A/N: Second to last chapter. This chapter is the last one that takes place in San Francisco. This chapter was hard to write, I admit. But when it was done, this is easily one of my favorite chapters that I have written for any story. I hope you all like it, too.

Chapter 13

"It's gonna be harder for me
I can't forgive so many things
When you weren't there
I was around
Why would you try to hurt me now?
Just tell me why
Just tell me why"

Greg had never driven so fast in his life. All he knew, all he kept repeating to himself, was that he had to get to the hotel in time to stop Sara, or, at the very least, he had to figure out where she was going next, and then he would have to go there. There just wasn't any other option for him. She was his one and only, whether or not he was hers, and he was not going to let her just walk out of his life again.

He pulled into the hotel parking lot, found the first parking spot he saw and instantly turned his car off and ran for Sara's room. Again, he didn't think he had ever run that fast before, either. But run he did, and when he got to her door, he pounded on it with both fists. "Sara, it's me," he called. "Let me in! I'm not going to let you do this! Not again!"

There was no answer.

After another minute of ferocious pounding, Greg gave up. He turned to survey the parking lot, trying to find Sara's car. He didn't see it, and his heart sank even further. She was gone. He was too late.

Still, Greg had to check, so he headed to the front desk, hoping that they wouldn't know anything about Sara's departure, that she wouldn't have checked out already. There was still hope that somehow wormed its way into Greg's heart, against his better notions. This hope was quashed, however, when he entered the reception area and the receptionist was the same as when he first arrived. She looked up and smiled in recognition. "Mr. Sanders!" she exclaimed.

Greg tried to force a smile onto his face; it came out as more of a grimace. "Hi," he said, approaching the desk. "Um, I had a question for you—"

"Before you even ask, Mr. Sanders, she left at exactly seven-thirty this morning," the receptionist responded, far too perky for the news she was delivering. When Greg didn't respond, instead staring at her without blinking, the woman blushed. "Um, well, the woman you asked about—party name of Sidle—checked out at seven-thirty this morning and I thought that since you were looking for her before, you would want to know about this, so I figured that I would tell you before you asked."

This very long ramble was followed by Greg's continued silence. He was in shock and disbelief. She had left while he was still sleeping. She had left just as she had before, when no one was suspecting anything. When he wouldn't be able to stop her.

He felt tears beginning to well his eyes, and so he turned away slightly so that the receptionist wouldn't see him. "Thanks," he told her thickly, still trying to hold himself together just enough to make it to his room, where he could come to pieces without anyone seeing him.

"Oh, Mr. Sanders?" the receptionist called as Greg started to walk away. He paused, though he didn't turn back.

"Yes?" he asked dully.

"She left this for you."

Greg was back over at the desk in an instant, all traces of tears gone, replaced by unbridled hope. "Where is it? What is it? What did she leave me?" he asked eagerly, like a starving man being offered food.

The receptionist looked confused for a moment, but then her face smoothed. "She left you this," she said, handing a thin white envelope over to Greg. "Don't worry, sir, I didn't read it, I promise."

The slightly envious tone in her voice implied that she would've loved reading whatever was in the envelope, but she had kept her word and had not read the contents. Still, Greg felt his heart sinking as he took the envelope. He almost didn't want to know what was in there because it would almost certainly cause him more heartache. "Thank you," he responded in the same dull voice from earlier, and then he left to head back to his room in order to read whatever Sara had left him in peace.

When he got back to his room, he went inside, put the "Do Not Disturb" sign on the door and closed it and locked it. Then he went to his bed, sat down, and opened the envelope. There were two things inside: a folded letter and a postcard. Greg set the postcard aside without looking at it and turned his attention to the letter. His eyes blurred with tears even as he read the first words:

"Greg…dear, dear Greg…you are the first and only best friend I've ever had, and I couldn't ask for a better one. I love you more than you will ever know, and, yes, before you ask, some of those feelings are romantic. But they are something that I cannot act on now. I don't know if they are something I will ever be able to act on.

