A/N: thank you all for the lovley reviews and the get well wishes. I want to apologise once again for failing to respond to you all individually. I promise to get right on it with this chapter now that I am feeling a bit better :D I wasn't going to post today since I am still under the weather but 'Lady L. Shardake' appealed to my better nature and my romantic side and the fact that this story is complete already makes it easy to post even when I am sick! sooooo please let me know your thoughts on this one. happy Feb 29th! :D love to you all, Charli xxx

Sara - But I can't stop loving you

She looked into his eyes, right into his eyes as he fell. At first the magnitude of it all didn't hit her. The gunshots didn't penetrate the haze of shock, all she saw were his eyes and she saw the light go out in them. She saw that distinct sparkle that made him Grissom escape his gaze as his body hit the floor and the dark blood stain worked its way through the fabric of his shirt.

She had been firmly stuck to the chair until then, happy to placate Rob with her unwavering cooperation but now, now she had a reason to fight with the binds of her chair. Now she used every single iota of strength she had to pull and wriggle her wrists out of the harsh unforgiving ropes. Her skin was raw and broken, blood escaping the second she freed herself from them but she didn't notice that. She threw herself towards Grissom, pressing her hands down hard on Grissom's chest in an effort to curb the bleeding.

Robert had took a shot to the leg, this angered him even more but when he noticed Sara crouching over an injured Grissom something in him changed. The anger and the resentment in his eyes was gone and he sat on the sofa with a heavy sigh. The police officers outside were descending on the building, the air outside swirled with the wind generated by the police helicopter and for the first time Rob looked scared.

Sara slipped the shirt from her shoulders and used it to apply pressure on Grissom's wound. Blood pooled behind him, expanding across the floor like a snake searching for a dark place to hide. Blood had never been so terrifying to her in her entire life; the fear must have been evident in her eyes as she looked towards Rob. He was watching them, watching her every move as she stretched out and pulled a pillow from the small chair to place under his shoulder on the other side of the wound. Her arms and body were saturated in blood by the time the police officers made their way into the house.

They hadn't even made it into the room yet when Rob raised his gun. He pointed it at Sara, tears straining his face and blood pouring down his leg.

"I'm sorry Sara; I didn't mean to hurt you. I didn't mean to hurt anyone"

It took only a second for him to raise his gun to his jaw, she wasn't sure her voice even made the sound she wanted it to or if it was merely drowned out by the sound of another gunshot but Rob pulled the trigger and although he was right before her eyes mere seconds before, now he was gone.

The officers stormed the room too late to have done anything. It was almost as though the entire room was soaked with blood. She was suddenly terribly exhausted and completely over emotional. Her façade of dignity and strength failed her completely and she collapsed onto Grissom's chest in a flurry of sobs. There was no way to predict how she was feeling, the sheer impact of the past few minutes was yet to dawn on her but her chest was tightening as gasping sobs escaped her mouth, her heart felt like it had stopped completely as she looked down at a lifeless Grissom in her arms. Maybe this was how it was supposed to be. Maybe they were never destined to be together. They were just another tragic romance.

Paramedics were pushing her out of the way; in her daze she just let them. She watched them dress his wound, watched as they strapped him to a stretcher and disappeared with him. She just stared at the blood, stared at the empty space that had once been filled by Grissom. It didn't seem real, like those slow motion scenes in the movies where everything dragged by painfully slowly and somehow her brain still couldn't keep up.

"Miss, can you hear me? Miss my name is John, do you have any injuries?"

John would probably have got further talking to Rob right then. He shone a light into her eyes and pulled her to her feet with a gentle smile.

"We're going to take you to the hospital Miss Sidle. You're in shock"

"Where's Grissom?" her voice was quiet and scared, like a child's voice. She almost didn't recognize herself. She followed John out of the cabin in a daze. She wasn't sure where she was going and she wasn't sure why but she followed him anyway, feeling numb and detached as the eyes of every police officer in Ely bore down on her.

She slid into the ambulance without looking up. The ground was doing well for her, if she stared at the ground she could be absolutely sure that she wasn't in fact spinning out of control as her head would have her believe. John wrapped the blood pressure cuff around her arm and she actually relished the pain it caused her. She wasn't numb; she was able to feel something.

The siren sounded as the ambulance roughly swung itself out of the woods. This struck her as odd when she considered the fact that she really had no physical injuries but as she was thrown round another corner she cautiously took a look around her surroundings.

He was there; john was working on him furiously. He squeezed fluids into his arm, he read the monitors by his side and he looked into his eyes. She focused on his outstretched hand, the blood snaking its way down his arm and dripping from his wrist, instinctively she grasped it in her own. It was comforting in its warmth, at least he wasn't dead.

At the hospital he was taken away from her again but by now she was at least capable of conscious thought. She wandered through the brightly lit corridors, people staring at her as she walked. She had forgotten about the blood, she had forgotten about the fact she was walking around in just her bra and her blood saturated pants. She flopped herself down in the hard chairs wincing as her almost skeletal frame collided with the unforgiving plastic.

Nick wandered past with a coffee in his hands. He almost didn't see her, he almost wandered right past her and she would have let him too. She was staring at her hands, watching as they shook and trembled, the rest of the world meant nothing to her at all until he sat beside her and covered her hands with his.

"Sara? What happened, are you ok?"

She looked up at him as though he was the last person in the world she expected to see. She wasn't very sure who she had expected to see but it wasn't Nick.

"Grissom… he's… he's been shot Nick"

The horror and fear on Nick's face was how she should have reacted. She should have been outwardly horrified and shouting at the receptionist for more information. She should be heartbroken and scared and all she could do was sit there and stare at her blood stained hands while she thought about, well, nothing. She wasn't thinking about anything.

"Miss Sidle?" a young looking doctor looked around the waiting room and she ignored him. She didn't need a doctor to tell her she was in shock; it was pretty obvious to anyone who took a second to look at her that she wasn't acting the way any sane person would act.

Nick nudged her with his elbow and frowned at her. He wanted her to respond, to make her presence known but all she wanted to do was disappear. Nick waved the doctor over and he crouched in front of Sara in an attempt to meet her eye.

"Mr. Grissom is asking for you"

Her heart and her stomach somersaulted in opposite directions as she met his eye with a questioning look. He simply nodded and smiled at her, she did try to suppress the unmistakable change it made to her mood. Nick simply couldn't see how relived, how joyous his statement had made her. Not only was Grissom alive but he was asking for her. Not for Nick or a doctor even but her.

She crept into the room fully aware of how terrible she must look. Her hair clung to her face, her skin felt filthy, the blood a stark contrast to the milky skin it graced and yet he still looked at her the same way he always did. That way that made her feel like she lit up the room, that way where she knew that even if Naomi Campbell was in the same room it would only be her he would see.

"I had to make sure you were ok..." he spoke slowly and quietly. The morphine was obviously starting to kick in making him drowsy and weak. Sara took the chair by the bed; it was much more comfortable than the ones in the waiting room.

"You go and get yourself shot and you have to see if I'm ok?"

She laughed at the irony realizing that Grissom hadn't witnessed Robert's dramatic suicide. He had been out cold, unconscious on the floor when it happened. He probably had every right to be worried about her.

"I'm fine. More than I could say for you. What were you thinking coming after him like that? You could have been killed!"

He took her hand in his, held it tightly against his chest as he met her eyes. There was an honesty in his eyes like she had never seen before. It struck her like a punch to the stomach, the air left her lungs, her heart raced. She was ashamed to admit that her emotions were behaving in such a way. That she could have such a physical reaction to a mere look.

"I couldn't have lived without you"