Author's Note: I hope you're enjoying this story! I broke it down into chapters to make it a little more manageable. It is not yet finished, so if anyone has any thoughts on directions it could take, please feel free to mention them! (And just telling me to make it hot--well, you know that's going to happen!)

Disclaimer: I love playing with Sara's head, but nothing belongs to me except my own twisted brain.

Chapter Four: Desertion

She walked purposefully down the hall to her bedroom, leaving the door open, making no move to pick up the towels or the previous day's clothes from her floor. She stripped her sweat-scented sheets from the bed, pulling forest green cotton ones from her closet and tucking them around her mattress. A thin pale green blanket came down from the top shelf as well, and she draped it over the bed, and then slid underneath it, turning her face for the first time to the open doorway.

Grissom was standing there, watching her make the bed and then get into it, his shoulder and hip braced against the doorjamb, his face impassive. She leaned over and with a defiant expression, clicked her bedside lamp off. The room plunged into darkness.

"Do you think that hiding under a blanket and turning out the light will end this conversation?" His voice was soft, with a thread of steel running through it.

"No, but my snores probably will."

She heard rather than saw him cross the room, and then the edge of her mattress dipped under his weight as he sat down beside her. She began to tremble, her eyes making out the bluntest angles of his face as they adjusted to the lack of light.

"Sara."

She laughed suddenly, high and nervous. She felt him stiffen beside her. "What?"

"I never thought that this was how you would finally wind up in my bed."

He was so silent and still that she was almost afraid he had stopped breathing. After long moments, he said, "Tell me about this nightmare."

"I never meant to say anything about it in the first place." Somehow, it was easier to talk to him in the dark. She saw his eyes, dark sapphire even in the dim light seeping in through her blinds, fix her with the look she could never resist, never say no to. With a sigh, she sat up.

In slow, halting words, she described the dream that had haunted her for days now—the coldness of the room, her nudity, what he wore and how he was bound and the way he looked at her. She described Lady Heather's attire, the fluidity of the whip she carried, and the pain it caused when the other woman struck her flesh with it. And then, so quietly that he had to strain to hear, she told him what Heather said in every nightmare, the way she accused Sara of not knowing him, not understanding his desires. She only left out the part where she declared, desperately, that she loved him, and the dominatrix's response to that declaration. When she spoke of begging him to tell Lady Heather to stop as the other woman lashed her bloody, she felt him stiffen beside her, and finally speak.

"Those are your exact words? 'Tell her to stop'?"

"Yes," she said softly. "Why?"

"No reason," he replied, and she knew he was lying.

"So, now what? I've told you about the nightmare, like you wanted me to."

Grissom sighed. "I don't know," he replied honestly. "I'm not sure what to do to make them stop."

Sara, who had slid down to stare at the ceiling during her tale, propped herself up on one elbow. "I never expected you to be able to stop them."

"Well, I assumed you brought them up because you thought my presence in them was significant, and that I might be able to provide you with assistance, or at least analysis."

Sara rolled her eyes. "Honestly, Grissom, not everything is about you." When he quirked an eyebrow upward, she added, "And not everything is rational, or able to be fixed. I told you because I was angry with you."

A flinch flashed across his handsome face. "Angry with me? Because I know about—" He gestured vaguely.

Sara shrugged. "Sure, maybe. That, and a lot of other things."

"The promotion."

"I admit, that stung a little. I still think your reasons were…unusual."

He grinned slightly. "I believe the word you used at the time was stupid."

Sara flushed a little. "I was upset."

He shifted slightly on the bed, moving closer to her, taking her hand in his for the second time in a week. "Sara, you have to understand. I recommended Nick because he is nothing like me, and you and I are…very similar. I said I did it because he didn't want the job, and that was part of it. But like I said to him—the last thing we need in the power structure of the graveyard shift is another me."

She toyed with the edge of the blanket wrapped around her. "I get that, I do. I just never thought patterning myself after you would be seen as a bad thing."

"I don't see it as a bad thing. It's flattering. But Nick provides a contrast to me. I like to bury myself in bugs and experiments, and release stress by riding roller coasters—alone. Nick is, for lack of a better term, a people person. He would have been a good balance. But it's moot now anyway."

Sara stared into the darkness. "Look, I appreciate all of this, Grissom. But you don't owe me anything. You don't need to check up on me, and you don't need to explain anything. I just need some sleep, and everything will be fine." She tugged her hand out of his gently, rolling over so that her back was to him, curling her legs up slightly toward her stomach. The over-sharing, over-talking, was making her uncomfortable. She felt the inexplicable need to pull away, emotionally and physically.

His voice behind her was gentle. "Do you think you'll be able to sleep without more nightmares?"

She turned over. "I'll be fine."

His eyes were tight, sad. "Are you sure?"

Sara sat up again. They were very close, sitting on her bed in the faux midnight created by window shades, body heat mingling. Her head felt a little light, and she leaned forward without much conscious decision and rested her cheek on his shoulder. "I'm sure, Grissom."

Grissom moved away, and she felt tears sting her eyes. "Maybe you're right. I should go."

She reached out, grabbed his wrists. "Ah, the chains again. Always something holding you back." She reached up and touched her face where the lash sting would be, her voice becoming dreamy. "If someone killed me, Grissom, would you process the scene? Would you gently swab up my blood, pluck hairs and fibers from my clothes? Would you watch as David washed the blood from my skin, and then touch me through layers of latex? It might be worth it. It might be the closest to you I'll ever get."

"Sara." He sounded genuinely shocked. "This is excessively macabre, even for you."

"Yeah," she said softly. "It's been that kind of a week."

He leaned very close to her suddenly, his face inches away from hers. She inhaled sharply and jerked back. "What are you doing?"

"Checking your breath." Belatedly, Grissom seemed to realize both that his proximity could have been easily mistaken in the context of her bedroom, and that his honesty might be offensive. Sara shoved the blanket off her and stood up, trembling with anger and frustration.

"You know what? Leave. I never should have let you in in the first place. It's none of your goddamned business what I do or what I dream or what I drink. Get out."

He rose as well, moving to the doorway of her bedroom. "All right."

She stood there, watching him as he crossed the living room and opened her front door. He stepped out into the hall and shut the door carefully and quietly behind him. Sara realized as the click echoed through her apartment that she had not actually expected him to leave. She had thought he would argue with her, maybe try to discuss the dream further, but he had obeyed her, and now he was gone. With an anguished cry birthed and dying in her throat, strangling her, she turned back to her bed and flung herself across it, heaving dry sobs into the sheets. Apparently, her tears had deserted her as well.

TBC...