15/01/2008 13:41:00

A/N: Okay, so about this chapter…well actually I'll just tell you at the end (don't want to give too much away). Suffice to say I hope you like it and don't blame me too much for lack of originality.

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"Stop being such a showoff." I could hear Lindsey in the kitchen, but I was facing the stove.

"I'm not." Ayla's voice sounded confused.

"You are so!" Lindsey hadn't eaten since lunch and was getting irritable.

"No!" Ayla protested. "I'm just telling Catherine about the college book Sara gave me. It's her astronomy book from Harvard."

"You're being a showoff," Lindsey insisted.

"Sorry." I could hear Ayla's distress at having upset her 'big sister'. "I can put it away if you want," the younger girl said, dejected. Oh, that's the saddest voice I've ever heard.

I turned away from dinner. "No, Ayla honey, you don't have to put it away. Why don't you go read in the living room with Maggie and I'll look at it with you when dinner's done, okay?" I looked at my daughter, "Lindsey Willows, why are you yelling at her like that? She wasn't trying to showoff or be mean and you know it."

"Sara doesn't give me college books and I'm three years older!"

"Linds, she doesn't expect Ayla to read the whole thing, she was just trying to make her feel special. Being three years older, I'd expect you to act a bit more grown-up."

"She does too expect her to read it! She thinks she's smarter than me, but she's not. I know lots of stuff that she doesn't know!"

"God damn it, Lindsey, she does not! Sara loves you both and you're both very smart. But you are older and you do have to act more mature. That little girl loves you and looks up to you and you were this close to making her cry over something she did not do! Now, either go apologize or go wait in your room until I call you for dinner."

Lindsey started crying but her cheeks were red with fury. She stamped her foot. "Don't bother, I'm not hungry!" A second later I heard angry footsteps on the stairs above.

As I turned back to my chicken to find it blackened and practically inedible, I heard Maggie start to wail in the other room. "Shit." Of late, this had become my life.

Sara and I had been back in Las Vegas for nearly six weeks, and things were not going well. The girls were acting out, not receiving the attention they desperately needed because Sara and I had to work at night and sleep for most of the day. It had always been difficult to keep Lindsey entertained in the summers, but now, with three of them, it was damned near impossible. We had worked out a system where I would take them in the mornings so that Sara could rest and she would take them in the afternoon so that I could close my eyes.

Neither of us was managing more than four or five hours of sleep a day, and with three kids and a full time job, that pace is unsustainable. Maggie was throwing tantrums that came out of nowhere, Ayla was reverting back to the behavior she had exhibited right after her parents had died, and Lindsey was starting to realize that two little sisters might have been more than she'd bargained for.

And the stress was making things tense between Sara and I. For a change in pace, the only place we didn't fight was at work. We just didn't have the energy. Instead we worked in perfect tandem, finding time to comfort and console each other in the locker room or my office. But outside the lab, we were constantly snapping at each other. The bliss we had experienced in San Francisco seemed a fast fading memory.

We were tired, we were cranky, and things weren't progressing in our relationship, emotionally or physically. With the way things were, we didn't even have time for anything more than kissing, even if we had been in the mood. We were, for all intents and purposes, a family of five, except that half of our family lived on one side of town, and half lived on the other. And the kids spent nights with a sitter. Not to mention the parents had never made it past second base and had no idea when each other's birthdays were or what their favorite food was.

I began to think that maybe we had rushed into this relationship a little too fast. I was in love with Sara, but things were not working. There were just so many problems. The girls were not okay, our relationship was not okay, and our financial situation until Warren and Matt's estate had been settled, was tight. Maybe it was a mistake. Maybe a relationship on top of everything else was just too much. As much as I wanted to be with Sara, maybe it was all we could do to take care of the girls right now. Maybe we, Sara and I, were just going to have to wait.

I explained all of this to Warrick one night during shift. He had been my only outlet since Sara and I hadn't revealed our relationship to anyone else at work yet. He had been a great help and a great person to vent to.

