A/N:

Disclaimer: I love them, but I don't own them. Many thanks to all the folks at CSI, especially JF and WP, for all the amusement they have given me.

Rating: Mature T, for discussion of adult situations and possible salty language. No violence.

Spoilers: I refer to various events taking place up to the end of "The Good, the Bad, and the Dominatrix" (07x23).

AO3 version: This story is also being posted on AO3. The cover art is being posted on Tumblr.

Introduction:

By now, Grissom had shaved again. Well, no, Sara had shaved him. It was pretty intimate. Sara had not yet read the letter from Williamstown, but she soon would. (That's the subject of another story, though.) Regardless, they were both pretty happy.

Then, shortly after Sara had finally read the letter, Grissom disappeared to help Lady Heather on a case. Of course he did.

May 2007. Las Vegas, Nevada.

She was fine. Sara Sidle was fine. And doesn't that tell you all you really need to know?

April 2007. Las Vegas, Nevada.

Sara Sidle swooned—or close to it. The man she loved had just declared his love for her while on a case, and it was just about the sweetest thing she'd ever heard. He hadn't said those exact words, of course, but his meaning was clear. So Sara swooned.

He'd told her sex without love made him sad. Then he'd told her she made him happy. That latter part in itself was probably enough for the swooning. If you added the unspoken element—that Grissom had sex with Sara—it also meant he loved her.

It wasn't that he'd never told Sara he loved her before; he had, on many occasions. What made this special was the very Grissom-like logic of it all. Sex without love makes Grissom sad. (Sex with) Sara makes Grissom happy. Ergo, Grissom loves Sara. Grissom might be able to argue with (or, as he had for many years, repress) feelings, but he couldn't argue with logic. His love for Sara was indisputable. So Sara swooned.

The other reason Sara swooned was that she was quite sure sex with her had never made Grissom sad. The logical implication was thus that Grissom had always loved Sara. At the time, she contemplated whether he'd thought about those implications.

Months later, she found he had, when he explained to her with a very straight face that he'd told Conrad Ecklie they'd gotten involved nine years earlier. Sara had basically told Ecklie the same thing—that they'd always had a relationship—but hearing it from Grissom, who'd spent so many years putting her off, was different. Sara had to laugh.

For the time-being, though, in April 2007, Sara wasn't laughing; she was swooning over his love-logic. This time Sara didn't bother with the very, very lacy lingerie. She and Grissom arrived home at the same time, and she immediately jumped him. It was a very happy ending for both.

May 2007. Las Vegas, Nevada.

Sara was fine. She knew Grissom. She knew Grissom loved her. She trusted Grissom. She knew he had never slept with the lady, the lady whose name was on everyone's lips that week. She knew he hadn't because he'd told her he hadn't, and, again, she trusted him; he wouldn't lie to her.

Sara also knew Grissom wouldn't have slept with the lady. It wasn't that she didn't believe him capable of having sex with a dominatrix or that she dismissed the possibility of him ever having had sex with someone else since they'd met. Sara wasn't naïve; plus, Sara had slept with the bad Hank all the while loving Grissom.

So it wasn't for those reasons that Sara had always known, even before he told her, that Grissom couldn't have slept with Heather. It was because Heather was always involved with one of Grissom's cases when he met up with her. Sara knew Grissom would never compromise a case like that. There was no way. Then, if he had slept with Heather, he'd have had to recuse himself from further cases involving her, which he'd never done.

So, even if Grissom hadn't, as Sara's lover, told Sara to her face that he'd never slept with Heather, she'd have known he hadn't.

So Sara was fine. She knew Grissom hadn't slept with Heather. She knew Grissom wouldn't sleep with Heather. The thing was… not everyone at the lab knew what Sara knew. Not everyone at the lab knew Grissom quite so well. Actually, no one, at the lab or anywhere else, knew Grissom anywhere near as well as she did. At their scene, Catherine had told Sara she thought Grissom and Heather had spent the night together. So even Catherine, who knew Grissom pretty well, thought Grissom and Heather had had sex, and she wasn't the only one.

