TITLE: The Key
AUTHOR: Chauncey10 aka MSCSIFANGSR
PAIRING: Sidle-Grissom
RATING: PG-13/K+
SUMMARY: Sara gives Grissom the key to something important.
DISCLAIMER: I'm just playing with them.
SPOILERS: Pre-canon GSR, vaguely set sometime late season 5, early season 6.
PROMPT: 1hour2write's first monthly picture challenge. The image I chose is number 13 in which a man is holding a small brass key in his palm . If you want to see it, check out LJ's 1hour2write Community or use the link that I have provided in my profile.

Gil Grissom sat in his living room on the brown leather couch his friends called 'horrible', staring at the metal object in his hand. It wasn't exactly what he held, rather what it represented that disturbed him; he didn't need to take his pulse to know it was beating much faster than his physician recommended. He was still as flabbergasted as he was when *SHE* had given it to him only about an hour ago, before he left the lab to come home.

He remembered her mischievous smirk when she explained the purpose of the key. His tachycardia was reaching a critical level and he knew if he didn't find a way to lower his heart rate, he would end up in Desert Palm's Cardiac Care Unit with a Myocardial Infarction.

He took a deep breath and then several more as he clinched the key made of an alloy of copper and zinc. The brass metal warmed in his palm as he breathing steadied.

Grissom knew he had to do something about this: the supervisor in him wanted to formally write *HER* up on charges of sexual harassment in the work place and the man in him wanted, no, needed to take her up on her offer.

It was a serious dilemma and slowly the scotch in the glass beside him disappeared as he recalled their encounter:

Sara stood in his doorway well after shift. She had leaned on the open door facing waiting for him to notice her as he had read over a completed case file Warrick and Nick had closed that night. Grissom had been engrossed in the minor details of the death of a visiting dignitary from East Timor. The young man had been found in one of the higher priced suites at the Wynn Las Vegas, nude, bound and gagged. Amid concerns of an international incident between the US and East Timor, Warrick and Nick had weeded through conflicting witness statements and inconsistent evidence to determine the man had died as a result of the effects of crystal methamphetamine while in the company of a high priced prostitute.

Grissom had taken a deep breath as he signed off on the case and pulled off his glasses. That's when he noticed Sara. He smelled hersoft clean scent that was uniquely Sara as it wafted toward him. He didn't need to look up to know she was there, she just was. He closed his eyes as he envisioned a sexy seductress, a siren standing in his doorway. The vision was, of course, Sara and as he opened his eyes to her, she stealthly moved into his office, softly closing the door behind her.

"Can I help you, Sara?" He was tired; he'd been on the clock for 46 straight hours and in a mere 16 more hours, he was scheduled to begin another endless shift. "I'm about to head home. Can you make it quick?"

"I needed to talk to you, but I mean," she paused, "rather, I wanted to give you something."

Her brown eyes seemed to capture his, as he met her gaze without flinching.

"If it's a case file, you can leave it in my box," Grissom voice trailed off.

She shook her head as if to say, 'No, that's not it'.

"What is it then?"

"I'm not sure if I should do this, but I thought I'd go for it." Sara moved quickly until she was standing immediately to his seated right.

Her proximity sent a mild tremor through his body.

"Close your eyes and hold out your hand," she commanded with a slightly husky tone.

"Sara, we're not children. What's this all about?" Grissom seemed a little annoyed.

"Just humor me, Griss." Sara smiled her full gap toothed grin at him and he melted. He closed his eyes and held his right palm up, then he felt something small and cold drop into his hand.

When he opened his eyes to look at Sara, she had her back to him and was reaching for the doorknob.

"Sara! Wait! What's this?" His voice had taken on a slightly alto quality as he tried to make sense of the small brass skeleton key in his hand.

"I think, maybe, it's a key?" Sara turned and smirked.

"What's it to?" He seemed to get his normal speaking voice back.

Sara Sidle placed her hands on her hips with both legs slightly apart. She was wearing her typical work attire of light button up pants and a matching top with a pink colored stone nestled against her throat. Grissom thought she looked beautiful, but then she always looked that way to him.

"Care to guess?" She challenged.

"Evidence in a case?"

"Not exactly."

"Work related?"

"No."

Grissom stared at her for a moment then down at the innocuous key in his hand. "Ugh, personal?"

"Yes."

For several minutes there was silence in the room as the two trained investigators stared the other down. He expected her to retreat from the room, while she finally understood she needed to wait for him to come to his own conclusions. Their eyes reminded locked the entire time until Grissom's expression changed and he looked down at the key and then back into Sara's eyes.

His expression had gone from clueless to fear. Sara turned again for the door, realizing that maybe, just maybe she had gone too far this time.

"Sara?" The sound of his voice made her stop and she turned her back to the door and leaned on it for much needed support because she felt her legs become weak from the prospect of yet another rejection. "Sara, is this the key to your heart?"

Her knees collapsed and she was suddenly on the floor. Grissom jumped up from his chair and ran to her side, hoping she wasn't injured or worse, hurt from his question.

When he reached her side, he heard the laughter. He had assumed she would be crying, but instead she lay in a heap, laughing, hysterically. He helped her to her feet by taking her hands and pulling her toward him. She stood and reached again for the doorknob.

"Sara?"

"No, Grissom it's not the key to my heart. That's already yours. It's the key to my chastity belt." Sara raised her eyebrows flirtatiously, then opened the door before turning her back to the man who at this point could have been a statue in the park, "It's up to you whether you choose to use it."

With that, Sara Sidle breezed down the hallway to the exit of the building and disappeared as he sat at his desk, completely immobile.

