CHAPTER TWO: See Part 1 for disclaimers: "Nick, make sure Eddie leaves the building. I'd hate for him to get lost along the way, seeing as he has trouble following simple instructions," Grissom said. Grissom turned towards the two women, both now sitting silently at the table. The panic that he had felt when he had entered the room was fading, replaced by a slow, deep set anger at seeing the two people dearest to him injured. It angered him even more that they were hurt on his shift and within the confines of the lab. Catherine, a long-standing colleague and close friend, and Sara, who had always been special to him, holding a unique, as yet undefined, place in his heart. "Sara. My office. Now." As soon as he said the words, he regretted them. They had come out wrong, his anger tainting the words, making them sound much harsher than he intended. Sara looked up at Grissom. Her mouth opened to protest, but one look at his face and the argument died on her tongue. She could see the disappointment in his eyes. Her mouth firmly set in anger at his assumption, she pushed back her seat forcibly, Sara strode out of the room, her back ramrod straight, without a backward look at any of them. She didn't regret her actions and would defend them wholeheartedly. Her eyes narrowed as her dying anger towards Eddie was refuelled and redirected and began to build to boiling point. Sara marched down the hallway to Grissom's office, her determined gait forcing her co-workers to step aside. The set of her jaw warned them not to question the rapidly forming bruise and cut to her cheek. Entering the office, she paced inside, waiting for the inevitable reprimand. Grissom had made his disappointment so obvious that Sara thought she might even be facing suspension. ~*~*~*~*~*~ Gil turned towards Catherine, who still held the bloody paper towel in her hand, her surprise obvious in her expression. "Gil, how could you speak to her that way?" Catherine protested. She tossed the paper towel on the sink, her annoyance with him obvious. "You know she was only trying to protect me. If she hadn't come along, it would be me with the broken nose and not Eddie." Warrick backed up her statement. "Griss, Eddie hit the ground when Sara hit him. We didn't see him slug her, but her face tells us that she was definitely hit by him. The only way that would have happened was for Eddie to hit her first." Catherine threw him an accusatory look. "Grissom, what's wrong with you? You know Eddie. You've stopped him from hitting me before. If I didn't know you any better, I'd think you were siding with Eddie. Would you rather he had beaten me?" "Catherine, calm down. It's not that I didn't believe you or Sara." Grissom sighed heavily. "I'm sorry. You're right. I shouldn't have spoken in that tone to Sara. It came out wrong. I didn't mean it the way it sounded." "Well, I'm not the one you should be apologizing to. And you'd better do it pretty darn quick or you just might not get the chance to." Grissom shot his friend a look. She was probably right. She usually was, when it concerned people and their feelings. It was an area where he just didn't feel comfortable. He usually followed her lead in matters of human interaction. That was one of the reasons they made such a good team. "Are you okay?" Grissom asked in concern, the slap to the side of her face beginning to turn a nasty shade of purple. "I'll live, though I wouldn't put any money on Eddie when I get through with him." Catherine gave a wry grin. "Mind you, Sara slugging him like that is going to stay with me for a while. Go and speak to her." As mad as she was at Eddie, the memory of him sitting on the floor with a broken nose was beginning to tickle her fancy. Eddie usually picked his wars a bit more carefully. "Griss, you'll need this." Warrick handed Grissom a small emergency medical kit. "You really should treat that cut on her face." Grissom went to the small community fridge and pulled out a small ice pack. At their confused looks, he told them, "she's sure to have hurt her knuckles on his nose. They'll need some attention as well." "So does she. She's been waiting long enough, don't you think?" Catherine pointed out, raising her eyebrows at him, deliberately underlining the double entendre. Grissom ignored the silent message, shaking his head in denial. Ever since Sara had retracted her LOA application, Catherine had been subtlety making comments to him in passing, encouraging him to say more than just what the plant may have implied. ~*~*~*~*~*~ Grissom watched Sara pace his office from the hallway. The way she stalked the room was sufficient warning to him that he had a fairly big apology to give, if only he could apologise before