Sara stood in the elevator feeling like she had as a child running away from the horror's that was her home. Her breath trembled in her chest and as much as she willed herself not to let it get to her she could feel the sting of tears in her eyes.

She wandered out on the bottom floor, casting her eyes slowly around the people congregated there when an out of breath Greg came crashing through the doors leading to the stairwell.

"Sara!" He called in a wheeze, stumbling across the floor towards her and gaining the disapproving glare of many of the other people.

Sara rolled her eyes and marched out into the bright sunshine of the day. It was autumn, the leaves beginning to crisp and change colour. She loved autumn, she loved the rejuvenation and transformation it offered. She loved the crisp clean air and the opportunity to wrap up warm and spend her evenings curled up in front of the fire.

She wrapped her coat tighter around her body and continued stomping across the road towards a small garden of remembrance. She could hear Greg's footsteps behind her, closing the space between them as she sunk onto a small wooden bench.

"Sara, what's going on? Talk to me... I'm not a mind reader!" He demanded, still out of breath from his sprint down the stairs.

Sara regarded her friend standing in front of her. He was without a doubt the one person, besides her husband, she cared about most in the world and she knew she could tell him anything. She never understood why it was so difficult for her to tell him about this, she never understood why it was so difficult to find the words.

Greg sunk into the space beside her, taking her hand in his and looking at her with wide sympathetic eyes. She knew he wouldn't judge her based on her past, he was probably the least judgemental person she knew and now it appeared he was as mixed up in her mess of a family almost as much as she was. There was no hiding the fact that he cared deeply for Robyn and for Joel. If she was going to be honest with Robyn it was probably best she was honest with Greg first.

"There's something I should tell you... I don't know why I never told you before to be honest. I don't like to think about it too often but with all this...I've had to" She explained sadly.

Sara took a deep trembling breath and avoided Greg's concerned gaze. His grip on her hand tightened and the wind whistling through the autumnal trees seemed to still in anticipation. Everything was waiting for her to speak but the words seemed to choke in her throat.

"You can tell me anything..." He whispered.

"I know...I...The reason Robyn was adopted is... my father was abusive. Towards my mother, towards me... he had a volatile temper. I guess my mother wanted to save at least one of us..."

Greg nodded, his sombre expression not hiding the fact that he suspected that was the case all along. Sara made no secret of her contempt for domestic violence cases, it wasn't hard to figure out why.

"My mother suffered from schizophrenia, among other illnesses. One day she just snapped...she killed him. She took a knife from the kitchen and she stopped it all, just like that...I spent the next 8 years in the system being passed from foster home to foster home until I got out and went to college. It was the best thing I could have done. I guess you know the rest..."

Greg drew breath but didn't falter in his unwavering support. He paused, as though absorbing al the information she had just given him.

"You could have told me you know... " He eventually muttered.

"I know. I should have but I ... I don't want people judging me based on my past or waiting for me to break down every time there's a domestic abuse case. The only other person I've told is Grissom... and now I have to tell Robyn... who I barely know"

Greg nodded, his eyes turning to the huge grey hospital building looming before them.

"That's why you ran out?" He said, more a statement than a question "You don't have to be ashamed of this... it's not your fault. She'll understand that"

Sara turned her eyes to the ground, suddenly incredibly interested in the cracked and broken concrete below their feet. Greg was right, Robyn wouldn't judge her based on her parents mistakes. It would be ridiculous to think she would, the fear Sara had was that when Robyn found out the truth she would have as much resentment as Michael or maybe as much shame as she did.

"She already decided she didn't want to know didn't she?" Sara said, confirming her suspicions to the air around them.

Greg shifted uncomfortably in his seat before turning his attention back to her. He didn't want to lie to her, but neither did he think she could handle the truth right now.

"She didn't know what she was saying... we'll go see her, it'll be fine" He soothed.

But Sara was already shaking her head in protest.

He tried to grasp at protests in his brain, tried to think of a definitive reason he could give to her for following him to Robyn's room but he realised there were none. There was nothing he could say to her that would make her shift her resolve.

"OK..." He muttered "how about we go get a coffee?"

"No Greg, you need to go see her. It's late, she'll be wondering where you are" Sara stated meeting his eye and showing all the defiance in her soul "I'll go get a coffee, you can come find me when you're ready to go home"

"Sara..." Greg whispered but he knew there was no point. When Sara dug her heels in there was no reasoning with her and she was most certainly determined she wasn't visiting that little room. He let out an exasperated sigh. "Okay... but I won't be long"

He hugged her before wandering back into the hospital, his mind swimming with information. He glanced back as he reached the doors, watching her for a moment as she sat there lost in her thoughts. He found himself praying that what Robyn said yesterday was a slip of the tongue or a result of too much medication.

This had to be resolved soon or a stand-off of epic proportions was bound to ensue. Both women were stubborn to a fault.

The nurses nodded politely as he made his way to her room. Sunlight streamed in through the huge windows making the whiteness of the room almost glow as he stepped inside. She was seated in her bed, the metal brace had been removed but the tubes and wires remained connected to her arm.

"I think I'm liking the robot look" He teased as he strolled into the room.

She still looked incredibly tired, the bruising on her face had joined up with the bruising on the back of her head covering half of her face in an angry looking purple mask.

