Disclaimer: I don’t own CSI. In fact, I don’t own a lot of things, period. This is why you shouldn’t major in English, kids.

(Intentionally) corny lyrics again courtesy of the Magnetic Fields. I figured I had a segue pattern going, might as well stick with it. The title still doesn’t have anything to do with the story whatsoever. This is... ah... intentional. Honestly.

Spoilers: General season 5.

100,000 Fireflies: 2/2

--

I went out to the forest and caught

A hundred thousand fireflies

As they ricochet ‘round the room

They remind me of your starry eyes

Someone else's might not have made me so sad

But this is the worst night I ever had

'cause I'm afraid of the dark without you close to me

You won't be happy with me,

But give me one more chance
-- The Magnetic Fields

Sara’s dreams were troubled, as they often were. The lengths she went to in order to repress what she saw everyday -- and what that, in turn, culled up from her past -- were often extreme, and her conscious mind was unable to suppress it into the dreaming state. Sometimes, she dreamt of Grissom. Never in specifics, but in vague glances and fleeting, flickering images. She awoke from these dreams hazy, with an empty feeling she could never quite put her finger on.

Tonight, her dream was decidedly more lucid and more horrifying; she recognized the little girl’s face -- it was her face. ...No, it was a face she knew from Doc Robbins’ table. A girl of no more than seven years, long brown hair clinging to her face and shoulders as Robbins washed her down after autopsy. It had been Catherine’s case just last week; Grissom hadn’t given it to Sara on purpose -- he knew what cases of child abuse did to her.

Sara had stood next to her as she lay on the table afterwards, though. After Robbins and Catherine had left, Sara had slipped into the morgue just to look at her. She had pulled back the sheet and for long minutes just stared at the little girl, forever seven years old, just as she might have been had circumstances been different. She was still damp and Sara had brushed the hair back from her face.

And here she was again, the same face, the same girl, laid out on a cold stainless steel table. Her eyes were open, staring. Sara felt herself some distance away, watching, as the water began to run in thin, sinuous rivulets down her pale skin, pooling in the shallow depth of the autopsy slab. Wet tendrils of hair hung off the edge of the table and dripped onto the floor in a steady rhythm. She took a step forward and watched as the collecting water overcame the shallow lip and spilled onto the floor, joining the increasing flow of water from her hair, her fingers, the weeping Y incision on her chest. The water puddling under the table began to spread outward, inching across the floor toward Sara. She looked down at her feet as the water reached her shoes then rose rapidly. When it reached her ankles, she looked back at the girl, now completely obscured by water, the perimeter of the table cascading water in a solid sheet.

Sara fought her way to the table on leaden feet through water that felt like slowly cooling wax. Now waist deep as she reached the table, she desperately grabbed the girl’s hand and tugged hard. The body jerked halfway off the table, disturbing the torrent and fanning it upward like a rooster’s tail before thudding back onto the table.

I’ve got to get her out of here!

She pulled again, straining against the force of the water.

Help! Somebody, please, help!

Sara leaned back, using all her weight as leverage. The body relented and lifted off the table, landing on Sara and knocking her on her back. She flailed in the water, now many feet deep, and reached out to grab the girl as she floated away. She needed to surface -- she needed air. The pressure on her chest pinned her to the floor and she struggled against it vainly.

Please, Grissom! Please help me!

”GRISSOM!”

Sara flailed and shot upright, panting. She was in a hotel -- she was awake -- she wasn’t drowning -- she could breathe -- her forehead was soaking wet -- her whole bed was soaking wet. Realization dawned more clearly as the last hazy vestige of her dream lifted. Her bed was soaking wet. She looked down at it confusion, lifting her eyes just to see a slightly addled looking Grissom burst through their adjoining door.

“You screamed --”

For a split second they stared at one another, both fresh from sleep and still midway between reality and the surreal.

A second later Sara clutched the dank sheet to her chest and blushed a deep shade of crimson, indistinguishable in the low light that streamed in from Grissom’s room.

It took what seemed to Sara like an eternity for Grissom to collect himself enough to speak.

“Your-- your ceiling leaked,” he said lamely, still staring.

A dirty, mildewy smell hung in the room and Sara lifted her face to look at the ceiling. The dark stain had spread and still dripped brown water onto the middle of her bed. The noise had been muffled by the crumpled paisley bedspread.

“I had a bad dream,” Sara said suddenly, not knowing if she’d rather attribute the scream to the leak or the nightmare. “I was in the morgue. I was drowning.”

