Rating: PG
Pairing: Sara/Lockwood, with hints of Sara/Grissom, Sara/Hank
Spoilers: Pretty much everything; episode tie ins are noted where needed.
Summary: Sara finds the greatest miracle of all, right where she least expects it
Feedback: Really does make my day; flames will be checked for spelling and grammar and mocked in my livejournal.
Archive: At my site Checkmate, Fanfiction.net; anywhere else, please ask.
Notes: Anyone you recognise belongs to Anthony Zuiker and the good folks at CBS; anyone you don't recognise is more than likely mine. Huge chunks of dialogue are taken from the show, thanks to the scripts at Intrepid's Site , the notable exception being a scene from Play With Fire, which, for reasons that will become obvious, was completely re-written by me. Everything else, I've tried to stay within canon for. Special thanks to Bekki for the tape trade, and Heidi who sent the eps that wouldn't wait and listened to be moan and whinge for the better part of four months as this fic grew completely out of my control. She got it bad, but Bronagh got it worse, and then she had to beta read it for me as a reward…you rock, you know that? The title belongs to Billy Joel, as does the song that's used in the middle somewhere.

Part One - Analysis
Let the Seller Beware)

It was a short drive from the Newman residence to Tuscadero High School, only a few miles. Yet for every one of those miles, Sara Sidle cursed Gil Grissom with all the swear words that she'd ever picked up in her lifetime, all the non-swear-but-still-pretty-vile words she'd ever heard too, and for good measure, even made up a few new ones.

This was, after all, supposed to be her day off. Not that she minded being paged per se, after all, she'd worked on her day off before, and she never complained about it, apart from that one time that she'd been all but falling asleep in the lab. She did her job, did it well, put in all the overtime that was asked of her and more. She'd be known to drop everything, just because Grissom called her up and asked her to help him.

Everything, including her job, her home and her life in San Francisco, all because Gil Grissom dialled her number, sounding as stressed as she'd ever heard him sound, and uttered those three little words. "I need you."

She'd been on the next plane.

She'd told herself that she'd gone because she liked a challenge, and because she wanted to help out a friend. She'd told herself that she'd stayed because she wanted to make a change in her life, that she wanted to explore new places, new opportunities. She'd grown up around the Bay Area, moved away for college before returning home; a stint in a whole new city would do her the world of good, and working at the number two crime lab in the country wouldn't hurt either.

She told herself all those things, but she'd known, way deep down in her heart, with that little voice that she tried to ignore, that none of those were the real reason that she'd picked up sticks and relocated her life. The real reason was the voice on the other end of the phone, the words that he'd said, and the fact that she'd had something of a crush on him ever since she'd met him at that forensics seminar.

She'd lied to herself then as well, telling herself that she was only interested in learning more about forensics and entomology, that she didn't meet too many people who had the same level of interest in the former as she did, and that she knew very little about the latter and wouldn't mind learning more. That was why she'd gone to him after the seminar, telling him that there was a point she wanted further clarification on, wondering if they could discuss it over coffee. He'd blinked once, then twice before agreeing, and she'd wondered what she'd let herself in for. But he came out with her, and coffee turned to dinner, which turned into dinner the next night before he had to fly back to Vegas. They exchanged email addresses and phone numbers, and thus began a correspondence between the two of them that forged a friendship that bridged the gap of mentor and student.

She's still not sure when that friendship turned into a crush, or when that crush turned into something deeper, but she suspects that the latter happened at some point during her first few months in Vegas, possibly when they sat outside for hours, watching bugs nesting on a badly decomposing pig, or maybe when they were discussing the Mile High Club in an aeroplane bathroom. She doesn't remember the exact moment she remembered that she'd fallen in love with him, but she remembers the exact moment that she realised that things were never going to change between them, that he'd never return her feelings.

They were standing in the lab and he'd excluded her from an investigation that he was doing, not telling her what it was about, what relationship it had to the case, not even when she'd referred to a similar experiment she'd done in San Francisco. She'd tried to tell herself that she was being silly, that it was just Grissom being Grissom, and she was just about succeeding. Until he told her to clean up the ground beef that he'd left behind.

She'd been working with him for a year and a half, they'd had untold meals together, and he'd never known that she was a vegetarian. They'd spent all that time together, she'd thought that they'd been working towards something, and it was brought to her attention, with stunning clarity, that he'd never seen her. Not like that.

She'd filed her request for a leave of absence pretty soon after that, but even that hadn't got through to him. She'd stood in his office, watched him reduce everything to a petty little quirk, little realising that it was symptomatic of a far larger problem. She wanted him, yes, she couldn't deny that. But more than that, she wanted his respect, wanted him to look at her and see her, and if she wasn't going to get that, then she really didn't want to go through every day knowing what she was missing and having it thrown in her face. She wasn't happy with the decision, but she'd made it.

That's when things had really got confusing.

He sent her a plant.

She'd scratched her head over that one, wondering what the hell had gotten into him. The card was no help, "From Grissom" written in a hand not his own, and he'd never mentioned it to her, nor she to him. She'd accepted it for what it was, an apology, and she'd gone for a long walk, calmed herself down and convinced herself that she'd over-reacted before. That she could work with Grissom, that she'd get over her feelings for him, that she was fine with the two of them just working together. She'd ripped up her leave of absence form, and tried not to feel awkward around him, though she's not sure how much she succeeded. She remembers on that first case after that, sitting in a hockey arena with him, trying to act normal, trying not to read anything into the fact that he'd sent her a plant, because after all, it wasn't as if it was a dozen red roses. He still didn't see her as a woman, just as a colleague, and she was fine with that she told herself.

She'd half wanted to bite her tongue off when he'd said that his favourite sport was baseball, and she'd observed that it figured that he'd love it, what with all those statistics and all. She'd heard the bitterness in her own voice, but Grissom appeared not to, saying merely that baseball was a beautiful sport.

She'd really wanted to bite her tongue off when she'd heard her own reply, more than a little caustic. "Since when have you been interested in beauty?"

She'd stopped thinking about biting her tongue and concentrated on picking her jaw up off the floor when she heard his reply. "Since I met you."

Of all the things that she'd ever expected him to say, that threw her for a loop, and by the time she was able to think clearly, he was heading towards the ice, ready to begin work.

She'd let herself believe, for just a moment, that things might be changing between them. Surprise of surprises though, Grissom had gone on about his business as if nothing had ever happened, and she'd been left wondering if she'd imagined things.

It was around then that Hank had come into her life again.

It had been work-related, unsurprisingly enough. He'd been one of the paramedics who had responded to Warrick's call when Nick had been thrown out of a window by Nigel Crane. He'd found her in the hospital, recognising both Nick and Warrick from cases they'd worked together before, and he'd taken her down to the cafeteria for coffee, trying to allay her fears, telling her that Nick was going to be fine.

Then he'd asked her out again.

She'd dithered uncharacteristically over whether to accept his invitation, stalling him with the excuse of work. He'd accepted it happily, telling her that he'd call her in a couple of days to reschedule, giving her time to run it through in her own head. She knew that it probably wasn't fair to date him when she was hung up on Grissom, but she was also slowly but surely coming to accept that if something was going to happen with her and Grissom, it would have happened by now. Besides, Hank was a nice guy, and she'd felt a spark between them that first time that they'd met. She'd literally smelled like death, and while his stomach hadn't been able to take it that well, he'd still found her a few days later, bringing her out for coffee, asking her for her number, giving her his. She hadn't called him though, not for a long time, and when she finally did take the plunge and asked him out, he'd sounded surprised to hear from her. Surprised, but happy.

Which was about how she summed up her feelings about their first date - their first first date that is, not the one post-Nigel Crane. Happy because it did go well, that she'd enjoyed herself, surprised for the same reason. Having Catherine drop a severed finger on to the table in front of them had been a bit of a downer, to put it mildly, but Hank had handled it well, understanding when she had to go to the lab straight away, calling her every now and again, keeping in touch, but not asking her out, not until that day in the hospital.

Once Nigel Crane had been caught, he'd called her again, and this time, it had been she who asked him out, and they'd moved into what could only be described as a very slow-moving drift into more than friends, but not quite a serious relationship. Their crazy work schedules made it hard for them to get together sometimes, so despite the fact that Greg, Warrick and Nick were all perfectly happy to call Hank her boyfriend, even to heckle Sara about it, she was more reticent. She told herself that they were taking things slowly, that she didn't want to go too far too fast, and tried to forget that for two years, she'd been more than halfway in love with her boss.

She was doing fine with it until Philip Gerard showed up.

Grissom hadn't know about Hank, of that she was absolutely certain, and if she hadn't been, the look on his face when Gerard brought up the matter would have cinched it. She'd launched into a denial that had sounded hollow even to her own ears, knowing that she could have just handed Gerard and his team an ace in the hole. She'd felt bad about that, but it was nowhere near as bad as she'd felt when Marjorie Wescott brought it up on the stand. She'd kept her game face on though, handled it well she thought, only to be completely blindsided when Wescott brought up her relationship with Grissom. "Just how far will Ms. Sidle go on the evidence to please her boss, Gil Grissom, whether he returns her attentions or not?" she'd said, and Sara had been torn between wanting to rip Wescott's and Gerard's heads off, and dying of mortification on the spot.

She'd contented herself with the knowledge that no-one from CSI had been there to hear that, and ignored the memory that Wescott had unwittingly evoked in her. Her and Grissom, standing close, the night air cool around them, scent of flowers in the air, and Grissom's cheek, the skin soft under her hand. The look in his eyes, the quickening pace of her heart, the sure and certain knowledge that something had passed between them in that split second, something fleeting and ephemeral as the morning dew.

She'd pushed the memories back ruthlessly, remembering instead Grissom's words to her before she'd left for court, that she deserved to have a life. She knew what he was doing, even if he didn't. He was cutting her loose, setting her free, telling her in not so many words that she shouldn't wait around for him.

She'd realised that herself a long time ago, but the realisation still stung a little.

Not as much though, as what had happened today. It had been her day off, and as per Grissom's wish, she fully intended to get on with her life. Hank had asked her out, she'd accepted, and he'd driven them up to a vineyard in Pahrump. They'd been having a nice time, had just finished dinner and were contemplating dessert when her pager had gone off. She'd known right then and there that it couldn't be good news, had hardly even had to look down to see the words "Come in. Grissom." To his credit, Hank had taken the news well, simply standing up and saying with a shrug and a smile, "I should've known it was too good to be true." She'd apologised profusely, blamed Grissom, and he'd waved a hand, telling her that he understood.

For some reason, even as they began the drive back to Vegas, that had made her smile, because she knew that not many men would be so understanding.

She'd kept smiling until she actually saw Grissom, and even then her first words had been an apology for not getting there sooner. His attitude when he'd pointed out how long it had been since he'd paged her had thrown her off her game, maybe that was why she'd reminded him of his words to her, him telling her to get a life. She was even more thrown when he looked at her guilelessly, with the words, "Did I?" He wasn't acting either, it was clear to her that he really didn't remember that he'd said that to her, and the fact that once again he'd managed to pierce her with such an off-the-cuff comment made her face freeze. Him telling her that she w as working solo, his manner brusque, his tone dismissive was the icing on the cake though, because this wasn't the Grissom that Sara was used to working with, and she realised with a start that she didn't really want to get to know this Grissom. She'd stood for a second, looking down at him, waiting for him to say something, anything, to let her know that they were ok.

Instead he'd just looked at her, putting on his goggles, a reminder that her presence there was disturbing his work. Frustrated, she'd turned away before she said something that she'd regret, giving Nick an exasperated look as she walked by him, his consternation at her being allowed to work solo only adding to her bad mood.

Was it her fault that she'd been out of town when she was paged? Was it her fault that she was out getting herself a life instead of sitting beside the police scanner? That she'd had to go to her place first to pick up her car, to the lab to pick up her kit? Was it her fault that Grissom was acting like an ass?

Hence the turning blue of the air in her car on the way to the high school, and the use of language that would have even her rather permissive parents washing her mouth out with soap. Pulling into the parking lot, she'd taken a minute to pull herself together before getting out of the car, grabbing her kit and making her way towards the football field. She wasn't sure who the detective assigned to the case was, but she soon found out, flashing a grin at the tall dark-skinned man as he turned towards her. She'd met Detective Lockwood a few times, had worked cases with him and Nick once or twice, but she'd never worked solo with him before, didn't know that much about him. She did know that Nick had worked with him on numerous occasions and thought very highly of him, which was a big plus for him in her book.

"CSI Sidle," he greeted her with a nod. "You on your own?"

"Yep," she said, returning his nod, adding another one of his own when he stretched out his hand in invitation, indicating that they should get started. "And Sara's fine, by the way."

"Cyrus," he told her, looking down at the ground as they made their way to the bleachers and down. "Watch your step," he told her unnecessarily. The remnants of sundry fast food products and their wrappings littered the stands, leading to only one conclusion.

