Full Circle

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Rating: PG

Pairing: Sara/Warrick

Spoilers: Ellie and everything up to it

Feedback: Makes my day

Disclaimer: If it was in the show, it's not mine.

Archive: At my site Checkmate (http://helsinkibaby.ahkay.net) , Fanfiction.net; anywhere else, please ask.

Summary: “Don’t take it out on me because you got passed over.”

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Warrick was getting changed as quickly as he could, hoping against hope that he could find out where he was supposed to be without actually talking to Grissom about it. It wasn't the first time that he'd been late, wasn't the first time that he'd missed assignments; however, it was the first time that he'd been late on account of his relationship with Sara. He'd gone to dinner at her place after the previous shift, intending to get up early to return to his place and change before heading into work. It hadn't worked out that way though, not because he hadn't woken up in time, but rather because Sara had refused to let him leave on time, employing some slightly sneaky, if highly pleasurable methods of keeping him where he was. He'd known when he'd left that he was going to be late, he'd even told her so, blamed her completely, and she'd laughed at him, teasing him as they dressed, her ready to go straight to work, him still having to go home first.

So far, so good though, and he was just about ready to head out, intending to call Sara on the way, find out where she was. His plans were thwarted though when he heard the door open behind him, heard a familiar voice say, "Ah Warrick, there you are." A pause, and Warrick turned around to glance at Grissom before turning back to his locker. "I've been looking for you."

"Yeah, I know," Warrick said, hoping that he wasn't going to get reamed out for being late, deciding that it might be a good idea to head things off at the pass. "Sorry I missed assignments; I got held up-"

He had no intention of telling Grissom just where he'd been held up; he and Sara were a closely guarded secret around the office, and there was no point in clueing Grissom in now. Nor did he get a chance to, Grissom interrupting him. "It's no problem. Actually, it works out better."

"Oh yeah?" Warrick was curious, but didn't turn.

"Yeah. I've got this seminar to go to; Catherine's on a red eye to Reno…how'd you feel about being 'A' slash?"

It took a second for the penny to drop, and when it did, Warrick did turn around, unable to keep the shock out of his voice. "'A' slash? Acting supervisor?" Grissom was just staring at him, nodding, looking as if nothing was out of the ordinary. Warrick meanwhile, was doing his best not to act as if the world was slipping around under his feet, and he was pretty sure that he was failing utterly. This was not good, not good at all. "What about Nick? He's got seniority. Or Sara -- she'd jump at the chance."

He was a drowning man, searching for a life preserver, but Grissom wasn't throwing him a line. "If it was about seniority, I'd ask Nick. If I needed someone to stay up for three straight days I'd ask Sara." He shrugged, looking almost vaguely amused. "Instead, I want you."

Warrick was still stuck on Grissom passing over Sara, his blue eyed darling, in favour of him. "And if I ask why?"

"Your curiosity would be better served on the case," Grissom replied, dodging the question neatly, handing the assignment sheet to Warrick. "The shooting death of a con man at the Tropicana. Our guys are already there."

So not only was he giving him shift, putting him in charge of Sara, who was going to be royally pissed with him, and Nick, who would probably treat the whole thing as a joke, he was making him do it over a case that had gambling involved.

That thought, and Grissom turning to leave, made Warrick think of something else. "Hang on! Have you told Nick and Sara about this?"

He knew the answer without having to hear it. "No," Grissom said simply, not even turning, just heading out, leaving Warrick staring at the space where he had been, sighing.

It was going to be a long shift.

Just how long, he hadn't figured, not until he got to the parking garage, saw Sara and Nick finishing off their walk around. He wasn't quite sure how to tell either one of them that Grissom had given him shift, so he let it slide, tried to talk around it, let them work it out for themselves.

True to form, it was Sara who challenged him first; he'd expected nothing less of her. "Who died and made you boss?" she said, her tone and manner a far cry from the last time he'd seen her, when she'd been pinning him against her front door, kissing him goodbye as they got ready to leave.

He'd known in that instant that he was in real trouble with her, knew that there was nothing to do but come right out with it and hope that the blow-up wasn't too bad. "He's not exactly dead," was all he said, and he was hard pressed to keep back a wince at the look on her face when her suspicions were confirmed.

"Grissom gave you shift tonight," she said, and Warrick could understand her shock. He could also understand her anger, because left up to him, he'd have given her shift too. She didn't say anything else, nor did he; and after a long look, or maybe it just seemed that way to him, Sara turned away, heading back towards the body.