"I don't even know what to do, Rick. We don't even have time to fight- I'm starting to think that we aren't even dating, just making out and sharing kids."

"So you skipped the honeymoon and went straight to being married."

I gave him a tired, sardonic look, "Cute."

"Come on, Cath, it's a little funny. You've been dating for two and half months, you don't have sex and you car pool more often than you have five minutes alone together."

"Yes, I see your point," I said dryly, "Hilarious."

Warrick moved to massage my shoulders, "Look, what you guys need is some time alone. To talk, to have sex, to plan out your lives, whatever. Just a little time alone."

"Tcha! Well, you got a genie in a bottle somewhere? Because otherwise, our next second alone together is going to be in fifteen years when Maggie graduates from high school."

He mimed checking his pockets. "I don't have a genie in a bottle, but I could take the girls out to Lake Mead on Friday. I'll have had the night off so I'll be rested. Take 'em fishing or something."

I looked at my friend, "Seriously? You would do that?"

"Hell yeah, Cath, lord knows you've saved my butt enough times. It's the least I can do. I really think things could work out between you and Sara, but you guys need to talk."

I threw my arms around Warrick's neck, "Oh my God, I love you!"

"I thought you loved me." Sara smiled tiredly from the doorway.

I grinned excitedly back. "Warrick just volunteered to take the girls all day Friday."

"Oh my God, I love you!" Sara ran up and copied my actions so that we were both swinging on his neck like monkeys.

Warrick responded by putting an arm around each of our waists, "I wish the guys could see me with such sexy ladies all over me." He grinned.

We heard a knock on the open door, and a cough. "We see you, man." Nick, Greg, and Grissom were crowded into the doorway of my office.

"Yes, we see you…" Grissom raised an eyebrow, "What are you doing?"

I laughed, "Just a little inter-office bonding, Gil." I stepped away from Warrick. "Okay, guys, party's over- everybody out." I ushered everyone out before saying, "Actually, Sara, could I talk to you for a second? About that B&E from last week?"

"Sure thing." Sara lingered behind and I caught her wrist as I shut the door.

The air in the office was immediately heavy. My skin flushed and I could feel Sara's pulse quicken beneath my fingers. Even the prospect of more than five minutes alone was revving us up. I leaned into her.

"So tell me, sweet lover," Sara joked, pulling me closer, "How'd you convince our new best friend to take the munchkins? Blackmail? Do you have some grit on him that I don't know about?"

I grinned into Sara's lips, "No…I simply told him that it had been a while since you and I had had any quality time. After that, he just offered up." I shrugged.

"Hmm…well, I have to say, I'm looking forward to our quality time." She lightly brushed her lips over mine.

Electricity flooded my body, and I pushed her against the wall, biting her lower lip. "Me too, babe. I can't wait."

Five minutes later, Sara and I released each other. We were breathing heavily and my top two buttons were undone. But we knew this was not the place.

"God." Sara breathed.

"Yeah."

"I've missed you."

"I've missed you, too, sweetheart," I touched her face.

"But…"

I smiled at her intuition, "But I think we're going to need to use at least part of our 'day off' to talk. About what's been going on with us and with the girls. We need to come up with a better plan than the one we have."

Sara nodded her understanding, "I agree. Things have been…tense since we got back to Vegas. You're right, we should talk."

"I love you." I whispered, thinking that maybe we both needed to hear it.

I had told Sara I loved her for the first time the night we got home from California. I had desperately wanted tell her for ages, but the timing had never seemed right. That night, when we'd tucked all of the girls to sleep in my bed, and we'd cuddled up on the couch, it had just seemed like the perfect opportunity. Of course, then she didn't say anything for a solid hour and I was thrown into a panic. But then she had seen how petrified I was. She'd stroked my hair and kissed me, and then she'd told me that she loved me too. Now, I said it whenever I could, just so she would say it back.