"There was a game here?" she asked, stepping over something that could have once upon a time been a hamburger, her stomach roiling in protest at the sight.

"That's not where the action is," he told her. "Though frankly, I wish it were." They were at the end of the steps by now, and she looked at him curiously. "You have dinner yet?" he asked her, and while she was surprised by the query, she answered it.

"Yeah. Why?"

He didn't pull any punches with his reply. "You might be seeing it again. Mandy Kirk. Seventeen."

"Seventeen," Sara murmured, shocked as ever at the waste of such a young life.

"Senior," Cyrus continued. "Janitor found her."

As they reached the end of the field, Sara greeted David Philips, who was crouched over the body of a young girl. Looking down, Sara could just about make out what had begun life as a cheerleader's uniform, the crimson and white of the school colours stained with the crimson of the girl's blood, and she understood Lockwood's comment about dinner. "Eviscerated," she murmured, more to herself than the two men. Cyrus suggested something about a mountain lion, David concurring on the possibility, but Sara was already reaching out with her tweezers, pulling out a piece of ribbon from the wounds in the girl's abdomen. "It's a cheerleader," she murmured. "She had to have good lungs. How come nobody heard her scream?"

The two men had no answer to that, and she was only dimly aware of Cyrus straightening up. "I have to go talk to the family," he said. "You two will be ok here?"

Both Sara and David looked up. "I'm almost done," David said.

Sara meanwhile, was casting an eye over the football field. "Big crime scene," she said dryly. "I'll keep busy."

Even with what they'd just seen, Cyrus's lips quirked up in a quick smile, one that vanished as soon as his eyes drifted back to Amanda Kirk's body. "I'm sure you will. I'll call you if I find out anything. Keep me updated."

"Sure," Sara replied, turning her attention back to the body and David. "Let's get to work."

>*<*>*<

There was no need for this, she told herself as she walked, at the same time as she told herself that there was no harm in it. There was nothing wrong with taking the long way from the locker room to the car park, the long way taking her past Grissom's office. After all, she'd hardly seen him since that unpleasant conversation at the Newmans' pool.

She just wanted to check in with him, say hi.

See if she could sort out the rather confusing jumble of thoughts going around in her head about the various men that she'd been interacting with during this case.

She'd been with Hank when the page had come in, and she'd hated to turn around and tell him that she had to go back to Vegas, in part because she was enjoying herself, and she didn't really want to leave, and in part because she was afraid that it would lead to a fight. The opposite had been true in fact; just like he'd been on their very first date when Catherine had put a severed finger on the table in front of them, he'd understood that she had to go to the lab, had taken it better than she'd ever imagined. He'd told her to call him when she was free again, and he'd actually called her in the middle of the case to check if she was free for dinner. Unfortunately, she'd been in the middle of, as Greg had put it, "driving someone else's porcelain bus" and thus hadn't been too keen on dinner, but it had meant a lot to her to know that he wasn't holding a grudge, unlike some people.

She'd spent a fair amount of time with Greg during this case as well, and the fact that the young lab tech had more than a passing interest in her relationship with Hank notwithstanding, she always enjoyed their conversations. Greg's ebullient nature and natural flirtiness never failed to bring a smile to Sara's face, and when she was sifting through someone else's stomach contents, that took some doing. She'd never had a little brother, but she imagined that that was what her relationship with Greg most resembled, the banter, the laughter, and the competition for the last word. Most of the time, Greg won that particular contest, but she'd pulled off a win when she'd got an answer on DNA out of him, but he hadn't got an answer on Hank out of her, and she just knew he was itching to get her back on it again. There was the occasional something like that in her relationship with Grissom, the banter, the flirting, but it was never that light-hearted, that uncomplicated.

But the person that she'd spent most time with over the last couple of days, the person who had really surprised her, was Cyrus Lockwood. She hadn't known him that well prior to this; usually when she'd worked with him she'd been paired with Nick, and the two of them were such good friends that she'd spent half the time feeling like a third wheel. This had been the first case she'd worked with him solo, and she had to admit that she wouldn't mind doing it again. Not only was he was a first rate detective, but he kept her informed about what he was doing, kept in touch with her too so that there would be no surprises. He was a quick thinker too, she'd found that out when they'd been in Chuck Darwell's hospital room, and he'd seen the nurse with the bag of stomach contents.

"Anything he throws up no longer belongs to him," he'd told Chuck's father, adding, "PD, public domain." His face hadn't betrayed any measure of disgust as he handed the bag to Sara, for which she gave him credit, and when they were walking back out to the car, she discovered that he had a sense of humour as well.

"Some men give candy and flowers," she'd observed dryly, forgetting for a second that Nick wasn't around to act as a buffer for the joke, and when she'd realised, she'd wondered how he'd react to it.

She needn't have worried though, because he'd just looked down at her out of the corner of his eyes, his tone matching hers. "I like to be different," he'd told her, and she'd grinned at him, before changing the subject back to the case at hand and what they might do if they found out that Chuck was involved, or if he wasn't.

He'd been sympathetic to Nicole Exmoor when he'd cuffed her as well, and Sara had been able to see in his face that he was as shaken by what they'd found out as she was. He'd cuffed the sobbing girl gently, telling her that he was arresting her for Mandy Kirk's murder, and they'd stood side by side for a moment as they'd watched her be led away.

In the bright daylight afterwards, he'd walked her to her car, telling her that he'd be in touch with her about the report, double-checking that she was ok to get back to CSI, and she'd acted like she was fine, telling him that she'd talk to him later. But she couldn't help noting that he was almost a complete stranger to her, and yet he was acting with more concern than her boss, someone she considered a close friend.

And then it hit her, somewhere between Tuscadero High School and North Trop Boulevard - when did she start comparing every man in her life to Gil Grissom?

Even after he'd been off with her at the Newman place, even when she was pissed as hell at him, why was he still the one that she seemed to spend her time thinking about? Even when she'd been avoiding him during this case, even when she was pretty sure that he was avoiding her too? The rational part of her mind told her that that thought was being ridiculous, that there had been any amount of times that she'd been working on a case that she and Grissom hadn't talked to one another, had missed one another like ships passing in the night.

There was no reason that this was any different.

Except that somehow, it was.

She didn't know if it was because she was with Hank, or because she used to have a thing for Grissom. She didn't know if it was because she still had a crush on him, or because it was something more than that. She didn't know if it was just because he was her mentor, her boss, or something more than that. All she knew was that she hated being on the outs with him, hated the way that it made her feel.

Almost as much as she hated going to him like this, feeling as if she was some pathetic little girl, grovelling for his attention.

But she was at his office door now, and he was sitting at his desk, looking through some papers. He didn't hear her approaching, didn't know that she was there, so she could just look at him for a few seconds, pretend to herself that things were normal between them, that there was nothing amiss.

"Good night," she called out, seizing on the moment of normalcy, hoping that the gesture, the smile that went with it, would dispel any ill feeling that might be hanging around the room.

"Good night Sara," he replied, but nothing else. Nodding, Sara turned to leave, but she stopped when she heard his voice. "Nice work on the high school case."

He nodded twice as she met his eyes, and she didn't say anything for a moment. She knew that this was Grissom's version of an apology, that it was the most she was going to get, and she was more than happy to accept it. Still though, she couldn't silence a little voice in her mind that pointed out how all he had to do was say those few words, give her just a little hint of praise, for her to forgive him anything.

Doing her best to ignore said voice, she took a deep breath, saying words that had been on her mind since the last time she'd talked to him. "I'm…uh…sorry I missed your page."

He looked surprised as he looked up at her, either at her words or because she hadn't accepted his words as the dismissal she'd rather suspected they were. There was nothing she could do about the latter, but as for the former, she was telling him the truth.

She was sorry that she'd been delayed in answering him, was sorry for the result of it, the bad feeling between them.

But she wasn't so sure that she was sorry for what she was doing. After all, Hank was a nice guy, and Grissom had told her to get herself a life, had told her that she deserved one.

There was no reason that she couldn't have both, was there?

"It's just, um ..." She wanted to explain how she felt, what she was thinking, but it was hard to put the thoughts into words when he was looking up at her like that. "You tell me to get a life and then I get one, and then you expect me to be there at a moment's notice. It's ... um ... confusing."

She stopped then, unsure of how to go on, sure that if she said anything else, or if he did, that she was going to tell him just how she felt about him, or worse, that the tears she could feel rising in the back of her throat would spill out. He glanced down at his desk, evidently fighting for words himself, and she took the opportunity to move away, not wanting to know what, if anything, he was going to say.

There were some things, she told herself, that she really was better off not knowing.

She made it to the door of the lab before a familiar voice called her name, and surprised, she turned to find herself looking at Hank's smiling face as he came towards her. Slightly taken aback at the sight, she felt a smile creeping across her face. "What are you doing here?" she asked, tilting her head as she looked up at him. He was still in uniform, having that slightly rumpled, just off-shift look that she was coming to recognise, and she noted almost absently that he wore it well.

He shrugged, looking slightly abashed. "I thought that since we got interrupted in Pahrump, and since we're both coming off shift, that you might want to get some breakfast." He flashed her a quick grin, shoving both hands in his trouser pockets. "I mean, if you don't, that's fine too…"

He really looked as if he thought that she might refuse him, and Sara grinned broadly, making up her mind in that instant. "I'd love to," she told him honestly, and the smile that he gave her in return was a great help in banishing any residual bad feelings that her conversation with Grissom had left. "Let's go," she said, falling into step beside him, walking out into the morning sunshine.

She didn't look back.

>*<*>*<

Part Two - Spells
(A Little Murder)

He knew he was late when he walked into the bar, but he was pretty sure that it wouldn't matter. After all, Nick Stokes was hardly a model of punctuality himself, usually having got himself tied up in the crime lab, chasing some lead or other, putting in more overtime than was good for any sane person. Not that, Lockwood reminded himself with a grimace, he had much room to talk. He'd ratcheted up more than his fair share of overtime this month too, though none of them had been as unpalatable as the dead cheerleader in the high school football field. He'd seen hundreds of homicides in his career, but it always seemed to be worse when there was a kid involved. This one had been even worse, involving evisceration and PCP and kid perpetrators who didn't even know what they'd done. Cuffing a seventeen year old girl whose body was shaking, either from sickness or from sobs of horror at what she'd done had been a decided low point in his career, and he still hadn't quite managed to banish the bad taste from his mouth, even now.

He did have to admit though, as he sat down at the bar and ordered himself a beer, that there had been one advantage to working that particular case, that being the large amount of time that he'd got to spend with a certain brunette CSI. He'd met Sara on numerous occasions, had worked more than one homicide with her and some of the other members of the CSI graveyard shift. But he'd never worked a case one-on-one with her before, had never spent quite so much time with her, and he had to admit that what he'd seen intrigued him.

He knew, of course, that she had to have a pretty strong stomach. She must have, just like he had; otherwise, they never would have made it as far as they had in their line of work. That being said, when he'd seen the state of Mandy Kirk's body, he'd had to look away for a second, had to fight hard against his gorge rising. Not for Sara such matters though. A look of disgust and shock may have passed across her face, but she'd hunkered right down, got straight to work. He'd had to admire that about her.

Just like he'd had to admire her dry humour, the first evidence of which he'd seen when they walked through the halls of Tuscadero High School, talking about soccer bunnies and how out of touch the Principal was with teenagers' sexual habits. Her demeanour had sobered somewhat, humour, dry or otherwise, vanishing when they'd seen the shrine to Mandy Kirk that had sprung up at her locker, but by the time they'd visited Chuck Darwell at the hospital, it had returned again. He'd seen the evidence of that himself when he'd handed her a bag filled with Chuck's stomach contents, seized as part of the public domain. He'd expected her to act disgusted - he was fairly disgusted himself just holding it, couldn't imagine having to actually slough through it - but she'd just quirked one eyebrow upward, a cheeky smile on her face. "Some men give candy and flowers," she quipped wryly, and for the first time since that god-awful find at the football field, he'd felt a broad smile fighting to break across his face.

"I like to be different," he'd told her, and they'd walked back to the car, discussing what might happen if she found something to prove that Chuck was involved, wondering how someone could do something like that.

They'd got their answer all right, when she'd called his cell a few hours later. She'd opened up with something about how Greg Sanders had asked her what it was like to be driving someone else's porcelain bus, and how she'd heard every smart comment under the sun about it. He'd apologised half-heartedly for his part in her having to do that, though he'd got a little bit of a kick out of listening to her rant about it. She'd turned serious when he'd asked her if she'd found anything else, and she'd told him about the tox report, and the twenty milligrams of PCP that they'd found, along with the piece of human skin. He'd felt his stomach turn over at that, and had made himself think of something else, anything else other than the image that that called up, and to his surprise, had only been able to chase it away by picturing her face as she'd made that quip to him in the hospital.