Warrick wanted to talk to her, wanted to tell her that this wasn't his doing, that he didn't want to be in charge, that it was just Grissom being Grissom. But he couldn't do that, because she wouldn't listen to it anyway, and besides, they had an audience, who was looking at the two of them with a guardedly neutral expression on his face. Fighting back a sigh, knowing that he was going to be dealing with Sara in great detail later on, Warrick looked at Nick. "Anything you want to say?"

"Yeah." The word surprised Warrick, until it was followed up with, "Good luck." He raised the empty camera to Warrick's face, snapping the shutter, temporarily blinded him, appropriate, he supposed, for a dear stuck in the headlights. When his vision cleared, he was looking at Sara again, who was packing the van with a cross look on her face. Sighing, Warrick could do nothing but turn away from her, getting ready to go back to the lab with the body.

The only thing he could think of as he got into the car was that he was going to need all the luck he could get.

>*<*>*<

Greg Sanders loved his job. He thought that the enthusiasm he brought every day to the lab showed that. There was something about knowing that he was doing his bit to make the world a better place that made it easy to come to work, and he loved Las Vegas, loved being at the centre of all that action; at least that was what he told his mother when she tried to talk him into moving closer to home. Plus, the fact that he got to do what basically amounted to science experiments while playing with millions of dollars of cool equipment and getting paid for it didn't hurt either.

He loved his job, had always loved his job, but he'd be lying if he didn't admit that a little over a year ago, something happened that made coming to work an awful lot easier for him. That, of course, would be the arrival of one Sara Sidle from San Francisco, and while he'd never be happy about the circumstances in which she arrived, he was happy that she was here, happy that she'd stayed. Greg had been bowled over by her the first time that he'd seen her, when he ran DNA results on Holly Gribbs's shooter, nailing the guy cold, and the passage of time had only deepened his attraction to her. Not that anything was ever going to come of it; he knew that she was completely taken, even if he wasn't supposed to know that. He was ok with that though, didn't mind it too much. If he couldn't have her romantically, he was happy with her friendship, with just spending time with her in the lab.

Except for today that is. She and Nick had arrived in the DNA lab a little under an hour ago with evidence for him to process, Sara having been in a particularly foul mood, stomping out of the room, leaving Greg staring at Nick in complete confusion. "What's eating her?" he'd asked, and Nick had chuckled.

"Grissom and Catherine are AWOL tonight-"

The delivery made the line irresistible, and Greg had never met a one-liner he didn’t like. "Together?" he'd asked with a raised eyebrow, the insinuation obvious, but Nick had just given him one of those looks, silently warning him not to go there.

"Funny," he'd said flatly. "He gave Warrick shift."

Greg had taken a second to process that, giving a low whistle when he had. "That explains that," he'd murmured, and Nick had nodded.

"I'd put a rush on those if I were you," he'd said before leaving, heading for the photo lab, and Greg had taken him at his word, processing the pills that Sara had given him as quickly as he could. Still, he could only work as fast as the machinery, but he soon discovered that wasn't fast enough for Sara when she was on a tear.

"Hey, are you baking a cake?" she demanded, landing in front of him, a bundle of impatience. "What's the hold up on my pills?"

"Process," he told her simply, doing his work as if he couldn't feel the frustration crackling like static electricity in the air. "Just because you got passed over, don't take it out on me," he added.

He figured that if the worst came to the worst, she'd rip his head off for that, but then again, she needed him to do his thing, so he fancied his chances. Best case scenario, she'd stomp away from him and come back when she'd cooled down a little, or when he paged her. She did neither though, just told him, more than a little defensively, "He didn't pass me over."

"Really?" he asked, never a man to leave well enough alone. "What would you call it, then?"

Her answer was elegant in its simplicity. "Grissom."

"Ah." There was nothing he could say to that; besides he was concentrating on readying the sample for the spectratech machine, which spat out the results quickly. "Coal. Wood. And…coconut shells."

Put together those things didn't mean a lot to him, until the printout came off the machine. He barely had time to glance at it though, before Sara's glare had him handing it over to her, and she wasted no time in putting it all together. "Activated carbon. Activated charcoal pills. Best antacid in the world. Coats the stomach and absorbs all impurities."

As she was thinking out loud, Warrick entered the lab, and bearing in mind Sara's mood and Nick's words from earlier, Greg found himself wondering if his Employee Health Insurance was fully paid up. This had the potential to be explosive.

Hearing Sara's words, Warrick told them, "It's great if you're a mule transporting drugs into the States."

