Thank you for all the reviews for the last chapter and I'm very sorry for being evil and killing Sara off, it was very mean of me. Hope you like this one. And I own several CSI DVDs but that's it.

Chapter 2 - Broken

Catherine picked up the diary again. A photograph slipped out and fell on the floor, face down. She bent over to pick it up and felt tears come to her eyes. The photo was of Sara and Gil, behind them was the sea. It was obviously a recent picture but Catherine had no idea when they had been near the sea together. They both looked so happy, Gil had his arm protectively around Sara's shoulders, holding her close. They both had smiles on their faces that Catherine had never seen before.

She carefully put the photo back into the diary and turned to another page, earlier in the diary.

May 15th, 2004

I can't keep this up much longer, everything seems so hard. I've come to realise that things are never going to get better and maybe it simply isn't worth it. I can't get away from the memories no matter how hard I try. Every day is like navigating a mine field, avoiding the things that will trigger the sick shame filled feeling in my gut, and the uncontrollable urge to cut myself.

Some days just getting out of bed is so hard. I used to love my job but now I know that I make no difference, for every criminal that we put away there are ten more to take their place. It's a never ending spiral into hopelessness, the same hopelessness that I have felt for so long. I just don't know how long I can keep up this pretence.

Catherine turned to the next page, frowning.

May 17th, 2004

I'm finding that I am turning to alcohol more and more often. I drink after almost every shift and sometimes before. I hate myself and I'm scared of what I might become next.

May 18th , 2004

Why can't I just forget about him, he's made it clear that it is never going to happen so why can I not just give him up and move on. I love him so much I just want to be with him.

May 20th, 2004

I got pulled over by the police for driving under the influence last night. I am such an idiot. What was I doing, I never drink and drive. They let me off but they had to call Grissom seeing as he's my supervisor.

He came and took me home, I thought he'd lecture me tell me how stupid I was but all he did was ask me if I was ok.

He should have fired me, I can't believe how stupid I was. I deserved to be sacked, I could have killed someone.

I'm a complete mess and I just don't know what to do about it. I don't think this is something that I can sort out myself, I just don't know what to do. I have to go and see a counsellor, I'm dreading it.

"Gil?" Brass said gently. "Catherine just called, she thinks that Sara and you were in a relationship. Is she right?"

Grissom nodded silently, holding tightly to Sara's hand.

"I'm sorry, Gil." He said sincerely. "You realise that I am going to have to ask you some questions and that you cannot be involved in the investigation?"

Grissom nodded.

"Where were you at twelve thirty today?"

"In the lab. I had paper work to do by the end of the month. Sara said that she was tired so she went back to hers instead, normally she stays at mine. I was going to call her but, but it was so late by the time I got away that I didn't want to wake her. So I just went back to mine. I slept while she was lying there... I wasn't there when she needed me. If only I'd left the lab when I was supposed to, she'd have stayed at mine and she'd be fine, everything would be fine now."

"Gil, there is now way that you could have known that this was going to happen. I'm going to have to interview you formally at some point but that can wait."

"Gil, could I have a word in private please." The Doc said.

Brass stepped outside to give Grissom and Doc Robbins some privacy.

"When I was examining Sara I found some scars on her stomach. Some old, some new. Do you know how she got them?"

Gil nodded. "Yes, I do."

"We're they self inflicted?"

"Yes."

"I thought so. I will have to include the scars in my report and have to add that I felt they were the result of self harm, I wanted to warn you. I'm sure that Sara wouldn't want people knowing but it may be important in the investigation."

"I know and Sara would understand too. Can I have some more time with her please?"

"Of course you can, Gil. As much time as you need. I'll be outside." He turned back as he opened the door to see Grissom gently kissing Sara's forehead.

February 3rd, 2005

I cannot believe that I told him everything. And he didn't turn on his heel and run.

When he knocked on my door I thought that was it, that he was going to fire me, and I really didn't care anymore. The job was too hard, too painful. But he didn't fire me, he stood up to Ecklie, Ecklie, and wouldn't let him fire me.

I should have been fired, I should not have spoken to Catherine that way.

Grissom just asked me why I was so angry. And I told him everything. Well, not everything, I'll never tell anyone everything, if people knew, they'd never look at me the same.