she exploded in fury. "Sara, sit down," Grissom invited gently, a small smile softening the words further, as she spun around quickly to face him. He had managed to enter the room silently, catching her unaware. He lightly cupped her elbow and led her to the seat. "How's your head?" The gentleness with which he said the words and the touch to her arm took her by surprise. Sara sat down, wondering how Grissom could still manage to surprise her. He had surprised and angered her in the break room moments ago by jumping to conclusions. He was the one always reminding her to keep an open mind until all the evidence was in. Suddenly it dawned on her that she was doing exactly the same thing. The annoyance and anger that had been welling inside her dissipated like water after the plug in a sink had been pulled. "Sore. He had a damn ring." Sara reached up and fingered the bruised area, pulling back sharply as her fingers touched the edge of the ragged cut. Her fingers came away with blood on their tips as she sucked in her breath quickly to squelch a gasp of pain. "It looks nasty. Hold still and I'll clean it up." Grissom crouched down beside her chair and placed the medical kit on the floor. "Here's an ice pack for your hand." "You don't miss much," Sara gave him a small smile. "I'm an investigator. It's what I'm trained to do." Grissom fished through the medical kit, collecting gauze, disinfectant and butterfly strips. "So why don't you notice what's underneath your nose?" Sara asked him quietly, her eyes glistening with unshed tears as she challenged him. The thought that Grissom believed that she would have instigated the argument with Eddie made her heart go cold, the beating organ held in a vice-like grip of fear, her breathing tight with emotion. Sara may not have hit him with a fist between the eyes like Eddie, but the effect was the same. His head shot up to meet her questioning eyes. "I notice..." Grissom denied her accusation. "Do you?" Sara soft voice quietly cut him off, her voice breaking under the pressure. "If you do notice, then why don't you trust me?" "I do - I trust you. Sara, I'm not accusing you of anything." Grissom rubbed his hand across his mouth. He wondered how he could explain to Sara what he had felt when he had walked into that room, seeing her holding her hand gingerly and blood running down the side of her face. Shock at the sight had been the first emotion, then anger at seeing his CSI injured, quickly followed by elation at seeing Eddie decked out on the floor. That was his Sara. "It didn't sound like it back there," Sara contradicted him. "I'm sorry." Grissom reached out to catch her left hand within his. "I was concerned for you and Catherine. I didn't mean them the way it sounded. Really, Sara, I'm truly sorry. I never meant to hurt you. I know Eddie was the one to start all this." "So there's no reprimand; no suspension?" Sara asked, her turbid brown eyes met his, seeking reassurance. "You think I'd reprimand you for doing the obvious?" Grissom caressed the small, elongated hand within his, brushing across the delicate creamy white skin with his roughened thumb. "Not at all. Eddie had it coming. If it wasn't you, I'm sure Warrick or Nick would have filled in for you quite willingly." "Thanks." "Sara, never doubt that I trust you," Grissom told her, gently cupping her left cheek in his hand and softly brushing aside the solitary tear that had escaped. "Have faith in me and yourself." Sara offered him a serene smile, her teeth glimmering through her slightly parted lips. "Now how about I clean up your cheek," Grissom suggested. With care, he tended lightly to the wound, dabbing away the blood leaving a clean, jagged cut. Sara was surprised that his large hands could be so gentle. She barely felt a twinge. He sealed the wound with two small butterfly strips. "You should put that ice on your cheek as well to reduce the swelling." "Yeah." "Do you need to go to the hospital?" Grissom asked, remembering all the cases they had handled where x-rays had revealled facial fractures in abuse victims. "No. I don't think it's broken, just bruised." She raised her right hand with the ice pack to her cheek, flinching as the cold penetrated the hot skin. "Why don't you go home, rest up and come back tomorrow?" Grissom sat back on his haunches, surveying his CSI, assessing and trying to classify the range of emotions he felt inside. He had meant what he had said to her; that he had only noticed beauty since he met her. She had managed to make him see a lot more things more clearly, while confusing him even more inside. "There's nothing to do. I'll only sit there and listen to my scanner or read crime novels. I'm much better off staying