A/N: This is my take on the conversation we never got to see on the show, when Grissom finally manages to get past his hangups. I wrote most of it during a bout of insomnia last night, so any complaints can be directed to Morpheus. If you enjoy story, I love getting feedback.

The first time he touched her, really touched her, had been driven by pure need. He needed her to hurt less. He needed to comfort her, to be the one to offer that gentleness.

He didn't deserve it, certainly. But she did.

One hand peeked under her shirt, the skin of his palm making contact with the warmth of her skin. He wondered if the callouses felt rough or unpleasant, and he closed his eyes in mortification.

But he could not pull his hand away.

"Tell me to stop," he begged.

If she said the word, he could wrench his unworthy fingers from the soft heaven of her skin. But only if she said it. Only if he felt from her a hesitation, a withdrawal. A rejection.

He waited for it, her rejection, knowing how much she deserved to hurt him. How many times had he pushed her away? She should feel that satisfaction, to hurt him in response.

But rather than pull away from him, Sara moved closer. The contact between them felt both electric and comfortable, a tantalizing peek into the kind of life where loving Sara was commonplace. It was a life he did not deserve, had never deserved.

"Tell me to stop," he said again, even as his hand moved with exquisite slowness up her back, taking in the heat and petal-like softness of her skin.

"No."

She reached for him then, and Grissom felt the last pieces of his restraint fall around him like shards of his broken heart. She placed a hand to his cheek, gentle and kind, as her eyes met his.

She was nervous, he noticed immediately. He had hurt her too many times to be greeted with enthusiasm or love. Instead, she needed reassurance. She needed him to say some fraction of the words which had always escaped him.

"It isn't right, Sara," he found himself saying. He needed to protect her, even if that meant betraying his own tortured and aching heart. "I can't give you-"

Love?

Sex?

Devotion?

A voice in his head screamed that he could give her all those things. She deserved them, undoubtedly, but she also deserved more. She deserved better. She deserved someone as young and beautiful as her, a man who overlooked her pain and broken past rather than clutching onto them as a means of attracting her.

When she had finally told him about her father, it all fell into place. Her search for validation in the wrong places, the wrong people. She needed a father figure to love and watch over her. A mentor. A supervisor. A boss.

And he was nothing but a dirty old man utterly enamored with the warmth of her skin under his hand. He was going to harm her, to violate her body and soul if this went further. Grissom knew it would make him worse than her own father, worse than his own. His father had demonstrated the aloof, restrained nature of parenthood, and it was a model he had tried to use with Sara.

Love from afar. Never too loud or bold. Never so much that she could soak in enough affection to satisfy her love-starved psyche.

When he finally realized the game he had been playing with her, Grissom felt disgusted with himself. He despised anything that might bring Sara pain, and that included himself.

But he couldn't be his father and he couldn't be hers either. If he tried, he was going to hurt her even worse. Because his feelings for her were anything but fatherly and trying to maintain that farse left him sick and disgusted with himself. Oh, to be fifteen years younger. To have the body of someone like Nick or Warrick. To have the self-possession and speech of someone like Greg. To have the confidence of Catherine. Instead, he was locked in the body of a man too old for her and the mind of someone too absorbed with the physical world to express his invisible feelings.

He loved her. He always had. But at some point, very early on, he had realized his love was not enough. He was not enough. And when she realized the same thing, it would break his heart.

Worse, it would break hers.

Still, as she gazed into his eyes, Grissom contemplated a version of his life where he could give in to the pull between them. Where he could slide his hand up to unhook her bra, intent on the steps beyond such boldness.

But Grissom had never been bold.

"We should stop," he said, swallowing hard in the light of her gaze.

"Why?" she questioned.

"I'm not… I'm not good at this, Sara."

I'm not worthy. I'm not brave enough.

Not strong enough to stop when she inevitably said the word. If he threw his whole heart into loving her, he feared what would happen when they eventually broke up. Sara would hate having to do it, would suffer far too long before giving in to the end. He could almost picture her expression as she finally made her unhappiness known, wishing there was some way to salvage the shards of their relationship.

How long would she let it go on? He wondered if she would sacrifice years to this fantasy. A decade, even? How much of her life would he steal from her, clinging to her love and vitality while feeding off of her like a parasite?

Grissom knew he was broken. He had always known. He tried to make up for it with intelligence, through clever service and hard work. But human beings were an unsolvable puzzle to him, and he was incapable of providing the love and care someone like Sara needed.

Deserved.

But she was just vulnerable enough to believe he could be what he wasn't. He could fool her for a while, giving her the attention and support of the parents who had failed her. But in the end, it would hurt her. He would hurt her.

And Grissom loved her too much to do that.