He hadn't wanted to think about that too much, not when he still had to close the case with her, but when he'd gone back to the hospital with her, and later, when he'd been in the locker room with her as she talked to Nicole Exmoor, he'd seen a different side to Sara Sidle. Yes, this might be a woman who was able to look at the most terrible wounds with barely a flinch, who took having to look through someone else's stomach contents completely in her stride. This might be a woman who was tough as nails, who knew how to get her job done. But, he also realised, this was a woman who was able to feel compassion for a couple of kids who had got high, got in way above their heads, and done something that they never would ordinarily have been capable of. A woman who spoke gently, almost apologetically, to them when she told them that they were going to be arrested. Whose words to him as they watched Nicole Exmoor being led away - "Hey, Cyrus, next time somebody says experimenting with drugs is harmless remind me of this." - had been uttered in a tone of such quiet pain that his palm had literally itched with the desire to place it on her shoulder or back as some small sign of support.

He hadn't though, knowing that she wouldn't appreciate it, knowing that it was going way over a line he had no business crossing.

Trouble was that in the couple of weeks since that case, he'd realised that he'd already crossed that line without even realising it, and that there was no getting back over the other side.

Not that he really wanted to.

He was so lost in thought that he jumped when a hand clamped down on his shoulder, turning as he looked at the man who was sliding into the stool beside him. "Man, you're lost in thought," chuckled Nick, his good humour as ever in evidence. Cyrus tried for a moment to remember if he'd ever seen Nick Stokes in a bad mood, failing utterly and dismissing the notion as unlikely. "Tough case?"

That, Cyrus decided, was one way of putting it, though he didn't mean it in the same way as Nick had. Deciding only to think about the case he was working on right then, and that he wouldn't mention Sara to Nick at all, he shrugged, and promptly dodged the question with an ease born of years of practice. He knew from long experience that very few people who asked how his day had gone really wanted to know. "Homicide's never a picnic," he said simply, raising his beer to his lips. "You?"

Nick waved to the bartender, indicating that he'd like a beer, and ordering another one for Cyrus while he was at it. "I was working with Sara and Grissom on that homicide at the Little People's Convention," he said, words that had Cyrus looking at him curiously, only to see Nick frowning. "I don't even know if that's the right grammar on that."

Cyrus decided to ignore his confusion. "I heard about that," he said instead.

Nick nodded his thanks to the bartender as he put down two bottles of beer in front of them. "Turns out the perp was the father of the fiancée of the murdered guy," he said. "He didn't want his daughter - who's a five foot seven stunner - involved with a dwarf." He took a sip of his beer, shaking his head. "My ex-girlfriends' fathers are looking better and better right now."

Cyrus could certainly relate to that one. "Mine too."

Nick snickered. "Sara was the only one of us who kept it remotely real - she told me that she'd much rather deal with getting skin cells from a rope than that cheerleader case you two worked on a couple of weeks ago."

"She said that?" Cyrus didn't even think as he spoke the words, and when he realised what he'd said, consoled himself with the thought that it had been Nick who'd brought up Sara's name. He himself hadn't gone fishing, the subject had come up naturally in conversation. Nothing wrong with that, right?

Nick chuckled, raising his beer bottle to his lips. "Oh, she's gonna be living off that one for a while," he said, taking a drink. "We went for lunch day before yesterday, I ordered a Caesar Salad? The woman turned green at the table, made me change my order. Said it was gonna be a long time before she could look at one again."

Cyrus, having heard from Sara in graphic detail the reason why, waved his hand to forestall any further details, but he couldn't keep from looking at Nick askance. "Sara doesn't strike me as the squeamish type," he mentioned, and Nick shrugged.

"Oh she's not, but there's a line, you know? And I think she just found herself on the other side of it." He took another sip of his beer, shaking his head as he put it down. "Don't get me wrong, Sara can hang with the best of us when it comes to gore. She's pretty cool."

"She certainly is." Cyrus didn't think that there was anything wrong with him saying that. After all, he was only agreeing with Nick about a mutual acquaintance of theirs; there was nothing wrong with that, surely? But he realised too late that there must have been something in his tone to give him away, or maybe Nick was just unusually perceptive, because he turned his head sharply to look at Cyrus, eyes narrowed in suspicion. He didn't say a word at first, just stared hard, leaving Cyrus to ask, "What?" He didn't mean to sound so defensive, and mentally kicked himself.

"Don't tell me…" Nick drew each word out slowly, carefully, as if he was giving each word time to settle in his brain, giving himself time to come to terms with his discovery. "You don't…" He held Cyrus's gaze for a moment longer before a big grin split his face, and he looked down at the bar, chuckling. "Another one?" He was talking to himself more than Cyrus, incredulity written all over his face. "What is it about this woman?"

Cyrus frowned, completely lost. "Stokes, you want to speak in English there?"

Nick shook his head again. "Sorry man," he said, doing his best to sober up, but his lips still twitched irrepressibly. "I just never expected you to fall under her spell too."

"Under her spell?" Cyrus recognised the words, but the context was lost on him still.

"I'm making it sound worse than it is," Nick told him. "Fact is, Sara lives for her work. Doesn't sleep, maxes out on overtime, lives in the lab… and yet for some reason, every guy she comes across seems to fall head over heels for her." Putting down his beer, he started ticking them off on his fingers. "David the assistant coroner would do anything to get near her. Greg in DNA? First time he saw her, his eyes nearly came out of his head, and it's not gotten better. Bobby Dawson in Ballistics lights up when she walks in, and if I didn't know better, I'd swear Archie's taken a bit of a shine to her…" His voice trailed off as he pondered the various other suitors of Sara Sidle, and Cyrus couldn't help but draw the obvious conclusion. It was something that he'd noticed about the two of them the first time that he'd ever met Sara, when they were all working Chief Rittle's murder. He'd been at the CSI lab, trying to find Brass for something that he couldn't even remember now, and on his travels, he'd passed by the fingerprint lab, had heard Nick's voice coming from the room. Figuring he might know where Brass was, he'd gone in to ask, recovering quickly when he'd seen that Nick wasn't alone. Nick had told him that he hadn't known where Brass was, but he'd introduced him to Sara, who'd given him a ready smile and apologised for not shaking his hand. "Gloves and fingerprint powder," she explained, and he'd understood. Nick had teased her though, said something about her lack of manners and how he couldn't take her anywhere, which had led to Sara protesting, and some pretty decent dinner theatre.

Cyrus had thought at the time that it was just a teasing, brother-sister vibe. Now he wasn't so sure. So he asked.

"And where do you fit into this?"

The instant the words were out of his mouth, he heard how they sounded, and he didn't blame Nick when he looked sharply at him, eyes wide. "Man, you do have it bad," he pronounced flatly. "Sara's like a sister to me. Nothing more, nothing less."

There was too much honesty in the other man's eyes for Cyrus to do anything but believe him, so he nodded. "So she's seeing someone then?" Because a woman like that, with all those guys falling over her, would have to be.

So he wasn't surprised when Nick nodded, but he was surprised at the pang that shot through his heart at the sight. "Yeah, a paramedic. Hank something… I'm not sure how serious though, she won't talk about him."

Cyrus nodded, lifting his bottle to his lips, draining the last of it, signalling the bartender to bring them another. "Paramedic?"

"Yeah, they met on the job…pretty funny story actually…" Nick launched into a tale about rappelling from a helicopter, and a dead decomposing body in a duffle bag, and while it wasn't really something that Cyrus was interested in hearing about, he let him talk. Because after all, he was talking about Sara, and that was something that did interest him, boyfriend or no.

>*<*>*<

Part Three - Conversations
(Fight Night)

Sara didn't even try to keep back a smile as she watched Brass lead a handcuffed Javier Molina from the interview room, feeling the familiar sense of satisfaction that came with a case being closed, with the bad guy being brought to justice. This was one of the reasons why she loved her job.

She was standing up from the table when she heard Warrick's voice, low and teasing, behind her. "I don't see a spit bucket around so this must be a real smile…"

Resisting the urge to roll her eyes, she swung around, fixing him with a hard look. "Funny," she said, in a tone that conveyed it was anything but, and he laughed, holding up his hands as if in surrender.

"Little touchy there are we?"

He was laughing, but she wasn't; in truth, it was a sore subject for her. "Like I said, every CSI has a problem area…" Except that she hated admitting to hers, in any arena, the perfectionist in her hating to admit to any flaws.

"I know that," Warrick told her, interrupting her. "It's just gratifying to know that you're human is all."

He was still joking, still teasing, but for some reason the barb went straight to her heart. It shouldn't have, she knew that, after all, it was far from the first time that she'd ever heard that charge levelled at herself. It was just that she thought that she'd changed, or at the very least was making an effort to change, her relationship with Hank was proof of that. She was doing what Grissom had told her, she was getting a life, she was getting over him.

She'd thought she was doing a good job of it.

"Speaking of human," Warrick continued, unaware of her thoughts, "How's the boyfriend?"

"Boyfriend?" She blinked, shifting on her feet slightly. "What boyfriend?"

Earlier, she'd resisted the temptation to roll her eyes, now Warrick showed no such willpower. "Hank?" he asked, putting a world of questions into one word, a wide smile spreading across his face. "C'mon, I've seen the way he looks at you…"

"We're friends," she said, strangely reluctant to let Warrick in on the fact that they were quite a bit more than friends, had been for the last number of weeks. Which was odd, because this was Warrick, and if there was anyone that she would have shared details of her personal life with, it was him, her friend lacking both Grissom's taciturn ways and the little brother teasing of Nick and Greg. Of course, the last time she'd told Warrick something about her relationship with Hank, it had been all over the CSI lab in days. Still though, he'd surely learned his lesson about it, there was no way he'd let the same thing slip twice, not if she warned him not to. She was all ready to tell him the truth, but what came out instead was "We hang out sometimes…"

"Uh-huh." Warrick clicked his tongue, eyes dancing, obviously hugely amused. "I believe you." Except that he clearly didn't, and she didn't blame him in the slightest. Her tone wouldn't have convinced even herself. "Shame about that though…that you're not dating him I mean…"

The way his voice trailed off signalled loud and clear that he had a zinger lined up for her, and she resolved that she would not ask him. She would not.

"Why?"

His whole face lit up, as if he couldn't believe that she'd bitten, and he wasn't the only one. She mentally kicked herself as he said, "After the thing with the wraps, him leading you to them like that? You owe him a big thank you…" His meaning was clear, and she felt a rush of heat coating her cheeks, one that only grew stronger when he broke into more laughter. "Sure you don't want to reconsider your answer?"

There was only one thing for her to do - gather what remained of her dignity and make a graceful exit. "I'm not answering that," she said, sailing out of the room, hearing him following after her, still chuckling, but at least not saying anything further on the subject on the way back to CSI.

It might have been that he was giving her a break, or it might have been that he was trying to get into her good books, but either way, once they got back to CSI, Warrick offered to get a jump on the case paperwork, an offer which she was only too glad to accept, no matter what might have spawned it. Promising to catch up to him in a few minutes, Sara made her way to the break room, helping herself to some of Greg's famous coffee, pouring herself a cup, before turning to see Nick sitting at the table, a scowl darkening his features. "Hey," she said, her brows raising in surprise when she received barely a grunt in response. "What's up?"

"You know what a piffling is?" he asked, looking up at her almost angrily, and she blinked in surprise.

"It's a young puffin isn't it?" she replied, not sure from whence that bit of useless knowledge came from, and not understanding when his look of anger changed to surprise, and he lifted a hand in mingled shock and confusion.

"You see? You know that, and it's no big deal. Grissom goes on about bugs and he's learned. I make one nature reference, and I get mocked."

Sara narrowed her eyes, sure that she'd missed something somewhere. "I wasn't mocking you," she said, running over her words to make sure.

"Not you," Nick allowed. "But you want to tell me why you and Warrick get to work the boxing murder, Catherine gets to work the gang member murder, and I get stuck with a smash and grab?"

Sara shrugged her shoulders. "Luck of the draw?" she suggested, but Nick's exasperated look told her that it wasn't the answer he was looking for. "Sorry."

Her hasty apology had him shaking his head. "You know what I mean," he muttered, and she did, having had this particular conversation with Nick in varying stages of sobriety over the last couple of years.

"We've all got cases like that," she reminded him. "Remember the gorilla skull?"

He snickered. "Yeah," he allowed. "And I did manage to clear my case quicker than any of the rest of you." His grin was teasing, and this time, she didn't rise to the bait.

"There you go," she told him, raising her coffee cup in salute to him. "Besides, it was a solo case…isn't that what you've always said you wanted?" The memory came to her, of him crouching near the Newman swimming pool when Grissom had sent her to work the cheerleader case at Tuscadero High School; when she'd been called in on her day off, when she'd walked off in a huff with Grissom over the attitude he'd given her, when Nick had stared at her, wondering why she got to work solo and he didn't.