Back at the lab, the rumor mill had started spinning something fierce. Ever since the case had started, everyone at the lab, it seemed—even people from days or somewhere, Sara didn't really know, they were people Sara could have sworn she'd never met—had felt the need to bless Sara with their opinions on whether Grissom and Heather had had sex.

It wasn't that they thought Sara had any personal stake in the matter; it was just that it was all anyone in the lab was discussing. So, everywhere she went, Sara got a new query and a new opinion; everyone wanted to know whether Sara thought her boss had ever had sex with the dominatrix.

If everyone had realized Sara was living with her boss—was madly in love with her boss and had been for years—they probably would have been more discrete. Of course, if everyone realized Sara was living with her boss, she would have different problems….

As it was, Sara got to hear that Melinda had always assumed Grissom and Heather had slept together. Anthony, it seemed, was also convinced Grissom and Heather had slept together. Anthony seemed to think that, since he had a senior position at the lab, he was the authoritative voice on the matter.

Billy, though, had told Melinda, Anthony, Sara, and anyone else who asked (or, like Sara, didn't ask) that he was absolutely certain Grissom would never have slept with Heather. Billy had spent more time with Grissom than Melinda or even Anthony, and he thought he had special insights into Grissom's character. Sara of course knew Billy was right, but she was hardly about to weigh in on the matter.

So Sara's problem wasn't that she thought Grissom might have slept with Heather. Sara's problem was that she'd now spent what seemed like endless hours with everyone at the lab speculating on whether Grissom, the man she loved and with whom she lived, had slept with Heather.

Of course, even that Sara could, in the right mood, have found somewhat amusing. Sara's real problem—her real, kept her from falling asleep or sleeping peacefully problem—was the way Grissom would just disappear to help this woman without giving Sara even the slightest heads up.

Grissom didn't warn her he was going to see Heather at the hospital. He didn't warn her he'd be disappearing for a whole shift and longer. He didn't warn her he'd been found by Catherine and Brass at Heather's. He didn't warn her he was going to disappear again.

Sara didn't expect much—not even a phone call was necessary—but would a simple text message have been too much to ask? "Hey, honey. Spent the night with my dominatrix friend. Catherine and Brass already know. Expect lab gossip will be that we slept together. XO." Okay, Sara would have expected something less on the nose. But something—didn't Sara deserve something?

Even if they didn't work together, Sara would have thought she deserved something. Couldn't someone even, bless his heart, as oblivious as Grissom have figured that out? Sara kind of felt like she had when he had waited too long to tell her he was going away to Williams College for a month. They lived together, yet sometimes she wondered whether he'd ever treat her as a fully integral part of his life. Sometimes she had to wonder whether he even saw her as a fully integral part of his life.

So, Sara Sidle was fine. But of course she really wasn't.

Sara was lying in bed. She couldn't sleep. She didn't know where Grissom was. She didn't think he was in trouble or anything, but she wished he would think to call or to text. As punishment, she was wearing (and only wearing) the oversized Chicago Cubs t-shirt he'd last worn to bed. It smelled like him. But why did Sara deserve punishment? She hadn't done anything wrong.

Eventually Sara heard Grissom return to the townhouse and come into the bedroom. Hank got up and wagged his tail, while Sara pretended to be asleep. She hoped Grissom would just go to sleep, so she wouldn't have to say anything to him right then; she wasn't quite ready to say anything to him at that moment. Grissom didn't turn on the lights, but he came over to her side of the bed.

"Sara…" he whispered.

Sara could tell she wasn't fooling him into thinking she was asleep. So she chose another tactic. "Hey," she said politely but hardly warmly, "have you had anything to eat? I'll get you something to eat." She got up quickly, before he could stop her, and brushed past him on her way to the kitchen.

The curtains were closed, so it was still fairly dark in the rest of the townhouse, but Sara didn't open them or turn on any lights. She could see well enough for what she was doing; she thought he would probably follow her into the kitchen, and she didn't want him to have a good view of her face. She started putting together something for him to eat from the leftovers of the meal she had prepared earlier.

He came up behind her. "Sara…" he said again softly.

She ignored him and tried to keep putting together the food. There wasn't much she could do with him standing there behind her, so eventually she gave up. She kept standing there, staring at the food, though.

