Ok, being English I don't know very much about the American School System, I did research it but it seems to be different depending on the area (v. confusing!) So for the this fic I am taking elementary school to be kindergarten to fifth grade(aged 10-11?), middle school to be sixth grade to eighth grade and high school to be ninth grade to twelfth grade. I don't really know what you learn in each grade so I am going to use what I learnt in the corresponding year at school. I apologise if this is wrong but you school system is really confusing. Please point out any major mistakes that I have made and I will try to correct them.

Chapter 3 – It Won't Bring Her Back

Gil held the letter in shaking hands.

"Gil, what is it?"

"A letter, Sara wrote me a letter."

"Why?"

"To tell me that she loves me."

"I'm going to need to take it as evidence for a while."

Gil looked back down at it. "Look after it." He said finally, handing it over to Jim, his hands still shaking.

Jim placed it carefully in an evidence bag.

"Am I a suspect?" Gil said suddenly

"Of course you're not Gil. And any way, you were at the lab when she died."

Gil opened an small wooden box by the bed. "Her grandmothers ring."

"What?"

"Her grandmothers ring, it's gone. Sara always kept it in here. Her mother gave it to Sara on her twelfth birthday, just before she killed her father."

"It couldn't be anywhere else?"

"No, Sara had a place for everything, she doesn't move things, she'd obsessive about it. It used to drive her mad if I left something in the wrong place. When she was staying at mine, I'd come home and find her tidying my cupboards. He's taken it, the bastard has taken it."

"Would Sara have noticed if it had been taken before?"

"Yes, she used to take it out at night, when she thought I wasn't looking. It reminded her of her mom. She'd have told me if it was missing."

"I'm going to call Catherine and see if someone printed that box."

"Sara was still wearing what she had been wearing at work." Gil said, the thought suddenly flashing through his mind.

"Yeah?"

"The first thing Sara does when she gets in from work is take a shower and get changed, she doesn't even stop to check her messages or eat anything, it's always the first thing she does. She must have just got home."

"Yeah, Nick said the same because her shoes were still by the door."

"I didn't notice her shoes." He paused. "Do you know what time she got home?"

"Ten twenty three."

"Two hours before she died, what was she doing in those two hours?"

"I don't know. Do you know if anyone else had a key to Sara's apartment?"

"Me, her landlord. That's it."

They fell into silence for a few minutes.

"Why wasn't I there for her, Jim? When she needed me, I was working, as always. I was working while someone was...was hurting my Sara, my beautiful, amazing Sara. She was my world, Jim, she was everything to me. And I wasn't there for her. The one time she needed me most, and I wasn't there. I let her down."

"No, you didn't. Sara loved you. You couldn't have been with her every second of the day, and there was no way you could have known that this would happen. You didn't let her down. You were her world, she was happy with you. You did not let her down."

"Yes, I did. Sara normally calls when she gets home, as soon as she comes out of the shower, before she's even got dresses again." A sad smile, flitted quickly over his lips. "I was too wrapped up in my work to notice that she hadn't called. If I had, I could have come and checked on her before it happened."

"Gil, there is nothing you could have done to prevent this. The only person responsible, the only person who should feel guilty is the bastard that did this. And we will catch him and put him away for the rest of his life. And it's not going to bring her back or make you miss her less but it will give her justice."

Silence fell again for several minutes while Gil gently stroked the material of a bathrobe that was hung on the door, committing the feeling to memory.

"We think that Sara either let the suspect in or he was there when she got home." Brass said.

"Sara would only let someone she trusted in, and she had a gun, if her was waiting for her when she got home, she'd have pulled her gun on him."

"Where did she keep her gun?"

Grissom pulled open the top drawer in her bedside table. "It's here. She must have already put it away."

"Run me through exactly what Sara does when she comes home."

"She takes her shoes off, puts here gun away, turns the shower on, goes back into the living room and put's her shoes away, then she get's undressed and has a shower."

"When you came in this evening, was the shower on?"

"No."

Brass went into the bathroom, the shower was dry, it can't have been turned on for hours. "He must have turned up while she was putting her gun away then. I've got officers talking to the neighbours, find out whether they saw or heard anything this morning."

"What was he doing for the two hours before he killed her?"

Brass didn't know how to respond. The ideas he had of what was happening during those two hours was to horrific to comprehend.

"Greg, what can I do for you?" Doc Robbins asked after seeing Greg appear and then disappear four times.

Greg turned back to face the doctor. He opened his mouth and then shut it again. "Nothing." He said turning around again.

"Do you want to see Sara?" The Doc asked gently.

He paused before turning to face the Doc again. "Can I?"

"Of course you can, come on." Greg followed the Doc into the morgue.

"I'm not sure if this is such a good idea." Greg said as soon as he stepped through the door. "I mean, I'm supposed to be working..." He trailed off.

"It's ok, Greg, take your time, you need to say goodbye to her."

"If I say goodbye then that means she's really dead ." Greg whispered.

"Not saying goodbye isn't going to bring her back. Go on, it's ok."

Greg slowly walked forwards towards her body. The Doc pulled back the white sheet covering her body and quietly left the room.

"Hey Sara." He carefully placed his hand on her forehead and stroked her hair away from her face. "I'm sorry we weren't there for you. And I'm sorry that were going to find out stuff about you that you didn't want us to know. We just want to find out who hurt you. We'll find him, I promise. I won't ever forget you, Sara." He gently kissed her forehead, turned and left. He walked back down the corridor with tears pouring silently down his cheeks.