“Well that seems like a... natural dream, given the circumstances,” Grissom looked at the ceiling, avoiding eye contact. He pursed his lips and furrowed his brow slightly. “I assume you want to take a shower,” he said quickly, looking back down at her. “You can use my towel. I’ll go to the front desk and let them know. ...About the ceiling.”

He looked at her a moment longer but said nothing, as if the situation were entirely normal and not the least bit awkward. He turned to leave just as Sara managed to speak, calling on him in a small voice to ask for a hair dryer while he was at it.

Grissom gone, Sara sighed heavily and shucked the heavy wet sheet off her legs. She sniffed her arm gingerly and grimaced; she smelled like dry rot and old, damp leaves. The smell of a musty attic in fall. It was not the worse she’d ever smelt by far, but Sara hated smelling like decay of any sort -- it was that much harder to divorce herself from her job when she took it home with her in such a visceral way.

She padded into Grissom’s bathroom and pulled her clothes off, soaking them in the sink with a thin white hotel soap. Then, for the second time that night, Sara huddled in the shower, leaning against the wall, desperately wishing the night were over.

She wondered if he had recognized her scream as his name or if the sound alone had awoken him. She wondered if he had even thought about the fact that her adjoining door had been open. Come to think of it, why had he even tried it, knowing that the door on the other side ought to have been closed? Perhaps he had been too tired to think about it. She tried in vain to brush aside the knowledge that it was karmic retribution -- if she hadn’t been listening in, hadn’t left her door open, he never would’ve seen that, seen her half naked, soaking wet.

Sara hung her head, crestfallen, and let the water run over the back of her neck. There was no escaping the memory of this night now. It would be another layer on their already complicated and convoluted relationship, something never spoken of, but lurking fossilized just below the surface. She would see a glimpse of it every time he looked at her and the wedge between them would be driven just a little bit deeper.

Sara stepped out of the shower and drew Grissom’s towel around herself. She cringed; a towel would never be a presentable article of clothing, of course, but this one was even thinner and smaller than most. She felt exposed with no recourse and Grissom would be back any minute. She fished her clothes out of the sink and wrung them out before hanging them gingerly over the towel bar.

Hearing muffled noises outside the door, she opened the door a crack and poked her head out.

“Grissom?” she called tentatively.

Grissom’s head popped around the corner. He was sitting on the other side of the wall, out of direct sight of the bathroom. She assumed he had chosen the least conspicuous part of the room either to give her a tiny modicum of privacy or to shield himself from potential embarrassment. ...Or both.

“Ah... Bad news,” he said, one side of his mouth curling into an empathetic smile that threatened to become a grimace. “The hotel clerk is nowhere to be found. I assume he’s just gone home for the night or fallen asleep in the back room. I couldn’t get you a new room. Or a hair dryer.

“Sorry,” he added after a moment.

Sara looked back at him and his lopsided, sad grin. Bad news, indeed. A beat of silence. Then she laughed.

Grissom merely stared back, a slight furrow of his brow the only sign of confusion. “What’s so funny?” he asked in a voice that was curious rather than confrontational.

Sara collected herself long enough to stop laughing. “I can’t help it. What else can I do? If I don’t laugh, I’m just going to cry.” Sara’s smile faded as suddenly as it had arrived.

Grissom instantly recognized the tone in her voice and rose to face her. “Oh, honey, c’mere. We’ll figure this out.”

“I... don’t have any clothes, Grissom.”

“What?”

”I can’t come out. I don’t have any clothes,” she repeatedly plainly. “I was sleeping in them and now they’re soaking wet.”

Grissom, who was fully clothed and had been when he first burst in on her, flickered his gaze down at himself before meeting her eyes again. She bit her lip and brushed a clinging tendril of hair off her cheek.

“Here,” he said, unbuttoning his shirt. “It’s not much, but it’s about all I can take off in good company.” He held it out to her and she took it, murmuring a thank you before quietly shutting the door again.

She turned around to lean on the door and in a moment of weakness lifted the shirt to her face and inhaled deeply. All her resolutions to give up on Grissom -- all of them -- had evaporated upon seeing him again mere hours later. For all her doggedness and determination, she crumpled when faced with temptation. She hated herself for it, but the intoxicating scent of lived-in Grissom laundry was impossible to resist and she held it close for just a few precious seconds longer. She then slipped it on almost reverently. Her small fantasies of wearing Grissom’s clothing had never played out like this, but Sara was grateful for the chance, however twisted, to live inside this intimate part of him.