"Maybe I'll keep it for a while... along with the turban" She smiled, gasping a little as she strained her body to return his kiss. An untouched tray of food lay on her table, a wheelchair by her side.

"You've been up?" He questioned, noting the hospital issue slippers by the side of the bed. "I brought you some things from home"

"I had another CT scan this morning then they stuck some needles into me, it was great fun" She deadpanned with an eye roll.

"Sounds like it. Why were they sticking needles in you?" He frowned, pulling her chart from the pocket at the end of her bed. She didn't answer, instead choosing to let him read for himself. She watched him carefully, he could feel her eyes burning into him as he tried to control his facial expression when he read exactly what was going on with her.

"Localised Paralysis" He stated as he tried to absorb what that meant.

Robyn shrugged "I won't be dancing anytime soon" She stated sadly.

"I hear wheelchair gymnastics are the next big thing" He teased, trying to make light of a bad situation. He knew Robyn well enough to know her imagination would already have run wild as it thought about all the possibilities for her future should the paralysis remain.

"They say it could be temporary, I still have some spinal trauma" She shrugged, meeting his eye with a soft expression and a small smile.

"Well that's good right? you'll be fighting fit in no time" He said, not quite believing the words.

"Could have been worse I guess" Robyn smirked "How's Joe?"

Greg replaced the chart and took the seat beside her bed, moving the food on the tray around with a fork and a look of disgust.

"He's good, Sara and I took him to school this morning although he did try to fake a tummy ache to come here" He smiled, grimacing as the gravy moved across the plate like jello.

"Sara's been helping you out?" Robyn questioned, her eyes brimming with conflict.

Greg met her eye almost challenging her to say something. In a strange way he wanted her to bring it up or at least open the gates and let him know what was really going on in her head with regards to the whole sister issue but she was clearly not going to respond to his silent goading.

"She's a great friend... as you know" He said pointedly.

Robyn settled back a little in her pillow's and fixed her eyes on the television although he could tell she wasn't watching it. He reached out and took her hand, the tension evident in her body as she turned her eyes back to his. She took a deep breath, shifting uncomfortably.

"Can you imagine if someone told you that your parents weren't really yours? That you belonged somewhere else?" She asked.

"No... I don't think I can" He answered honestly.

"Yeah well... neither could I. When my dad got sick he insisted he didn't know me, that his wife couldn't have children... he insisted I couldn't be his daughter. But I had a wonderful family, I loved them with all my heart and the only thing that kept me strong back then was knowing that they were my family. He was my only family, the one who rocked me to sleep and held my hand and taught me to tie my laces and brought me to school. I don't want to change those memories Greg... I don't want to know that it wasn't real"

Greg squeezed her hand gently realizing that her reluctance to accept Sara as her family went a lot deeper than he thought.

"But it was real Robyn...It was just as real as any other family. Look at us, does Joel mean any less to me because he's not my biological child? No. Does it mean that if we have children of our own I will act different towards him? No, it doesn't. Families come in lots of different ways"

Tears brimmed in Robyn's eyes and Greg reached out to gently brush them away. He genuinely wished she didn't need to go through this. He was always the fixer, he made things better, he took people's pain away. It was incredibly difficult watching the two people he loved most in the world tear themselves apart over something he had uncovered.

"I don't know...I just don't know" She muttered, shaking her head and wincing as pain cast over her.

"Ok... so imagine growing up in foster care, having lost the only family you knew. Imagine it was an abusive childhood, haunted by mental illness... Imagine finding out years later that you have another chance at having a family ... and then imagine someone taking that chance away because they were scared" Greg argued.

He was desperately trying to make her see that Sara's motives weren't to taint the memories she already had of her family, rather it was the hope to create new cherished memories.

"How do you suddenly become someone's sister? Are you really just supposed to be best friends just because you share some DNA?" She sighed "I'm sorry she had a bad time, I really am but... I can't fix that. I can't turn up and just be her family overnight and I can't let go of the family I did have to do that"

"Robyn... this is ridiculous. Just give her a chance, you were friends before all this. Why should that change just because you're related"

"You don't understand..." She muttered, pulling her hand from his to rest it on her lap.

"No, I don't you're right... Can't you just talk to her? Try to understand what she's going through. She just lost her mother" Greg protested, pressing his eyes tight together.

"Our mother..." She murmured, in a state of shock "She could have got in touch all this time, she could have told me everything... Why didn't she? What was she hiding?"

"You really need to ask Sara these things Robyn. She's downstairs waiting for me, I'll get her to come up.." He stood from his chair and began to make his way to the door when she stopped him.

"No. I don't want to speak to her. I don't want to know"

"Robyn you're going to have to face up to this eventually" He reasoned.

Sara was a big part of his life, someone he cherished more than most of the people he knew. She wasn't going to go away, this wasn't something they could simply ignore.

"Do I? There's no reason for me to see her again" She declared defiantly.

That familiar fire burning in her eyes he had seen before in his best friend. She had made her decision and he had no idea if he would be able to change her mind.

"Robyn... please. You can't make me choose" He begged, realising what she was implying.

"You don't have to choose Greg" She stated through gritted teeth "I'll choose for you"

Greg frowned, taking a few steps towards her as tears began to trickle down her face. She raised her hand, stopping him in his tracks.

"Robyn... please" He stumbled.

"Just go Greg, I'll call Mrs Parish to collect Joel. You were always going to choose her anyway"