A little angst, then a teeny, tiny little bit of fluff, then lots more angst. Obviously. Great description, ain't it? (hee hee…)

And for my beta sweet-surrender5 – a special CD of D'Rob's singing…

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Out In The Cold

They finally arrived back at her apartment in the early hours of the morning and she fixed them a simple breakfast while he took a shower – standing under the scalding water for almost forty minutes before it ran cold, hoping that the soak would dissolve the muck that seemed to be clinging to every pore of his body. He felt filthy and grimy and somewhere in his subconscious, he realised that the feeling had more to do with his state of mind than with any physical dirt that might be sticking to him.

He got out of the shower, wrapped a towel around his waist and leaned heavily on the basin as he stared at his reflection in the mirror above it. He'd gotten used to the clean shaven face and – truth be told - he preferred the new look, but right now he wished fervently he could have that beard back.

He needed to have it before he could face Sara again.

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"Please?"

"No."

"Oh come on Gris. You can always grow it back if you don't like it. Besides - this is Vegas. We live in the middle of the damn desert. Doesn't it get hot under all that hair?"

"I thought you liked the beard. In fact - your exact words when describing it was "distinguished" and "cute". Which - by the way - was not exactly what I had in mind when I decided to grow it."

"You have a problem with looking distinguished?"

"No. I have a problem with looking cute."

She laughed at his grumpy expression and pulled him into a hug, her palm running across the soft hair on his jaw. "Poor baby. But you realise that I've only had the pleasure of touching your bare cheek once before and let's just say - I wouldn't mind a repeat performance…"

Her words managed to elicit a grudgingly lopsided grin, but he wasn't giving up so easily. "Did you know that in olden times, beards were emblems of wisdom and piety?" he tried as a last ditch effort.

But she was having none of it. "Grissom, I have complete confidence that you'll still be wise and--" she waggled her eyebrows suggestively "—pious, even without the facial hair."

His grin morphed into a salacious smirk. "Fine. But I reserve the right to grow it back whenever I want too. And I'm only shaving after we give it a proper goodbye…"

Later – much later – she sat on the edge of the bath and sniggered at the oaths that escaped his lips every time he accidentally nicked himself with the razor. When he was finished, his chin was smooth but he had numerous bits of white tissue stuck to the tiny bleeding cuts and she couldn't contain her laughter at the look of utter horror on his face.

"Look at me! I knew I should've just listened to my mother."

"Huh?" she managed to snort between fits of giggles.

"She once told me that 'Vanity is the quicksand of reason.' Turns out she was a very wise woman..."

It took a Herculean effort, but Sara somehow managed to stop laughing. "Well, I think you look--"

"Oh god," he groaned. "Please don't say cute."

"--ruggedly handsome," she finished, as she leaned into him and peeled the bits of tissue off. "And young…" she smiled, replacing each piece of wafer thin paper with a feather light kiss. "…and--" But he pressed his lips against hers and whatever she wanted to say got lost in the small moan that escaped her throat.

Suffice it to say, he hadn't sulked about the loss of the beard for too long after that.

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But when he saw himself now, he cringed. He looked haggard, his eyes red rimmed – whether from tiredness or his earlier tears he didn't wish to speculate – and there were huge bags under his eyes, while every line on his face seemed cavernous. He craved the beard – desperately needing the comfort of a mask he could hide behind, something that could serve as a barrier between him and the outside world.

Something that could help him hide from Sara.

He suddenly felt unable to breathe and sank to a sitting position on the edge of the bath, clenching and unclenching his fists spasmodically, trying desperately to get his strangled gasps under control and stubbornly fighting off the invisible hands of panic that seemed to be reaching for him.

He refused to allow his traitorous body another loss of self-control – not after spending almost ten minutes quietly sobbing into Sara's hair at the Police Station and certainly not while sitting on Sara's bath with only a towel wrapped around his shaking body. He couldn't bear the thought of her seeing him like this.

Not again.

But despite his best efforts, that was exactly how she eventually found him. She knelt in front of him and he turned his face away in a desperate attempt to hide from her, but she placed a soft palm on his smooth cheek, pulling his face back to her - compelling him to meet her eyes, silently begging him to say something, to let her in, to allow her to help him.

He found it impossible to do. He couldn't find the words to talk to her, couldn't allow himself to let her in and he couldn't force himself to eat more than a couple of mouthfuls of the breakfast she'd prepared.

And he couldn't bear to let her touch him, even though his body was screaming out for the embrace.

And when Sara finally fell into a fitful sleep beside him, he'd got up and went outside, hoping that the faint rays of the wintry sunrise would somehow warm him and melt the frost that had settled around his heart.

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Sitting on Sara's balcony, Grissom squinted as the feeble rays crept over the mountain tops in the distance and basked his face in a soft glow. He'd been out here for almost an hour, dressed in nothing but his pyjama bottoms and wrapped in a thin blanket, and he was frozen stiff. But he welcomed the discomfort, welcomed the fact that for the first time in hours he was shaking from something other than adrenaline, welcomed the fact that finally, he was at least feeling something otherthan mind numbing despondency.

In the harsh light of day, the events of the previous evening were starting to blur, taking on a dreamlike quality that he found greatly comforting. Sitting here like this, with the blanket swathed around his trembling body, he could almost imagine that none of it had happened at all – that it was just a hideous hallucination – nothing more than a night terror that had woken him up and kept him awake all evening.

But whenever a regular nightmare roused him, all he needed to do was get a drink of water, snuggle up to Sara's warm body and after five minutes he'd fall into a deep, dreamless sleep for the rest of the night.

Something that obviously wasn't going to happen today.

The sun was shining directly in his face now, and he had to shield his eyes from the bright glare. Groaning slightly, he shifted in his seat so that he could place his elbow on the armrest next to him and lifted his hand to his brow, casting a shadow over his sensitive eyes. He was bone tired and desperately wanted to go inside, to climb into the warm bed and wrap Sara's long limbs around his weary body, but for some inexplicable reason he didn't move.

Out here he was alone with his haunted thoughts, with the shards of memories that would periodically flash through his brain and leave him struggling for breath. Out here it was way too cold, making him shiver violently as the numbness that had started in his toes had spread upwards to envelop his feet and was now making its way past his calves and up to his chest.

Into his heart.

Inside, he knew, it was warm and welcoming, with Sara's lean body encased invitingly in their cosy bed, her hot breath blowing softly over her pillow. He could go in right now, wake her up, spill his pain and his fears and be absolutely sure that she would listen patiently while he unburdened himself to her. She would know what to say to make this terrible pressure in his chest go away, to make him forget about that bottle of whiskey he kept in the back of the cupboard in her kitchen.

But he didn't move. He couldn't go in and seek out the comfort he so desperately needed. He couldn't let her take care of him and help him through this. Couldn't allow her to share his anguish and free him from it.

Couldn't allow it, because there was one thing he was now absolutely sure of – after what he'd done, he was no longer worthy of anyone's compassion or understanding.

And he was definitely no longer worthy of her.

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A/N: Oh, the drama. And as you can see, I'm still mourning the loss of the beard. So sue me…

Anyway, be kind and leave a review. It might just distract me long enough to get DRob's damn song out of my head…