His eyes darkened, and she knew that she shouldn't have said that, should have quit while she was ahead, but it was too late now. "Well, you know what they say Sara," he said quietly. "We should be careful what we wish for."

She was saved from having to make any reply by a third presence entering the room, and she blinked in surprise, because only a second earlier, she'd been thinking about a case they'd worked together. "Stokes," Cyrus said, looking directly at Nick at first, as if he didn't realise that Sara was in the room. "You're late." Looking then at Sara, he nodded again. "Sara."

"Hey Cyrus," she said, eyes darting between them with interest as Nick looked at his watch, any darkness in his countenance being chased away by a look of surprise. "Late for what?"

"Pick up basketball game," Cyrus told her, and she regarded them both in surprise.

"I never knew you guys played."

"Couple mornings a week," Nick confirmed. "When Lockwood feels like getting his ass kicked."

"He exaggerates," Cyrus scoffed, and Nick chuckled softly, shaking his head, looking from Cyrus to Sara.

"I really don't. You should come watch if you don't believe me." He was talking to Sara, but his eyes were going between Cyrus and Sara, and there was something in his eyes that Sara had never seen there before and didn't understand. She looked to Cyrus as if he would help her out, but his face remained impassive.

"Good as that invitation sounds," she said, draining her cup in a couple of large mouthfuls, "Some of us aren't finished our case paperwork, and if you think Warrick is gonna do it on his own…" She let her voice trail off, letting them imagine Warrick's reaction that that particular suggestion. "Best of luck to you though."

"You're sure you won't come and cheerlead for us?" Nick quipped as she walked out of the room, and she didn't reply, just turned slightly and fixed him with one of her strongest patented Sara-glares, his laughter following her down the hall.

>*<*>*<

Part Four - Realisation
(Blood Lust)

Sara looked neither left nor right as she made her way to the ballistics lab, though she may have uttered a few colourful names underneath her breath, all of them directed at Grissom. She knew she was probably being childish, but she'd wanted to be there when he was testing the gun, the case that they were working on getting more interesting by the minute. It wasn't such an unrealistic expectation either she told herself, because after all, they'd found the damn gun together, the least he could do was keep her apprised of what he was doing about it.

The second the thought formed in her head, she changed her initial assessment about maybe being childish. She was definitely being childish, and she forced the thoughts to the back of her mind. After all, the case was hot, he was running with the case, and she did it with him all the time. Dimly, she recalled flinging those same words at Warrick once upon a long ago, and mentally sent an apology his way.

By the time she got to the ballistics lab, she was able to speak coherently, even normally, without a trace of rancour. Almost. "You know, you could have waited for me," she said, seeing Grissom seated at a microscope, looking just as Catherine had described him, meditating on the revolver, not even looking up.

Look up he did though when he heard her voice, pushing away from the bench. "Take a look at this," he said, and she did as she was asked, without question.

"Looks like burnt skin," she said, and Grissom concurred.

"I think maybe someone palmed the cylinder gap."

Sara had a sudden mental image of someone, a youngster, inexperienced with weapons, holding the gun, hissing in pain as the heat of the barrel scorched their skin. It had happened more than once, she knew that; she'd seen it. "Todd Branson had GSR on his jacket," she reminded Grissom. "If we could get his DNA off this revolver, we could tie him to this."

It was a significant lead, and she didn't understand why he wasn't more excited. "Burnt skin is useless for DNA," he told her, and she felt a smile coming to her face, because she knew something that he didn't, a rare enough occurrence.

"Yeah, but what about sweat?" she asked, noting how he kept his face perfectly neutral. "There's a 17% chance of DNA recovery from the shooter's perspiration."

"17%?" He echoed her figure, and she felt a smile bubbling up inside her, fought to keep a straight face.

"Yeah. New paper out of Australia. You haven't seen it?" His face was still blank, so she did what she did best, recite statistics. She'd copped a lot of grief for it over the years, mostly from Nick and Warrick, but she'd always had an affinity with numbers, could remember obscure figures with no trouble at all. "17% chance of DNA recovery from the grip of a gun," she intoned. "67% chance from a cigarette, 32% chance from the brim of a hat." And then, just for fun, in the hopes of catching him off guard, she followed up with, "Would you like a copy?"

How she managed to keep a straight face, she didn't know, but Grissom didn't hesitate. "I don't need one. I have you." He took a beat, leaving that to sink in, before adding, "Swab the pistol grip; get it to DNA."

With that, he stood up and walked off, leaving her shaking her head as she sat down to do her job. Swabbing a pistol grip wasn't exactly the most strenuous of activities though, it gave her plenty of time to think about what he'd just said to her.

"I have you."

What the hell had that been supposed to mean? Had it come from Nick or Warrick, she would have dismissed it as a joke, it would have been impossible to do anything else. They would have been smiling as they said it, smirking at the very least, their eyes dancing with devilment. Grissom's face though, had remained inscrutable, his tone could have fit a thousand different adjectives, rendering his meaning unclear.

But it wasn't the first time that he'd done something like that to her, thrown in a phrase out of nowhere that she had no idea how to take.

"Since I met you."

"You sure know how to light up a room."

For God's sake, he'd sent her a plant to stop her leaving. He'd told her that she deserved to have a life, but had gotten snippy with her when she'd got one.

How was she supposed to fathom this man?

It wasn't, she remembered, even the first time he'd done something like that while on this case. She wasn't even supposed to be at a crime scene that day, she was supposed to be at a forensic anthropology seminar. Not that she was heart-broken about missing it, it wasn't like she was at a vineyard in Pahrump on a date or anything, but what she'd said to him was true. The seminar was required, and she was down to take it. It was part of the continuing education program, and she'd have to make it up at a later date, but Grissom hadn't taken any of her excuses. Instead he'd told her that everyone else was someplace else, he'd run down the particulars of the case, and he'd followed it all up with three little words that had had a sense of déjà vu wrapping itself around her shoulders like a warm blanket.

"I need you."

Those were the three words that she'd heard in her San Francisco apartment a little over two years ago, the words that were responsible for getting her to Vegas in the first place. She never would have left were it not for those words, and the memory of them had been enough to get her to stay when he'd asked, in the hope that, with the student/teacher barricade from the seminar removed, they could be more than friends.

Two years ago, she'd smiled down the phone and asked, "How can I help?" and when she'd heard them again, she'd done the exact same thing.

There had, she realised now, been one big difference, and her hand stilled, the gun only partially swabbed as the thought threatened to bowl her over.

Two years ago, those three little words had left her giddy as a schoolgirl, hopeful and expectant that her life was about to change.

One year ago, those other words, "Since I met you" chief among them, had sent her into a tailspin, one where she wondered if he was finally coming around, if he was noticing her as more than just a co-worker, if he might finally make a move on her.

But he hadn't.

And now, hearing those words - "I need you," "I have you" - it didn't have that effect on her anymore. Oh, she smiled, in part because of the memory, in part because it was nice to hear - words of appreciation from Grissom were few and far between, no matter how vague the context - but she didn't feel the urge to deconstruct every syllable, every minute distinction in the tone of his voice, the look in his eyes.

Was she puzzled over it, did she wonder if he meant anything by it?

Yes.

Was she going to lose sleep over it?

No.

Slowly, carefully, yet almost mechanically, she finished swabbing the gun, putting the bindle into an envelope and writing the label as neatly as she could, pleased to note that her hand wasn't shaking, though her heart was beating a mile a minute, the force of her revelation still coursing through her.

She wasn't sure when it happened, but somewhere in the last few months, she'd got over Grissom.

She'd told herself that she was, after all, while it wasn't serious, she was dating Hank, but she'd never really believed it, not in her heart. This was different though, this was knowing it for sure with every fibre of her being.

And she smiled as she set off for the DNA lab, because it felt good.

A familiar voice calling her name startled her out of her reverie, and she turned curiously, still with the smile on her face, and she felt it grow wider when she saw Hank. "Hey," she said. "You got my message?"

He nodded, jogging up to her. "I thought this seminar was super-important, couldn’t be missed?" he asked, and she shrugged.

"You know Grissom," she said, holding up the envelope. "Nothing's more important than the case." She felt the urge to roll her eyes, and was only partially successful in restraining it, catching herself mid-roll.

Hank didn't miss the look, chuckling to himself before eyeing her seriously. "So um… you gonna be working non-stop?" he asked then, jamming his hands in his jacket pockets, looking at her with tilted head. His lips were twitching as if he was keeping back a smile of his own, and she had the strangest idea that she knew what he was going to say next. "Or will you be free to get something to eat later on?"

Sara pretended to ponder it for a moment, though she already knew her answer. There was plenty to be done on the case, but she was certainly entitled to a dinner break; she'd worked through enough of them after all. "I think I can fit you into my schedule," she finally told him, not bothering to hide her smile when she answered, and Hank didn't try to hide his after that either.

"I'm on my break in two hours," he said, checking his watch. "I'll meet you outside?"

She nodded, already taking a couple of backward steps. "I'll see you then."

Once he'd turned, making his way down the hall, she took a couple more backward steps, moving in the direction of the DNA lab, yet not losing eye contact with him immediately. When she realised what she was doing, she turned, checking left and right for other workers, but to her everlasting gratitude, there seemed to be no-one around who would report to the others that she'd been staring after her boyfriend with a sappy smile on her face. Nick and Greg would have a field day with that one, and her cheeks burned at what they might come out with.

She'd taken a lot of heat from various people around the lab about her relationship with Hank, and she'd always downplayed it. Not that that had been hard; for a long time, there hadn't been much to downplay, and she'd still been holding a torch for Grissom.

But now they were dating, and she was over Grissom.

The scientist in her, the analytical mind, whirred to life, wanting to know just what that meant for her, for them, but she shut it down firmly, telling herself that it was too early to begin thinking like that. Hank was a nice guy, she had fun with him, and that was more than enough for now.

For later? Something might happen, and if it did, fine. If it didn't, well, that was fine too.

That much settled, she walked in the door of the DNA lab, giving Greg her best and brightest smile. "Greg," she said, placing the evidence envelope between them, leaning on the bench and turning on all the charm she could muster. "Have I ever told you that you're a DNA genius?"

>*<*>*<

Part Five - Drydock
(High and Low)

Walking through the lab, Sara could barely keep a rein on her impatience, though she had, at least, stopped muttering under her breath about bureaucratic nonsense, red tape and arcane rules. It had got to the stage that people were literally running the other way when they saw her coming, and after pottering around her apartment during hours of the day when she'd normally be in the lab, she'd decided to stop complaining about it and actually do something about it.

The only person she knew with the power to help her was Grissom, so she headed to his office, fully prepared to wheedle, cajole or beg, anything to get her back out into the field. Catherine was working a shooting solo, Warrick and Nick were losing no time in telling her all about their murder, in which the vic literally appeared to have fallen from the sky. All these interesting cases, and where was she? Stuck processing evidence, pushing paper inside the lab.

This hadn't been her first attempt, but she hadn't managed to find Grissom, and he didn't appear to be anywhere around the lab. She'd asked a few people if they'd seen him, had tried his cell, all to no avail, but as luck would have it, this time he was in his office, though standing at his desk, folders underneath his arm. He had all the hallmarks of someone who was on his way out the door, so she knocked on the door frame lightly, expecting him to turn around. When he didn't, she frowned, knocking a little harder on the door, combining it with the words, "You got a minute?"

He turned then, blinking in surprise. "I didn't see you there," he said simply, and she shrugged her shoulders, taking a couple of steps in.

"I stopped by a little while ago," she said. "You weren't here."

"I had an errand to run," he said, his tone clipped, his manner brusque, and it was Sara's turn to register surprise. She knew that people often talked about Grissom's manner and lack of people skills, but she couldn't recall a time when he'd ever addressed her in quite that tone. The memory of a poolside conversation at the Newman residence came to her, and she brushed it aside - she didn't want to think about that now, didn't want to get retrospectively pissed off at him, not when she was here to beg him for a favour.

"OK," she said simply, cutting him off before he could say anything else, holding her hands up in mock surrender. "I was just wondering if I could ask you something."

"As long as it's quick," was all Grissom said, and Sara took a deep breath, realising that this might be harder than she'd thought.

"I'm dry-docked," she told him, cutting straight to the point. "I'm maxed out on overtime, I can't get out into the field and lab work is driving me crazy." Her main problem out in the open, she chanced a whimsical smile. "Can you help me out?"

"No." The word was uttered in that flat, brusque tone, without a hint of a smile on his face. There wasn't a chance that he was joking with her, and she felt herself deflate slightly. It wasn't so much that he was saying no, she'd expected that. It was the way in which he said it, his whole demeanour.

