Three months between updates...I am so sorry. But as a little update and slight excuse, my final exams are only a few weeks away (eek!). My mind is pretty much filled with forensics at the moment and I can't really think about much else. Anyway, come May 20th, I will be free of uni and I promise that I will spend more time on writing. Cross my heart and all that . Thanks for being so patient with this one, I do realise that I started this 'fic two years ago! I really appreciate everyone that is still reading it and reviewing, reviews are genuinely what keeps me going during revision.

Fragility

Chapter 7

"Grissom?" Her voice was calling him desperately. He could see her from a distance stood within a blood spattered room, it was the ER but it had blood and brain matter covering its once white walls. Her eyes search for him.

As he ran to her , the room was increasing in size, pushing her further and further away from him. He ran faster but the expansion was quicker. No matter how hard he ran, how much he reached out, she was always just inches away.

He looked down at the floor which was now covered in evidence bags causing him to slip, he fell to the ground as she was pulled away from him until he could only just hear her words floating towards him on the breeze.

"Grissom please I need you to save me."

CSI

She was surrounded by darkness and water, miles of smooth, still water. In the distance she could see him. He was stood on dry land, staring across the expanse of water, trying to pick her out.

She desperately waved her arms, shouting out for him as loudly as possible.

She kicked her feet under the water to keep herself afloat, but she was tiring quickly, her muscles aching with every movement. She knew that if he didn't come soon she would be too exhausted to continue, she would slip beneath the cool water, drowning in its murky depths.

He'd seen her, her arms waving in the pale moonlight had finally attracted his attention but now he was focusing on a boat which had suddenly appeared beside him. As she swallowed water, she could see him taking out his fingerprinting brush and a jar of aluminium powder.

He had to fingerprint the entire boat before he could rescue her, she knew this. But she also knew that if he didn't do it fast then she would drown.

He was working too slowly, too methodically. She could feel herself sinking, she would never get to tell him that she loved him one last time.

CSI

Grissom woke from his nightmare, gasping desperately for breath. He made a decision immediately without even thinking about it. Spontaneity was not his normal behaviour.

He grabbed his cell phone from his bed side cabinet and dialled for a taxi while dressing quickly in the first clothes he could find.

Within ten minutes of waking he was in the taxi heading back to the hospital. He needed to be with her. And he was fairly sure she needed to be with him.

He rushed through the strangely quiet hospital corridor. From down the hall, he could hear Sara's fearful voice and Catherine's soothing one.

CSI

"Sara, it's ok, it's just a dream."

She woke with a start, her body was already exhausted and was now more exhausted as she had been kicking out in her sleep, desperately trying to keep herself afloat.

"I'm drowning." She gasped.

"No, you're in hospital, you're safe, you just had a nightmare." Catherine said in the soothing voice she used when Lindsay had nightmares.

"I need Grissom."

He burst through the door, Catherine turned, expecting to see a nurse. If she was surprised to see Gil there, then she hid it. Instead she just stood back, allowing him space to see Sara.

"It's ok, Sara, I'm here." He placed his hand gently on her forehead, stroking her hair back from her face. He placed a kiss on her temple. "You're safe. I'm here."

With difficulty, he lay down beside her and held her in his arms.

"If music be the food of love, play on:

Give me excess of it, that, surfeiting,

The appetite may sicken, and so die.

That strain again! it had had a dying fall:

O, it came o'er my ear like the sweet sound,

That breathes upon a bank of violets,

Stealing and giving odour! Enough; no more:

'Tis not so sweet now as it was before.

O spirit of love! How quick and fresh art thou,

That, notwithstanding thy capacity

Receiveth as the sea, nought enters there,

Of what validity and pitch soe'er,

But falls into abatement and low price,

Even in a minute; so full of shapes is fancy

That is alone is high fantastical."

He spoke gently to her, Shakespeare's words sounded like melody to her, soothing her fraught emotions with ease. He continued whispering beautiful sounds to her throughout the night, allowing her to drift off into a relatively peaceful sleep.

CSI

"So this is where you are?"

Grissom twisted awkwardly, feeling the stiffness of his neck as he looked towards the door.

"I've just spent the last twenty minutes banging on your door." Brass was stood with his arms crossed.

"I'm not there." Grissom replied, while gently trying to pull his arm out from beneath Sara without waking her. He freed himself and kissed Sara gently on the forehead before leaving the room with Brass.

"You were supposed to sleep and then I was going to bring you back to the hospital. Catherine said you'd only been gone a few hours!"

"Sara needed me." Grissom said, rubbing his eyes.

"She needs you to not work yourself into the ground! You're not going to be any good to her if you make yourself ill as well."

"I'm not leaving her alone here. She's scared."

"She's managed to get through enough of her life without you being so supportive!" Brass shouted.

Grissom froze causing Brass to worry that he may have gone too far. He hadn't meant to say it but he couldn't deny the anger he felt at Grissom's behaviour towards Sara during the last few years.

"I know." Grissom said quietly. "And that's what I'm trying to make up for."

"Well it's about time."

"I know." He repeated. "I know."

The Shakespeare quote is, of course, from Twelfth Night. Reviews are like cupcakes!