That got Sara's attention. "Our con man's a mule?"

Warrick nodded. "We found balloons of cocaine in his stomach cavity."

"Without the pills, one bite of a chocolate bar would produce enough gastric acid in his stomach to eat away the balloon. Causing him to O.D," Sara concluded.

"Then he went out and got shot." Warrick wasn't letting her have the last word, but they seemed to be working together to solve the case, making Greg wonder if things were going to be as bad as he'd feared.

"Speaking of which I found airline stubs in Avery's shirt," Sara continued, and the look that came on Warrick's face had Greg preparing to duck.

"What?"

Sara answered as if it was a genuine question, blithely unaware that Warrick was upset. Or maybe, Greg suddenly thought, all too aware of it. "Vincent Avery was four-A, Ellie Rebecca was four-B. Strange, right, using two first names?"

"No, what's strange is going into the evidence locker after post and not finding anything left," Warrick responded tartly, and Greg took a half-step back, especially when Sara went straight onto the defensive.

"Hey, don't make me feel bad for doing my job."

She really wasn't having much luck with getting the last word because Warrick bit back with "If it was your job, you couldn't feel bad."

Between the tone of that last sentence, the escalating volume, and the looks on both their faces, Greg came to the conclusion that it was time to get the hell out of Dodge. "Well, I think I hear some coffee perking."

He made a fast beeline for the exit, but once he got outside, he stopped, ear-wigging shamelessly. He was only human after all, and this was primo office gossip. Besides which, they were far too wrapped up in their own private soap opera to worry about an audience.

"What do you want from me?" he heard Sara say. "I'm working the case, the case is hot."

"It's my case." Rising frustration was evident in Warrick's voice. "Tonight, I'm the primary. I have to process it." There was a pause, and when he spoke again, his voice was calmer. "If you have a problem with that, you can clock out now. Am I clear?"

"Clear." She finally got the last word, stalking towards the door, and Greg, realising that she really wouldn't appreciate seeing him there, made for the break room at a run, heading straight for the coffee machine, hoping he could make it look like he'd been there for a while.

As it happened, Nick was there too, and seeing Greg's harried look, he could only smile. "Let me guess," he said. "Close up exposure to Sara?"

Greg rolled his eyes, searching the cupboard for an empty mug, having forgotten his in his rush to escape the prospective firefight. "Try Sara and Warrick," he said simply, and Nick laughed out loud.

"Trouble in paradise huh?" he quipped, and Greg shook his head.

"More like paradise lost if you ask me," he said, locating a mug with a triumphant wave, going over to the coffee maker.

"That bad?" All traces of humour had gone from Nick's voice, to be replaced with something that looked very like worried dismay. "Man, I knew she was pissed…"

"Monumentally pissed," Greg interrupted, all his emphasis on the first word. "And not only is she taking it out on everyone around her, but she's running hard with the case…"

"Which is gonna piss Warrick off," Nick concluded.

"Uh-huh." Greg nodded, jerking his head in the direction of the DNA lab. "Things were kicking off in the lab just now; so, coffee." He held up the now-full mug in illustration. "It's like seeing my parents fight, you know what I mean?"

"Not really," Nick answered. "My parents never fight."

Greg just gave him a look, rolling his eyes again. "You know what I mean. Things around here are going to get mighty interesting before this one ends."

Nick considered that over a mouthful of coffee. "You just might be right Greggo," he said slowly, thoughtfully. "You just might be right."

>*<*>*<

How right Greg had been, Nick didn't find out until later on in the shift. He'd been supervising the arrival of Ellie Brass's car, had been paging Warrick non-stop, wanting to let him know, as well as wanting to tell him to get his ass back to the lab so that he could help him process the thing, getting more impatient with every failed attempt. Hanging up the phone with a loud clatter, he took a deep breath, forcing himself to remember how out of his depth Warrick had appeared earlier on in the day, when he'd been seconds away from calling Grissom.

Not that he could blame Warrick for feeling besieged. Not only did their case involved Brass's daughter, and was thus a political accident waiting to happen, but Sara wasn't making it easy on him if the conversation that Greg had relayed was any indication. Nor was it just Greg who was talking; word of the incident had already begun to spread through the grapevine, the fight growing more and more heated with each retelling.

