He returns just before midnight, adrenaline in his veins. For the second time in one day he comes to a place that is completely new to him. For the second time in his life he has no clue about where the future lies.

The feeling is different from when he was on the brink of possible deafness. That meant the difference between field work and teaching, or writing.

This... this is a giant blank.

He feels it in his whole body. Anxiety tingling, mind reeling with "I can't believe I did that."

The feeling is not altogether unpleasant. Tingles of excitement are also fluttering around in the mix.

It's all the same as this morning, except now it's night, she answers the door in a plain pink nightgown, and her eyes are a little red-rimmed. She smells of Noxema and toothpaste.

"Oh no," she says, upon seeing him.

"I know it's deja vu but you're starting to hurt my ego, Sara." He almost smiles, but not quite.

She stares at him blankly for a second and he wonders if she was fresh from sleep.

"Come in," she murmurs, opening the door wide.

"Thank you."

"You have bad news."

He nods tiredly.

She was sleeping, but now she goes to the kitchen and begins the motions of making coffee. His eyes dart to her legs. The nightgown is sleeveness and comes to just above her knees, loose and casual, but the fabric is silky. He quickly looks away and sets his car keys on the counter.

She starts the coffee and turns around. "Put me out of my misery already."

He sighs. "Ecklie called me. He wanted to know what disciplinary action I'd taken. I told him that I handled it. He said some things..." His voice tapers off and he looks at her linoleum.

"I'm a big girl, Grissom. Tell me."

"He said that you were a loose cannon with a gun. I said that you were an excellent CSI and that I needed you. I said that the problem was due to my failure as management."

She is silent momentarily, and he quietly thinks "oh shit."

"That's bull! You should never have to cover for me! What happened had nothing to do with you and you know it! I didn't ask you to throw yourself on the sword."

"Sara. Let me finish, please."

"Finish," she says. He admires the way her lashes rest darkly on her clean skin.

"He threatened to fire me. I called him on it. He wouldn't fire me in his wildest dreams."

"Just spell it out. Am I fired?"

"Yes. I'm sorry."

She knew it would happen, expected it, but still she seems to crumple. She doesn't look at Grissom. He wants to hold her up but she seems too frail for it. He has an image of breaking her in his arms.

"I fucked up." she says softly.

"You're too good to fire."

"I'm not a world-renowned entomologist."

"Neither am I, anymore. At least not there."

"What?"

Grissom sighs, then slowly fills his lungs with air. He already knows how his next words will be received.

"He said that if I wouldn't fire you, he would. I told him that if he fired you, I would quit. He did, I quit, end of story."

She looks up at him, lips parted. He can see the tiny freckles on her nose, usually concealed by makeup.

She is shocked speechless. He wonders if she is going to kiss him or kill him. For one second both possibilities seem equally likely.

"You quit." She says, trying to wrap her mind around it.

He shrugs, as if he can't believe it himself. "I quit."

"Over me? Of all the stupid, bullshit...asinine fucking things to do!"

"I'm a big boy." He grins, an impossible big grin that shocks her. Something is different about him. It's a bit unnerving to her.

"Oh my god, I can't believe you did that, you're so stupid. You have a career-"

"Sara!"

"What? Why did you do it? What were you thinking?"

"I don't regret it. And it wasn't all about you."

"Oh."

"It was mostly about you."

"I'm not worth it! It was stupid. I went off and I shouldn't-"

"Sara!"

"What?" she cries earnestly. They are quiet. He thinks that she looks so beautiful, impossibly so in the fluorescent light of the kitchen. He wants to soothe the wrinkled line of her brow, erase that perplexed and disturbed look.

Instead he takes her hand in his, for the second time in twenty hours, first one hand, and then the other. Her fingers are soft.

"Can we sit down and talk, ok?"

"Yeah."

She sinks down into a seat at the kitchen table, reluctantly letting go of his hand. She holds her arms in close as if suddenly cold, folds her hands on the table. He just reaches out and takes her hands again. The touch is too much, but she doesn't let go.

She looks at him, quiet, showing that she is ready to let him speak.

"I haven't been happy at the lab for a long time. I won't work in a place where politics is placed above the integrity of the science being done. I won't do it, and I've wanted to leave since he broke our team up."