She emerged a few minutes later with Grissom’s large blue shirt draping over her slender frame and the towel wrapped sarong-like around her waist, peeking out just a few inches below the hem. She might well have been naked for how uncomfortable she felt, and Grissom did little to ease her anxiety by looking up from a case file and staring wordlessly.

She looked away in embarrassment and rubbed the back of her head, just to give her body something to do.

“I hung my clothes up in your bathroom. They should be dry by morning.” She paused for a moment then looked back at him. His gaze was still boring into her unapologetically. “Would you... stop doing that, please?” she asked with more assertiveness than she felt.

“Doing what?” Grissom sat up a little straighter and shifted in his chair. He was resolutely in Detached Boss Mode.

”Staring at me.” She looked away again uncomfortably, immediately regretting the words.

Grissom sighed heavily and looked back at his case file. “Sara, I’m sorry.”

Sara dropped her hand from the back of her head and shifted her weight from one foot to the other. She gave him a moment to elaborate. He didn’t.

“Hey, Grissom, I didn’t mean it like that. I just... Look, it seems like it’s just always me, okay? I’m always the one who’s out there, vulnerable. I’m the one who goes out on a limb and tries to work out whatever’s... between us. I’m the one who has to deal with the aftermath of that -- and not just for weeks, Grissom, but years. I’m the one who’s in that same boss’s hotel room at four in the morning without enough clothing to go around. I know how you feel about me but you could at least try to understand how uncomfortable this is -- and has been -- without acting like you have absolutely no part in what’s going on.”

Grissom met her gaze again, now looking utterly bewildered. “Sara, I don’t know what you want me to say. Do you want me to leave? You can sleep in here, I’ll go work in the car--”

Sara cut him off bluntly. “That’s not what I’m saying. I’m trying to say... What I’m trying to say is you’ve got to stop, Grissom. You’ve got to understand that I love you, and I have loved you for years. You’re the reason I moved to Vegas -- but then, I already told you that, didn’t I?” Sara laughed, once, selfdepricatingly. “It was stupid of me, I know that, and I know I’m weak for not being able to move on, but I can’t. I just can’t. Every time you nudge the line between professionalism and intimacy -- and you do it more frequently than you think -- I lose whatever resolve I had.”

Sara noticed his eyes narrow as he drew a hand to his mouth. It was a gesture of masked recognition, she knew it from long observation in the lab. He still held her gaze, though, as if penitent, knowing she was right, knowing that he had never been able to manage a strictly professional relationship with her but also knowing that he never allowed her to get as close as he seemed to invite her.

‘’I’m sorry, Sara,” he breathed. “I’m sorry, I deal with things the only way I know how.”

“’The only way you know how’? And tell me, Grissom, how exactly is that? Because your little approach-avoidance technique doesn’t seem like ‘dealing with things’ at all. I know you’re the resident office enigma but Christ, being enigmatic doesn’t mean being contradictory.”

“Sara...” There was that tone of voice again -- that dispassionate boss tone, that tone that conveyed a patient, mature understanding of the misguided fervor of youth. It was accompanied by another soft sigh. “I don’t think this is really the time or the place to have this discussion--”

”Oh? Then tell me, when is a good time for you? I figure we’re both here, I can’t be any more embarrassed than I already am and you’ve got nowhere else to escape to, so why not have this discussion now? I didn’t bring it up after the Lurie case. I didn’t bring it up after you showed up at my apartment uninvited. I didn’t bring it up when you took Sofia out to dinner. When should I bring it up? When you retire? When you get married? When I quit because I can’t work with you, like this, anymore?”

“Sara, please” he was imploring now.

“’Sara, please’ what? Are you afraid that once I finally come out and say it you won’t be able to pretend like it doesn’t exist? You’ve always managed to avoid the issue quite nicely, Grissom. Can you just admit that this thing between us has never gone away because you refuse to commit one way or the other? I need to hear you say you don’t love me. I need--”

”But Sara I do love you!”

Sara stopped dead. Not from the words, but from the way he said them; she had never once heard him raise his voice to her since ...since when? She couldn’t remember, but something was familiar about the way he sounded, bristling under only the thinnest veneer of restraint.

“Griss--”

”And that’s the problem, Sara,” he added quickly, lowering his voice. “If I didn’t love you, none of this would be an issue.”

The flood of compassion that Sara had initially felt was rapidly ebbing into something more like exasperation. Or anger.