Nick, for his part, had been observing the two of them closely since Warrick had arrived at the parking garage at the start of the shift. He'd known right away that there was going to be trouble, the look on Sara's face had been proof enough of that; Greg's story had just been confirmation. They both knew that Sara and Warrick were seeing one another, it was pretty much an open secret around the lab, though it was also common knowledge that they both thought that they were keeping it well under wraps. Opinion was divided on how long it had been going on, but something subtle had changed between them, and once Nick noticed that, he started noticing all kinds of other things, like the time in the AV lab when they were working on the casino heist a couple of weeks ago. Warrick had found a break in the case, the casino manager ducking before a single shot had been fired, and had been showing them the video evidence. Sara had missed it on the first go-round, and Warrick had made some smart comment about playing it back slowly, just for her. Sara hadn't said anything, just looked down and smirked, and Nick had looked from one to the other, unable to stop the smile from spreading across his face. Had he made a comment like that one, Sara would have had an instant rejoinder, or at the very least would have shot him the Sara look of death that she'd perfected. With Warrick though, she just smiled.

That bit of evidence was nothing compared to what had happened when Grissom and Catherine had hightailed it out of the room, leaving Warrick and Sara sitting side by side, Nick standing behind them. Nick had the feeling that they didn't even remember that he was there, and figured that, just in case, he should make a discreet exit, which he was in the process of doing when Sara spoke. She had turned her head just slightly, enough that she could look at Warrick out of the corner of her eye. "I appreciate that," she said, her voice low, faintly warning, but Warrick hadn't looked at her, keeping his eyes on the screen

"Gonna make me pay for it later are you?" he asked, his tone the match of hers, making Nick wish that he'd been a little quicker to leave, unable to make it to the door before he heard Sara's response.

"You know it," she said, in a very salacious tone of voice, and Nick had filed that under "way too much information" and tried very hard to forget that he'd heard it in the first place.

Now though, he had the feeling that he'd give anything to go back to that, because the last thing he wanted was for his two friends to fall out over something like this. They were too good of a couple for that.

Wondering if Warrick had perhaps come back, Nick decided to go looking for him, and eventually found him in the hallway near the main desk. So eager he was to get started on processing the car that he didn't even look to see who else was around, just went straight for Warrick. "You got to turn on your pager," he told him, getting straight to the point. "I got Brass' daughter's car in the garage.

Warrick glanced at him, holding up his hands. "Hold up. I'm dealing with something." Only then did Nick notice that he was talking to Sara as a guy in a suit stood at the desk, eyeing them with interest. The guy had Secret Service written all over him, and Nick remembered seeing Ronnie around the halls earlier on, muttering something about counterfeit money, but he hadn't thought it had anything to do with this case until now. However, if the Treasury Department were involved, it must all be linked.

Which would explain the frustration that emanating from Warrick, the level of which only rose when Sara said, "This is why I didn't bring this to you." Nick swore that he could see steam beginning to come out of Warrick's ears, and he wanted to tell Sara to stop baiting the guy, but realised from the look on Warrick's face that he was about to tell her that himself. So he stepped in, cutting his friend off, trying to draw his attention back to the case. "Hey, Vega says we won't be able to hold the suspect more than half an hour…"

That was the point that the suit came over and interrupted them. "Did Sidle hold back information on this money?"

Sara wasn't going to let her honour be called into question like that, and she protested. "I didn't not tell him," she said, looking from the suit to Warrick and back again. "I ran with the case. I do it with Grissom all the time."

The last was said directly to Warrick, and could taken either as a comment or a challenge. From the look on Sara's face, Nick had no doubt which one it was meant as, and if the flash of anger on his face was anything to go by, so too did Warrick. In that instant, Nick realised the effect that that particular statement was going to have on him, because the other rumour that had gone around about Sara's personal life was that she had a thing for Grissom, or that they had been an item once upon a long ago. While Nick didn't believe the latter for a second, he had put some degree of faith in the former, and one of the things that he'd observed about Warrick was he seemed to bristle slightly whenever Grissom and Sara were working a case together, demonstrating that weird brand of symbiosis that they had together.

The explosion wasn't long about coming. "Well, I'm not Grissom!"

Aware of the suit looking at them curiously, as well as the curious glances of the other people milling around, Nick held up his hands, trying to calm the situation. "Guys…" was all he managed to get out before Sara responded, and this time, there was no doubt that her words were a taunt.

"I didn't say it."

That was nowhere near Nick's idea of pouring oil on troubled waters, and he had the strongest urge to shake Sara and order her to snap out of it. Warrick looked as if he was fighting the same urge, but he reined in his temper enough to say, " Sara, brief Special Agent Beckman on the funny money. Nick, the garage."

