This is my first ever fan-fiction. Its first draft was written on pieces of receipt roll in between serving customers in work. I think my workmates are still looking at me. It is based in the final episodes of season three, a season many of you have probably not written about in a while but I recently got the DVD and reckoned there was a story I needed to tell. I took a little liberty in the positioning of the characters in the opening chapter I hope you can forgive me for disturbing any of the genius work that is CSI.

Enjoy your read and any comments at all on how I can improve my writing would be greatly appreciated after all I am only a fanfic virgin.

Chapter 1:

He knew it was her before he even saw her. Her slow steady steps had become familiar over the years often brightening his day as they  strode towards him. Lifting the contact from its file, he sensed her tense just at the door.

“You…uh..got a minute?” How am I going to phrase this? How will I do this?

“I was just leaving” However much he enjoyed Sara’s company he feared without the appointment he was about to make, in the future he wouldn’t be able to enjoy the sweet sound of her voice near his face as he allowed her to interrupt his pondering  on yet another experiment.

“Yeah the…uh…schedule says you’re off tonight”

“I am”

“Me too”

“ You should be on paid leave.” It pained him to know just how lucky she had been in that explosion

“I’m fine.” Sara replied through pursed lips. How could he appear so unaffected it frustrated her but she decided to continue.

Grissom however interrupted.

“You were fortunate and I’m not talking about the explosion.”

“You..uh..you talked to Brass?”

“And Nick”  He couldn’t believe she had been so stupid but then staring death in the face once in a shift would give the weakest of us some courage, but Sara was not weak. Although she had not directly told him Grissom suspected there was something a lot deeper in Sara’s past that gave her more strength than any other he knew .

“We got the guy.”

“Is that all you have to say?”

“Would you like to have dinner with me.”  What was she thinking, Sara Sidle you are losing your mind.

Stunned Grissom could only suffice a “No.”

“Why not? Let’s have dinner, let’s see what happens?” The desperation she knew was clear in her voice.

“Sara, ehhhhhh, I don’t know what to do about this” Weak Gil weak.

Devastated Sara stuck to the only resolve she had… fight back, defend your integrity

“You know by the time you figure it all out, it really could be too late.”

As Grissom turned away he swore he saw a silent tear fall from her eye. His heart lurched, but his head held him back. To love Sara was to lose control, a control he had worked for nearly two decades to build. A control Sara had been hell bent on destroying since they first met.

He allowed a small smile to appear in the corner of his mouth as he remembered;

It was 1997 and Grissom was giving a series of  entomology seminars in Harvard.  In this particular one he was explaining the life span of a mound of fire ants and their relation to the decomposition of  a human body in the Nevada desert. He was mid sentence when he saw her. He stood transfixed and for the first time in his life Gil Grissom was lost for words. Not that his awe filled audience had noticed they had taken his silence as an intellectual pause. Grissom’s reputation had far preceded his arrival. Even then he was renowned as a leading expert in his field. She had noticed though, he had seen it in those deep sultry brown eyes. The eyes he had now grown to adore.

When it came to the inevitable Q&As, he found himself pleased and surprisingly nervous when she took the microphone.

“Do you truly believe entomological timelines should be admissible as forensic evidence in the prosecution of a murder suspect?”

A good question he thought to himself as he began to answer.

“Well, Ms…..?”

“Sidle, Sara Sidle” That brilliant smile was infectious.

“Ms. Sidle I do believe forensic entomological timelines are as thorough as any other forensic evidence and should thus most definitely be admissible in Court. I doubt however my D.A. or Sheriff would agree, they are yet to grasp the finer details of the joy of examining bug infested bodies” He said with what he felt to be a very appropriate smirk

 “Thank You Dr. Grissom.” That smile again.

After he finally finished glad- handing fellow academics and local “celebrities” (Grissom was not even then a man of politics), she walked up to him

“Fancy grabbing a coffee, I still have a lot more questions”

He agreed anything to spend a little more time with this girl.

Then the urge gripped Grissom, he stood to chase after her, but he was soon awoken from that dream.

“Grissom, man are you ok?” realising he had tears running down his cheeks, Grissom cursed his own emotions. Wiping the tears from his eyes he turned.

“Nick, what can I do for you?”