Still though, she gave it another try. "C'mon Gris, those rules are ridiculous…when a case is hot, you have to run with it, you know that as well as I do-"

"Sara." Her name was said in the tone that she knew better than to argue with, the tone that she'd heard of, had heard used, but had never had directed at her before. She wasn't sure if it was the tone itself or the shock of it that still her tongue before she got to point out that the only reason she maxed out on overtime this month was that he called her in on the Todd Branson murder. "Those rules are made for a reason. Not only that, but you max out on overtime more than any other CSI I've met."

"Exactly my point!" Sara's eyes grew wide with surprise, because when had Grissom ever not bent that particular pesky rule for her? "Grissom-"

"Sara." There was that tone again. "The decision stands." He held her gaze for a long moment, then walked out of the office, leaving her standing there, wondering what the hell just happened.

>*<*>*<

It didn't take long for Sara to recover, deciding that if Grissom wouldn't listen to her, then there might be someone else that he would listen to, and it didn't take her long to figure out who it might be. Thus, she abandoned all prospect of talking Grissom around, instead choosing to seek out someone who had charm in abundance, someone who had plenty of practice at getting around Grissom.

She found Catherine in one of the layout rooms, bags of what looked like twigs laid out on the table in front of her. Wondering what in the world that had to do with a shooting, Sara decided that it wasn't that vital that she know, instead coming straight to the point, as she had with Grissom. "Can you help me out?"

Catherine barely looked up from her twigs. "Uh…depends."

While not a ringing endorsement, it was still more encouraging than her entire conversation with Grissom. "I can't get out into the field because I'm maxed out on overtime for the month," she said simply, leaving it to Catherine to fill in the blanks.

"Ah. And you're confined to the lab, huh?" From Catherine's continued interest in her evidence, it was clear that she didn't consider this a problem, certainly not in the same way that Sara considered it a problem. In fact, Catherine had her own set of suggestions as to what Sara should do, which she lost no time in sharing. "Well, hey, look, it's regular hours. I mean, go have dinner with the boyfriend ... Hank, right?" There was just enough of a pause after the word boyfriend for the word to sink in with Sara before Catherine named him, and from the sassy little glint in her colleague's eye, Sara knew that she was on a fishing expedition. Even though she'd been asked about it more times than she could count, she still had never come out and confirmed to anyone from work that she and Hank were dating, and there was no way she was going to do it now. Seeing that she wasn't going to get a reaction, Catherine continued. "And, and ... go, go to a spa."

Sara told herself that she wasn't going to react to the line about Hank. She wasn't going to do it. But the words came out of her mouth anyway, and the second she said them, she wanted to take them back. "Hank is not my boyfriend." It was a categorical denial, and a complete lie, but Catherine couldn't know that, though the look on her face when she glanced up at Sara pretty much gave the game away. Still, Sara rushed to cover up the lie in the hopes that Catherine would forget all about it, following up with an objection that even she found weak. "And you know, those places are filled with bacteria."

Catherine didn't comment on either refutation, going on the offensive. "Sara, I don't make the rules around here. You've got to talk to Grissom about that."

Except that she already had, and had got nowhere. Under normal circumstances, Sara would balk at letting Catherine know that she'd failed at something, much less let her know that she needed her help. But these were not normal circumstances; there was still a lot of the month left to go, and the thought of being confined to the lab for the duration was enough to make Sara swallow her pride. "Yeah ... he's, um, not really in a talking mood."

She smiled as she said it, somewhat embarrassed, and Catherine looked up at her in what looked like mild surprise. "What makes you think he's going talk to me?" Sara merely shrugged in response, giving her that same smile, because if he was going to talk to anyone in the lab, it was going to be her; besides which, Catherine was able to turn on the charm like no-one else she'd ever met. If Catherine could read her thoughts, she didn't comment on them, instead telling Sara, "Get some rest."

With barely contained impatience, Sara fought the urge to beat Catherine over the head with one of the sticks in front of her. Nick had said the same thing to her, so had Warrick. Even Hank had said it, and she was getting nigh on sick of it. "I'm not tired," she protested, knowing from Catherine's face that she didn't believe her. "Really. I'm not tired."

Knowing that Catherine didn't believe her, she turned, walking out of the room, going back to the DNA lab where she was helping out Greg.

>*<*>*<

Making his way to the DNA lab, Cyrus couldn't keep from hurrying, though he did try. Not very hard though; after all, he'd been waiting for this evidence for what seemed like a long time. He'd been on the hunt for this murder weapon for a long time, and if his luck held, the traces of blood that had been on it would conclusively link it to his suspected killer. He would have crossed his fingers were he the superstitious type, but instead he just settled for throwing a quick prayer up to whomever might be listening as he walked into the lab.

He expected to see Greg Sanders there, the lively spiky-haired lab tech who normally handled such cases, and he was thrown off his stride when he saw a familiar crown of dark hair wielding a pipette, transferring a sample of liquid into a test tube. "Doing your own lab work now Sara?" he asked, taken aback when she looked up at him, not with the smile that he'd been half-expecting, but with a narrow eyed glare.

"Don't you start too," she all but growled at him, and he held up his hands in genuine confusion.

"You want me to go out and come back in?" he suggested, only partly joking, and Sara looked hard at him, as if to ascertain if he was serious. When she realised that he really didn't know what she was talking about, she was instantly contrite, or as contrite as one could be when she still looked pissed off.

"I shouldn't have snapped at you like that…I'm sorry." She laid down the pipette, turning to face him and leaning against the bench. "I've just been hearing a lot of jokes at my expense… gets a little old."

He narrowed his eyes curiously, deciding it was safe to take a couple of steps closer in, ready to run at any moment. "You want to let me in on the secret?" he asked, and she looked to the ceiling, shaking her head.

"I maxed out on overtime for the month," she told him. "I'm confined to the lab. Hence, helping out Greg."

"And she's doing quite well too," Greg pointed out, hustling past them, a folder of results in his hand. "Might make a real lab tech out of her yet."

Sara made a sound that was halfway between a chuckle and a growl, and Cyrus might have reacted more to it were he not trying to nab the rapidly moving Greg. "Sanders, you got those results for me?"

"Somewhere in the pile," Greg told him, barely breaking stride. "But if I don't get these to Ecklie like, five minutes ago, you'll be finding my DNA under his fingernails… Sara, help the Detective, will you? Meredith Lambert."

"Sure." Sara wasn't looking at Greg when she replied, but Cyrus was, and he was pretty sure that for all Greg's haste, he paused slightly on the way out, his gaze flickering from Sara to Cyrus and back again, a devilish smile on his face. As quickly as Cyrus noted it though, it was gone, and so was Greg, and he told himself that he was being paranoid, that he'd been hanging around with Stokes too long, turning back to Sara, who, good as her word, had moved over to another bench, looking through a pile of papers there. "I swear," she muttered to herself. "I don't know how he finds a thing…"

"So you're not allowed out in the field?" Cyrus asked, following her over, receiving a half-glare for his concern.

"No," she said viciously. "Regular hours until the start of next month."

She sounded as if she'd been sentenced to bread and water, and Cyrus couldn’t help laughing. "You say that like it's a bad thing."

"It is." There was no trace of good humour in her voice, and Cyrus stopped laughing quickly. "Lab work's ok…" Even he could tell that that was a lie. "But it's not the same, you know?"

"Don’t let Greg hear you say that," Cyrus told her, trying to lighten her mood, receiving a snicker as reward for his efforts. "Seriously though," Cyrus continued. "You're the first person I've heard complain about not being able to work overtime."

She gave him a long-suffering sigh in response. "Catherine told me to go to the spa," she told him. "You know how much bacteria is in those places?"

He didn't, nor did he want to. "So do something else. Go see friends, see a movie, go to the carnival…"

He'd meant it as a joke, but she looked up at his words, laying down her papers. "The carnival?" she repeated thoughtfully. "Man, I haven't been to a carnival in years… outside of a case a couple of years ago… one used to come every year when I was a kid, my parents would always take us…"

"Yeah?" He'd never heard Sara talk about her childhood before, in fact, knew very little about her personal life at all, and he couldn't deny his interest.

"Yeah…I used to love all the rides…but especially the Ferris wheel… it'd go up and you'd be able to see all the way over the bay…" Her voice trailed off, lost in memories. "I haven't thought about that in years," she admitted.

"There you go," he told her. "There's a plan for you."

"Maybe," she said, going back to her papers again, all professionalism again, and she didn't look up again until she came to one particular folder. "Here's your name," she said, flipping open the folder, eyes screwing up in concentration as she read the page. "According to this, the blood is a definite match to Meredith Lambert." She looked up at him after she said the name, and he felt the biggest smile starting to spread across his face. "I take it that's good?"

"That's very good," he told her. Off her curious look, he explained. "Meredith Lambert was found dead two weeks ago at her residence. No-one was home, allegedly, nothing was taken, place was smashed up though. Husband had no alibi, but we had no evidence on him."

"Until now?"

"Until now," he confirmed. "That knife was found in a park where they used to go jogging on a regular basis…wrapped in a piece of newspaper dated the day of the murder." He grimaced slightly as a thought occurred to him. "Now we just have to tie the knife to the husband."

Sara's nose wrinkled in thought. "Nothing on prints?"

"Knife and paper both clean," Cyrus reported. "Unfortunately. And we checked the kitchen, the garage, everywhere. No knives missing, no receipts from buying knives… not that it looked especially new…see for yourself." Opening the folder in his hand, he took out a photograph of the knife, handing it over to her. When she took it from him, she frowned, holding it up, observing it from several different angles. She did that for so long that he had to ask, "What, you see something?"

Her next question surprised him. "Husband wasn't a diver by any chance?"

Cyrus's eyebrows raised. "He was. Is that important?"

"With this knife? I'd say so."

"How?" Cyrus didn't understand, and he wasn't shy about saying so. "I mean, it's an all purpose knife, anyone could have used it…"

"And I bet anyone did," Sara said. "See how the handle's all beat up? But that's not why it's important." She was walking past him to the door when she stopped. "Who's the CSI on the case?"

"McCafferty. Day shift."

She narrowed her eyes. "Cheating on the graveyard shift? Detective, I'm hurt."

"Right," he said flatly, but his lips twitched. "You're gonna share what you know anyway though."

She tilted her head, as if she was considering it. "You talked me into it," she said, motioning him to follow her. "McCafferty's not gonna mind me snooping; she's pretty cool. Come on."

She led him to the layout room, finding the evidence box, finding the knife easily and signing it out. "Initial there," she said, handing him a pen, pointing to her name. He did so, looking at her in silent question. "This way we can say that you couldn't find someone on days and asked me to help out."

He blinked. "You said McCafferty wouldn't mind."

"She won't. But when you're dealing with one of Ecklie's people, you cover yourself."

She was gone again, and he found himself once more following in her wake, feeling all kinds of new respect for Nick and anyone else who had to try to keep up with Sara when she was running with a case. "He's really that bad?" he asked, having heard all about Conrad Ecklie, none of it very pleasant, and Sara literally shuddered when she replied.

"Worse," she said simply. She didn't say another word until she got to the print lab, nodding at the woman sitting there. "Mind if I rob your station Jackie?"

Jackie just looked at her. "It's all yours," she said, as if she was surprised that Sara had even asked. "I was about due for a break." She nodded at Cyrus as she left, but Cyrus barely noticed, so intent was he on Sara. She was moving with the speed of someone who knew exactly what she was doing gathering all the equipment she needed and laying it on the table beside the knife. Snapping on a pair of gloves, she took the knife from the bag, holding it up in demonstration.

"This is an all-purpose knife, you're right about that," she told him. "But a lot of divers use them…they come in handy when you're in the depths of the deep and you're not sure what might be coming at you. Or if you want to take samples of what's growing down there."

To say that Sara knew about this was a surprise to say the least. "You're a diver?" he asked, and she laughed, shaking her head.

"Not me. My older brother used to, and his buddies. Diving, surfing, jet skis, anything to do with water. However, while he loved the sports, cleaning up after himself was never his strong suit. He used to pay me to do it…and I used to let him." She was fiddling with the knife, her features a mask of concentration. "Which is how I know that this happens…" With a triumphant smile, she popped the blade out of the knife, the handle popping open into two equal halves. "I saw from the pictures that they only dusted the outside, right?" Cyrus nodded his assent and Sara moved towards what looked like a large glass box. "McCafferty's from Vermont," she told him. "Not a lot of diving knives sold there."

"You think you can get a print off that?" Cyrus asked, stepping closer to her to better see what she was doing, and she shrugged as she reached for a small foil container, putting a few drops of liquid into it.

"It's worth a shot," she told him. "I know that my prints would have been all over the inside of Mike's knife." She paused then, holding the knife up. "Though I might do you one better." She angled the knife, pointing out a stain at the base of the handle.

"Is that blood?" Cyrus couldn’t figure out how it would have got there, inside the blade, but once again, Sara had an answer for him.