With that, he was gone, leaving Nick looking at Sara, his jaw set. She met his eyes defiantly, but deep down, he thought he saw a flicker of something else, something softer. It was only for a second though, less than that, then, regardless of Special Agent Beckman, she held up her hands. "I don't want to hear it Nick," she said, and he shook his head.

"Sara…" he said, words failing him momentarily, before he settled on something that managed to be truthful, yet suitably ambiguous. "Work this out."

With that, he turned on his heel and followed Warrick.

>*<*>*<

It had, Sara reflected as she made her way through the halls of the lab on her way home, been a long shift, and a pretty crappy one at that. Not that bad shifts were uncommon, when things weren't going well on a case they were pretty routine. What made this one slightly worse than normal was that the case had turned out pretty well, evidence falling into place easily. Most of the problems, and Sara was able to admit this, had been of her own making, and she had a nasty feeling that the resulting fallout might not be as easily solved as the case.

The shift had started off well enough; waking up in Warrick's arms had seen to that, and managing to delay him in several eminently pleasurable ways had merely been the icing in the cake. Then he'd arrived at the parking garage - late, and she knew that that was partly her fault, so she was willing to give him a break on that, initially at least - and told her and Nick that Grissom had given him shift. Actually, he hadn't told them that, not in so many words, choosing instead to talk around the fact at hand, and that had made Sara's hackles rise even more. It was pretty clear to her that Warrick had no great desire to be in charge, while she wouldn't have minded the opportunity, and in any case, Nick had seniority over them both. She'd been pissed off at Grissom, she'd been pissed off at Warrick, and she hadn't wasted any time letting him know that.

She'd been all prepared to work the case though, show him that she knew what she was doing, and, if she was brutally honest with herself, show Grissom that he'd made a mistake not trusting her with shift in the first place. So she'd done what she'd always do, run with the case, just like she'd told Warrick when they were in the DNA lab, being watched by a nervous looking Greg Sanders. If she'd chased the case just a little harder, a little faster than she normally might have, she didn't volunteer that information, though from the look on Warrick's face, she had a feeling that he knew that.

When he'd insisted on processing the evidence from the body, she'd been left cataloguing the serial numbers on the money from the con man, a long and tedious job that had done little to soothe her ruffled feathers. Fancying that it was some kind of sadistic revenge on Warrick's part, she'd had great fun thinking of ways that she could get back at him in turn, until, that is, she'd noticed that the intaglio script on Ben Franklin's collar was blurred. She knew, and Ronnie knew, that that could mean only one thing, and while he'd gone to prepare the scope, do some further checking on the money, she'd gone in search of Warrick, intending to let him know about this latest development.

Nick had told her about one of the airline stubs belonging to Brass's daughter, that Warrick and Vega were talking to her, so she'd headed to one of the interview rooms, nodding to Brass as she'd slipped into the observation room. He didn't say much, barely nodded at her, not that she could blame him. So she turned her attention to Warrick and Vega, sitting around the table with a pissed off blonde girl, who bore no resemblance to Brass whatsoever in looks, though the attitude was familiar. As Sara looked, a casino chip fell out of the girl's bag, Warrick and Vega looking at it carefully, finding that it was the same as the con man's. Vega accused her of knowing more about the shooting than she was letting on, and she'd said that she wasn't even there, Warrick adding that she was at home, passing pellets of cocaine. Sara's eyebrows had risen at that point, but she'd purposely avoided looking at Brass, some instinct telling her that this had to be hard enough for him without having her rubbernecking.

Vega's voice, barking at Ellie to sit down, had her looking back at the window again, in time to hear Warrick say, "With your permission, we need to take some x-rays."

Sara had expected attitude, expected refusal. What she hadn't expected was for Ellie's eyes to flicker over Warrick, up and down, unmistakably appraising him. Sara's jaw had clenched as she'd heard Ellie drawl, "As long as you're the one doing them."

Warrick hadn't reacted, just stared at her, and it was Vega who had said, "We'd also like to take a look at your car."

Ellie had barely looked at him, concentrating on Warrick. "I lent it to my boyfriend."

Sara's hand had itched to smack the girl, and she'd felt a sudden irrational burst of anger towards Warrick as well, knowing that she shouldn't blame him for it, yet doing it anyway. The fact that he sounded exasperated when he ground out, "And what is his name?" hadn't mollified her in the slightest, especially not when she'd heard Ellie's non-answer, rather, a total avoidance of the question.

"You know," she'd said, eyes devouring Warrick, her tone evidently supposed to be sexy, but which to Sara had screamed skank, "You have this whole Lenny Kravitz thing going on. I'm not one for brothers, but ... damn."