She smiled and visibly relaxed, "I love you, too. We'll work this out, right?"

I nodded and kissed her lightly, "Okay then, now scoot. I've got three reports to write and I heard that you have dumpster duty at the Tangiers."

My girl groaned.

"Would you rather trade?"

At the thought of paperwork, Sara blanched, "No way. Dumpsters. Fun. Here I come."

I made kissing sounds at her and she winked at me, "Catch ya later."

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Warrick came over for breakfast Friday morning, the day of 'the big talk', and left with three happy girls in tow. Sara and I cleared the table quietly and went about our now well-practiced cleanup routine. Sara scraped food into the garbage while I rinsed the dishes. Then I put away the milk, the bread, the cereal and Sara wiped down the table and counters. We were quiet, but that wasn't unusual, we didn't really need to talk. Sara, who finished before me, made-up two mugs of coffee and went into the living room. When I came in, drying my hands on my jeans, I caught her trying to organize the toys that were strewn about the floor.

I smiled. "You might as well give up," I said, taking a seat on the couch, "it'll return to chaos as soon as they get back."

She shook her head, "I am determined. Someday they will all realize the benefits of keeping things neat."

"Hmm. I'll just let you dream, shall I?" I winked as she stood up, and patted the sofa beside me.

She leaned back and eyed me carefully, "So?"

I sighed. "So…" We had a lot to cover here and it was all sensitive stuff, but where to start? "So, I love you."

That seemed to catch her off guard, her eyes were worried. "I…love you, too?"

I put a hand on her knee, squeezing lightly, "But the way things are right now…this isn't working. We can only survive like this for so long."

Sara nodded, mutely. She had gone quite pale and I suddenly realized how that must have sounded to her.

"No, baby, I didn't mean it like that. This is not a break-up speech, no, no, no. I'm not saying let's break-up, I'm saying let's brainstorm."

She looked at me, the uncertainty evident in her gaze, "Brainstorm?"

"Uh-huh, yeah. We need to work together here and figure out better ways of doing what we're doing, shortcuts we can take, ways to minimize stress."

She still looked unsure. "You mean, fix this?"

"Before it gets worse." I nodded, scooting closer to her. "Baby, we knew this was going to be hard when we signed up, and I don't regret any part of it." I shook my head, "But we can't keep going like we're going, we just can't. We'll burn out. Neither of us sleeps, we don't eat well, we never get time for each other. I used to look forward to work and now it feels like a prison. And to top it all off, the time we are spending with the girls never feels like quality time. I feel like the mean mom all the time and I hate feeling like that. So, yeah," I rested my head on her shoulder, "let's fix this thing."

Sara was quiet for a long minute as she stroked my hair. Then she kissed my forehead, "I love you."

I leaned up and kissed her chin, "It's my brilliant mind and classic good looks, isn't it?"

She smiled and shook her head, "It's your persevering nature and your obstinate will. I did think for a moment that you were going to end this." She shrugged, "My own insecurities, I guess. This is always the part in my relationships where one of us decides it's too hard and bails. But I should have trusted you to want to stick it out."

I sat up and kissed her firmly, "I'm in this, Sara. This is just a tiny hiccup. There will be bigger ones." I kissed her again. "But I'm in this for as long as you want me."

She grinned and kissed me soundly. "I'll want you," she whispered against my lips, and I felt shivers runs up and down my spine. "I think it's safe to say I'll want you for a very long time." Her tongue came to trace between my lips, and it was a good five minutes before I let her up from the back of the couch. "So?" she smiled impishly.

"So…" I grinned smugly in return.

So, Sara and I talked. We talked for a very long time. It probably took us longer than it should have because it wasn't the way either of us usually handled situations like this. Usually when we had a problem, we argued, fought, stopped talking for a month and then argued some more. We couldn't afford to do that this time around. At forty years old, I was learning to handle my problems like an adult.