May 19th, 2005

After we found Nick tonight, Gil asked me out. On a date. I think he felt a bit awkward at first, he tried to say it so many time before he finally got it out. He was trying to act nonchalant, pretending to be looking at the paper in his hand but I could see him looking at me over his glasses. "Would you like to come out with me, for a drink or..." He finally said. He caught me a bit of guard , I didn't think he would ever ask me, so I just said "ok". And then he said "ok" and smiled down at the paper her was reading.

It felt like my heart was going to explode. My mind was screaming 'finally'. I couldn't stop smiling at him.

"Catherine" Nick said bursting into the room. "The print from the box Brass phoned about doesn't match Sara or Grissom. Didn't get a hit off AFIS but it's still a lead."

"So, we've got a fingerprint and a bite mark. If we can find a suspect, we can nail him." Catherine said looking up from the diary, which she was still pouring over.

"Did Sara have any family who we should be contacting?" Brass asked as he drove Gil back to the crime lab.

"Her Dad's dead, her Mom's in a psychiatric hospital." Grissom said staring directly out through the windscreen.

"Do you want me to contact the hospital?"

"No, I'll do it. I should do it."

They returned to the lab and walked through the halls to Grissom's office. Gil sat down behind his desk and turned his computer on to search for the phone number of the hospital. When he found it, after Googling the name Sara had mentioned, he took a deep breath with his hand hovering over the phone.

Finally he picked it up and dialled the number from the computer screen.

"Good morning, Green Hill Secure Hospital, how may I help?"

"My name is Gil Grissom from the Las Vegas Crime Lab, I work with the daughter of a patient of yours. Her, her daughter died earlier today." His voice choked slightly on the last sentence.

"I'm very sorry , Mr Grissom. Could you give me the name of the patient please?"

"I think her name is Laura Sidle, but she could be using her maiden name."

"Just one moment. I'll put you through to Ms Sidle's unit."

"Thank you."

"Mr Grissom?"

"Yes?"

"My name's Nurse Reynolds. I work on Ms Sidle's unit. I'm very sorry for the your loss of your colleague. Your colleague was Ms Sidle's daughter Sara?"

"Yes." Gil replied, closing his eyes to stop the tears falling from the sound of her name.

"I will inform Ms Sidle's doctor when he comes in later this morning so he can decide how best to tell Ms Sidle of her daughter's death. May I ask the circumstances of her death?"

"She was, she was strangled." His heart breaking with every word said.

"I'm very sorry." She repeated.

"She died in her apartment at 12:30 this afternoon."

"Thank you for informing us, Mr Grissom. May I take your number so the doctor can contact you for further information?"

Gil gave the nurse the number of his cell phone and hung up. He lent forward on the desk and rested his head in his hands. Jim looked over at his friend in silent despair.

"Warrick and I found some more diaries in Sara's apartment, thought they might be helpful." Nick said dropping several warn out notebooks on the table.

"Feel free to start reading." Catherine said with a miserable smile.

"Did you know about Griss and Sara?" Nick asked opening the oldest diary.

"I knew that they'd had a thing for each other for ages but I didn't know that they finally got together.

January 24th , 1982

The school counsellor gave me this notebook to write down my feelings. It was after my physics teacher, Miss James, sent me to see her because she thinks I am "unhappy and withdrawn". After the counsellor spent almost an hour trying to get me to talk to her, she gave in and gave me this notebook. Then she wrote something about me being "emotionally immature due to skipping a grade", she also wrote that I was "clearly unsettled in a new school", I don't think I was supposed to read that but she should leave it lying around. It's not like I asked to move up a grade, did I? I wasn't given a choice. Not that I'd prefer to be in fifth grade because I wouldn't, I mean sixth grade is easy but at least it's a bit more of a challenge that fourth grade was!

To be honest, I'm not really sure about my feelings. People tell me I'm smart and I understand science and math and I guess I have a good memory but this whole emotions thing is just so confusing. I don't understand how I feel, I don't think I have complicated emotions like most people. I just seem to get up and down but that's it. I don't get scared or angry or anxious or anything like other people say they do. With me I either feel good or not, there's no in between or confusion. I either am or not, simple.

I'm hiding in my room right now, writing this. Mom and Dad are at it again. All I can hear is screaming, I just wish they would shut up so that I can concentrate on reading the book on the human immune system that I got out of the school library today. I suppose that my mom and dad are emotional people, though, if this is what emotion does to you I'd rather not have them.

If mom and dad are emotional, and normal people are emotional does that make them normal? Is the way they behave with each other normal? I don't know, maybe I should research it.

Anyway, I'm going to take my biology book and climb out of my window on the roof where I can get some peace and quiet. So good night.

"Did you know Sara skipped fifth grade?" Nick said.

"No, I didn't, she must have been smart."

"She seems it, at ten she was reading a book on the human immune system."

"Wow."

"I think her parents were violent with each other."

"That would explain why she always had such a problem with domestic violence cases."

"She never mentioned anything to me about her parents."

"No, me neither. But Sara was never one for talking about her problems."

"Or maybe we didn't let her know that she could trust us." Nick replied, thinking that maybe he had never given her the chance to talk to him. "Do you think Grissom knew?"

Sorry about the delay with this chapter. I had a bit of a rethink about half way through the chapter and had to rewrite it, which took a while. Anyway, please review and let me know what you think.