Disclaimer: I don't own them.

A/N: I may still get another chapter up tomorrow, but in case I don't, I figure I'd post tonight. Thursdays are always busy. Oh, and just in case it's confusing, at the end of Cool Change, Grissom says 'Let's go home' to everyone, and then you see Sara stalk off... :) So, we're taking off from there...

Let me know what you think! As always, thanks for the reviews! :)


Chapter 2: Stay

"Let's go home." He says, glancing over all of us, but not meeting my eyes.

I shake my head, turning and walking away from him and his team. Apparently I was done now. Apparently I was going home. Apparently, I'd only been needed to come play the bad guy and write a report, which would be ignored, and then be sent home again. Good. Great. Wonderful.

Other than our brief meeting in front of the Hotel Monaco, in the midst of a crowd, we had hardly spoken since I arrived. He had sent me from McCarran to the lab, to the hotel, back to the lab, and then off on a wild goose chase through a myriad of casinos, seeking out each and every blackjack table with only a picture and a vague description of the clothing the man was wearing.

Although Greg had been a friendly face, I had had to talk down the infamous Catherine from biting my head off—once she'd admitted who she was, that is. In truth, beyond the first rough moments with her, Catherine and I had gotten along rather well… but she was a beautiful woman, closer to Gil's age, and I knew he confided in her… trusted her. And she was single now; Gil had often mentioned worrying about how Lindsey was dealing with the divorce.

She was blonde. Even though I'd offered Gil by blind trust and had promised myself I wouldn't stress over Laura and what she meant to him… I couldn't help but feel nervous about blondes. Besides simply having been a dark-haired girl growing up in an America that offered up Barbie as my role model… I remember all too vividly how I'd questioned if he'd really liked long-legged brunettes or whether that had simply been a degree of separation from Laura and her striking golden locks.

It made sense; I knew I would never be able to look at another man with salt-and-pepper curls again… if I ever got over Gil. If I ever took another lover. Surely, someday, I might want someone else...?

She called Gil 'Grissom' too. …I hadn't yet met anyone in Vegas who called him by his first name. This made me wonder if he preferred it, and just hadn't corrected me to be nice… It made me wonder how much I knew about the man, in general.

And after tracking down the subject of my investigation—who was none too friendly himself—and submitting a report which clearly stated that he had no good reason to have left Holly Gribbs alone at the scene, he was here, unscathed and basking in the forgiveness and continuing approval of the man who could not bring himself to forgive me, even years after my indiscretions.

Although I had smoked since I was roughly thirteen years old, though not habitually when I was that young, I had never found it hard to stop when I chose to—apparently mind-over-matter was a real and valid concept. I had stopped while I dated Tyler, and Michael, and when I met Gil, because I found the habit as disgusting, and imagined they would as well… and though I had picked it up again the minute I was left alone, I had always been able to stop while around Gil…

The entire time I'd been in Vegas—since Gil had called me, really—I'd been craving a cigarette like nobody's business.. like my life depended on it. I'd picked up a pack of Nicorette in the airport, simply thinking that it would curb the cravings… and I had been popping the gum like an addict popping pills ever since. But then, apparently I was an addict. A real addict, now… not the kind who could put my drug-of-choice aside at a moment's thought.

And now… now I was going home, after only a day and a conversation with the man I had rushed here to assist. I couldn't handle this and I wasn't going to. If I was going to be sent home… if I wasn't getting even a thank you after he disregarded my report without a thought… then maybe that was it.

Maybe I would have to move… and change my phone numbers… my email. Maybe I would just have to cut the man out of my life, as he had done to me, if he couldn't forgive me and he couldn't respect me and he couldn't love me. How else was I supposed to go on living, clinging desperately to a set of hopes that had been lost to me two years previously?

But then his hand falls on my shoulder, and everything changes… I know it's him before I turn, because I know his hands as intimately as I know my own. I know the look in his eyes as I turn—he's confused, and looking politely bewildered and hesitant. My eyes soften in response—maybe I'd been letting my insecurities get ahead of me… again—and I know the smile that his eyes return. There wasn't a doubt in my mind that no matter what this man did to me, I could never really cut him out of my life…

It would hurt too much. …It would kill me.

"Hey… you did great on the case… I know that it wasn't as personal, to you, as the others, but… I appreciate it." I beam; I'm wrapped around his finger all over again.

"Thanks… I'm not sorry we caught the guy but… I'm almost disappointed that it didn't take longer. It almost seems like a wasted trip…" Especially since he could have just pretended I investigated Warrick, for all the consideration my report had been given.

"Well, maybe you could stick around, for a day or two… I had to agree to some hefty demands to get you here. I'd hate to see that go to waste…" He grins, trying to coax one from me as well.

Of course I give it to him. Could I deny him anything?

"Hefty demands? You told me you had to do a timeline consultation or two…"

He chuckles softly. "Well, it was a bit more than that, I just didn't want you to feel guilty. He was…rather reluctant to part with you. He must think you're a pretty talented CSI."

I roll my eyes, averting my gaze. "Yeah… he's full of compliments, but you can't really be certain if he means them or if he just thinks they're going to get him somewhere…"

He raises an eyebrow, as if to ask where he thinks he's going to get. I laugh. "My pants." Both eyebrows are up now. I shrug. "He's got personal space issues…"

He shakes his head, as if to clear the image evoked by my words. "Anyway… I, uh… I could check you into a hotel for a day or so, if you wanted to stay a while… I'll still have to work, we're short a CSI now, but… you know, it could be nice to spend some time together… again."

His words would have made me hopeful, except for the hotel stipulation. Truthfully, even without romantic undertones, I want this more than anything… but I hadn't imagined I would stay in a hotel. The man had a guest bedroom, after all. I look down, because I know that my confident façade is slipping, and I can't afford to let him see the raw emotion on my face—he knows me too well to not understand.

I swallow hard. The moment of truth—do I bring up Warrick? Do I run, again? Do I take what I can get from him and be happy with it, because it's still better than anything I could have without him…?

I nod, almost crying with the effort of biting back my arguments about the CSI who was apparently trusted more than me as well as my screaming accusations of his unfairness, keeping me holding on for nothing. In absolute resignation, I keep my head bowed and I nod and nod, because I can find no words to describe how I feel, nor any outlet for my overwhelming desire to fling myself into his arms and beg him just to love me.

I almost wish I was back in Berkeley, just now… shift would be over, and with any luck I'd be sinking into a hot bath with a book, entertaining fantasies of this man, rather than forced to face him and the impossibility of each and every one of those fantasies…

But then, he isn't in Berkeley, and I would take the sweet torture of his presence over and over again, because there is nothing worse than his absence. I could handle the abuse, and the fighting, and the drinking… the trips to the hospital, and the fear… I could endure watching my mother kill my father and lose her mind in the process… and I could tolerate my brother discovering me under the table in a kitchen covered in blood and my mother's vacant smiles…

But I could not bear his absence a second longer… so I stayed.