"Could be…I've nicked myself on these things plenty…the blood runs down, gets in between the grooves." Reaching for a bindle, she took a swab of it. "It could be animal blood…but then again, you might get lucky." She labelled the bindle, then returned to the glass box. Placing the small dish into it, she put the knife handle and blade onto the shelf within, closing the lid and flicking a switch. Instantly, fumes began to pour into the box, and as Cyrus looked, patterns began to form on the plastic. He didn't need to see the triumphant grin forming on her face to know that she'd hit pay dirt.

"You've got a print?" he asked, just to be sure, and she leaned closer to get a better look.

"A good one too," she announced. She was already reaching for her tape lift. "I'll scan it in, run it through the databases…hope for the best."

She flashed him a gap-toothed grin, and he couldn't help his reply. "Guess lab work's not so boring after all huh?"

She narrowed her eyes at him, but seconds later, she was smiling too.

>*<*>*<

Decorations were hung up all over Nick's living room, and if his neighbours found it confusing that their neighbour was having a Christmas party at ten o'clock in the morning, then no-one had so far commented on it. Nor had anyone called to the door, asking them to turn down the music, Greg having decided that he was manning the stereo, playing DJ to impress the chicks, his words, not Sara's. At present, he was leading several lab techs in a spirited chorus of "Grandma Got Run Over By A Reindeer," much to Sara's amusement, and that of Warrick, who was standing beside her.

"How much has he had to drink?" she asked from her perch on the edge of Nick's couch. Greg certainly showed all the hallmarks of one who had significantly partaken of the Christmas spirit, but then again, this was Greg, so you never could tell.

Warrick's next words bore out her point. "Worryingly little," he observed, raising his own bottle of beer to his lips. It did little to wash a bad taste out of his mouth if the look on his face was anything to go by. "Is this the never ending version of this song?"

"I think he's just making verses up," Sara told him, biting back her own grin.

"Yeah." Warrick's attention was diverted when their gracious host walked by them. "Hey Stokes!"

"Yeah?" There was a broad smile on Nick's face, despite the fact that Greg was showing no signs of playing any decent music, and that the entire graveyard shift seemed to have descended on his house. Of course, that might have had something to do with the fact that tomorrow was Christmas Eve, and that Nick had that night's shift off so that he could catch a red-eye home to Dallas for the holidays. He hadn't stopped talking about it for weeks.

His good mood didn't do anything for Warrick though. "Man, what were you thinking letting Sanders near your stereo?"

Nick shrugged easily, throwing Greg a look over his shoulder. "I didn't let Greg do anything, he just showed up there and refused to leave." When he glanced back at Warrick, he seemed hard-pressed to keep back a smile of his own. "What, you want to go over there and give him lessons?"

Sara bit the inside of her cheek, the better to hide her smile. She knew, as did many of the shift, that Warrick sometimes DJ'ed at clubs owned by friends of his as a way to blow off steam. She'd never seen him, usually she was stuck working on his nights off, though she'd heard from other people who had that he wasn't half bad. She didn't think that he'd do anything about it now though, so she was surprised when Warrick took a step in that direction. "Not a bad idea," he said, and she and Nick watched him go for a second, then looked at one another, identical smiles appearing on both their faces.

"This should be pretty interesting," he said, and she laughed outright as the possibilities unfolded themselves in her brain.

"Hope your homeowner's insurance is paid up," she cracked, enjoying the look of mild panic that appeared on his face.

"Don't say that…" he moaned, looking over at Warrick and Greg, whose conversation was lively to say the least.

Sara might have tried to reassure him, but her attention was caught by someone coming towards them, and she smiled up at him. "Cyrus, hey," she said, her voice making Nick turn towards the detective with a smile.

"Hey man, you made it!"

Cyrus shrugged. "I figured I'd drop in for a few minutes," he said, looking around him. "Quite a crowd."

"Yeah." Nick didn't look quite as comfortable with it as he had mere minutes before; perhaps the homeowner's insurance joke had been a bridge too far. "Here, let me get you a beer…"

"Just one!" Cyrus called after him before he looked down at Sara. "Having a good time?"

Sara nodded up at him, surprised at how true it was. She wasn't usually one for mingling socially outside the office, had never been to one of the lab house parties before, though she'd always been told that she should. What had made her go this year she wasn't quite sure, but she knew that she'd changed a lot since this time last year. This time last year she was working all the hours God sent, pining after Gil Grissom and wishing for something she could never have. The Donna Marks case had started her along the road that had led her here, led her to phone Hank, to begin to get herself a life, and suddenly, she was very glad that she had.

"Sara?"

Cyrus's voice brought her back to reality, and she blushed slightly, hoping that he'd blame it on the heat of the room. "Sorry," she said. "Just spaced out for a sec there."

"I hope you're not driving." His words were slightly reproving, and she shook her head.

"Nick's got the cab company on speed dial," she assured him.

"Good." Then he paused, a confused, almost pained, expression appearing on his face. "What the hell is this music?"

Sara tilted her head to one side, listening intently, before cracking up. It was a techno version of what might at one time have been "I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus," and as she looked over at the stereo, she laughed even harder at the look on Warrick's face. Even as she listened, Greg upped the volume just a little bit more. "Turf war over the stereo system," she told Cyrus when she'd got her giggles under control. "Good job you're a homicide cop, we might need you later."

"Not a chance," he told her instantly. "I'm off the clock till after Christmas."

Sara narrowed her eyes at him, especially when Nick came over, the smile back on his face when he heard Cyrus's words. "Isn't it great?" he asked, and Sara shot him a look too.

"Shut up," she said, but the effects of her amusement over Greg's music choice rendered her glare pretty toothless.

"To be so young and so bitter," Nick said, mock-mournfully, and Sara just rolled her eyes, opening her mouth to give as good as she'd got. She was interrupted though when Archie bounded up, a smile on his face wider than she'd ever seen.

"OK guys," he said, pointing a camera at them. "Smile."

Her hand flew up instantly. "Oh you're kidding me."

Archie looked only slightly deflated. "It's the newest Olympus digital camera… 2.0 mega pixels, 2.5X optical zoom, 3X digital zoom… it does everything but talk to you, though just give me time for that... my parents gave it to me for Christmas."

Nick's expression was a cross between confounded and surprised. "Your parents sent you that?"

"You do know it's not Christmas yet?" Sara added, but Archie was irrepressible.

"Since I'm not getting home for Christmas-" he said, with a pointed glare at Nick, "They sent it to me. I'm impatient, they're generous, what can I say." A beat. "Except thank you." Another beat. "And smile."

Sara shook her head, preparing an objection, but Nick wouldn't have any of it, pulling her to her feet. "C'mon Sara," he said, propelling her into the middle of him and Cyrus. "Why wouldn't you want your photograph taken with two such handsome men as ourselves?"

With another shake of her head, Sara smiled dutifully, though it wasn't as much of a chore as she'd thought. His deed done, Archie was off to photograph someone else, and she sat back down again, looking at the two men. "I was wondering who had the camera," Nick observed. "I kept seeing flashes out of the corner of my eye."

"I'm surprised you even had to ask," Sara told him, because she hadn't known that the camera was there at all. "Archie's our resident A/V wizard," she explained to Cyrus, who was looking at little confused.

"And techno-geek," Nick supplied, but his good humour was short lived, chased away by the sound of breaking glass. "Oh no no no…that's so not good…"

That was all it took for him to be off in search of the culprit, leaving Sara and Cyrus alone, him standing before her, her arms braced on her knees. "He's freaking out," she told him, and he tilted his head in acknowledgement.

"Clean-up's gonna be something," he said. "Glad I'm not gonna have to help out."

"I think I’m gonna be very busy on a case," she agreed, before looking up at him curiously as his words registered. "You're not staying in town for Christmas?"

He shook his head quickly. "Oh no…that's a sure fire way to get called in for overtime. I'm heading back to Reno."

"Reno?" She lifted an eyebrow, and he nodded.

"Family Christmas," he told her, and for an instant, she thought she saw a shadow flicker across his face, but it was gone too quickly for her to be sure. "I'm heading over to my sister's later on this afternoon; we're flying back together."

"Your sister lives in Vegas?"

"Moved here two years ago, her husband got transferred. They've got a little girl too… not so sure I'm looking forward to spending time on a plane with her…" His thoughtful expression was crowned by dancing eyes, and she knew that he was looking forward to it, no matter what he might be projecting. "You're not going home?" he asked, and she shook her head. She couldn't remember the last time that she'd been in Tomales Bay for Christmas.

"My parents aren't too big on Christmas," she said, a mild version of the truth. "Besides, Cath's taking the day to be with her kid, and Nick wanted to head back to Texas - I think his mother threatened to disinherit him if he missed another Christmas-" She paused for a second, because it was there again, some little flicker of something indefinable on his face, gone in an instant. "So Warrick and Grissom and I are left on night shift," she added, recovering well.

"You're very calm for someone working on Christmas," he observed, and she shrugged.

" I can handle it," she told him. "I'm not big on Christmas either." His eyes narrowed, and he looked at her if she was speaking in tongues. "I take it you don’t agree."

"It's what you grow up with, you know?" he asked. "Christmas was always a big thing for us… my mother, she'd start preparing right after Thanksgiving, and then she'd want to leave everything up until Easter." His face lit up in a soft smile. "Used to drive us crazy." It was his turn to space out then, staring at the floor for a moment, and she didn't call him on it, just waited for him to come to. When he did, his eyes narrowed, and she actually saw him shake himself. "What was I saying again?"

"I think you were about to rub it in some more that you were off-work for a few days," she told him, and the look in his eyes told her that he appreciated the lie.

"Would I?" he asked, all innocence, and while she had a smart retort all ready, it was swallowed up by a blast of music from the stereo, a tune that sounded familiar but that she just couldn't place. Her gaze swung around to the stereo, and to her surprise, she saw Greg pulling Catherine out to the centre of the floor, a circle forming around them, with more people joining them in a line.

"What?" she heard herself say in baffled amusement, just as Greg bellowed, "Who else can Time Warp?"

Closing her eyes for a moment, she began to laugh, then looked up at Cyrus. "Away you go," she told him, and he held up one hand in a "halt" gesture.

"I don’t dance," he told her. "And certainly not like that."

From her seat on the edge of the couch, someone moved in front of her and she couldn't see properly, so she stood up, moving over to the circle, feeling him moving beside her. Greg and Catherine were by now each at the head of a line, everyone following them, Catherine following Greg, and Sara looked up at Cyrus before looking back at the hilarious sight in front of them. "I'm with you," she told him. "I'm staying well out of it."

True to their words, they did stay out of it, the most they did was clap along. It didn't end at the Time Warp though; when that was done, Greg had cued up the Macarena, and he was halfway through the Hokey-Pokey when Warrick finally had enough and pressed the stop button. Greg's face was a picture, his language less than parliamentary, and she and Cyrus were still grinning when they faced one another again.

"This is the crack DNA scientist we trust our evidence with?" Cyrus asked, and Sara nodded with a perfectly straight face.

"Scared yet?" she asked, and Cyrus looked across at Greg again, bemused.

"Just a little," he admitted, and all Sara could do was laugh. "Hey," she said, looking at something over his shoulder. "I think Nick wants you."

He turned, and sure enough, Nick was there, waving over to him. "Better see what he wants," he said, saluting Nick. "I'll catch you later?" he asked, and she nodded, heading over to the buffet table, grabbing herself a fresh beer and a handful of chips.

She barely had the first mouthful swallowed before a voice appeared at her elbow. "OK, Sara, I've got to ask…" The voice trailed off, and turning, Sara found herself looking at Lea, who was regarding her with open interest. Sara blinked, because she didn't know Lea all that well, though what she knew, she liked. "Who is he?"

Sara frowned, not understanding. "Who's who?"

"Don't play coy with me." Lea wagged her finger from side to side, and Sara wondered how many beers she'd had. Lea did have a reputation as being free-spirited, but this was more relaxed than even Sara had ever seen her. "That hunk of tall dark and handsome that you've been monopolising ever since he walked in the door."

It took a second for the penny to drop. "Cyrus?" Sara asked. "Cyrus Lockwood?" Her eyes flicked over to where Nick and Cyrus were talking, and Lea followed her gaze.

"The guy Nick's talking to," she confirmed, and Sara nodded.

"That's Detective Lockwood," she told her. "Cyrus."

"Cyrus…" Lea drew the name out, rolling it around her tongue, eyeing Cyrus up and down. "Detective Hot…" She snickered, raising her bottle of beer to her lips as she muttered, "He could question me any time." Sara laughed more in shock than amusement, Lea looking at her appraisingly. "Oh come on, don't tell me you've never thought it."

"Not once," Sara said, about to tell her that she was dating Hank, that Cyrus was just a friend, but stopping short. That would be the first official confirmation that she really was dating Hank, and in a situation like this, it would go around the room like wildfire, growing more exaggerated with every telling. She had no doubt that if she had said that, office gossip would have her engaged or pregnant, or perhaps both, by the time she started her shift later that night.