Sara had dimly been aware of turning away from the window, her stomach churning, had managed to formulate some excuse to Brass about having to go back to the lab, that she'd told Ronnie she wouldn't be long. She wasn't sure why she was reacting so strongly to this; after all, Ellie hadn't actually said anything that Sara disagreed with, and she was far from the first woman who'd flirted with Warrick in front of Sara. That was one of the downsides of being in a clandestine relationship with a man who was drop dead gorgeous. So it had been a mystery to Sara why she'd had to gulp down water from the cooler, ridding her mouth of the taste of bile, before she could face Ronnie.

It was only later that she realised that all the other times she'd seen someone flirt with Warrick, things had been good between them. Not like today, where they could scarcely look at one another without biting one another's head off.

Still, that was twenty-twenty hindsight for you, and at the time, all she could think was that Warrick was off making time with some blonde tramp while she was stuck writing down serial numbers. If he could do that, then she could track down some funny money all on her own.

So she'd gone back to the lab, talked to Ronnie, confirmed with him that the money was indeed counterfeit. She'd called the Treasury Department, went to visit the Ortons at the hotel, all before she'd talked to Warrick about it. He hadn't known anything about it, not until she'd walked back into the police department and seen him standing with a man she didn't know, some stranger in a suit and tie that just screamed Treasury Department. She'd heard enough of the conversation to know that her guess was the right one, also that Warrick hadn't heard anything about counterfeit money until right then.

Approaching the two men, she'd nodded at the agent while addressing Warrick. "You were with Brass's daughter," she'd told him, her stomach turning over, bile once more rising in her throat at the memory. "I didn't want to interrupt you."

"On a federal case?" Warrick's voice had risen sharply and Sara had turned quickly to Agent Beckman, not wanting him to be a witness to this.

"Agent Beckman? I'm Sara Sidle. We spoke on the phone. Could you excuse us for a minute?" She and Warrick had moved off to the side, out of earshot of the other man, and she'd tried to begin some sort of explanation. "Warrick…"

That had been as far as she'd got before Nick had come up to them, all frustrated impatience. "You got to turn on your pager," he'd told Warrick, acting as if Sara wasn't there. "I got Brass's daughter's car in the garage."

"Hold up," Warrick had ordered, holding up his palms. "I'm dealing with something."

Just like he'd been dealing with Brass's daughter in the interview room said an acidic voice at the back of Sara's mind, and she'd shrugged, telling him "This is why I didn't bring this to you." She'd heard the bitterness in her own voice, but she hadn't cared, and Nick hadn't noticed. Warrick had however, if the look he gave her was anything to go by.

Nick had continued unabated, either because he'd wanted to get his point across, or because he'd wanted to avoid a firefight in the hallway; though the latter didn't occur to Sara until much later, when she was driving back from the final meeting with the Ortons. "Hey," Nick had said, "Vega says we won't be able to hold the suspect more than half an hour," and that had been the moment that Agent Beckman had come up to them.

"Did Sidle hold back information on this money?" he'd demanded, and there had been no way, potential firefight or no, that Sara was going to let him, or anyone else for that matter, think that she wasn't able to do her job.

"I didn't not tell him," she'd protested. "I ran with the case. I do it with Grissom all the time."

She'd been defiant, daring him to contradict her, and she'd known what he was going to say a split second before he'd said it. Said was the wrong words though she realised later, more like exploded, practically yelling at her, "Well, I'm not Grissom!"

She'd barely heard Nick's attempt to pull them back to reality. "Guys," he'd said, but her eyes had been locked on Warrick.

"I didn't say it."

Afterwards, she would be ashamed of herself for those last two lines, but at the time, she hadn't cared, just wanted to get one up on him, get the last word. It was only later that she'd realised that the Grissom line had been said purposefully, to push his buttons. She'd known for a long time that he thought she had a thing for Grissom, that he thought that the two of them had a relationship that went beyond the bounds of co-workers, or even friends. She'd told him, she'd shown him that it wasn't Grissom she was interested in, and most of the time, she thought that he believed her. Every so often though, she'd catch him looking at the two of them together, and she'd see something dark in his eyes, something about the set of his jaw would make her stomach twist, make the hairs stand up on the back of her neck, and not in a good way.

The second line, the line that finally got her the last word, and how anti-climactic that had been, was pure bitchery, she'd admit to that. She would have admitted to it at the time too, and she'd been ashamed of herself the second she'd seen the flash of hastily masked hurt in his eyes. She hadn't let him see that though, hadn't let her guard drop for a second, and Warrick had pulled himself together pretty quickly too.

