Disclaimer: I don't own 'em…

It had been nine months since the exchange in the parking lot between Catherine and me. A lot happens in nine months. Nine months in Vegas is like a lifetime anywhere else.

There were no more intimate moments or gestures between us. She had made it clear. She was done with me. She had spent all of those months waiting on me to get my act together and come back to her and I had failed. I had failed so miserably that she had sounded the death knoll on any relationship other than an amiable working one that we might have had.

It was a September evening that found us sitting in an empty lab going over our latest case. We'd been at it for hours, looking over every single minute detail, examining every photograph, reading over interviews. When I say that we were going over our case, I mean going over it thoroughly.

About four hours in to the shift, Grissom came in and sat a bag down in front of me. I looked up and smiled.

"Egg salad sandwich and a pickle--your favorite," Grissom said as he put his hand on my shoulder.

"Thanks," I said as I looked across the table, locking eyes with Catherine.

"Any luck yet?" he ask nonchalantly.

Catherine smirked and sucked her teeth before dropping the folder in her hands and leaning back in her seat, "No, none yet."

Grissom squeezed my shoulder and added, "I'm sure you two will figure this out. You always do. Sometimes you can't see the forest for the trees."

With that, he turned and left. I left the sandwich in the bag and continued looking over the file in my hands.

I could feel her eyes on me.

It was as if every noise in the lab suddenly ceased to exist. There wasn't the sound of footsteps in the corridors or conversations about cases in the hallway. The constant hum of the various machines wasn't echoing off of the glass. Even the low buzz from the fluorescent lights had stopped. I was so attuned to Catherine that I swear I heard her lips parting before she cautiously whispered, "How long?"

I still hadn't taken my eyes off of the file in my hands. "How long what?"

I closed the file and sat it off to the side, finally looking at her.

I could feel the challenge in her eyes as we sat there for a moment just looking at one another. I had played this game too many times with foster parents to give up. She was the first to cave.

"Grissom." One word was all she spoke but the question belied by that one word spoke volumes.

My expression remained stoic. She was the one who had said she was getting off the metaphorical merry-go-round with me. She had no right to ask questions like that or to even be fazed by them.

"I've known the man for…for too long. He's never brought me food. Told me he missed my tush once, but never brought me food. And he's never stood that close to me and held my shoulder as he spoke. So something is going on between the two of you. I know that much. All I'm asking is how long it's been going on."

She was chewing her bottom lip in that cute was she does when she's nervous about what the answer might be to whatever she's asking.

"You're gay. A big ol' lesbian. Why would you want to settle for Gil? He's older than you and has the emotional capacity of one of the bugs in his office or that fetal pig he keeps. Why? Why are you settling for him?"

My shoulders sagged under the weight of her questions. I sighed heavily and pulled my chair closer to the table. I brushed my hair out of my face before looking back up at her and smiling.

"I've wanted to talk to you about this for the last couple of months, but I wasn't sure how. I mean, we went from being enemies to lovers and then, well, I'm not sure that we're as much friends as we are colleagues now," I cleared my throat before going on. "This is tougher than I thought it would be."

Catherine took a deep breath and leaned her head back against the chair she was sitting in. Her eyes were open and she was staring blindly at the ceiling. "Just tell me how long it's been going on. We weren't together when this started, were we?"

"No, no, no, no. Cath, I never cheated on you. I never even thought of cheating on you."

"So after us? Is he the reason you broke up with me? Was it really that you needed time for him and not time from us? I mean, it's not like everyone didn't know that you always had a thing for him."

I didn't answer her. I didn't know how to answer her. There was so much anger in her voice.

She snorted before continuing, "I gotta give you credit, Sidle. You two have certainly kept your little romance quiet. No one suspects a thing these days."

"Cath, we…"

She stood up abruptly, putting her hands up to silence me. "Save it, Sara. I get it. You're with Grissom now."

There were unshed tears in her eyes as she gathered the files she'd been looking through and held them tightly against her chest.

"You know, despite what I said to you that day, a part of me had always hoped that …that we'd end up back together. I guess that was just wishful thinking on my part, wasn't it?"

My heart had never been heavier as I watched her walk away.

XXX

"You didn't eat your sandwich. Was something wrong with it?"

I looked up from my perch in front of my locker to see Grissom standing in the doorway.

"No, I just sorta lost my appetite. Thanks for thinking of me though."

He inched inside the door and closed it behind him. He didn't speak as he moved closer to me and leaned against the lockers with his shoulder.

"Did you tell her?"

I tossed the shirt in my hand heavily into the bag at my feet and began to peel the pictures from the inside of my locker door, dropping them into the bag one by one—except the last one. It was the lone picture I had saved of Cath and me from one of our trips to Lake Mead. I tucked it into my back pocket.

"She didn't give me a chance."

"Correction. You didn't make her give you a chance."

I slammed the locker door and picked up my bag, sitting it on the bench in front of me and zipping it up. I took one last long look around the locker room before unclipping my gun from my belt and dropping it along with badge on top of my vest.

"You can still change your mind. It's not too late." Grissom was forever the optimist and even though the new girl was scheduled to start the next night, he wanted to find a way to keep me.

"Yeah, yeah it is. Look," I tossed the bag over one shoulder and pulled the picture back out of my pocket, "she thinks we're…well, she thinks we're a couple. Evidently you bringing me a sandwich is evidence of the torrid affair we've been having."

We both chuckled.

"I'm sure Heather wouldn't tolerate anything like that," he quipped off-handedly. He turned more serious. "So what's the plan?"

"For once, Bugman, I don't have a plan. I'm just gonna see where I end up and what happens."

"And what about Catherine? What do I tell her when she asks where you've gone—because she will ask? And frankly, Sara, she scares me a little."

I had one hand on the door of the locker room, ready to leave when I turned back around. "Tell her," I paused and smiled, "tell her I carry her heart with me. That I carry it in my heart and anywhere I go, she goes. She'll know what that means."

A/N: Thanks to everyone who has read and reviewed this story.

The message Sara tells Gil to give Catherine is from one of my favorite ee cummings poems, i carry your heart.