We decided that there were four major issues with what was going on. The most important was that the girls were not getting enough of our attention and they were unhappy. Things would be easier when they went back to school, but we still had another month before that happened.

Sara suggested that maybe this would be easier on them if they weren't moving around so much. The short and short of it was that things would be a hell of a lot easier if all three girls were under one roof. Herein lay a problem.

"You know…" I hesitated to ask, "we could save a whole lot more time if the girls all slept in the same house. They sleep here often enough as it is."

Sara frowned, "Then they would practically live here."

"Yeah…"

Her eyes narrowed, "Are you asking me to move in with you?"

"I don't know."

She quirked an eyebrow and I sighed.

"I mean, yes, I'm asking you, but I'm not asking you right now. Does that make sense?"

"You're saying that you want us to live together someday."

"Someday soon."

"But not right now?"

"It's rushing things a bit, don't you think?"

"Yes. On the other hand, if you're planning on reissuing the offer at some point in the next six months, there's no better time to move than summer vacation."

"Right. Does that mean you'd say yes if I asked you?"

"I think I would."

"Hmm."

It was something to ponder. In the meantime, we still needed a better schedule for the girls. For the moment, instead of moving in together, we decided to keep the girls at my house for part of the week and at Sara's the other part, thereby cutting out the avoidable hour of carpooling everyday. I knew that we also needed to be spending more time with them than we were. When school started, this would be easier, since we could sleep while they were away. Essentially, what we needed were slightly different hours. This meant talking to Gil.

Therein lay our second problem. Work was wreaking havoc with our lives. Sneaking around at work was causing us unnecessary stress that was preventing us from doing our jobs effectively which in turn made us have to put in more hours that took us away from our kids. We finally agreed that we needed to come clean at work. Neither of us was thrilled with the idea and Sara seemed downright scared at the prospect, but it was going to have to happen at some point anyway and right now we needed to cut down on the number of balls we were juggling. So, we would tell everyone and we would talk to Gil about adjusting our hours.

We also agreed that coming out to my family was probably in order. I hadn't been communicating much with them since we got back from California, which was entirely my choice. I felt that it was easier not to deal with them at all than to deal with whatever their reactions were to Sara and the girls. Only now it seemed to be creating more problems than it solved. Sneaking around my mother and my sister was yet another stress point, so that needed to be dealt with.

Our final problem was our relationship together. We were functioning as a couple but in reality, what Sara and I knew of each other was only the information gathered in six months of tentative friendship and a month of whirlwind romance. I knew Sara because I knew what it was to love her. At the same time though, we had jumped straight off the deep end with this relationship in some ways and we were holding back in others.

There was only one solution to this and it came in two parts. The first was emotional and the second; physical. We shared anecdotes and stories, both funny and sad. Sara told me a little about her childhood, about her father and his quick temper. I wasn't entirely unsurprised. She usually avoided talking about her childhood at any cost- even if it involved leaving the room. I knew it had to be something along those lines. It pained me to watch the bad memories play across her face, but then she had talked about Warren and Matthew and the time they had talked her into going into one of those dunking booths at a carnival. The way she laughed at that made me realize that she had happy memories, too. It also made me realize that I wanted to spend a lot more time giving her more memories that would put that smile on her face.

For my part, I told her about my cocaine addiction and my near resort to prostitution to feed it. She held me close as I thought about how close my life had come to completely falling apart. And then I told her about what Lindsey was like as a baby. I showed her pictures of me pregnant and of Lindsey as a toddler with sticky-out blonde hair; her face covered in baby food.

When I showed her a photo of the two of us at Chucky Cheese with Eddie on Lindsey's fifth birthday and felt her stiffen, I knew what was coming next. I twisted in her arms to clamp a hand over her mouth before any words escaped.

