Sara was stuck in traffic. Tears ran down her face as the cars around her moved slowly on wards. A bird flew alongside the car. Free. How she wished she could free. Free from the material world that they lived in. Free from responsibility. Life was too short for people to do bad things. Life is too short. She saw the traffic lights, ahead change from orange to red as the sun slowly rose from the east. It took a little over half an hour to get back to her modest apartment. She unlocked the door, dumped her keys in a dish and walked straight to her beckoning bedroom. She lay on her stomach with her head turned to the side. Her arms were at awkward, but comfortable, angles and she fell asleep almost immediately. Sometimes when her day was particularly bad her mind would take her through a nice dream. Tonight was no exception. She dreamt about a park, she was sitting on a picnic rug watching the sun set. Looking out over the park she saw beautiful cherry blossom trees displaying their amazing pink and white shades against the stark brown branches. Sprawled under the trees and the picnic rug was a field of the most beautifully soft and luscious green grass. She stretched her legs out and her feet slid off the rug and onto the carpet of green grass. The grass felt cool and soft on her shoeless feet. The air smelt musty, like after rain, with a tinge of orange and cinnamon. She breathed in deeply and closed her eyes. She felt a soft warm breeze float past her, slightly billowing her dress. She felt a warm hand settle on hers. She opened her eyes and looked down. Her hand was covered by another's. It was a strong hand, warm but strong. She could tell by looking at it that it had seen hardship and violence. She traced her eyes up from the hand and along the arm attached, muscular. Her eyes followed the arm and neck and found the face. He stared at her with his cerulean blue eyes. She realised that he wasn't staring at her but more into her. His eyes had such an intensity about them it was impossible not to love them. She tried to pull her eyes away from his, but knew it was an impossibility. She realised that she loved his eyes, she loved him. She managed to pull her eyes away and they settled on a basket. He reached into the basket and pulled out a bottle of expensive looking champagne and two champagne glasses. He removed his hand from hers and poured the champagne into the glasses. He held one to his lips and passes the other to her. She took the glass into her hand; it was cool to the touch. She lifted it to her lips and sipped. She heard a bird start to cry out. She wanted to yell at it for destroying her peace but she couldn't. The dream was slowly slipping away. She woke to the alarm clock sounding time for work.

"Wholly shit, how long was I asleep?" She turned off the alarm, it red 7.30 pm. She had gone to bed at about 6.00. she looked at the clock again and remembered yesterday. She flipped herself onto her back and looked up at her ceiling. She rose like a dream walker and went to shower. After she had finished her shower she changed into her court clothes; white blouse, black pants. She drove to work and watched all the people driving home to their families, their wives and children, their girlfriends and their parents. How she envied those people. They were sunshiny happy people, who didn't have to deal with death on a daily basis. She was a dark and twisty person, but in the car she vowed that after she handed in her formal resignation she was never going to let herself be one of those dark and twisty people, who had no life. She told herself that the only way to be happy was to be like the sunshiny people; and to do that she had to get the husband, do the house wife job and not see death every day.

She turned into the parking lot at CSI and got out of the car. She walked through the glass doors into the blue lab. The lab looked bluer at night than it did during the day, but this was but a myth. Sara thought that the lab looked the same no matter the time- blue and sterile. She would be sorry to leave this place behind; it had been her home for almost five years. All of her friends, now family, worked in the lab; and she knew that she would miss them dearly, especially Nick and Cath. She didn't meet the eyes of any of the lab rats staring at her as she walked to the locker room. She could tell what they were thinking though. She knew that they all thought that she was pathetic for falling for Grissom so hard that she had to leave her life to get away from the pain burning in her chest. Her handbag hung off her shoulder and she reached in and took out her letter of resignation. She walked to Grissom's office only to find that he wasn't there. She walked into the open office and placed the letter on his desk. She took a deep breath and looked around at the room. It reminded her of almost every happy and every sad memory she had of her life here. She remembered her disastrous dinner invitation and the time he called her beautiful; she remembered working side by side with the man that she loved for almost seven years. Tears threatened to spill but her pride was strong. People often said that she had a lot of pride and that it went well with her bleeding heart. She rushed out of the room before too many memories swallowed her pride, the pride that kept the tears that were welling from running down her face.

It was time to face her daemons and confront her beloved family. She couldn't face her family yet. She couldn't tell them the real reason for her abrupt departure either, though she was fairly sure they knew. She couldn't look her family in the eyes and tell them that she was leaving them because of a man, a stupid arrogant man. So instead of walking down the hall to the break room she walked to the locker room.

I will clean out my locker first and then I will go see them, she told herself in her head, or maybe I won't say anything and I will just leave they can live without me. Grissom can tell them that I quit. Yeah that is a much better idea than telling them the truth. She waged a silent war in her head of weather to tell her friends that she was quitting or not to tell them. Her mind was so muddled by the end the only thing she was thinking was: To be or not to be, that is the question. The quote from hamlet made her think of Shakespeare, and this undoubtedly led her to Romeo and Juliet. She likened Grissom and her relationship to that of Romeo and Juliet. She loves him, he loves her, but neither is able to express their true feelings because of status. Grissom couldn't be with Sara because she was his subordinate; Romeo couldn't be with Juliet because she was a Capulet. This was the end of the likeness. Romeo died to be with Juliet and Juliet died to be with Romeo Sara was leaving Grissom and he was doing nothing about it. Their relationship was more alike then she had ever imagined, not that she thought about Romeo and Juliet that often. Grissom was Sara's Romeo. Every since they had met she had thought about nobody else, except for Hank; and now Grissom was hurting her more than Hank did when he cheated on her. She walked into the locker room, with her mind still waging its silent but deadly war. She didn't notice until she was at her locker that her family were in the room with her.

"Sara!" they cried out. She ignored their words, but she couldn't ignore Catherine's arms as they hugged her. Sara and Catherine hated each other when Sara had moved to Vegas but now they were best friends. Sara felt Cath's chin on her shoulder and a large hand fall on her other shoulder, she looked up and saw nick standing next to her.

"Sar, you don't have to go. Please don't go." He pleaded. In a nicer time she would have told him that she wasn't going to leave.

"N-Nicky, I have to go. You know that." She stuttered as she turned around to face her family.

Now or never, she thought to herself, never is not an option.

"Sara, you can't leave me here I'll be the only girl!" protested Catherine, faking a smile. Sara laughed a little at her face, Cath could get anything out of a man but as to other women... you fill the blanks.

"Hey just think less competition."

"Oh Sara you were never competition." Both women laughed and hugged each other. Catherine had tears running down her beautiful face. Greg sat on a bench as far away from them as possible. He looked like he really didn't want to be there.

"Gregy, you know that if I could stay I would. But I just can't the pain is just too much."

"Well Sara my pain is just too much. I wish that Gris would just get off his arse and do something about this." His arms waved between Sara and her now empty locker.

"Greg, Gris had his chance. Many chances; and he did nothing. And there is nothing that he could say, or do right now that would make me want to stay."

"Is that right." Came a voice from behind