But I told him about my parents, about the screaming and the violence and how my mom ended it all. And he stayed holding my hand for hours. He just stayed there, he didn't say anything, didn't judge me, he just sat beside me and let me cry.

Suddenly things don't seem so bleak, maybe I do have a future.

"Catherine?" Nick asked opening the door.

"Yeah?" She replied closing the diary.

"I've got the autopsy report." He handed it to her before sitting down in silence as Catherine opened it.

"Have you read it?" She asked.

"No, I thought you'd want to see it first."

"Do you want to get Greg and Warrick, we'll go through it together."

"Ok." He returned a few minutes later with the other two. Brass followed in a few minutes later.

"Where's Gil?

"In the mortuary, he won't leave Sara." He said sitting down.

"I want us to get the bastard who did this to Sara but I also want to maintain Sara's privacy as much as possible, she was very private after all. So I think that anything found out during this investigation stays between us, ok?" Catherine said.

The group nodded.

"I found Sara's diary at the crime scene, I'm reading through it to look for a motive or possible suspect. I have discovered that Sara and Gil we're seeing each other."

"Since when?" Greg asked.

"A couple of years, I think."

"I've spoken to Gil and he's confirmed that. He said that Sara normally stays at his but he had to work on and she went back to hers instead."

"So what've we got so far?" Warrick asked still reeling from the shock of discovering Sara and Grissom had been together.

"The autopsy report confirms the cause of death as being strangulation and the time of death as twelve thirty." Catherine began with the report in her hands. "Sara had bruising on her face suggesting that the suspect had held his hand over her mouth. She also had bruising on her wrists consistent with being held down, and bruising to her thighs. She was raped, the Doc has sent samples to DNA for analysis. She also had a bite mark on her shoulder, he's got an expert coming in to analyse it. It also say that there was evidence of self harm on Sara's body, I think we're going to have to dig into her past, which isn't going to be easy, Sara could do secretive like there was no tomorrow."

"Did you get any evidence from her apartment?" Brass asked.

"We found semen on her bedding which has gone to DNA, some fingerprints, other than that nothing. "

"We searched every inch the living room, kitchen and bathroom. Again we found fingerprints but nothing else. No sign of forced entry. She must have let them in or they ad keys." Warrick added.

"I've got the checked the surveillance cameras outside the apartment block. Sara comes home alone at ten twenty three, she looks happy, she goes to her apartment alone and that's the last you see of her." Brass said.

"She can't have been home long, there is no way Sara would have left her shoes out like that." Nick pointed out again.

"She gets home over two hours before she died though."

"Maybe the suspect turned up at her door as soon as she got home and she invited him in." Greg suggested

"Or he was waiting for her when she got home." Nick added.

"I'll find out how many people had keys to her apartment." Brass said noting it down.

"Would it be worth taking Grissom to the crime scene? He might be able to tell us if something was missing or had been moved." Greg asked.

"That's a good idea, Greg." Catherine said still looking through the autopsy report. "I'm going to continue looking through her diary, see if Sara was worried about anything, or if I can find any motives. Greg, can you chase up the DNA and trace evidence. Warrick and Nick, do you want to go back to the crime scene and search it thoroughly, we need a lead."

They all nodded and left.

"I'd better go and interview Gil. I can't put it off much longer. Then I'll take him back to the crime scene, see if he can tell us something." Brass said looking like he was dreading the interview.

Catherine nodded, and patted him reassuringly on the arm. "How is he?"

He shrugged. "Broken." He replied simply.

"How long have Sara and you been in a relationship?"

"Two years." Grissom replied. He wasn't looking at Brass but instead had a picture of Sara in his hands, which he was gazing at intently.

"But you didn't tell anyone?"

"It's against lab policy, we talked about it a few weeks after we first started seeing each other. She thought that if anyone knew then it would get back to Ecklie, you know what this place is like for gossiping. We knew that one of us would have to switch shifts and we didn't want to split the team up."

"Was Sara worried about anything?"

"No," he replied looking baffled, "she was so happy."

"She wasn't acting strangely at all?"

"No, she said she was tired, that's why she was going to stay at hers. She normally stays at mine but I had to work late and she said she needed a good night sleep."

"So you didn't hear from her at all after she left the lab?"