"Sara." He said her name more firmly this time. He could tell she was avoiding him.

She could tell she wasn't getting out of this conversation, so she put the food to the side, turned around to face him, and pushed herself up so she was sitting on the counter.

He put his hands on either side of her on the counter. "Sara… I know I should have called… or texted… or something."

"Yes." What else was she supposed to say? She couldn't look at him. She chewed her lip a little.

"I know I screwed up. I feel like I keep screwing up."

At another time, Sara would have tried to reassure him. At another time, Sara would have disagreed. But at that time Sara couldn't bring herself to say anything.

"I know I'm bad at this, Sara. I knew before we started I'd be bad at this. I think we both knew I'd be bad…. I want to do better, Sara. I want to do better for you." He tried to smile at her, but he was sad he'd let her down, so it didn't really work out.

Sara still didn't know what to say. She loved him, and she never wanted to see him sad, but he had hurt her those past days. Again, it wasn't him helping Heather that hurt her; he wouldn't be the man she loved if he didn't want to help. It was that he never even though to call or to text Sara. It was that he didn't include her in his decisions. It was that sometimes she wasn't sure he really wanted to include her in his life, even though they lived together. Subconsciously, was there a reason she still had her old apartment?

"It's just…." He was thinking. "You remember how I told you about that girl from college—how I'd thought I was in love with that girl?"

Sara looked at him and nodded.

"But I wasn't, obviously. It wasn't love. It was never love. I was never happy with the girl. I don't think I was ever even really that interested in the girl. I just wanted to believe I was. Occasionally afterward I tried dating other women, but, again, I was never happy. There were really no other relationships. So I never really learned what to do—what to do in a relationship. I kind of gave up on all that." Grissom sighed.

"I had a well-ordered life," he continued. "I had my work. I had the bugs." He tried to smile at that, but even he could tell it probably sounded a bit sad. "And I was content. I never expected anything more than that.

"Then in 1998 I went to the 50th annual AAFS conference in San Francisco, and on the first day I met the most beautiful woman I'd ever seen, the most beautiful person I'd ever met." He smiled for real this time.

Sara had to smile at this, too. She knew that, coming from Grissom, beauty was not merely a skin-deep assessment. She also knew that, coming from Grissom, this was not just a line; he really believed she was the most beautiful woman he'd ever seen, the most beautiful person he'd ever met.

"I met the most beautiful woman I'd ever seen, and… I had no idea what to do about it. I wasn't expecting it, Sara. I never expected you…. It was after I met you that I realized I'd never even loved the girl. I've never loved anyone but you, Sara."

He thought for a moment before continuing. "I know I need to do better. I know I get too wrapped up in work. I'm trying, Sara, really, but I'll do better."

"I know you're trying," she assured him quietly.

"Do you think I can do better?"

She turned her head slightly and looked him straight in the eyes. "I do," she confirmed. "I know you will. You know sometimes it feels like we're doing two steps forward, one step backward."

He winced.

"But it used to feel like we were doing one step forward, three steps backward." She was referring to before they'd started dating—before he'd decided to take a chance on her. "So you're already improving. At least we're making forward progress." She smirked at him.

He knew, if she was smirking at him, they had to be somewhat okay.

She confirmed that. "It's going to be okay, Gil."

He smiled at her, and she smiled back.

"If you like, I could go find a boom box and stand outside the window now," he said, still smiling.

"That's okay." Sara laughed.

"It's from—"

"Gil, I was a teenaged girl in the late '80s. You don't have to explain Lloyd Dobler to me. Besides, I'm the one who made you watch the movie, last year, remember?"

"Oh, yeah…. Come to think of it, I didn't really like the way you looked at that guy," he said, only partially in jest.

"Good Chicago boy, that John Cusack."

"I think Cusack's technically from Evanston," Grissom grumbled.

"Cubs fan. I do like a Cubs fan."

"What, just any old Cubs fan? You're not particular?"

"Yeah, just about any guy in a Cubs cap or t-shirt is good enough for me."

Although he wanted to look cross at that, Grissom knew he needed to be grateful Sara was back to teasing him, so he just shot her a quick mock scowl.