"Right." Lea's tone redefined scepticism, but she didn't take that line of thought any further. "So," she said instead. "What's his story?" At Sara's confused look, she elaborated. "Married? Taken? Gay?"

"No to all," Sara answered. "You interested?"

Lea looked at her as if she'd lost her mind. "You're kidding right? Have you looked at him?" To prove her point, she stared over at Cyrus, and Sara found her gaze drawn there too. "I mean…" This last was followed by a sound which Sara guessed was meant to indicate at least attraction, more likely arousal, and not for the first time that evening, Sara found her cheeks growing warm. "So, is he seeing anyone?" Lea demanded, her eyes boring lasers into Sara's.

"Not as far as I know," Sara told her honestly. "Though I wouldn't know for sure… Nick's a better ask."

"But you're not interested?" Lea asked, and Sara would have laughed were it not for the fact that Lea's eyes were serious, her expression concerned. "Because it looked as if the two of you were having a moment…."

Sara laughed out loud at her choice of words. "We weren't," she assured her, and Lea looked vaguely hopeful.

"Seriously? I mean, I don't want to step on any toes…" Her hands were spread as she talked, the picture of sincerity, and Sara hastened to reassure her.

"You're not stepping on any toes Lea," she told her. "Go for it."

A broad grin broke out on Lea's face. "Yeah?"

"Yeah." Sara didn't have to think twice. "Cyrus is a great guy. Get over there."

Lea didn't have to be told twice, and Sara moved off herself, finding Greg and Warrick still arguing over the music, herself and Catherine ending up playing referee between the two. She stayed there for a long time, talking with them, and with other people who came and went, but every so often, her gaze would turn to the trio across the room, Lea Nick and Cyrus. By all appearances, Lea was turning on the charm pretty thickly, Cyrus looking bemused, Nick looking distinctly amused, but she couldn't tell from where she was if Lea was having any luck.

She got her answer later though, when Cyrus waved to her across the room as he left the party alone.

>*<*>*<

Part Seven - Endearments
(Recipe for Murder)

Sara shone her flashlight around the closet, ostensibly looking for some form of evidence of foul play, in reality searching for an escape hatch of some kind. Absent the ground actually opening up and swallowing her - and what, she wondered, were the chances of a convenient earthquake in Las Vegas in the next few minutes? - it seemed as good a way as any of getting out of here.

She was only dimly aware of the sounds of the three men talking in the bedroom, standing around the body of Linda Damen, so preoccupied was she with her slip of the tongue. How, she wondered, had she let her guard down long enough to call Hank "baby" while on duty, and in front of others no less? It had surprised him as much as it had surprised her; she'd seen that much in his eyes, and from the corner of hers, she hadn't missed Detective Sulik's hard double take either. Warrick hadn't looked up from the blood-soaked covers, but she wasn't fooled by that, for she'd seen the corners of his mouth twitching, and knew that the absence of any teasing looks then only meant that he was saving them for later on, when they were alone and he could get away with saying anything. Most probably, he'd start with the fact that she'd called Hank baby at all, considering that she'd spent the last few months denying that Hank was her boyfriend, before moving on to the fact that she, for once, had brought her personal life into the office. If she was lucky, he'd start when the two of them were alone, but more likely, he'd wait until back at the lab, probably around Nick and Greg, and then it would be a case of the cat being let well and truly out of the bag.

She was chiding herself for what she'd said and when she said it when another thought occurred to her. This wasn't the first time that she'd called Hank baby. It had been said on odd occasions before this, at her place or his, in the heat of passion. She just wasn't sure that she'd ever used it so casually in conversation before, and not just with Hank, but with anyone. She'd spent the last few months telling people that she and Hank weren't dating, trying to tell herself that they weren't serious, that it was nothing heavy, even after her "I'm over Grissom" revelation in December.

But if it was all those things, then she wouldn't have called him baby in front of everyone.

If she ever got enough courage to step foot outside this closet again, she might be able to find the courage to tell him that, to do something about it.

Her inspection, and her brief introspection, was interrupted by Hank appearing at the closet door. He was smiling, and she felt herself blushing anew under his gaze, but he didn't look offended, and he didn't look upset. He did look happy however. "I'm going to hit the road," he told her, and she was about to say something, anything to him, when she caught the look in his eyes, and just about had herself prepared for his post script. "Baby." The word was said with a teasing grin, and she knew that he was thinking, the same thing she was. That she'd never called him that in that way before, and that it must be a good thing.

A good thing except for the timing she reminded herself, so she grinned self-consciously, saying "I’m sorry." Because she knew that this was going to go the rounds, she knew that they were both going to catch hell for that, and she knew it was all her fault.

But as he smiled at her, as she looked into his eyes, she was surprised to discover that she really didn't mind all that much.

>*<*>*<

After Hank left, Sara went about her work the same way that she always did, managing to put her mortification out of her mind for the time being. She was lucky in that she was working with Warrick, who made it easy on her, not saying anything as they processed the scene. He was all business, acting as if nothing had happened, and for that, Sara was grateful. She knew that if she'd slipped like that around Nick that he'd be plaguing her for details, and if it had happened around Catherine, she'd be doing the same. Had it happened around Grissom, she was pretty sure that she just would have passed away peacefully on the spot, and given Doc Robbins a really interesting autopsy to review for the medical journals - the first person to ever literally die of embarrassment.

They took the stained shirt that she found in the closet with them back to the lab, along with the bloody footprints, the razor blades, sheets and other assorted evidence that they thought might be useful, and Sara had almost forgotten to be on her guard when Warrick finally spoke. "So…" he said, and the way that he drew the word out instantly put her on notice. "You got something you want to tell me?"

Sara shook her head slightly, affecting amnesia. "No," she said, but the heat on her cheeks would have told him otherwise, and he hooted with laughter.

"Baby?" was all he said, and she tried to parry again.

"Yes sugar?"

He looked at her out of the corner of his eye. "Just friends huh?" His voice was full of scepticism. "Uh-huh." When she didn't say anything, he continued. "You and I are just friends…Nick…Greg…Archie… you call any of them baby?"

Sara closed her eyes, tilting her head back against the seat, rubbing her hand across her forehead. "You're enjoying this," she accused him, and he chuckled again.

"No doubt." But he paused then, and when he spoke again, his voice was serious. "How long?"

"The last time I told you something like this, the entire lab knew I had a date within hours," she reminded him, her unspoken question obvious, and he just gave her a look.

"But this time I still remember the bruises," he said, and she laughed, because she hadn't punched him that hard. "How long?"

She shrugged, blowing out a deep breath. "Couple months," she told him honestly. "I mean, we started seeing one another casually in the summer-" She left out the bit about Hank seeing them in the hospital when they were waiting for news of Nick, because she knew that he still felt guilty about being outside when his friend and partner had needed him, the ghost of Holly Gribbs rearing its head. "-But it only got more serious after the Tom Haviland case."

Except that she was lying to him. Because that hadn't been when it had got more serious. Then, she'd still been more than a little hung up on Grissom. She hadn't truly made the choice to move on with her life, to forget about him altogether until the next week, when he'd called her in on her day off, given her attitude because she couldn't get to him on a moment's notice, had moved her away from the main case to a smaller solo with Cyrus Lockwood. It had been after that, when she'd talked to him in his office that she'd walked away from him, and literally run into Hank, going to breakfast with him instead of heading home alone and brooding.

That had been when everything had changed between them and she knew it, but there was no sense in telling Warrick that. As it was, he now knew significantly more than anyone else in the lab, because she'd made a conscious choice not to let anyone know about her personal life. From what Marjorie Wescott had said to her on the stand she knew that there must have been some talk going around about her and Grissom, and after the thinly veiled accusations that had masked as her cross-examination, Sara wouldn't have put it past some lab gossipmonger having two and two make ten, putting it around that she was only dating Hank to make Grissom jealous. It had seemed a safe thing to do, to keep things quiet until she knew for sure what was going on between them, and she'd worried about broaching it to Hank, worried about how he'd take it, but in fact, he'd told her that if she wanted not to tell people, that was fine with him, that he'd follow her lead. Hence his surprise at the crime scene tonight, because her calling him baby there would have been the last thing on his mind.

Warrick gave a low whistle as he worked out exactly how long ago she was talking about, and his voice was impressed when he glanced at her. "You hid it that long?"

She shrugged. "I didn't want everyone knowing, everyone talking about it…"

"Like they weren't doing that anyway," Warrick snickered, and she had to give him that.

"OK, point taken." She sighed, wondering how she could make him understand. "It just seemed easier that way."

"I can see that," Warrick murmured, slowing down to take a right turn, not speaking again until he'd completed the manoeuvre. "And if you want me to keep quiet about you seeing Hank, you got it."

His unexpected offer had her head whipping around, peering at him in suspicion. "Seriously?"

A slow nod, staring straight ahead. "Yup."

He might have only said one word, but his face spoke volumes. "You're still going to spread the baby thing around though, aren't you?" She was nodding as she spoke, not the slightest hint of a question in her voice, because it was as close to a sure thing as she'd ever come across, and she wasn't surprised in the least when he smiled.

"You bet. I mean…pet names? That's too good." She rolled her eyes as she looked out the window, waving a hand dismissively. Undeterred, he continued. "Just tell me one thing… what does he call you? Sweetheart? Darling? Sugar pie?"

Closing her eyes, she just laughed.

>*<*>*<

Part Eight - Admission
(Got Murder?)

Cyrus walked into the diner and looked around for Nick, pretty sure before he did so that it was going to be a waste of time, and not being in the least bit surprised when it proved to be so. After all, Nick had managed to be on time or, shock of all shocks, early the last few times that they'd met up; he'd been bound to revert to his past habits sooner or later. Cyrus himself was a little earlier than usual today, based mostly on the fact that he was starving, so he sat down in one of the booths, reaching for a menu, resolving to order the second the waitress came over to him. Nick had done it to him often enough, he was bound to understand.

As it happened, Cyrus was just placing his order when Nick came in, sliding into the booth across from him and turning a smile up to the waitress. "Whatever he's having, make it two," he said, in a slightly deeper accent than Cyrus was used to hearing from him, but the waitress didn't know that, and she bestowed a beaming smile on Nick as she walked away. "Sorry I'm late man," Nick told him, holding his hands up. "One of those cases."

"Yeah. I heard you were on the eyeball case," Cyrus said with a smirk, recalling the shudder that had coursed through Brass's body as he'd detailed the particulars of the case. Cyrus had been waiting a long time to find something that would crack Brass's cool facade, and he was deeply appreciative that he'd been around to see it.

His phraseology seemed to have a similar affect on Nick, whose head twisted sharply to the side as if he was remembering something unpleasant. "You know things are bad when that's the best part of the case," he said, words that had Cyrus looking at him in amazement. This part of the tale he hadn't heard from Brass.

"Seriously?"

Nick nodded, opening his mouth to speak but stopping when the waitress came back over to them, all charm and batting eyelashes, filling their coffee cups. Nick grinned up at her again, but didn't speak until she was gone, and only then after a fortifying gulp of coffee. His words however, came out of left field. "Did you know that average Nevadan generates more waste more than three times waste than the average American? Thirteen million pounds per day."

Not sure how to respond, Cyrus opened his mouth, then closed it again, raising his coffee cup to his lips. "No."

Nick chuckled. "Neither did I, until I spent hours searching a landfill for a dead body with Sara and Catherine. Sara went to some recycling forum in March, and she's got a head for numbers that you would not believe."

The twinkle in Nick's eyes though, had nothing to do with Sara's affinity for numbers and everything to do with his habit of dropping Sara's name into random conversation in the hopes of eliciting a reaction from Cyrus. Cyrus knew that, and kept his face carefully blank, concentrating on the case. "So the body that the eyeball belonged to was in a landfill?"

Again, Nick gave a slight shudder. "I swear, I can still smell that place. But yeah. Long story short, that, and other evidence, helped us to find that her name was Kelly Easton. She ran out on her husband and kids five years ago. Came back to town wanting to start over. Except that her daughter, Nora is now a high school senior with a serious Electra complex."

About to take another sip of coffee, Cyrus's cup froze halfway to his mouth. Running Nick's words through his head to make sure he'd heard what he thought he'd heard, he laid the cup back down on the table, staring at the other man. "You're telling me…"

Nick nodded when his voice trailed off. "She killed her mother because she didn't want her father belonging to anyone but her." Silence fell between the two men, broken finally by Nick's quiet words. "There are days…"

"Hear hear."

There was another silence then, each man lost in his thoughts, before Nick visibly shook himself, eyes opening wide as if to clear them. "In other news…" he drawled, a slightly singsong quality in his voice, and Cyrus felt his guard go up automatically. "It seems you have a bit of a fan in the CSI lab."