"So this was just... Never mind. Go on."

He raises an eyebrow, then strokes a thumb over the skin on the top of her hand. Warm fission rises through her at the sensation and she prays he doesn't notice the hardening of her nipples under the silky fabric of the nightgown.

"I knew he would never fire me. It was the only leverage I had. You should have seen the look on his face," he chuckles softly. "Both him and Catherine. They were shocked."

"Catherine was there?"

"Yeah, they were meeting about something. But... he was shocked."

She smiles for the first time since she has opened her door, slight, but a smile nonetheless.

"You can still go back. Hell, I bet he asks you nicely by tomorrow at noon."

"I'm not so sure I want to go back."

"You didn't have to do that."

"You don't get it. I'm glad I did. I feel free."

"So where will you go?"

"I don't care."

"So, what, you're independently wealthy?"

"Have you read the newest Forensic Science Monthly?"

"No, not yet." It came in this morning's mail but she has been too keyed up to read it.

"I got a patent for Red Creeper last month. So far I have a half a million dollars worth of orders."

"Are you serious?"

"Serious."

"Wow. Well, we can't all be a print powder mogul, can we?" She is smiling just a bit and it relieves him. The image of her sobbing earlier is seared into his mind, alarming him anew every time it comes up swallowing his soul whole.

"What will you do?" he asks gently.

"I don't know."

"My recommendation can get you into any lab you want."

"I think I should take some time off."

"That sounds wise. It seems you were headed for burnout."

"Headed for? Hell, call a spade a spade, Grissom."

"You feel like you are already burning out?"

"It... I... I can't tell you how mortified I am over losing control like that." She looks down and her face is bright red.

He squeezes her hands. "I'd kill for videotape of your argument with Ecklie. I bet you were priceless."

She makes a harumph noise. "What? All I said was that he couldn't cut it in the field and he got ahead by kissing ass so his new mission was to troll the halls until he saw one of use messing up."

"All of which is true."

"World about me will travel. I don't know who would hire me."

"Sara, the world is full of image-obsessed kiss-ass mediocre middle management. Believe it or not I have connections."

"I just... I just believe you threw it all away like that." She tries to ignore his right hand, which is now resting on hers.

"First of all it wasn't throwing it all away. I have options. So do you, you just don't realize it. I'm sick of being a scientist in an administrator's position. I don't want to work under that asshole. I'm sick of being the boss."

"I didn't realize you were so unhappy."

He smiles and she looks at him, seeing that he is being truthful. She hasn't seen him so relaxed in years. "I can't explain the clarity of the moment. It was completely impulsive, but it was so right. For the first time in years I knew exactly what to do."

She stares at her kitchen table. I don't know what to do about this...

"But you said you couldn't." She says it, then about three seconds later realizes what she said.

"What?"

"Nothing." She pulls her hands away. His hands lay empty on the table.

"Sara. Please."

She swallows and sucks her lips into her mouth, looking around the room as if trapped.

"I heard you say that you couldn't throw away everything you've worked for." She stops, heart thudding, not daring to say another word.

"To who?"

She looks up at him with bravery that makes his heart melt. "Vincent Lurie."

He blanches and his eyes go wide. Then he blushes. His face turns so red that for a second she fears he will DFO.

"I'm sorry," she says in a voice so subdued it scares him.

"Don't be. I was wrong. Even if it was a sacrifice, I'm wrong."

She sighs deeply, running her tongue over her front teeth, staring into space.

"To say that to me on today of all days. After you know what you know? Forgive me if I don't just... I dunno, swoon into your arms, but I can't help wondering if you want to rescue the damsel in distress."

"You know me better than that."

"Some days I'm not sure I know you at all." Her eyes meet his and he sees that she isn't trying to be malicious. Nothing there but honesty.

"And that's my fault."

She again bites down on her lip for a brief second. She is dragging her palms together, back and forth, again and again.

"Sara, I won't lie. Seeing you this morning like that, so upset, I'm not going to say that it didn't break my heart. But the things that I've been feeling... I've felt them for so long. I've known that things... that something with me, with you, with all of it would have to give. I just didn't know what to do, until today."