Sara laughed again. She was still maybe a bit down, but not like she had been. She took one of his hands in hers and started playing with his fingers. "You know, Catherine thinks you've slept with Lady Heather," she told him, after a pause.

At this, Grissom snorted. "Yeah, well, Catherine apparently hasn't figured out that I'm sleeping—or living—with a member of my own team, so I think we can consider Catherine's insights into my sex life dubious at best."

Sara smirked again, then she turned more serious. "She said Heather could beat you at mental chess." Sara was a bit sad about this. Sara wasn't really into mental chess in her personal life, she thought.

"That sounds terrible."

"What does?"

"I mean, if you think about it as a component of a romantic relationship. That sounds terrible—playing mental chess with someone. With you… it's more like a mental crossword puzzle. You help me with my crossword puzzles—or we do the crossword puzzles together. We help fill in each other's blanks. We're a team. We challenge each other, but we're on the same side. We're partners."

Sara liked the sound of this.

"Sara… you know I never went looking for you. I wasn't looking for anyone. I wasn't looking for a relationship."

"No doubt." Sara had to laugh. He had mentioned that to her once or twice, after all. He had needed just a bit of convincing.

"But if I had been looking for someone… I never even could have imagined someone as perfect as you… as perfect for me as you. All those years I spent denying how I felt… it was always about you; it's always been about you. You're the most important thing in the world to me. You're more important to me than everything else—even if sometimes I'm bad at showing it."

"More important than anything else?" she asked, somewhat coquettishly.

"More important than everything else, my dear," he corrected, "everything else combined."

Well, she couldn't really stay even slightly angry with him at this point. This was the best job he'd ever done of putting into words his feelings for her, and she was kind of blown away. This time she smiled the megawatt smile at him, the one he'd always—always, ever since he'd first met her—loved.

Even in the dim light, Grissom could see that smile. So he slipped his hand under her t‑shirt—well, his t-shirt, technically, but she was wearing it. Then he slipped the t-shirt off her body. Then they both slipped away to somewhere much, much happier. It was still, always, marvelous.

If only Natalie Davis hadn't interfered….

Still not nearly actually the end.

UP NEXT: NEXT STORY: ALL I EVER WANTED WAS TO BE RIGHT HERE: AFTER THE DESERT: A VERY BRIEF INTERLUDE.

NOTES

*Spoiler alert: The notes below contain spoilers through "Immortality" (16).*

On "The Good, the Bad, and the Dominatrix" (07x23):

This episode originally aired on May 10, 2007, so I've actually managed pretty good timing for posting this story!

On Grissom and Lady Heather:

Sara's reasoning here is (unsurprisingly) my own.

Since I will later be skipping over that part of the story, I will also say that, in my mind (and in this story), there is no way Grissom has sex with Heather after the conclusion of "Leave Out All the Rest" (09x05). I defer to Billy on Grissom never having had sex with Lady Heather, which oh-so-conveniently corresponds with my own view.

Apparently (according to Anthony Zuiker on the DVD commentary) WP was so adamant about this that a line in "Immortality" (16) had to be rewritten at WP's insistence—specifically, Lady Heather refers to her intimacy with Sara's ex-husband rather than having been intimate with him (or something to that effect).

As far as I am concerned, there is no way Gil "sex without love makes me sad" Grissom has sex (or tries to have sex, or wants to have sex…) with Heather less than a day (from what I can tell) after receiving a Dear John video from his fiancée/love of his life, who has spent the last year dealing with mental health issues following a near-death experience caused by a serial killer wanting revenge on Grissom himself.

First, Sara's the only one Grissom's ever loved ("Living Doll," 07x24), and, though he's had sex without love (presumably per "Young Man with a Horn," 09x08; definitely per "The Two Mrs. Grissoms," 11x13; and likely at other times according to my own views on his history), he's not into it ("Ending Happy," 07x21). (Yes, this is pretty much a fairy tale dressed up as a forensics show.)

Second, sleeping with Heather at this time would legitimately be the most self-loathing and self-destructive thing he could do, and even Grissom doesn't hate himself that much.