I shook my head, "Sara, we have a lot of things we're going to need to talk about, but me and Eddie, Eddie's murder- the case. Those are not things we ever need to go over again." I gestured at the photo, "The day before this was taken? I had a pregnancy scare. I was going to tell Eddie, but I walked in on him sticking it to some girl in his office. Things had been falling apart for years. The only thing we're smiling for in this photo is the camera." I kissed Sara's temple, "You are so much better for me than he ever was, baby. You make me smile and laugh which Eddie couldn't do unless we were high. You make me feel safe which he sure as hell never did. And you are so much better for Lindsey."

I smiled at her and ran my fingers through her hair, "I would never want to take away the good memories Lindsey has of her father, but I lost count of the number of times I had to shield her from the hurt he would have caused her. For years before he died, Eddie was just using Lindsey as a pawn to spite me as much as possible. He was there for her when it was convenient for him. I know that you would never do that, that you love Lindsey."

"But the case…" Sara started.

I silenced her again, "The case is long over, now. I know you feel guilty, babe, but you don't need to. I'm a CSI; I know that we can't solve every case. Sometimes there just isn't the evidence. That night, I was awful to you, and I am so sorry for that; you deserve better."

Sara shook her head, "You were distraught, you'd just lost your…" her voice faded. I could tell she what she was thinking. She didn't want to say 'husband' or 'loved one', but what else didn't sound insensitive?

I hugged her middle, "My daughter had just lost her father. I was distraught for her. And I had lost a part of my life that I thought was going to follow me around for the rest of it. It was a shock. I wasn't upset because I was going to miss Eddie; I was upset because…because even if it had been hard, my life had made sense before he died. And then suddenly it didn't."

Sara nodded numbly. I had learned to read her impassive expressions somewhat in the last few months. I knew when she clenched her jaw that she was fighting down the urge to ask me the unspoken question; did my life make sense now? I smiled and brushed her cheek with the back of my hand. There was only one answer.

"You know what helped me get back on track, babe?"

Sara questioned me with a twist of her lips.

I stared into her big brown eyes, "You."

"Me? How?"

"The way you were with Lindsey. Remember, that day? When she came into the lab and you scooped her up in your arms?"

Sara nodded.

I kissed her lips softly, "You were amazing. Until then, I had been lost. I felt like I was floating with nothing to tie me down. All I could think about was that Lindsey was never going to recover from this. And then, without even trying, you got her to talk and to eat- to laugh and smile, again. All in one day."

Sara nodded and shrugged, her eyes glazed over, "I just treated her like she was normal. I knew what it was like to be her. Everyone stares at you and acts weird around you. No one knows how to treat you, even your friends and family- maybe especially them. And all you really need is for someone to tell you that it's okay and that life moves on."

I didn't know how to react to the confession that was hidden within such a weighted statement. I had a feeling that that this was the big secret that she carried around with her, but I didn't want to push her into talking about it if she wasn't ready. "Sara?" I asked, hesitantly.

Sara took a moment to reply. She changed our positions on the sofa, laying on her side against the back and pulling me to spoon in front of her. She wanted me to think that she was just getting more comfortable, but I knew the real reason. My Sara wasn't big on eye contact at the best of times; whatever she was about to say, she didn't want me to see her when she said it. Or maybe she didn't want to see my expression when she was through.

She inhaled deeply and I felt her ribs against my back, "Look, I really don't want to get into the whole thing now. If I'm being honest, I'd rather never tell you anything about this…ever. It's not something I talk about. But…" she kissed my ear and squeezed me tighter, "you're amazing and even if I don't want to tell you, I do want to be honest with you about everything. I've lied in relationships before and I don't want this one to end up like the others. But I don't think I can tell you everything all at once, okay?"

I squeezed the arm around my waist, "Take your time, sweetheart. I'm not going anywhere." I think we both understood the double meaning. Sara had a well-known flight reflex. I wanted her to know that whatever she said, I would still be here when she was through.