She looks up at him and looking into her eyes is like peering into a vortex. For a second he feels the intensity of it will drown him. He sees hurt, and anger, and pain, and also desire so strong it nearly makes him tremble.

"Are you telling me you know what to do about this?" She says it then looks down, as if the intensity of it is too much.

"In the general sense, yes. I don't know if I'm too late or not. I don't know exactly how to proceed. I know it's awfully soon after this morning and... I don't want to take advantage of anything. I'll admit what I've denied to myself all this time."

Her eyes rise back up to meet his and he sees her swallow. He sees the fear, the hope, the question.

"I think... I know you aren't in the best place now so don't give me any kind of... well anything right now. I- I think I've fallen in love with you."

"What?" She looks as if she is in pain. It slices him to the core.

"I mean it." He meets her eyes and she sees it is true.

"After this morning?"

"Especially after this morning." He crosses his arms and looks to his far right. "Seeing you the way I do, knowing you, knowing... how hard you've worked, how hard you've struggled, how strong you are... I just love you more."

His eyes bravely meet hers again, and she feels as if she's floating, as if she has swallowed a lungful of helium and it wants to float her all the way up to the ceiling.

"I - I'm so fucked up. I don't..." She blinks three times in rapid succession, trying to make her tears go away. "All these years I've wondered what I can do to make you love me and... now you love me for my weakness."

"I've loved you for years." He says it with resolve, fear of rejection clear on his face. But he says it like it's a simple fact, a natural law.

He stands up, and she feels her heart thud sickeningly in her chest. He stands before her, extends his hand. He sees how frightened she is, that she probably thinks he only wants her because he wants to fix her, and he is determined to prove her wrong.

He feels like a different person than he was a day ago.

She takes his hand, then stands up.

He searches her eyes for a second, then puts a hand on her bare shoulder, and pulls her close to him.

They come together roughly, and he hears her gasp, feels the warm tears that trickle onto his neck. He fears she will push him away, but she clings to him.

He wraps his arms around her small body tightly, possessing her, encircling her, and with one big hand he strokes her soft hair. He presses a kiss just above her ear. He can feel the rise and fall of her breath and it comforts him on a level so basic that he closes his eyes.

They stay like that for a long time. Then she pulls back. "I... I don't know what to say."

"You don't have to say anything." He aligns his thumb with the delicate curve of her jaw, stroking her hair with his other hand.

He is surprised when this draws a hitched breath from her. He realizes that what he intended as comfort is being felt as distinctly erotic, and it causes his blood race to different places.

He immediately stops, feeling that this isn't the time. But she opens her eyes and looks at him. She leans close, so close he can feel her breath. She nuzzles his face with hers, feeling the fluttering blink of his eyelashes, the rough stubble, and savoring the similar breath that flows from him. His hand curls more tightly in her hair.

She pulls back just a bit, and they look at each other one last time. Then she kisses him, so delicately she is barely there. His lips part in a rush of shocked breath, stay that way for a second, then open to her. He blinks dumbly in shock, then tilts his head and lets himself fall into the sensation of her skin, her breath, her taste. Like mint. Kissing her mouth so small and delicate. His Sara.

"Wow," he says when they finally come apart to breathe.

He sees her smile, a smile that reaches her eyes, and he answers with a similar one.

They move to the couch, don't speak a word but look silently at each other. She kisses him again, and he is glad, because he doesn't think he could make the first move. Not because he is afraid anymore, but because he doesn't want to push too much, too soon.

They stay that way half the night, kissing, beginning gently and quickening, roughening with hoarse restrained passion, then pulling away gingerly. They never go beyond that point.

At around three, they are laying down, and her head is resting on his arm, and his arms hold her on the sofa, her body tucked into his perfectly. Their feet mingle like sleepy puppies at the other end of the couch. "I'm happy," he whispers, blue eyes flickering over her face.

She smiles. "Good."

"Do you want me to go?"

"No. Do you want to go?"

"No."

"Stay with me." She curls up closer to him. "Wake up next to me in the morning."

"Okay."

He kisses her forehead and pulls the blanket down from the sofa, draping it over her them. She isn't quite happy, and thinks as she falls asleep that this is the beginning of a long hard road, but she feels his love seeping around her like warm liquid, and she isn't quite so afraid of what lies ahead.