This is a bizarre story, I know.

I love Klee Wyck, because she is my other half. I love ScullyAsTrinity and cuttingrmflr because we’re going to have a Nintendo tournament and I’m going to ignore their Red Sox paraphernalia. I love Mingsmommy because she’s unfalteringly kind and empathetic. I love VR Trakowski because she saves homeless cats. But most of all, I love Sara Sidle.

---

His heart sinking, Grissom watched as Jack Malone climbed the steps of Jason Taylor’s home. The man, not even near retirement age, looked weary and broken.

Truth be told, at that moment, Jack looked like Sara.

Grissom shifted in the passenger seat of the car, pulling out his cell phone and staring at it for a moment. Finally he let out a sigh, dialing a number from memory.

A woman answered. “Hello?”

“It’s Grissom,” he said shortly. “Look, it’s... it’s time.”

“What?”

“We’ve got to put the contingency plan into effect.” His palms were sweaty, and he rubbed them against his pants.

“I’m going to need a couple of days,” the woman replied. “It’ll take some time to put this together–”

“We don’t have time,” he interrupted, watching in panic as Jack entered the home, his shoulders slumping even further. “I’m losing her.”

There was a pause, and then a quiet sigh. “I’ll see what I can do.”

“Thank you,” he breathed, then closed the phone with a faint click.

The flight home seemed to last forever. Sara was supposed to pick him up at the airport, but there was a terse message from her on his voicemail instead. He kept a tight grip on his carry-on as he hailed a taxi.

He found her at home, her eyes glued to a rerun of Friends.

“Hey,” he greeted her, keeping his voice deliberately mild. “I’m back.”

“How was your flight?”

“It was fine.”

“That’s good.”

She stared blankly at the screen, and he stared blankly at her.

He was reaching for his cell phone before he even entered the bedroom.

---

The alarm clock sounded at nine. As he opened his eyes, Grissom knew she wouldn’t be lying beside him. He padded into the living room, which was dark but for the flickering light of the television.

“Hey,” he said, leaning against the wall.

“Time for work?” she asked.

“No, we’re... no. We’re not going to work tonight.”

She shrugged. “Okay.”

He remembered the days when she’d show up to work on her nights off. Remembered the more recent days when he’d have to pry her lips off his neck to get out the door. In both cases, Sara cared deeply about where she was and what she was doing.

“We’re taking a trip, honey.”

She packed an overnight case quietly, and patted the dog’s head as she followed Grissom out the door.

---

Sara didn’t ask where they were going, and he didn’t tell her. They drove in silence.

He cursed himself for letting it get to this point. There’d been signs, and he’d chosen to ignore them. Sara was always so strong; he’d thought she could get through this.

But the person sitting next to him wasn’t Sara. Not anymore.

They drove for hours, out into the emptiness of the desert. Finally a huge building appeared on the horizon. Grissom straightened up in anticipation and dread as he pulled into the parking lot, coming to a halt.

A woman was waiting for them outside the building.

“Grissom,” she greeted him. “Sara.”

Grissom nodded at her shortly. “Everything’s ready?”

“As ready as it can be, yes.”

She stepped through a doorway. Grissom and Sara trailed behind her as she led them through a series of locked doors. Some required passcodes, others required thumbprint or retinal scans.

“You’ll be safe here, Sara,” the woman said.

“How do you know my name?”

“I know a lot about you,” the woman replied. “Not everything, of course. But a lot.”

Moving at a quick pace, they passed through another locked door. Then, Sara stopped short in surprise.

They were in a massive room, perfectly circular in shape, with what looked to be thousands of doors. The doors were wedged tightly together, as if someone had tried to fit too many into the room.

“Best we could do,” the woman murmured, leading them forward.

A large group of people stood in the very center of the room. It was a strange hodgepodge, to be sure. Some were men; most were women. They spanned all ages and backgrounds, all shapes and sizes. They watched nervously as the threesome approached.

“Okay, enough,” Sara said sharply. “Someone needs to tell me what’s going on.”

Grissom drew a breath. “Honey... I’m going to be leaving you here.”

Her eyes were wide. “You’re what?”

“I don’t know if it was your kidnapping, or repressed memories... but somewhere along the way I think you’ve lost sight of who you are. And the last thing I want is for you to have to go on some journey of self-discovery, when you could do it here safely.”

“Do what here?”

“Heal.”

Sara shook her head, swallowing. “I don’t understand.”

“Go through one of the doors, Sara,” the woman said finally. “Whichever you like.”

With a questioning look at Grissom, Sara stepped toward a nearby door. She opened it, frowned, and stepped inside. The door swung shut behind her.

Everyone still in the room let out a collective breath. The crowd in the center started to murmur.

Which one did she go in?

One of mine. I hope it–

The door burst back open, and Sara came out, looking dazed.

“What the hell was that?”

“Try another,” the woman told her gently.

They watched as she disappeared through another door. Then a third, then a fourth.

“Tell me we’re doing the right thing,” Grissom murmured.

“Only time will tell,” the woman said.

Sara stayed in the tenth room for half an hour, and when she came out, she was in tears.