"As much as I know you don't want to hear it, I still love Grissom. For a very long time, he was the only reason why I lived. He is my soul, in many ways. Grissom and I have a relationship that is very hard to understand. I don't even understand it most of the time. But I will always love Grissom, just as I will always love you.

"My time in Las Vegas is defined by the love that I felt. They say that home is where the heart is, and if that's true, then Las Vegas was and always will be my home for as long as you and Grissom are there. You are the first two men that have ever really loved me, and, at the same time, you are the first two men that I have ever really loved. And I want to thank you for that. You have no idea how much you mean to me.

"But I can't go back to Las Vegas. Not now, and possibly not ever. Right now, the love in Vegas is shrouded by the ghosts of my past, ghosts that I need to bury. And I can't do that in Vegas. I can't stay there with my past haunting me, because it's leading me down a path that I don't know where it goes. And I can't be there for you and Grissom to see me so lost. So I'm leaving again. In your words, I'm running again.

"Somehow, though, I don't see it as running away from my past. I know that you see it that way, but it's not true. I'm running to face my past, and this is something I need to do by myself away from you. Perhaps you feel like I'm running away from you, then. That's also not true. I could never run away from you because you are one of the most important people in my life. I'm running again because I have to face my past in order to face my future. I only hope that you will wait for me to get my life together, and I hope that through it all, you will remain my best friend, because I couldn't stand it if I lost you.

"I have a request for you, however. Actually, I have two requests for you. The first is one that you don't want to hear, but I need you to do this for me. I need you to let Grissom know that I will be calling him soon. I want you to do this for me so that the healing process can hopefully begin for not just me and Grissom, but also for you and Grissom. I know it will take time for you to learn to respect him again, but you need to learn to respect him again because he is your boss, and he is also your mentor. You look up to him, which is what makes this even harder for you. By letting him know that I am getting in contact with him, you're reaching out to him and beginning to mend those bridges. Hopefully, in time, you will learn to forgive Grissom for what he did or did not do, and that's something that is extremely important to me. I don't want to have the two men in my life at odds with each other, especially over me.

"Now for my second request. I know this is going to be even harder for you than forgiving Grissom, but this is even more important than before. I do not want you to follow me. I know, I know, every bone and muscle in your body is screaming to come after me, because I know that you love me, and I know that you've somehow promised to yourself that you're never going to let me go. But Greg, I can't have you coming after me, because like I said before, I need to do this on my own, and I won't be able to truly heal if I think that you're coming after me. So please, if you want me to be able to come back ever, don't follow me. Let me run. Let me hide, if that's what you think I'm doing. But let me do it my way.

"Thank you for giving me the opportunity to say good-bye for you, even if you didn't know it was good-bye at the time. It means a lot to me to be able to have the opportunity, because it makes this just a little more bearable.

"I love you, Greg. You are a huge piece of my life, and I would never trade that for everything. If Grissom is my soul, then you are my heart. I hope that one day, you will be able to forgive me. I love you, really and truly.

"Good-bye. Always remember that you are my best friend, and no one will ever take that away from you."

Greg closed his eyes, just letting the tears flow. The paper was already spotted with his tears from reading the letter. He had thought that he had wanted closure, that he had wanted the opportunity to say good-bye. Now that he had heard her good-bye, he knew that he would rather have the fantasy world he had allowed himself to live in. It was easier, and it hurt a hell of a lot less.

He didn't know how long he sat there, just crying by himself in a hotel room in San Francisco, more alone than he had ever been. Finally, though, he ran out of tears, and then he remembered the postcard. He picked it up from where he had set it. The back was blank, and he turned it over with trembling hands. His eyes filled with tears again, not at the picture, which was a typical touristy picture of the Golden Gate Bridge and San Francisco beyond it, but at the sentiment typed on the front: "I left my heart in San Francisco."