here and getting something done. I'll work in the labs." A knock sounded on the door. Both of them looked up, automatically jumping at the sound and their hands pulling back into the safety of their own laps. Catherine stood there with a mug in her hand. "I thought Sara could do with some coffee." "Thanks, Catherine." Sara wasn't quite sure that was the only reason she had arrived at the door. There was a look of smugness in her face that Sara wasn't quite able to pinpoint. Catherine was usually so easy to read, but Sara also realised that she usually followed through her body language with words. Here, she was only observing and keeping her thoughts to herself. Like she had done in the break room. Something in that gaze told her that Catherine was seeing much more than she wanted her to. "Do you want the coffee?" "Yes, she does." Sara looked at Grissom, her eyes narrowing at the tone of his words, conveying an order rather than an opinion. She wasn't sure who the tone was directed at, but the way it came out, she took offence. "I can answer for myself." She took the drink from Catherine's hand as she swept passed her and down the hall. "Gil, did you talk to her?" "Yes, I did. It was going quite well until you showed up." Grissom's words held a tinge of accusation in their tone. His eyes questioned why she had turned up when she had, especially considering she was the one encouraging him to talk to Sara. "You're going to blame me for her attitude now?" Catherine gave him a hard look, challenging him to continue his argument. "I give up." Grissom held up his hands in mock surrender. "I've managed to upset Sara twice today without meaning to. I think I'll just get some paperwork done. The most damage I can do are paper cuts and they'll be self-inflicted wounds." "You're not going to get any sympathy from me, Gil. I've told you that you need to talk to Sara more, open up to her. And work is also not the place to say what you need to say." Catherine gave him the subtle answer to his earlier question. "I don't get it. Both of you can intuitively know what the other is going to say on a case yet there's this boundary between your personal and professional intuitiveness. Where does that spark get lost?" The words hung heavily in the air like a damp, early morning mist; the meaning behind them slowly descending over Grissom. He raised eyes to meet Catherine's, running his tongue around the inside of his mouth as he pondered her question. He knew that the intuitiveness didn't get lost. But there was a barrier that he put up to guard them both, and in doing so, he had managed to hurt the person he was trying to protect. "I'm taking Sara home after shift. She won't have a car; why don't you pick her up later?" Catherine suggested, turning on her heel, her hair floating like a spun gold halo around her face, and leaving him to think more about what she had said. ~*~*~*~*~*~ "Sara, you're coming to my house." Catherine walked into the locker room where her younger colleague was rummaging through her locker, searching for something. "Not today, Catherine," Sara told her distractedly. "Sara, I need to talk to you - about today; about Eddie." Catherine carefully considered her words. She knew there was something brewing underneath the surface, she had seen it in Sara's eyes in the aftermath of Eddie's attack and intuitively took a guess as to what might be the cause. That had got Sara's attention. Her hands stilled in their search and she turned her head to watch her friend closely. The dark eyes were shadowed, the bruising on her cheek enhancing their dark depths. "All right. But not for too long. I've got a meeting I want to go to later." Catherine's eyebrows raised slightly. Sara had caught her by surprise. It was hard enough to imagine Sara actually leaving to go home, let alone that she might be doing something other than work or sleeping. "Twenty minutes, okay?" "Sure. Fine. Whatever," Sara said, turning her back on Catherine and continuing her rummage through her bag. "Sara, are sure you're okay?" "I've got a headache, that's all. You know how downright grumpy I am when I get one." Sara rubbed her hand across her forehead, then dragged her fingers through her hair, pushing it back out of her face. "Have you taken anything?" Catherine leaned against the locker, gauging the look in her friend's eyes. Sara rolled her eyes. Catherine was like her mother reincarnate. "Take something. You'll feel better and sleep better." Catherine left the room, her delicate perfume leaving a light fragrance floating in the air. "That's what you think," Sara grumbled under her breath. The dreams that accompanied the tablets would scare any migraine into submission. End Part 2/?