AN/ I promised you guys once at least once week and I'm trying to hold to that. I have a great deal of this story already laid out. This newest chapter was not part of the plan. Thus the 2.5. Thank you for your reviews and your support. It means a great deal. As always thanks to Losingintranslation and Michelle for their hard work.

Sara.

The human race is built on the survival premise. You do what you have to do in order to make it through the next day. No one starts out with any intention of dealing or whoring. Everyone knows that kind of stuff is a dead end deal. You do it so you can make it to the next day-maybe. You reap what you sow and there's no two ways about it. Everyone knows you are gonna get it in the end for selling someone's 12 year old kid crack. But it's not the end you are concerned with. You are only trying to make it to the next minute, the next hour and, if you are very lucky, the next day.

So what I am sowing by doing this thing with Doc? I mean, am I really whoring myself out? Or am I taking advantage of him?

I don't know. I don't want to think about it. I sure hope not.

You really can't do that when you're operating in survival mode; dwell on stuff that is. I mean Bill Gates might have time to consider the morality of various social and economic decisions, but Sara Sidle does not. I can try and treat myself and all the people involved with as much dignity as possible, and just hope that God, or Allah, or whoever, understands that I'm doing the best I can.

Courtesan, mistress, concubine, paramour: those are the words we use to describe the particular lifestyle I've just entered. I will not be dating anyone else. I will not be sleeping with anyone else. I belong to him. I should probably have some feminist tendencies flaring up now. But actually, it just makes me feel...safe. That makes me nervous.

The truth of it is, I chose Doc 'cause he was safe and cute and sweet. I could've been with a bunch of guys who had a thing for me, but it was only Doc who I'd let in. Doc, who never said anything strange or pressed the issues. Doc, who walked me to my car once or twice and never tried to do the dreaded lean in or ass grab. Doc, who could run new assholes with his dead stare and the flexing right hand at his side.

Unable to sleep and feeling slightly out of sorts, I open my nightstand drawer and take out a sheet of lavender paper.

I print the date, the time and the familiar greetings.

Dear Mom,

You won't believe it. Your little girl is going to college.

Observation-Gil

The shadowy world of morally right or wrong was one that Gil Grissom tried not to inhabit. Sure he had his own set of beliefs, morays and ideas on how one's life should be lived, but those did not require large amounts of thought. He just did what he felt was right and tried to stay away from what he felt was wrong. Too much actual thought about the subject, he believed, would affect his work.

He didn't want to think about the father who'd killed his daughter's molester. With too much reflection, the temptation to skew the interpretation of the evidence would lure him away from the clean lines of science. And that hypothetical man had, in fact, made a decision that he would suffer whatever consequences life handed him. It was not up to Gil, or any other criminalist to tamper with fate just because they "understood' why a criminal had done what he'd done.

He tried to push away the thoughts of the woman he'd just left and the morality of their situation or perhaps the lack of morality

If one were to look only on the surface, this was exactly the kind of arrangement in which a man such as himself would want to be involved. His nature was not a monogamous one. The wonderful women who'd been in his life knew that and they accepted it; or they didn't and moved on. His sex drive was sometimes a liability, sometimes an asset. It changed with the circumstances. He often felt that his needs and demands were too much for any one woman. With Alana, the only woman he had even come close to marrying, he'd found a sexual satisfaction he thought never possible. Her body and its responses seemed as if they were created just for him. Perhaps it had been.

The problem was he wanted her all the time, and in every way imaginable. However, he could never bare his desires to her completely, because he knew that his insatiable need for her would frighten her away. His natural propensity to hide any lack of satisfaction had driven a wedge between them. The smart thing would have been to tell her the truth.

Instead, he had retreated into arctic smiles and monosyllabic conversations. The day she left, they'd made love three times in 24 hours and all he could think about was how could he tell his perfect little minx that he still wanted more? Rightfully, she only wanted him to fall sleep, for him to hold her and stroke her hair.

It certainly was not the first time this had happened: his retreating, her begging for him to share. It would, however, be the last time. She said, again, that she felt as if she didn't know him.

Before he could stop himself, the words had shot straight from his gut, "You wouldn't like me if you knew me, sweetheart."

She'd left. He'd wept. His relationship with the dark-haired, hazel-eyed beauty was the one thing he wished he could do over. The emptiness she left in his head and heart was the one thing he did not think he could ever bear again.

In all other relationships, he was generous with his time and his money. He tried never to leave any woman bitter, always telling them that he was the problem. They always believed him, because it was always the truth.

He tried to think about why that was. Dead father and deaf mother aside, he had experienced very little trauma in his life. Sure, there were a few bad years in high school, but even those weren't horrible.

He really had nothing to explain his proclivities, nor did he try. Perhaps it was just wacky genes or misfiring neurons. It really didn't matter. Excuses were potholes of complacency and self satisfaction. One could try and change behavior or accept it. If the behavior was reprehensible, then one should try and change it. His did not fall into the reprehensible category.

So, on the face of it, this polite contract that he and Sara had agreed upon should have been a thing of his dreams. As he understood it, he could see other women, as long as he was respectful and practiced safe sex. Sara wasn't asking for fidelity, only honesty.

The one act that she was hesitant about, he was fairly certain that he might able to coax her into it, under the right circumstances. Not that he had to have Sara, or any woman for that matter, in that way. The rational, "good" part of him would probably assert that dwelling on that particular subject spoke to his need to control everything, including the people he cared about. It had very little to do with any preferred sexual activity. Why else would he dwell on something that he'd only done a few times, enjoyed, but did not necessitate his sexual satisfaction?

The white hot reality lay in the fact that he could not stand the thought of her keeping any part of herself from him. What was this woman doing to him?

Those were his thoughts on the matter as he shed his clothes and lay down upon in his bed-alone.