A/N: Takes place directly after "Grave Danger."
Summary: My thoughts on how Grissom and Sara might have started their relationship...
Disclaimer: CSI belongs to CBS and no one else... I'm just renting the characters :-)
Note: This is my first fanfic EVAR! Any feedback would be greatly appreciated...
It's been a couple hours that they've been stuck inside the tank room in the filtration plant. Grissom and Sara have managed to find a place to sit on top of one of the less damaged tanks that has fallen on its side. It's not exactly a comfortable surface, but at least they aren't knee-deep in muck anymore.
They intermittently use their flashlights to get a look at the room and its current state. Ever since the last explosion, the entire building has been rendered unstable. Every so often they hear more movement underground, more water sloshing up. It's nearly imperceptible, but the room is, in fact, flooding very slowly. In addition, the floor has partially collapsed, causing the entire room to tilt towards the door that leads into the stairwell. Grissom's nearly positive that the stairwell has flooded completely and what's left in the room is the remnants from the cistern and the underground spring.
They've been quiet now for sometime. Mindless chitchat and nervous chatter about their situation has died down and been replaced with a tense silence. While Sara seems to be contented with it, Grissom isn't. But his last two attempts at talking with her have gone far from smoothly. Still, he thinks, at least now she can't run off. I've got a captive audience.
Grissom takes a deep breath and is about to launch into an invitation to a discussion when Sara shoots him down. "Don't," she says with finality.
He lets all his air out in exasperation. "Don't what, Sara?"
"Don't start with that 'we need to talk' stuff." She still can't bear to look at him. "This isn't a good time."
"Is there ever a good time?"
"Maybe there was, but there isn't anymore," she replies. He hears sadness in her voice and it breaks his heart. How much have I hurt her? He wonders. Then suddenly he has to know—has to know why she's so distant, what exactly is making her shy away from him entirely.
He runs his hand down the side of her face and hooks his finger under her chin, pulling it up to make her look him in the eye. "It would be easier for you, wouldn't it? It would be easier if what I felt for you was undefined and fleeting… and I kissed you out of some unstable emotional reaction to Nick's kidnapping. But I've got news for you… it isn't and it wasn't. For either of us."
Grissom's playing a dangerous game now and he knows it. Sara is known equally for her brilliant mind and her incendiary temper, but not at all for her restraint and level-headedness. He's certainly tested all of her limits in the past as her supervisor, and lately as her would-be lover. How much provocation can she take before she blows up at him? He's willing to find out if it means that he'll get some answers from her.
Instead of responding in fury to his boldness, she gets quiet, as though she's thinking of some unrelated thing. He studies her for a moment, wondering what she could be thinking about. Finally she seems to come to some sort of decision and says, "You can't do this, Grissom."
"Do what?" he asks in genuine confusion.
"You can't just wake up one day and decide you want me. You can't expect me to just forget what I've gone through over you."
"First of all, I don't expect anything from you. That's not why I've done any of this. I have… hopes, not expectations." She smirks a little at this, but still has her eyes averted. "And second of all, I didn't just wake up and discover that I had feelings for you. I've always known about them… I've always had them. I just couldn't bring myself to act on them."
That last statement baits her, awakens her anger. "And why couldn't you, huh, Grissom? And don't tell me it's about our careers because we both know that you aren't exactly the most ambitious person. You've done a lot worse to set your career back."
Grissom sighs and nods. This is going to be a lot harder than he thought. "No, you're right. It's not just about the job." He takes a deep breath, considers how to start, how to explain. He realizes that he's about to lay his soul bare before her and hopes with all his heart that she will be gentle with it. "I've never really had a serious relationship, Sara. I've only dated people that were interesting to me intellectually or who were strange and off-balance. I did it because I knew that I would never get too serious about them… they would never affect my life, my routines, in a noticeable way. I didn't want to share myself with anyone… I've been… afraid to.
"But you challenged me to do that. To open myself up to you and make you part of my life. I knew you wouldn't be satisfied with anything casual… there's always been too much between us. So when you casually asked me to have dinner with you, I assumed that it was much more than that."
"It was," she agrees.
"Right, so to someone like me who's never been that close to any woman before, it was paralyzing. Can you understand that?"
She nods solemnly, not wanting to stop him from speaking his heart to her. She had thought it would be painful to hear, but it's somewhat liberating to know that his rejection of her wasn't her fault. And that it wasn't an easy decision for him either.
"So, you've been wrestling with the decision ever since?" she asks, somewhat rhetorically.
"Yes," he says softly.
"Was it horribly painful? Torturous, even?" she asks. He sees the smirk on her face. Somehow, he's found a way through her defenses. She's not using humor this time to deflect or misdirect him. She's using to show him that he's forgiven.
"Yes, incredibly so," he says dramatically. His fingers find her face and push back a lock of stray hair. Her eyes close as his fingertips make contact with her skin. "It was unbearable… I couldn't take it anymore," he's serious now and so is she.
"Couldn't take what?" she whispers as her face nears his, their lips a hairsbreadth apart.
"I couldn't stand not touching you." Their lips finally find each other's. Passion escalating, their arms wrap around each other, bodies press together. It's suddenly so quiet, Sara can hear Grissom's breathing become tense and shallow.
Then it's not quiet. The room rumbles with a deep rhythm. "Did you feel that?" she asks, barely managing to pull her face from his.
"Oh yeah," he grunts and kisses her mouth again. She decides it was only her imagination and gives Grissom's lips her full attention. The second time the room shifts, there can be no question that something is seriously wrong. They pull away from each other and shine their flashlights to the only working door at the back of the room. The room has clearly tilted further and more water washes through the crack under the closed door.
Then Sara hears something else, further away. It sounds like splintering wood. She finds it strange since the room is all concrete and plaster. She looks over at Grissom to get his impression of what's happening, and her breath catches in her throat when she sees the dread in his eyes.
"What is it?" she demands. "Where is it coming from?"
"Outside," Grissom says with more calmness than he feels. "It's the supports on the big tank outside. They're collapsing."
"You mean…?"
"Yeah… the tank is too heavy now that the ground has been undermined. It's falling over."
"Where?" Sara asks, but she knows the answer.
Grissom's eyes lock with hers. "On us."