"Okay. Uh…well, I told you my dad didn't have the best temper in the world. I know it's not an original story; man of the house works all day, kicks back a few, and then starts beating on the wife and kid. But that's the way it was in my house. And my mother…she couldn't take it. She was the most broken woman I ever saw. I remember her when I was really little and we used to go to the raspberry farms nearby and just fill our stomachs. But then…time passed and she just lost heart.

"When I was thirteen, my dad lost a lot of money in this pyramid scam. He was always trying those get rich quick schemes. He was out about a two hundred grand. I didn't actually know that when I was thirteen, I just thought Daddy was really mad; I found out when I read my mother's statement after I became CSI 2 and got access to closed case files."

"Statement?" I questioned.

Sara sighed, "One night, my dad came home really drunk. I don't know how he was even still moving. His speech was slurred, he complained of a headache. He sat down at the dinner table and said he was ready for dinner. It was after ten o'clock, but that didn't matter. We didn't eat until he got home, so I was still in the living room watching TV. I still don't know what my mother was thinking, saying 'no'. You never said 'no' to my father. But I heard them in the kitchen. My dad wanted her to make this casserole she used to make with peas and tuna fish. She told him that it took too long, that she'd make it tomorrow. He threatened her, you know, told her to make it or else."

Sara snorted bitterly, "But for some stupid reason, she stood her ground. I never did find out why. So he started slapping her around. I just tried to ignore it. It never did pay to get in Daddy's way and I knew I couldn't stop him, anyway. He was tall. I was about your height then and he was about a foot taller. He might have been thin but he was strong and I weighed about ninety pounds."

I shuddered. If she was five foot five and ninety pounds…physical abuse wasn't the only thing going on in her house. She would have been less than a size zero. I thought about how thin she was now. She must have been skeletal when her parents were starving her. I stroked her hand to tell her she could continue.

"I would have just kept watching TV. I had turned up the volume so I couldn't hear. But then my mother was screaming and the sound was awful. She yelled sometimes, or cried out, but she never screamed. And she never screamed my name. I went in and saw that he wasn't just beating her with his fists; he had thrown a pot of boiling water down her front.

"I stupidly ran over to help her." Sara laughed darkly, "That made him really mad. He grabbed me by the back of the neck, dragged me upstairs. I almost wasn't even afraid, you know? For a second I was actually proud of myself for getting him off my mom. I didn't even fight because that only made him angrier. He took me up to their room. And he was yelling about what did I know, I was a little girl. He started saying things he had never said before."

I could feel Sara start to shake, "I…uhh…I was used to the stuff he usually said. About me being stupid, about me talking back, about me not knowing my place. But then he started telling me stuff about me being not so little any more. Maybe if I was all grown up I might just want to go live somewhere else, support myself. He asked me if that's what I wanted. Well, I wasn't stupid enough to say 'yes' to that. So I told him no and he laughed at me, said that if I wanted stay under his roof then I was going to have to start paying rent."

The way Sara sneered the word 'rent' made a chill run through my veins, somehow I didn't think she meant giving up her allowance. I held her tighter, willing my own tears not to fall. I didn't want to hear this, but I knew I had to.

"He was scaring me- more than usual, you know. So I did start to struggle. He was talking to me like he always talked to Mom right before he took her into the bedroom and locked the door. I was thirteen. I knew what they did in there. So I fought. I fought hard and I did get away for a minute. But he was too big and he just laughed and pulled me back, saying it would only hurt for a second. I didn't usually scream; I didn't usually make any noise."

I don't think Sara realized when she began to cry, but I heard the change in her voice, "It was easier just to take the belt or the cigarettes or whatever it was that day. But there was no way I was going to lie down for that. So I screamed; I screamed so loud that I couldn't talk above a whisper for three days. Turned out that it was my screams that brought the police. I didn't know that until I read the report either; I never knew why they came."

