Title: She Smiles More Now
Author: Maggienhawk
Disclaimer: George, Gary and Eric are all here with me, in my room, shirtless….hmmmm. BEEP BEEP BEEP That was my alarm. It was just a dream. And looking through my paperwork, I still don't see the rights to own them. Damn.
Summary: Warrick observes Sara when she returns from vacation. Warrick POV; GSR
She smiles more now.
More than I've ever seen her smile since she moved to Vegas four years ago. Although, I didn't know her before that, I figure this is the most she's ever smiled in her life.
I don't know why either. She returned from a six week vacation last month, and has been all smiles since then. When we work together, sometimes she stops what she's doing and looks lost in a memory, and when she comes back to the real world, she just smiles and gets back to work.
She was never exactly the smiling type, or maybe it was that she had very little to smile about. I mean, for years her work was the only thing in her life. And our job is depressing as hell. But she sometimes makes it seem worse, as if she was a victim of the same crimes we investigate every night.
It took a long time for her to smile at me. But maybe that was because she felt she wasn't supposed to. Grissom brought her to Vegas to investigate me, and he disregarded every recommendation she made about my future as a CSI. That must have pissed her off.
But somewhere along the line, we became friends. Best friends. I mean, I consider Nick one of my best friends, but he has this compulsion to compete for everything, and you can't help but feel the same way around him. Everything is a competition. I feel it, she feels it, and even Greg feels it sometimes. But she and I, we work solidly as a team, and then after work, we chill. We don't even think about the day we had; what happens at work, stays at work.
Well, that's how it used to be before Hank. She smiled the whole time as she confided in me that she and Hank were going out to dinner. Of course, Nick was around the corner during part of the conversation and he heard most of what was going on, so I had to tell him when he asked. Too bad her night was ruined by a finger in a glass of ice.
But even with Hank, she wasn't truly happy. I could tell. If she was, she definitely wouldn't have been lying to everyone about him for over a year. Even so, she was not smiling when she found out she was his mistress. He was one of the main reasons she lost her trust in people.
I don't think she smiled once in the past year or so. She had a lot of rough cases this year, and spent most of it competing for a non-existent promotion with Nick – see what I mean about Nick? – not to mention, Grissom was treating her pretty badly at points.
Grissom. I think that he was the main reason that she was not smiling. Everyone knows that they have some sort of attraction towards each other. Only I know the truth. She asked him out, he turned her down. And has treated her like crap since then, with the exception of a few choice moments. I haven't figured out why these men keep letting her slip through their fingers.
Before her vacation, she seemed like she was hanging on by a thread. She had heard that Nick was recommended for the promotion, and a week later, had a difficult case to handle.
Nick had heard through the rumor mill that she hadn't done the interview. When he told me about this, I was stunned. The girl always interviews victims of sexual assault. She fights for those cases. And then she opts out of an interview? Not her.
Case solved, and we all go out for drinks. Well, Nick, her and I go out for drinks. Catherine had to go home to Lindsey, and Grissom had paperwork to finish. After a round or two, we decided it was time to walk around. While walking down the strip, we split up and all headed home. The next day, I get a phone call from her, asking me to come over.
"I'm taking a vacation," she tells me, and I ask why. Turns out she was pulled over after we split up and brought into PD for DUI. And who had to pick her up? More than likely, the one person she didn't want to see that night – Grissom.
All she told me was that they talked about a lot of issues, and he convinced her to take a six week vacation. Apparently, it didn't take much convincing. There's nothing like the impending loss of your job, due to bad habits, to make you want to get away for awhile.
And now she's back, a smile always plastered on her lips. I wonder what happened on her vacation to put her in such better spirits. Maybe she met a man, a decent man that would treat her right, not reject her at every turn in the road. Or she spent some good time with her family. She never did tell anyone, not even me, where she went for the whole six weeks.
She smiles to me on her way out today, telling me that she'll see me later. I walk a little quicker to the parking lot, hoping to catch her and invite her to breakfast. Maybe we can talk about her new mood. I make it outside, and wander through the parking lot to where I know she parks her car. But, it's still there and she's no where to be seen. I scan the lot, criminalist instincts kicking in, and noticed her standing near one of the Denalis.
She's not alone.
Standing not a foot in front of her is Grissom, and she is smiling. The one smile I swear only he gets from her. And then, out of no where, he leans forward and kisses her gently on the lips.
When the hell did this happen?
They break apart after a few moments, and go their separate ways. She was smiling again.
Then it hit me. Grissom took a small vacation while Sara was gone. And he smiles more now, too.