"Sara," he'd said, "Brief Special Agent Beckman on the funny money. Nick, the garage." With that, he'd been gone, leaving Nick staring at her, something very like reproach in his eyes.

He'd looked like he was going to say something, so she'd cut him off with "I don't want to hear it Nick."

He hadn't said anything at first, just shaken his head. Then he took a deep breath and said, "Sara…work this out." Then he was gone too.

She didn't know whether he meant this thing with Warrick or with the case, and at the time, she hadn't let herself think about it too much. She'd turned to Agent Beckman, briefed him on the case, telling her all about the evidence she'd gathered. She'd been proud of herself, thought that she'd done a good job, made good inroads into the case, but Beckman's demeanour, his keeping back of information from her had left a bitter taste in her mouth. For all she complained about lack of respect and communication around the CSI lab, Sara had never encountered that kind of disdainful dismissal there. Even when they had their differences, their disagreements, no-one in the lab had ever offered to let her "tag along"; rather they accepted her as an equal, including her in all aspects of the case.

Something, she realised too late, that she hadn't done today.

Even when the whole affair with the Ortons, aka Agents Connors and Tessari had come to light, Beckman had still maintained that whole smug supercilious demeanour that got right under her skin. "You should feel proud," he'd told her, leading her to reply that she hadn't felt that way at all. And it wasn't just because she'd been taken in by the whole thing, wasn't just because she'd felt slighted by the Treasury Department.

It was partly because she knew Warrick was never going to let her hear the end of this.

But it was mostly because she knew that no matter what he dished out, she was going to deserve it. She'd been aggressive, she'd been snappy and stand-offish with him, she'd been petty…she wouldn’t blame him if he didn't want to talk to her. Lord knows, she wouldn't want to talk to her right now either.

When she'd returned to the lab, she'd spent the remainder of the shift cataloguing the evidence, closing the file, meeting up with Nick while on a caffeine search. He'd told her all about Brass and the shooting, finishing up with how the case had been solved, told her that Warrick and Brass were out arresting the shooter right then. She'd grinned, giving him what she hoped came off as a good-natured shrug as she moved off. "At least one of us came out of this well," she'd said, and he hadn't said anything, just smiled.

She'd taken her time doing the work, her mind busily coming up with ways that she could make herself feel better, ways that didn't involve throwing herself in front of Warrick and begging for his forgiveness. She'd come up with junk food and beer, a long night in front of the television and she was on her way home now to do just that. The only thing she had to do was leave her field kit back, then she was gone, and as she was on her way, her heart literally skipped a beat when she turned a corner and found Warrick walking towards her. She was all prepared to pretend that he wasn't there, that she hadn't seen him, but he made the first move, saying, "Hey Sara."

She wanted to talk to him, wanted to do more than talk to him. Instead she just said, "Hey," and kept on walking, only stopping when she heard him call after her.

"Hey." She turned, grinning despite herself when she saw the smile playing around his lips, saw the twinkle in his eyes. "I'm a little short on cash," he told her. "Can you loan me a hundred?"

"Funny," she replied, her tone telling him that it was anything but. "Very funny." Deciding to fight fire with fire, she deliberately looked down at her wristwatch. "Hey look, shift's over. Guess you're one of us again." He grinned at that too, and responding in kind, she turned and walked away, a spring in her step that hadn't been there a couple of seconds earlier. She couldn't help herself from glancing over her shoulder, looking back at him as he went about his way, and she was still smiling as she dropped off her kit, made her way out to her car and began the drive home.

She knew Warrick well enough to read his words for what they were. Were anyone to overhear them on their way through the halls, they'd just see them as a joke, a piece of teasing banter. But behind that, Sara could see the olive branch behind the quip, heard him telling her that he was willing to put the shift behind them, asking her in not so many words if they were ok. And by her response, Sara had indicated that they were, that she wanted them to get back to normal too.

With that in mind, she got to her place, hung up her jacket, kicked off her shoes and curled up on the couch to wait for him. She wasn't sure how long he'd be, not knowing if he'd need to put in some overtime or not, so she didn't bother getting food or a drink, not in the mood for the junk food and beer she'd promised herself earlier on. Shifting slightly, she made herself comfortable, closing her eyes for just a moment…

She had no way of knowing how much later it was when a knock at the door made her jump, rubbing the sleep from her eyes. The knock was loud, insistent, the kind of knock that meant the person at the door had been there for a while, getting no response. She rose from the couch hurriedly, ignoring the pins and needles in her legs, arriving at the door before she was even fully awake. Her eyes widened in shock when she saw Warrick standing there, pizza in one hand, a bottle of wine in the other, slight frown on his face when he saw her. "You ok?" he asked her, and she nodded, one hand going to her forehead, kneading it slightly, her other hand going to her hip.

