thought he had gotten over his biggest fear, the reality was that he hadn't at all. Underneath the surface lived the smallest seed of doubt that he'd never be enough. And for the life of him, he couldn't think of why it existed, until it clicked. With a ragged breath Grissom shook his head and let the words fall from his lips as if he had no control over them.

"I was ready to start my life with you, Sara. I gave it all over to you. Whatever you needed, it was yours. I had never felt at home as much as I had when I had that life with you…but after Natalie…after you left…you took it all with you."

When he looked back to her, she could see the walls were finally down and the man she had loved was standing there, broken and worn. The rain made it almost impossible to see his tears, but she could feel that they were there. His eyes and the tip of his nose were red, his body shook, fighting desperately to let go of everything he was trying to hold back. Sara closed her eyes, unable to face the pain she had caused.

"I'm sorry…I thought…I always thought I was protecting you. And I can see it…I can see it now that I was wrong. I should have stayed with you, I should have worked it out with you. But I left. I guess…I guess I didn't know how to let you in either."

Grissom winced at her words, somehow feeling guilty for making her feel she had to apologize for taking the time for herself. He knew why she left, he knew she needed to process what happened, he had only wished that they had talked about it before hand. That she had given him the opportunity to try and help, not just leave. But as his thoughts settled, he realized that he had done no better. Sending her the divorce papers without much notice or willingness to discuss it himself.

"I never should have sent those papers."

Grissom's eyes swirled dark blue…not with passion, not with anger, but with pain. The pain of knowing he could never take it back. He could marry her a hundred times over and it would never undo the damage he had already caused. Sara watched his chest rise and fall with each breath, the rain had left his shirt pinned to his chest beneath his jacket. He winced with his breaths as if the weight of simply breathing was too much to manage. Sara knew that the weight he carried contained everything that happened to her after the divorce.

After a post-shift drink with Brass, he let it slip that he had been keeping tabs with Grissom, filling him in every now and then when shit hit the fan. Initially it had angered Sara, he didn't deserve to know what happened after he walked away. But as time went on, and the scars continued to pile, it saddened her more than anything. That despite Basderick's attack, or getting grazed in the head, or surviving a plague, or a mass shooting, or even the latest loss, …losing her friend and partner Finley…none of it was ever enough to bring him back to her.

As the pain of the last few years flooded over Sara, she broke. Her hand shook as she brought it to her face to muffle her cry while the tears started to fall onto her cheeks again. Grissom could feel his heart pounding in his chest, desperate to take her pain away and endure it for himself. Grissom rushed towards her with his hands stretched forward, ready to catch her in his arms.

"I'm sorry… I'm sorry I wasn't there. I should've been there. I should've….I shouldn't have given up…"

Sara's breath caught in her throat before his lips crashed into hers. Grissom's hands were hot against Sara's face as he pulled her into him. Sara grabbed hold of his arms tightly and held him close afraid to let go.

When the storm rolled on and the seas calmed, they spent hours in each other's arms below deck. A deeper level of passion that neither had realized they'd been missing. But after they found it, all had been made right. And while the last five years hadn't been without its battles, there was never another question of who was all in.