“Why do you have to make everything so damn complicated?” she nearly shouted back.

“I’m not complicating things, Sara, they’re already complicated.” Grissom’s even tone belied his growing tension. His pulse had been rising steadily since Sara first stepped out of the bathroom, and now it was pounding in his ears, nearly deafening, a demanding mix of aggravation and sheer arousal. The only way he knew how to control it was by sitting stock still and gripping the file in his lap.

“Then wouldn’t simplifying things be the reasonable thing to do? If I love you, and if you say you love me, then isn’t that about as simple as it gets?”

Sara had been getting closer and closer, somehow, without Grissom registering her advance. When he finally took notice, she was just a few feet away. He stiffened involuntarily and drew in a sharp breath. He knew he was beginning to show his agitation, like a caged animal.

“Sara, talking about it like this isn’t going help,” he began, unable to hide the hint of fear.

“Maybe not.” She leaned over, bracing herself on the arms of his chair. “But I’m kind of tired of talking about it, anyway.”

“Sara--” he hissed in a low voice. It was a final warning -- a final warning that withered on his lips as Sara leaned in and pressed her lips to his, warm and chaste.

It took only seconds for Grissom to yield and kiss her back, but to Sara, her head swimming, it was like an eternity. She melted into it; it was still soft and undemanding but Grissom’s skin quivered as if consciously holding back what he knew couldn’t be stopped once it began.

A few seconds was all he allowed himself -- all he could allow himself. Regretfully, he pulled back just enough for Sara to feel his retreat. She sensed it, but refused to move away. Instead she dropped her head and pressed her lips gently against his neck. It was not a kiss; for a confused moment, Grissom didn’t speak.

“Sara, what --”

”Your pulse is racing,” she murmured against his warm skin.

He hesitated for a moment, trying to find a voice that wasn’t strained. “I’m scared to death.”

She left her lips on his pulse point a moment longer. It wasn’t just his heart that was racing -- it was his entire body. It thrummed with palpable tension. He really was scared to death. Was it fear of her? Fear of the implications? Fear of getting what he thought he wanted, then finding that wasn’t really it at all? His nerves were becoming contagious; Sara took a step back, but refused to look away.

He looked as vulnerable as she felt, Sara noted. A blush had crept up his cheeks over the top of his beard. Coupled with his reading glasses and clean white t-shirt he looked almost like a little boy, physically grown but as sensitive as any child.

“Sara, we can’t. You know we can’t.” Grissom rose and tossed the file on the bed. He began pacing, working out the pent up adrenaline and lust.

She watched him as he retraced a path through the thick shag carpeting. “I’m pretty sure we can, actually -- the mechanics are pretty simple.”

Grissom stopped pacing and eyed her, surprised by the sardonic comment. She was clearly more in control than he, and it both confused and frightened him. He felt his age, every last year of it, and suddenly felt very tired.

“Grissom, I do want you. And I want you exactly as you are. If you still can’t accept me, or us, then I’ll walk away. But you need to understand that I’ll be walking away from all of this; I can’t go back to the way things were and I can’t waste the rest of my life living on your short leash.”

Are you giving me an ultimatum? he nearly asked, but checked himself. Instead, he nodded. This was a now-or-never. This was an all-or-nothing. And he knew she wasn’t bluffing -- she’d decided she had nothing left to lose. ...Which meant he had everything.

“It probably doesn’t help to say it again, but I’m sorry.”

“Sorry?” Her heart clenched in her chest.

“I’m sorry for what I’ve put you through. I’m sorry I was selfish enough to think I was only hurting myself. I’m sorry for assuming you could never be happy with me.”

“Are you also sorry that you can’t be with me?” she asked tentatively, afraid of the answer.

“No, honey, I’m sorry that I didn’t figure this out sooner.”

He stepped around the bed to where she stood, sliding a hand gently around her neck under the collar of her shirt -- his shirt -- and rubbed softly. His hands still trembled but his breathing had evened and the softness around his eyes had returned.

“And Sara, if you let me, I will want you forever, exactly as you are.”

”I’ve been trying to let you for years.” She smiled shyly in spite of herself before pushing herself up onto her toes and kissing him again. His hand lifted instinctively and curled in her hair. Whatever restraint he had managed earlier was swept away; she had worn him down, made him crack, and he was infinitely grateful.

He leaned forward and snaked his free hand around her back, pulling her close. He could smell the soap on her fresh skin, mingling with a scent he recognized -- his own -- on her clothing. There was something almost feral about it. She smelled heady and clean and marked. Mine, he thought to himself, just as she nipped his lower lip and was rewarded with a low growl.