"I'm fine," she told him. "I was just…I must've fallen asleep." Something occurred to her and she squinted up at him. "How come you didn't use your key?"

He shrugged. "Wasn't so sure I'd be welcome," he told her honestly, holding up the wine bottle, presenting the pizza to her. "Peace offering."

"You're too good to me," she murmured, accepting the box, stepping back to let him in, and he did so, coming up beside her and putting a hand on the small of her back, fingers massaging gently.

"Ain't nothin'" he whispered, his low voice sending shivers down her spine, and she rested her head against his shoulder for a second, closing her eyes. "Hey…" he said, sounding surprised, his fingers pressing harder for a moment. "You sure you're ok?"

She straightened, leading the way to the couch, dropping down onto it as she dropped the pizza box onto the table. He sat beside her, the two of them turned sideways on the couch, facing one another, and he reached out, taking both her hands in his. "I was pretty horrible to you today," she admitted frankly. "I said some things…"

He stopped her by squeezing her hands. "I could've handled things better myself," he told her. "Sara, you gotta know, I didn't ask for shift. It was Grissom…"

It was her turn to interrupt him. "I know," she said, shaking her head with an embarrassed smile. "I shouldn't have taken it out on you…"

"And I shouldn't have been so hard on you…going after the case."

"Which you wouldn't have done if I hadn't been such a cast-iron bitch."

There was a second's pause after that assessment, then a smile began to emerge on Warrick's face. "Don't tell me," he said slowly, beginning to laugh. "That we're gonna have another fight over who's more to blame."

Realising that they were heading just that way, Sara began to laugh too, falling forward into Warrick's embrace, ending up so that they were lying back on the couch, her on top of him, his arms holding her tightly. "Let's never do that again," she murmured, and she felt him chuckle as he lifted her head up from its place on his chest, meeting her gaze.

"I can do that," he promised as he brought her lips to his, and the only thought on Sara's mind just then was that maybe the day hadn't been so bad after all.

>*<*>*<

He'd been right at the start of the shift, he told himself as he lay in bed later, with her head pillowed against his chest, her breathing deep and even. She looked more relaxed than he'd seen her look ever since he'd walked into that parking garage, told her that Grissom had given him shift. He'd known that it was going to get rough, and it had, no doubt about that. He'd said as much to Grissom during the impromptu post mortem, and Grissom had had some sage advice to give him, advice that he could have done with a few hours ago. Most important though, had been the words that he shouldn't take things personally; that what was said on the job, what was done on the job, shouldn't be taken to heart, shouldn't be brought home with him. Warrick had just about managed to roll his eyes at that, sure that Grissom had such matters down to a fine art, but not so sure if he'd ever be able to do that. Nor was he sure that he wanted to.

He'd stopped on the way to Sara's to pick up some food and wine, sure that she hadn't eaten, and he hadn't been joking when he'd said that it was a peace offering. Despite the brief conversation in the hall, he'd been afraid that she'd still be mad at him, that she'd harbour some residual bad feeling, but the second she'd opened the door to her, the second he'd seen her face, he'd known that everything was going to be all right.

They'd sat down on her couch, had an almost-fight about who was more at fault before they'd begun working their way through the pizza and wine, and she'd told him all about the counterfeit money and the fake counterfeiters. Even though she said that she'd talked to Nick about Ellie, he'd told her all about it, finishing up with the conversation he'd had with Grissom. "I'd have been here sooner," he told her apologetically. "But he wanted to hear all about it." He'd felt as if he was reporting on some experiment that had been running, but he hadn't told Sara that.

"That's Grissom," she'd snickered, lifting her head from his shoulder, reaching up with one hand to caress his cheek. "But you're here now."

He'd copied her gesture, nodding seriously. "Yeah," he breathed, bringing his lips to hers again. "I am."

Things had gone fairly predictably from there, and now he was back where he'd started the day, in her apartment, in her bed, with her in his arms, and he had to smile. Because despite how lousy the day had been, no matter what had gone on, he was back where he started, a little wiser, yet just as happy. Maybe the day hadn't been so bad after all.