As she approached the office, she could see him busily working on his computer and contemplated leaving him to it; but she instantly chastised herself for the thought. She had chickened out of doing this enough times already; she was not going to back down again.

Building up all her courage, she rapped her knuckles lightly on the doorframe.

"Hi, you got a minute?" She asked with a smile.

"Sure." He took off his glasses and gestured to the seat opposite.

"We really haven't had a chance to talk, what with the staff changes." She sat down and took a second to gather her thoughts. "I, uh, I wanted to let you know that I said some things to Ecklie that may have done the team a disservice."

Sensing where she was going with this, Grissom waved a hand in the air to silence her.

"Ecklie wanted to break up the team, and he did it."

"He asked me if you and I had our post-PEAP counselling session." She added pointedly, feeling her cheeks blush at the mere mention of it.

"And we didn't." Gil acknowledged. "Regardless, you should never have to cover for your boss – I'm sorry."

There was an awkward beat between them, before Sara spoke again with a coy smile.

"You've always been more than a boss to me." She offered quietly. "Why do you think I moved to Vegas?"

This revelation appeared to surprise the older man, who glanced away uncomfortably.

"Look, I know our relationship has been complicated," she hurriedly corrected. "It's probably my fault – probably definitely my fault."

"You, uh, completed your counselling, right?" He cut her off before she could babble any further; although she wasn't entirely sure whether he was asking just to stop her from digging herself a deeper hole, or whether he was about to suggest that she needed more sessions. Either way, she was both relieved for the interruption and wary of the new topic of conversation.

"Yeah, yes."

"And?" He pressed, confirming her fears that he was looking for more than a one-word answer now.

"Let's just say that, I ... sometimes, I look for validation in inappropriate places." She confessed, dropping her gaze and feeling herself flush once again with embarrassment. There was far more to it than that, but without further prompting she wasn't going to go any deeper than necessary.

Grissom, equally uncertain of what else to say, shifted in his seat.

"Look, let's um..."

"It's okay." She smiled, alleviating him of the need to finish his sentence. "It's okay. You know what, we did our session. Don't forget to document this for Ecklie."

Realising to late that he had already lost her, he returned her meek smile and nodded.

"Right."

Standing up, she hurriedly offered her appreciative thanks and scarpered from the room as fast as she could. Okay, so she still hadn't told him everything; but she'd cleared her conscience regarding her conversation with Ecklie. That was a start.

Grissom moved to put his glasses back on, but stopped short and instead watched his subordinate disappear out of sight.

The young woman had been a puzzle to him since the day they first met. She was beautiful – youthful, inquisitive, eager to learn. She got under his skin somehow, and she never really left.

He'd be the first to admit that he didn't really understand women, and least of all women like Sara. Catherine had warned him enough times that if he neglected her, he was liable to lose her; but he'd never really taken her seriously, until he got a phone call one night informing him that Sara was sat in PD after being stopped for drink-driving. He'd rushed to collect her, his heart pounding like a tiki drum all the way. And he'd found her there, despondent.

That was the first time that he had really seen beneath her mask, to the vulnerable soul she usually kept hidden. He had been surprised just how little coaxing she had needed to speak to the counsellor.

For a little while, he had realised what Catherine was talking about – even if Cath herself had been talking about losing Sara in a romantic way, rather than simply losing her to her own demons – and he had paid close attention to her; he had offered comfort and a friendly ear. He had looked out for her.

Then, her mood improved and she began to seem like her old self again. And he had slipped back into bad habits.

Maybe Ecklie was right after all, he realised sadly; he had been letting his team down, in more ways than one.

He opened the folder again, although he knew that the information hadn't changed since the last time he read it. Still, he cast his eyes over the neatly typed text again:

Sara Aspen Sidle
September 16 ,1973
Born – Tomales Bay, CA
Qualifications – BS in Physics, Harvard; Masters Degree, Berkley
Previous employment – San Francisco Crime Lab
Emergency contact – N/A

Exactly as before. Nothing particularly outstanding. However, there was one thing that bothered him – the lack of an emergency number. Sara was barely in her thirties, so it seemed strange that she wouldn't have at least one parent around to list as a contact reference. And even if it wasn't a parent, there must be someone – an aunt or uncle, a cousin.

Shrugging the detail off for now, he turned to the next page and smiled to himself. This was where things got more interesting.

Sara had had a few incidents of note while working in Las Vegas; run-ins with suspects and witnesses, spats with colleagues. By themselves, they all just looked like one-offs, but when you put them together with the new piece of information he had recently received, it became something much bigger.

Sara was not just an angry, belligerent young woman. She was disturbed – emotionally tortured by some unknown part of her black past. Ecklie couldn't help but grin as he realised what this meant. He didn't know the woman who had dropped into his office two days ago, nor did he know why she had come to see him with her concerns about the state of Sara's mental health. But he was glad that she had.

She had given him a way to finally rid himself and his lab of the troublesome brunette once and for all – to get rid of Grissom's Achilles heel, and hopefully Gil himself by default.

And the beauty of it was, he didn't have to do a thing. If the information he had been given was accurate, Sara would be the cause of her own downfall without any outside influence. It was just a matter of waiting for things to get too much for her frayed nerves, waiting for her fragile mind to break.

Grissom wouldn't have a choice in the matter; with her record of psychological issues, he would be forced to fire her – for hers and everyone else's own good.

Ecklie closed Sara's file and sat back in his seat, a serpentine smirk settling on his face.

All he had to do now was sit back and wait for someone to pull the trigger. And maybe add a little gunpowder to the fire, just to hasten things along a bit...