She coughed, "I don't really remember everything that happened after that. I remember that he had me pinned to the wall and he had his hands up my shirt. In the report it says he cracked my ribs. I don't remember that. I remember he got mad because he was too drunk to get his own pants off. And then the next thing I remember is his eyes. All glassy. And the blood coming out of his mouth. And then he wasn't pushing me against the wall; he was pulling me down with him as he fell."

She shifted, "The report said that she stabbed him with a twelve inch kitchen knife. I don't remember the knife; I don't even remember her. But I can still feel the spray of blood as it hit me. Not just once, but over and over again. And I can hear her laughing. It was maniacal. And then the police coming in and taking me away. My mother was still sitting on the ground in a pool of his blood. Just laughing. When I gave my statement, the officer asked me if my mother had done it to protect me. I didn't lie; I knew she wouldn't have protected me. 'No,' I told him, 'she was just tired.'"

I was silently crying at this point; I knew these things happened, I had seen them. But how could anyone hurt my poor brave Sara? "Now, when I think about it, maybe she was jealous. In her fucked up mind, I think she might have been angry that he was going to cheat on her after all she put up with. She might have gotten a lesser sentence if I had said she was trying to save me but probably not. There was enough evidence in the house to prove that Dad was not the only one doling out the beatings. She didn't even get reduced time for an insanity plea, which she probably should have. At that point, she had completely lost her mind..."

Sara's voice faded and I knew that she had said all that she could. I twisted in her arms and faced her. I moved into her as far as I could, pulling our bodies together, wrapping my arms around her back, and burrowing my face into her neck. I sighed in relief when she hugged me with the same intensity.

"I love you," I whispered over and over again, "I love you, Sara."

Her body tremored, and I let her cry. I just held her and told her over and over again how much I loved her and needed her. I told she was safe and that it was okay and that she never had to be that little girl again. Slowly, her breathing steadied and her grip on my middle loosened. I didn't let go. I think I needed to hold her even more than she needed to be held. She had had twenty years to come to terms with this; I needed more than twenty minutes.

Awhile later, I heard her laugh. I looked up, "What?"

She shook her head, "Nothing. I just don't get people is all."

"Explain." I moved onto my side once again, tracing patterns on her stomach, under her shirt.

She shrugged, "I've told three other people that story in the past fifteen years. And all three of the people I told reacted the same way. They all were very polite to me and then as soon as they could, they got as far away from me as possible. You're the first one I've told who, not only didn't run away, but actually refuses to let me go." She smiled and twisted a strand of my hair between two fingers. "I don't know whether I'm finally getting it right or if you're the first person crazy enough to get it wrong."

I looked into her eyes before lightly kissing her lips, "Neither. I'm the first person to get it right. Those other people were idiots."

Her brow creased, "You don't pity me?"

I shook my head, "Of course not, why would I? There's nothing to pity. Sara, you are a strong, independent woman. You are smart, you are brave." I kissed her again and smiled at her with dancing eyes, "You are amazingly beautiful and sexy." I squeezed her side playfully and was rewarded with a yelp. "Sweetie, I love you. I'm in love with you. And I know a big part of you expects me to leave you, but what you just told me only makes me love you more- because you trusted me." I moved close to her ear, "I'm not going anywhere, baby."

I felt and heard Sara let out a sigh of relief. She held me close, "Good." She smiled and I could feel her breath on my lips when she whispered, "Neither am I," before her mouth descended on mine.

The feel of this kiss was not light or playful. It was passionate. I felt my heart leap in my chest as Sara moved atop me. Precious few of these kisses had been shared over the past few weeks. I could sense her need for control, so I let her have it, my lips easily giving way when her tongue sought entrance. I was going to do whatever it took to convince her that I wasn't leaving and it wasn't exactly a sacrifice to let her hold me like this. Au contraire.

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So? I hope you weren't to disappointed with my first delve into Sara's past, it will come up again later and I'll go deeper, but until then, I hope this will suffice. Let me know what you think! Review, review, review!