Third, Heather would know exactly what it was all about, and she would have too much self-respect for that (even if Grissom failed in this regard).

Fourth, Heather would know Grissom well enough to realize he would never forgive either of them (Heather or himself) if he had sex with her at that time, when he was still trying to figure out what was going on with Sara; she would realize it would effectively end her and Grissom's friendship in addition to permanently damaging Grissom's psyche. And, frankly, while she's not my favourite (too much of an early-season Julie Cooper association for me, plus she's an asshole to Sara in "Immortality"), Heather's better than that.

Obviously the writers were trying to keep the audience guessing/keep things spicy during Grissom's season 9 journey to the rainforest/WP's exit storyline, but in retrospect there's just no way. (Similarly, in retrospect, there's no way his season 5 dinner with Sofia was anything but platonic, even if the writers wanted to stress us—and Sara—out along the way.)

On Cusack and others:

Several weeks back, a Twitter account I was following was complaining about people from the Chicago suburbs saying they were from Chicago. I would like to emphasize that I obviously have absolutely no position on that issue and mean absolutely no offence in any direction, but it did help inspire Grissom's comment on Cusack here. (For the record, for my own hometown, I would expect people from the metro area to cite the city if talking to people from outside the region.)

John Cusack is from Evanston—as is William Petersen, of course. According to Wikipedia, David Schwimmer and Jake Johnson are also from Evanston, so I guess it's a good hometown if you want to be the male lead in a long-running TV will-they/won't-they couple.

I also recently learned that (according to Wikipedia, with citations to both IMDB and a behind-the-scenes interview with Mandy Patinkin), in The Princess Bride, the boy (Fred Savage) and his grandfather (Peter Falk, aka Columbo) live in Evanston.

William Goldman, who wrote both the book The Princess Bride as well as the screenplay for the movie, was born in Chicago and grew up in Highland Park, a little more than ten miles north of Evanston. He won Oscars for his screenplays for Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and All the President's Men. He also wrote the books Adventures in the Screen Trade and Which Lie Did I Tell?: More Adventures in the Screen Trade, both of which I recommend.

On knowing how each felt about the other:

I like to think that, before the events of "Living Doll" (07x24), Sara and Grissom are in a pretty good place and have a good idea of just how much Sara means to Grissom. I'd also like to think he tells her she is the only one he's ever loved before he accidentally tells the team.

Of course, these two are always one step forward, three steps backward; two steps forward, one step backward; one step forward, three giant leaps backward; etc. Even after they get engaged, with Sara subsequently having left Las Vegas, there is of course very much a gap (a chasm, I'd say) between Grissom knowing how much Sara means to him and Grissom accepting that he will give up everything else in his otherwise steady and predictable existence to make a life with her his reality (upping the ante, as he puts it).

SOUNDTRACK LISTING

Peter Gabriel. "In Your Eyes."

(You can listen to this song in my playlist for this series, which can be found by searching my username on Spotify.)

EPISODE REFERENCE(S)

07x23. "The Good, the Bad, and the Dominatrix." Original air date: May 10, 2007.

A/N:

Thank you so very much for reading! Although I still have to catch up on responding to your lovely comments on these stories (it's on the top of my to-do list!), please know that your comments and interactions with this series of stories truly make my day! I hope you enjoyed this one! 💕

Last week I posted to Tumblr a short bonus scene for my last story ("No, I Never Meant to Cause You Pain: Grave Danger to Law of Gravity," the fifth in this series), taking place between the eight and ninth (final) chapters: "How Do You Shave in There; or, More Face to Lick: A Pre-Season-7 Deleted Scene." I may post it here eventually, but for now you can read it on Tumblr (with pictures!). Unfortunately of course I can't put a link here, but, if you go to my Tumblr profile (same as this one: hollygl125), you should be able to find it by following this hashtag: "survivors in the night: a las vegas love story."

Next week I will be posting a very short story (roughly 500 words) that takes place post-"Dead Doll" (08x01). I hope you will return to enjoy that one, too!

Finally whether today has been a day of delight or difficulties (or altogether indifference) for you, I hope it's been a good one. 💛