"No, normally I phone her to let her know that I'm on my way home but I was late leaving and she'd been so tired, I didn't want to wake her. I thought she'd just gone straight to sleep."

"Do you know of anyone who would want to hurt Sara?"

"Thousands, everyone she has put away."

"Anyone specific?"

"No, I don't think so."

"In the autopsy report, it mentions that there was evidence that Sara had been self harming. Did you know that she was doing that?"

Gil nodded. "I tried to get her to stop, she'd been doing it less since we'd been together but she couldn't stop completely."

"Do you know why she did it?"

"She had a tough childhood. It effected everything that she did."

"Can you tell me more about that."

Grissom looked hesitant.

"Gil, I know you want to protect Sara's privacy but we need to find whoever killed her and to do that we need to know everything."

"Her father abused her and her mother. When Sara was twelve she watched her mother stab him to death, she went into foster care, her mother into a secure hospital. She moved about a lot while in Care, she never stayed in one place for longer than a month. She started self harming after going into foster care. She used to go through very pad spells and then she'd be ok for a while. But then something would happen, a case would be a little too close to home or something would remind her, and she'd just drop, everything would go completely out of control, she'd start self harming again, drinking, she wouldn't sleep, wouldn't talk to me."

"I had no idea things were so bad for her."

"No, she was like a swan, calm on the surface but underneath she was paddling like crazy just to stay afloat. It was only after we became close and she trusted me that she told me, she had a hard time talking to people, didn't like them knowing too much, she'd only talk when she felt completely safe."

"I'd like to take you back to her apartment, see if you can see if anything is missing or different. Would you do that?"

Grissom swallowed loudly, the last thing her wanted to do was go back to that place. Her place. The place she died. The place were some bastard took her away from him. She was his world and now she was gone. When they found the bastard, he would kill him. He didn't care what happened to him, without her there was no point in anything. There was no point in life without his beautiful, amazing Sara. "Ok." He said in a small voice.

"Is anyone still processing?" He asked when they arrived at Sara's apartment.

"No, Nick and Warrick have just left." The uniformed officer lifted the crime scene tape to let Brass and Grissom through and into the apartment.

Grissom took a deep breath before stepping through the door, his mind slipped back to the moment hours before, the last time her had walked through her door, and the life ending sight he saw.

Everything looked normal, the only sign that anything had happened was the slight hint of fingerprint powder on the surfaces, and the feeling in his chest like his heart had been ripped out.

Grissom walked slowly around the living room, silently taking in every sight. In his mind he could see Sara sat in the chair telling him everything after Ecklie suspended her. He could see her putting her shoes on before they had gone out one night, laughing at him for trying to hurry her. He then moved into the bedroom. He immediately had the image of her lying dead on the bed, her eyes staring but not seeing. He pushed the image out and settled on another one, from one of the few times that they had stayed together at hers, he had got up in the night to get a glass of water but had stood for hours instead watching her sleep peacefully, curled up on her side.

He picked a book up from her bedside table, that had sat there for many months . A letter fell out from it. The envelope was addressed to Gil Grissom and was in Sara's neat handwriting.

Without looking to Brass for approval, he carefully opened the letter.

Gil,

You know I find it hard telling you how I feel, just like you find it hard telling me how you feel, so I'm going to try your method.

I love you. I always have. I always will. Without you my life would be pointless, I wouldn't be alive if it wasn't for you, I would have given up years ago. You make me complete. With you I can achieve anything.

You make me happy, happier than I have ever been before. When I look at you I get butterflies in my stomach, when you touch me it feels like my heart will explode.

No matter how many hours, days, years I spend with you they will never be enough. I want to spend the rest of eternity with you by my side. The more I see of death, the more I know that as long as you are with me I will always be safe. In your arms I feel protected. As I said once before, I feel safe in your arms tonight.

I'm not sure if you'll ever see this, I'm just going to leave it somewhere and hope you find it. If you don't find it I will try everyday to say to you that I love you.

You are the only man I will ever, could ever, love. No one compares to you.

You are my heart, my mind and my soul. You are the Sun that warms me, and the Earth that supports me. You are my one and only.

All my love, for all of eternity,

Sara xxx

For the first time in his memory Gil sat down and sobbed.

Please review. Please? I'm going to find a tissue now...