"That a fact?" Cyrus leaned back in the booth, crossing his arms against his chest, lifting an eyebrow. He had a pretty good idea what this was all about, but he wanted Nick to do all the digging. With any luck, he'd bury himself, and certainly showed a willingness to do so.

"Come on man, you know who I'm talking about."

Cyrus shook his head, affecting his most innocent demeanour. "I have no idea."

"Right." Nick shook his head, chuckling softly. "Lea is all over you like a rash at Christmas, and you walk out of the party without as much as her phone number?" His voice rose at the end in pure disbelief. "You know how many men in that room would have given their right arms to be you?"

Cyrus shrugged, hiding his smile with difficulty. He'd caught the looks that Nick was giving him out of the corner of his eye at the party as they'd talked with Lea. Ostensibly, she'd been talking to the two of them, but her attention had been devoted to Cyrus only, and she hadn't been at all subtle as to her intentions. "I had a flight to catch," he told Nick again now, the same excuse he'd given at the time for leaving so soon.

"Yeah, yeah, family Christmas," Nick said dismissively, waving his hand. "That's no excuse for not getting her number." He paused, looking down at his coffee cup, stirring it mock-thoughtfully. "She's been asking about you…"

"No." The word was uttered with force, completely on instinct, and Cyrus had never meant anything more. There was only one place that Nick could be going with this, and he didn't want to entertain it.

"It'd be no trouble." Nick continued unabated. "Neither of you are seeing anyone, and she's a nice girl…I mean, I know she looks wild, and yeah, that's because she is but…"

"You sound like my sister," Cyrus interrupted, rolling his eyes. "She's always trying to set me up too." Except that she wasn't as upfront about it as Nick had just been. Kim's latest attempts at marrying him off had involved dinner invitations where he thought he was just going to spend some time with his sister and her family. Once there though, there would invariably be some friend of hers, dressed to impress, and he'd have to make small talk with her while Kim and Rick hovered in the kitchen "preparing dinner". Repeated pleas on his behalf to cease and desist all such activities had resulted in Kim haranguing him for hours about how it was time for him to find a nice girl and settle down, and he wondered when she'd begun channelling the spirit of their grandmother, a dragon of a woman who had drilled that message into him and his two sisters the second they'd turned eighteen. "Plenty of introductions," he told Nick. "The odd first date, the even fewer second date. Not many people can understand the hours a homicide cop works."

Nick rolled his eyes, obviously agreeing with that assessment. "Ain't that the truth." Cyrus thought he might leave it at that, but Nick was just beginning. "Which if you think about it, Lea would. I mean, she got transferred back from dayshift because she preferred working nights." He stopped then, something just occurring to him. "Though that might also have had something to do with Ecklie…"

"Stokes, you're not fixing me up with Lea." Cyrus tried again, this with a different tactic. "She just didn't seem like my type."

Which, if flimsy, was certainly the truth, though nowhere near the whole truth. The whole truth centred somewhere around the fact that when he thought of the Christmas party, when he pictured a brunette that he'd spent time with, had chatted with, laughed with, had a great time with, it wasn't Lea who came to mind.

Instead he pictured Sara's ready smile, her gap-toothed grin flashing as they'd watched Greg and Catherine leading the Time Warp, had watched Greg and Warrick almost coming to not-so-good-natured fisticuffs over the music that Greg was playing. He hadn't stayed for long at the party, but what little time he had, he'd spent with her, only leaving her when Nick had called him over. A few minutes later, Lea had joined them, and after a while of feeling like the spider to her fly, he'd made his excuses and left, citing family obligations, waving to Sara as he'd left.

Not, he told himself once again, that it mattered, because nothing was going to happen between them. He'd known that she was dating someone, Nick had told him as much months ago, and he'd had a pretty good notion that it was still going on, not least because he was sure that Nick would have told him if Sara was a free agent. Going on this conversation, he'd probably be offering to fix them up. But it hadn't been Nick who had told him that, it had been Sulik, who'd been working a case with Sara and Warrick the previous week. Cyrus hadn't heard many of the details, had only come in part of the way through the conversation but from what he could gather, Sulik was having great fun recounting how Sara Sidle, the ultimate professional, the iron woman herself, had been working a scene with her paramedic boyfriend, and had forgotten herself and called him "Baby" in front of everyone.

By this time, Cyrus thought that he had a pretty good handle on Sara Sidle. She wouldn't have done something like that were she not pretty serious about the guy.

But that was fine he told himself, not for the first time. She was entitled to her life, she was entitled to date anyone she liked. They were just friends, and he could live with that.

"And what is your type?" Nick asked him, bringing him back to reality. "Sara?"

Cyrus blinked, because his tone was serious, almost confrontational, and Nick had never taken that tone of voice with him when talking about Sara before. "Sara and I are friends," he said flatly. "That's all."

"Uh-huh." Nick didn't sound like he believed him, and his next words confirmed that. "You know…if you were to be interested in Sara…you could always just ask her out." He wouldn’t meet Cyrus's eyes when he suggested it though, so he didn't see Cyrus shake his head.

"She's already dating someone," he said quietly, speaking to himself as much as Nick. "I'm not getting in the middle of that."

It was more than he'd ever said to Nick on the subject, and as close to an admission of his feelings for Sara as he'd ever come to giving. It also had the undeniable ring of truth to it, and maybe that was why Nick didn't push it further, just changed the subject to the latest round of NBA games, a subject which could, and did, keep them occupied for hours.

>*<*>*<

Part Nine - Surprise
(Random Acts of Violence)

By the time Sara had walked from the entrance of the CSI building to Lea's lab, she'd heard from no less than three different people the details of Warrick's blow-up at Grissom, every word he'd said in exact detail. She'd known for a long time that the place was gossip central, but the speed of this rumour surprised her nonetheless; it seemed like everyone had either seen it, or had been talking to someone who had seen it. Sara knew better than to believe the scuttlebutt - after all, she'd heard false stories about herself more than once - but this seemed to have the ring of truth to it. She'd talked to Warrick earlier on, asked him how he was doing, and he'd all but bitten her head off. She'd wanted to voice further concerns, to ask him if he should be on this case at all, but she decided against it when she saw the look in his eyes.

She hadn't seen Warrick look at her like that in a long, long time, and it wasn't a memory that she wanted to revisit.

She put the thought out of her mind as she greeted Lea. "Hey," she said, dropping a file on the bench, crossing her arms over her chest and looking at her expectantly. "Got my test results for me?"

"They're here somewhere," Lea muttered, leaving her microscope, going to the pile of papers at the edge of the bench. "I got a little backlogged."

"You're busy tonight?" Sara asked, making conversation, receiving a raised eyebrow in response. "I know, I know," she said quickly, holding up a hand. "You're always busy."

"True," Lea allowed. "But that's not what it was…" She looked from left to right, lowering her voice. "You heard about Warrick and Grissom, right?"

Sara nodded. "From three people." She paused, wondering if she should ask, deciding that she'd rather know. "Was it as bad as they're saying?"

Lea chuckled. "I wasn't there," she said. "But Warrick losing his temper? I'd say so."

Which was exactly what Sara had been thinking, but confirming it didn't make it sit any easier with her, the opposite in fact. "Yeah," she sighed, reaching up to rub the bridge of her nose.

"In other news…" Lea said, drawing each word out. "I analysed the funny powder you found." Sara perked up at those words, and Lea gave her a grin. "I thought you'd like the sound of that. Mexican brown and mannitol, just like you thought."

Sara nodded slowly, taking the page from her and looking at the results. "So…" she murmured, thinking it through. "Drugs in his system, drugs in the crack between the glass and the wood of the table, but no obvious paraphernalia…"

"Someone cleaned up after him," Lea concluded.

"Someone cleaned up after him," Sara agreed. "The living room was scrubbed clean, not a fingerprint, not a hair out of place…looks like I'm searching the rest of the house." That meant hours of fingerprinting and checking the place with a fine tooth comb, not the easiest of things to do on a solo case.

"Sounds like fun," Lea quipped, and Sara kept back a smart retort with considerable effort, literally having to bite her tongue. She did roll her eyes though, giving the other woman a smile to take any sting out of it, taking the page and her file and taking a step towards the door.

"Sara?" Lea's voice stopped her, casual as could be; too casual, Sara realised at once. "The detective on your case…" Her voice trailed off, and Sara nodded, prompting her with the name.

"Lockwood?" When there was still no response from Lea, whose face was still inscrutable, Sara put the folder back down on the table, forgetting about processing a scene for a few moments, in favour of collecting evidence of a different kind. "What about him?"

Lea suddenly found something very interesting in her microscope. "You're friends with him right?"

"Isn't everyone?" Sara asked, because she didn't know of anyone who didn't get along with Cyrus, and it was then that she remembered a similar conversation and what her advice had been. "You know, I never asked you how things went with him after Christmas," she grinned, knowing that she was on the right track when Lea looked up at her from over the top of the microscope. Unlike Sara though, she wasn't smiling.

"That would have been a very short conversation," Lea said dryly, rolling her eyes. "Since nothing actually happened."

Sara knew she was doing a lousy job of keeping the surprise off her face, and was too shocked to care. "Nothing?" she asked, because Lea was the kind of girl that all the guys went for; she'd lost count how many guys she'd heard express their admiration for the lab tech.

"Not a hint of interest," Lea confirmed. "Oh, he talked to me, and he's a really nice guy, but romantically? Nothing."

Sara raised an eyebrow, not sure of what to say. "He did say that he had a flight to catch," she suggested. "Maybe he was in a hurry."

Lea was looking at her, and while her face might have been vaguely neutral, there was a hint of something in the twist of her lips, in the tilt of her head, that told Sara she was thinking more than she was letting on. "Yeah," she said flatly. "Maybe that was it."

"You should have a word with Nick," Sara continued. "He knows Cyrus pretty well…"

She stopped when Lea began shaking her head. "I'm not sure that it would do any good," she said. "I know when a guy's interested in me Sara, and that's not the vibe he was giving off." She held Sara's gaze for a long moment, and it looked to Sara like she wanted to say something, or was waiting for Sara herself to speak, but either way, Sara had nothing more to add. Perhaps Lea saw that, because she waved her hand, looking back towards her table of work again. "Anyway, this isn't getting your scene processed… or my evidence."

It was a clear dismissal, but the notion that she was missing something didn't sit well with Sara. "OK," she said, having no choice but to follow Lea's lead. "We'll talk later?"

She heard the uncertainty in her voice, and Lea must have too, because she gave Sara a wide, genuine smile. "Yeah. Count on it."

>*<*>*<

Part Ten - Drowning
(One Hit Wonder)

When Sara left the hospital - and she had no earthly clue how long she was standing in that corridor, watching the officer reading Melissa her rights, looking at her through the wired glass door, wondering what the hell had made her do it - she had no destination in mind, no grand plan as to where she was going to. It shouldn't have surprised her therefore, when her car seemed to steer itself to North Trop Boulevard and the CSI lab, because this place had always been her sanctuary, the place she knew she would always be assured of a welcome. Except that she didn't really have a reason to be there at the moment; it was the end of the shift, the case she was working on was all tied up with a neat little bow, and she could go home if she wanted to.

Except she didn't want to go home. She knew that Hank was still working, so there was no chance of him coming over, curling up on her couch with her and making her forget all about her worries, or at least letting her get them out of her system. The moment that thought hit her, her stomach, in knots since she'd worked out that Melissa had lied, twisted once again, because she knew instinctively that she didn't want to talk to Hank right then. She knew that he'd be perfectly solicitous, kind and caring, that he'd do anything to make her feel better. Any woman on the planet would be grateful to have a man who would smother her with that kind of attention, but Sara knew, from the deepest part of her soul, that were she to be faced with that right now, she wouldn't be able to take it. She'd push him away, push him away hard, and that would make the two of them feel worse.

That knowledge didn't sit well with her, any more than the knowledge of what Melissa had done, so she pushed it out of her mind for now, telling herself that she was just upset, that she didn't really feel that way about Hank, and it was just her mixed up emotions talking.

In any case, he was working. He wasn't available, so it didn't matter anyway. The thought of going home to her empty, silent apartment wasn't appealing either; knowing that she would be able to hear the walls whispering to her, telling her that she should have left well enough alone, that she should never have re-opened the case. Those whispers would war with her conscience telling her that she did the right thing, that she couldn't have done anything else, and she'd spend a restless few hours tossing and turning and trying to relax until her next shift.

That might have explained why she found herself drawn to the lab, except that she didn't want to talk to anyone there either, especially Nick, who had warned her in not so many words that she might be biting off more than she could chew with the case. Even he couldn't have guessed what she'd found, and she was sure that he'd undoubtedly want to talk to her about it, make sure that she was ok, and she was pretty sure that his friendly concern would provoke the same reaction as Hank's solicitude.

She heard his voice as she