“I don’t understand,” she said, wiping her eyes with her sleeves. “These doors... they lead to, what, parallel universes?”

“Not exactly,” Grissom replied.

“But I’m in there,” she argued. “I am, and you are, and everyone from our team... we’re all in there–”

“You are and you aren’t,” the woman said gently. “What’s in there isn’t real. What’s in there is called fanfiction.”

Sara blinked at her. “Fan–”

“Fiction, yes.”

She blinked again, then nodded. “Right. Okay. Grissom, we’re going.”

“No.” His eyes were bright as he looked at her. “Honey, you know as well as I do that you’ve lost yourself. And lately you seem to be crumbling under this pressure to behave in a way that you no longer–” He broke off, as Sara started to weep. “Oh, sweetie.”

“You’re leaving me here, with all these weird stories?”

“The hope,” the woman said, “is that you can immerse yourself in the fanfiction, and draw strength from rediscovering who you are.”

“Who I am?” Sara laughed humorlessly. “How do those rooms represent who I am? They get my childhood wrong, and the story with my dad’s death is all messed up... I mean, they keep calling my dog Bruno, for god’s sake.”

The crowd in the center gave a collective grumble of dissatisfaction that sounded a little like stupid closed captioning.

“But you, Sara,” the woman pushed. “They understand you. You are not your past, or your dog. And that’s what you need to realize.”

Sara turned to look back at the doors. “But there’s pain in there. I mean... in the last one I went in, Grissom had this horrible heart attack, and I was holding him as he was fading out of–” She broke off, swallowing back a sob. “I just can’t do it.”

“Then you stick to the happy ones, for now,” Grissom said, rubbing her shoulder gently. “Take comfort from them. Know that they’re there if you need a little bubble to escape to.”

“Here,” the woman said, leading her further down the line of doors. “Try these.”

And, for a while, Sara ducked in and out of the rooms. After the first door, there was a small smile on her face. By the seventh, it was a full-fledged grin.

“That Pierre guy from the Orient Express is too funny,” she laughed, stepping back into the circular room. “And that other room, where we’re all in high school together?”

“I love that one,” the woman smiled.

Sara continued to try more doors. She made strange references to alchemy and stalemates and chocolate-covered peppermint patties. Sometimes she emerged from a doorway looking sweaty and flustered, and the people in the center would murmur words like smut and pr0n with delight.

At one point she opened a door, only to be met with an ear-splitting blast of music. She slammed the door shut, her eyes wild with panic.

“What the hell was that?”

The woman had the grace to look embarrassed. “Um... that was a songfic. Sorry about that.”

The crowd murmured too, as one voice faintly protested, “But the song was so perfect!”

“Who are all those people, anyway?” Sara asked.

“They’re the fanfic writers,” the woman replied. “Each door in this room leads to one of their creations.”

“Really? They wrote all these stories?”

“Yup.”

Smiling shyly, Sara stepped toward the group. “Can I... can I ask you some questions? Like... I mean... how come Sofia keeps getting eaten by bears?”

“Um... we don’t have much time,” the woman said, her eyes shifting. “We just all wanted to come here and wish you the best.”

“You’re leaving?”

The woman reached out, squeezing Sara’s hand. “We have work to do. We’re the only ones who can keep your character safe now.”

Sara fought back tears as she hugged the woman, then Grissom. The crowd buzzed speculatively about all the awesome threesome fics that would come out of this.

“We’ll leave you to say your goodbyes.”

And with that, the woman and the writers were gone. It was just Sara and Grissom, standing in a wide sea of possibilities.

“Come with me,” Sara said, holding him tightly. “We can go raise Brenda together, or baby-sit my brother’s kids. We can start a family and move to Canada. We can–”

“It’s not real, Sara,” Grissom whispered, rubbing her back. “We can’t live in stories.”

“Then why–”

“Because you’re not living in the real world, either.” He pulled back to gaze at her. “You know I love you, right?”

“I know.” She kissed him softly. “You know I love you back?”

“I do.”

They sighed, glancing around at the doors.

“Which one of these stories is your favorite, anyway?” Sara asked.

He pointed far across the room. “It’s over in the angst section. See, you die, and it turns out I’ve been dead for years, and you’re looking for me in Heaven–”

“Let me get this straight. I’m dead, you’re dead, and that’s your favorite story?”

He shrugged, smiling. “At the end, we get to spend eternity together, creating our own world. What could be better?”

Sara hugged him again, breathing in his scent. “You’ll come back for me?”

“You can count on it.”

“You’ll remember to rub Hank’s belly?”

“As long as you remember to tuck Brenda in at night.”

“I’m going to miss you,” she said softly.

“You won’t have to, Sara. I’m in nearly every room, just waiting for you.”

“But what about you? You’ll be alone.”

Grissom kissed her temple. “You’ll be waiting for me in my dreams.”

There was a knock on the main door, and the woman poked her head in. “Grissom? It’s time.”

He held Sara and kissed her again and again, committing to memory the feel of her in his arms. And then he bid her goodbye.

And good luck.

---

This story is dedicated to all the fanfic writers out there. May you keep Sara Sidle safe until her return.