Title: Better Than the Real Thing
Author: Jeanine (jeanine@iol.ie)
Rating: PG
Pairing: Sara/Warrick
Feedback: Makes my day
Disclaimer: If it was in the show, it's not mine.
Archive: At my site Checkmate () , Fanfiction.net; anywhere else, please ask.
Notes: For the LiveJournal CSReports Picture from the Venetian challenge. Title a little robbed from U2.
***
"I can't believe we're doing this."
Warrick fights back a grin as Sara presses herself closer to him, uses his arm that's around her shoulders to pull her closer still. The grin is partly because of her words, partly because he agrees with them – after all, they're sitting in one of the gondolas in the Venetian hotel in Las Vegas, one of the most touristy things in town, something that no self-respecting local should ever do.
The reason they're doing this though, is because he once made her a promise. "Hey, I promised I'd take you here, didn't I?"
She looks up at him, quirking an eyebrow in either amusement or challenge. "You said you'd take me to Venice for our first anniversary," she points out. "This isn't Venice."
He shrugs, because he did say that a year ago, when they'd travelled around Italy on their honeymoon. She'd wanted to plan the trip down to the day, while he'd favoured just going where the fancy took them, and what with the work involved in planning a wedding and working the hours they worked, he'd ended up getting his way. Unfortunately, they'd ended up with not enough time to visit everywhere they'd wanted to go, and Venice had been the casualty that she was most bitter over. He'd known that, so he'd promised her, as their flight home taxied down the runway, that they'd return the following year.
Some promises though, you can't keep.
"Hey, that's not my fault," he tells her, his free hand going to the six-month swell of her belly, and she gives him one of those looks that he immediately recognises as warning of imminent danger. "Well, not entirely anyhow," he teases, and she chuckles, a sound that starts off as amused but transmutes into rueful when the baby, as if reacting to Warrick's hand, launches a series of strong kicks. "See, that's our little girl telling you to lay off her daddy."
He gets another "danger imminent" look in return, and the comeback, "Or our son telling you to quit annoying his mother." She smiles too-sweetly at him as she says it, and he laughs out loud, taking their joined hands from her stomach and bringing them to his lips, pressing a kiss into her palm.
"I'm sorry about Venice," he tells her, although he's really not, because he'd rather be here for this reason than anywhere else in world. "But this is nearly as good, right?" He's teasing, because he knows she finds this sort of thing corny and tacky, that she only came here because she didn't know what he was planning, just like she doesn't know about the romantic dinner he's got planned in the hotel restaurant for them.
"No," she says, and her words make him blink in surprise. "It's better." She takes their joined hands, places them back on her stomach, and he grins as she rests her head on his shoulder because that much they can agree on.