And that was all it took.

His hand slid around and worked at the buttons on her shirt, a difficult maneuver given the closeness of their bodies. Sara now had both her hands entwined in his hair, urging him downward, pressing him more firmly into the kiss. He fumbled and growled into her mouth again but Sara didn’t stop kissing him, didn’t drop her hands to help him. There was nothing like this feeling, being kissed hungrily by Sara; nothing had ever felt like this and nothing would ever come close again.

It was completely unlike his fantasies. He never lost control in his dreams. Never moaned against her heated skin, never danced his fingers clumsily over her clothing, never felt his left knee creak under his weight. But this was the reality, this was the truth they were making together, right now, in a small, dank hotel room somewhere outside of Indian Springs. And this reality was worth a thousand safe, fictitious perfections.

This reality was also much more intense than the fantasy, and Grissom found his greedy impatience growing. Only two buttons undone, he looped both arms around Sara’s back, lifting her easily and eliciting a startled sounding noise. Her shirt rode up under his hands and exposed her stomach as he lay her down on the end on the bed. He took advantage of the newly uncovered skin and slid one hand over her hip, only to be blocked by bunched up terry cloth.

He rumbled with mild annoyance at the obstruction while hooking a finger under it, tugging gently.

“Griss-om,” she hissed and wriggled a little.

“Mm?” he murmured innocently. “Simple mechanics, right?”

She could feel him smiling as his finger inched back and forth teasingly. His mouth was achingly close to her ear but doggedly refused to nip it.

“’A minute to learn, a lifetime to master?’”

“Like the board game?”

“Yeah, something like that.”

“Well, feel’s like you’ve got one part of it mastered pretty well.”

Grissom gasped as thin fingers slid under the waistband of his pants, deftly encircling him.

“Is this a bad time to mention that I wasn’t... ah, planning for this?”

Sara worked at his fly with her free hand. “Planning?” she prompted.

“I’m a realist. I don’t carry birth control.” He sighed resignedly and began to pull back before Sara’s hand caught his wrist and guided it back around her hip. He felt the edge of something like a bandage. Realization dawned. “Birth control patch?” he tried for neutrality, but knew he had betrayed a hint of jealousy.

Sara flushed. “Primary dysmenorrhea,” she offered by way of explanation. “My doctor said I could either minimize stress in my daily life or treat it hormonally.” She smiled again, broadly this time. “Hormone patch seemed like a better idea than quitting or transferring.”

The grim look on his face evaporated. “Sometimes your devotion to the job is astounding.”

“I like to think so.”

“Remind me to put that on your next evaluation,” he breathed as he dipped back down for a kiss.

And soon the talking stopped, replaced by low moans and increasingly urgent shuffling. Sara never let her lips leave his skin, needing to feel the warmth and proximity, the rushing pulse just below the surface that reminded her how alive they both were. She fluttered kisses across his shoulders, chest, neck and he moaned her name over and over again, owning it as he gave himself over to her.

And when it was over she curled, sated, against his body and he drew her close and tucked her head under his chin. Her shirt had stayed on, now languidly draped over her back, exposing her breasts and most of her smooth shoulders. Grissom’s right hand brushed her shoulder in a lazy back and forth motion that calmed and reassured her; he needed to touch her as much as she needed to be touched. She drew in a deep breath and hesitated before whispering his name, barely audible. “About this,” she began.

“Shh, honey. We can talk about it tomorrow, after it stops raining.” He kissed the top of her head. “But I meant it. All of it.”

“I know,” she said softly, before closing her eyes and nestling against his bare chest.

And again, for the second time that night, she drifted off to sleep, now warm and protected. She didn’t dream about rain or children or death. Or Grissom, or kisses, or the feeling of his heat inside her. She did not dream at all that night -- for the first time in her life it was a superfluous action.

A.N.: Thanks for reading,everyone who’s gotten this far :) This wound up being difficult to finish; I won’t call it ‘writer’s block’ but it was certainly something like... writer’s detour -- I realized I was trying to write two totally different stories so I’ve divorced them and finished this as an independent piece. The second half may surface as a sequel or something else entirely. This fic was completed on the 27th (or was it 28th?) consecutive day of rain here in sunny Seattle which may account for the copious amount of rain, water, and showering. It was inexplicably hard to edit this after the sun came out (pathetic fallacy, I know...)

cheers, foxtoast.