With that last realization, he was able to pull his hand away from her. She let her own fingers fall away from his face, and he forced himself to watch as her expression became crestfallen.

"I don't want to hurt you, Sara."

The words were inadequate to convey the burden in his heart. But he needed her to know the fault lay with him, not her. But before he could find the right words, she was challenging him.

"It hurts more when you do this, Grissom. When you reel me in and then push me away again."

He closed his eyes, infusing her suffering into his heart with enough force to make the pain almost physical.

"I know. And it isn't fair to you. I'm so sorry, Sara. I wish I could be… more. For you."

This last statement clearly confused her.

"More?" she questioned.

"Better," he elaborated. "Younger. More articulate. More kind and giving. More… just more, Sara."

Her confusion remained, and he hated that she wasn't angry at him. He had come to expect her anger, had gotten used to bathing in the righteousness of her wrath. She had every right to be angry at him, to hate him. And he punished himself with that anger, using it to keep his hands to himself and his feelings held tightly inside.

"You think…" she began, speaking slowly, "that you aren't good enough for me?"

She said the words in disbelief. But to Grissom, it was a plain truth. It was self-evident, something which no one needed to prove because everyone knew it to be fact.

Her eyebrows knit together as she skewered him with her gaze. She expected an answer.

"Of course I'm not," he managed finally, his voice coming out as a dull whisper, meeting her skepticism with certainty.

"That's the most ridiculous thing you have ever said."

"Sara-"

But she shook her head.

"No, don't say it," she hissed at him. "Don't you ever say that again."

"Sara, it's true," Grissom told her, knowing she would continue to resist. "I'm not good enough for you. We both know that. We've always known that."

"No," she insisted, her anger finally breaking through. "This is just one more way to reject me, to keep me close but not too close. I swear, Grissom…"

She shook her head, and he wished there had been a way to spare her the pain he saw in her eyes. Grissom hated himself anew for causing her that pain, for being the author of one more tragedy in her life.

"Sara, if I thought I could make you happy…" He sighed, abandoning both his statement and the fantasy of what it entailed. "...but I'm only going to keep hurting you. Over and over again. And I refuse to do that. I refuse to steal any more precious time from you. It's wrong, what I feel for you. It's shameful."

With tears in her eyes, Sara demanded, "And what exactly do you feel for me?"

What indeed? Words could not do it justice.

He searched for a handy quote, maybe something from Hawking or Shakespeare, but his memory failed under the intensity of her scrutinizing look.

"What a boss has no business feeling for someone he supervises," he said finally, knowing the answer to be less than she deserved.

"And if you weren't my boss?" she prodded.

"Then I would be just another middle-aged man lusting after a beautiful young woman."

"The age card," she tsked with a slight shake of the head. "You already played the boss card, and this is just another version. Why don't you tell me the real reason, Grissom?"

She saw through him too easily, and he knew he would have to lay everything bare. She deserved no less, considering he was the one breaking her heart.

"It is the age thing," he stated. "And the boss thing. And the fact that I am no good at relationships. Any relationship, Sara, even friendship. You know how terrible I am at it. You've seen it with your own eyes. And it would be a hundred times worse to take you to my bed and then let you starve for the affection I am incapable of giving."

She blinked at him.

"You think you're incapable of giving affection? Gris, you're the only one in my entire life who has ever cared so much about me."

He let her words settle between them before answering, "And that's part of the problem. You deserve more than that, Sara. Far more. But if I trap you into something with me, you can't find a more healthy and whole relationship."

Pursing her lips, she shot back, "How can it be a trap if I agree? If it's something I want?"

"But have you ever thought about why you want me?" he asked, his voice cracking.

And for a long moment he just looked at her. Sara stared back at him, her eyes like soft, deep pools of agony. He wanted to replace that pain with love, but he knew it would never be enough. Those wells would run dry, and the only things left would be pain and regret.

"You think I'm attracted to you because of my history?" she questioned. "What, like, a replacement for the father who never loved me and the mother who abandoned me?"

He sighed deeply but did not contradict her.

"Sara, I'm in a position of authority over you. It is natural for you to develop these sorts of feelings…"

But they aren't real. And I can't stand to be around when you finally realize that.

"Even if all this is true-" she said, "-and I'm disagreeing that it is - then why not try anyway? We'll never know unless we give it a shot."

But he shook his head at her hopeful expression.

"I can't..."

"Can't or won't?"

He took in a tense breath before breathing out again. "I can't just let you go, Sara, when it doesn't work out. I think you could walk away. I know it would hurt you, but you're strong. You would survive. But I wouldn't. And worse…"

He paused, unable to say the words. It was his worst fear, the thing which kept him up at night. The inhumanity he witnessed every day in others could easily manifest in his own soul, and that idea terrified him.