His heart rate had to have been 194 at that point. Mental images of unlocking Sara's passion filled him and terrified him.

Sara's lips meeting his...

"STOP!" He thought to himself.

His pulse was in the 130's as he lightly took his own pulse after he'd drained the scotch from the honey combed designed tumbler. He sat the glass down and again tightened his fist over the brass key.

He was still torn.

*SHE* had used sexual innuendo at work which placed him in an extremely difficult position. He didn't necessarily want to bring official charges of sexual harassment against her because of the team. There would be gossip, there would be recriminations. She could easily lose her job over this. He didn't want her to be fired. Sara Sidle was after all, single-handedly the most efficient and productive member of the entire crime lab. The lab needed her.

He knew she was 'in love' with him. He had never encouraged it, but he knew IT was there with every angst filled moment she watched him when she thought he wasn't aware of her longing gazes, every time her body brushed against his, every time. He wasn't sure if she was aware of his own longing gazes in her direction when circumstances allowed or the times when he'd touched her, guiding her closer to him.

Grissom also knew that if he admitted the truth to himself, that he had fallen in love with her the minute the pony-tailed girl, full of questions, had approached him after his lecture all those years ago. But he kept his proverbial cards close to his chest in regard to her. He wasn't a poker player for nothing.

He wanted her. He dreamed almost nightly of her body writhing beneath his as he took what he knew was his all along. But that was a fantasy. Nothing more. He was her supervisor and it went against all he stood for to disobey the clearly stated rules of the department: No romantic relationships between members of the same forensic team.

"I'll go to sleep and then I'll know what to do when I'm better rested," his conscious told him.

His heart rate had finally steadied as he rose from the couch and made his way to his bedroom to get some much needed sleep.

When he reached his bedroom,, he looked at the key still in his hand. Instead of disrobing and putting on his pajamas, he pulled on a pair of black jeans and a tight black t-shirt. Without thinking too much about what he was about to do, he grabbed the keys to his car and left his condo.

He sat in his Mercedes outside her apartment, toying with her 'gift'. His heart rate was again racing and he almost wished he'd thought to take a low dose aspirin to combat the tachycardia prior to his snap decision to put an end to all this madness. The blues pouring out of his speakers fit his mood perfectly: John Lee Hooker's voice droned on about the futility of love and Grissom realized if he sat in his car listening to the slow moaning blues, he'd talk himself out of his solution to his current problems.

"Get out, do this. You want it. She wants it. It's the right thing." One side of his brain argued.

"Start the car and drive away. Nobody will ever know what you were thinking." The temptation was more than he could face..

His mind battled as his hand not holding the skeleton key reached for the door handle. He pushed it open, got out of the car and quickly made his way up the staircase to her apartment. He knocked on the dark brown door, hoping she wasn't home, but praying she was there at the same time.

Sara opened her door to him wearing the same work clothes she'd had on earlier that evening and repeated the same words to him as she had the last time he knocked on her door: "If you're here, it can't be good."

Damn, he looks good in black. I could eat him alive. What is he doing here? Is it really going to... The thoughts were scattered in her brain as he stood outside her door.

"Can I come in?"

She stepped back to allow him room to enter, then closed and chained the door behind him.

"Locking me in?"

"It might be a good idea. Why are you here?"

"I should fire you." His look was scathing.

"I figured," Sara sighed, casting her eyes downward in apparent rejection. "Can I get you anything?"

"Sure, an explanation." His voice was calm, belaying the trembling throughout his body.

"I…" Sara stopped, "Haven't we had this conversation before?"

The sound of her laughter broke the tension in the air.

Grissom chuckled silently, then said, "Do you really record everything I say?"

"I suppose." She grinned at him and he grinned back.

"Sara…" He began, before she interrupted him.

"No, I'm sorry, Grissom. I just don't know what to do. I'm torn between just quitting and moving back to California or staying here just so I can be near you, knowing nothing can ever happen between us. Both of those options really suck for me." He raised his hand to stop her, but she continued, "I figured the worse thing you could do was reject me again, then if I put myself out there so blatantly, then you would fire me and I would have reason to go."

Silence filled the room as they took their usual stances staring at the other.

"I don't want you to go," his voice merely a whisper. Sara wasn't even sure she'd heard him. She couldn't actually register what he'd said. She was poised for his dismissal of her feelings. She stood her ground, not giving an inch, but then she turned toward the door and unchained the lock.

His cadence was higher, "Do you want me to go?" as he gestured to the now unlocked door.

'Not at all. It's your choice, if you want to leave, fine." She wouldn't meet his eyes, staring instead at her feet, feeling a deep blush spread over her body. She knew now, it was over. It had never been. She wanted to curl into a ball and cry until all thoughts of him were drowned out.

"If I don't want to go, what then?"

Sara looked sharply up at him, "What do you mean?" Surprise settled over her features.

"I mean, I was given the key to something quite important and I'd really like to see if it fits correctly." His smile lit up his whole face as he opened his arms to her, showing her the little brass key still resting in the palm of his hand.

She approached him cautiously, the fingers of her hand caressing his palm as she picked the key out of his hand. She slipped the key wordlessly into her pocket and then reached for his hand again, taking in hers, their fingers entertwining. Sara Sidle took a deep breath as she led Gil Grissom toward her bedroom.

As they neared the entrance to her most private sanctuary, he could feel his heart rate skyrocketing again, but this time he wasn't worried about having a heart attack, he was knew his fantasy was about to come true.

THE END

Reviews are appreciated. I do hope you enjoyed this little piece of GSR fluff. :