"Worse," Grissom forced out, "what if I didn't just let you go? What if I couldn't let go?"

He had spoken of hurting her, but it was the emotional pain he had already been inflicting for years. This hurt was different, and his fingers curled into tight fists to keep from shaking. Moments before, he had begged her to tell him to stop, to ask him to take his hand off her body. When she refused, it had been only with monumental effort that he voluntarily broke that contact. He had never experienced such an intense attraction before, to anyone.

It scared him.

And far worse, it made him fear for Sara. What if he hadn't let go of her? What if she had said the word and he still had kept his hand on her?

What if she had struggled as he brought her closer? What if his body had overwritten his mind and done the unthinkable?

He shuddered at the thought of harming Sara, of seeing a fear of him In her lovely eyes. Such an expression would haunt him forever, would inspire unending nightmares and migraines.

"When we did the investigation of Debbie Martin's murder, that was one of the few times I let myself get overly emotional about a case. But rather than sympathizing with the victim, I found myself understanding her murderer."

Sara did not react with horror as he anticipated. Instead, she just nodded. "I heard what you said to Vincent Laurie in the interview room," she stated.

For a long moment, Grissom just stared at her. He had no idea Sara had overheard. No wonder she felt so rejected. She thought he had been too much of a coward to choose her over his career.

The truth was, Grissom was a coward. But not for the reason Sara suspected.

"For the first time in my life, I understood why someone would commit murder. I could feel his pain, the devastation of losing the most precious thing in his life. Something he never thought he could have," he said with deliberate casualness. Inside, he imagined himself in the murdering doctor's shoes, watching his world fall around him even after he had risked the career built on so many sacrifices.

But rather than feeling anger and betrayal, he could find only a sea of inevitable sadness. Nothing in him stirred to rage against Sara. Or even whatever man she might one day leave him to be with. No, he could not imagine ever hating her so deeply that he would lash out with cold, calculated violence.

But then, he had never truly felt her love and what it was to love her. Perhaps that was the necessary ingredient for such madness.

"You're different, Grissom," she told him softly. "You would never do something like that. You aren't capable."

"A broken heart changes people, Sara."

Gently, as if handling a small child or wounded animal, she reached out a hand to touch him. Her fingers simply grazed his arm, but he shivered at the contact.

"You're still assuming I would break your heart," she told him.

There was no accusation in her voice, but he could see the uncertainty in her face. As afraid as he might be of her rejection, she had already faced the same rejection from him time and again. But she still kept at him, kept trying. Either her love or her perseverance was that strong.

She was essentially asking him to trust her, giving an implied promise that she would not do exactly what he feared and throw him to the curb as soon as he had given in.

"What if I break yours?" he posed quietly, that eventuality almost as terrifying as her hurting him.

Sara smiled, the expression lighting up the space between them. "Then don't."

"Sara…"

"You're a smart guy, Grissom," she told him. Her hand on his arm squeezed him gently before letting him go. "Figure it out."

Then she turned away from him, as if to walk away. And the action broke something inside of him. But because he knew himself to already be broken, it felt like something else. Some unknown piece of his mind shifted, bringing everything into stark focus. Sara was about to walk away from him.

He didn't want her to. And she certainly didn't want to.

And for one of the handful of times in his life, he did not use his mind to guide his actions. Instead, he let his heart take the reins. And all his heart wanted was to be touching her again.

Grissom moved with surprising speed, startling Sara as he drew her into an embrace. One hand reclaimed its rightful place at the small of her back, the fingers easily moving under the fabric of her shirt to touch her skin directly. The other hand cupped the back of her neck with exquisite care. Her hair tickled his knuckles but his brain did not register the sensation because it was too preoccupied with the softness of her lips against his.

Sara melted into him, surrendering to the kiss without a second of hesitation. And despite all his doubts and misgivings, Grissom did the same. For an unknowable amount of time, they were not people but bodies, feelings given life and animated by magic and the desperation of need long denied. Feelings of released flooded through him, as though he had been holding his breath all these years and only now had been able to let it out.

Smiling against his lips, Sara finally pulled away just far enough to whisper, "There. You finally figured it out."

And then she was kissing him again.

By the time they came up for air again, Grissom knew himself to be a lost man. He had tasted the fruit of the underworld and was now forever doomed to dwell there. But instead of forsaking sunlight and fresh air, he felt as though he had stepped outdoors for the first time in hears. Everything felt better. Part of him knew that his body was producing happy chemicals which tricked his brain into such a wonderful moon, but the other part of him did not care.

He wanted to regret this decision they had so hastily made, but he could not. Having finally stepped past his fears and regrets and feelings of unworthiness, he could not go back. The only way forward was Sara. And until she left him, he would consider no other direction.

He loved her - utterly and completely. There was another self-evident truth.

fin