A/N: Weekly Unbound Improv response. Denalis are a bit out of my price range, so I'll admit I don't really know what the center console is like. I took a little artistic liberty.
Disclaimer: No matter how much I write, they still won't give me the show or any of its characters. I only want a couple of them. Sheesh! You'd think I was asking for a lot.
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And so the evening began: with a sticky car door, a sand-covered decomp and a sudden downpour. And it didn't seem inclined to get any better. Neither Grissom nor Sara could ignore the tell-tale thump thump sound made by the flat tire. What next? Grissom groaned to himself as he roughly rolled to a stop on the shoulder of the rural road. The rain continued to pound.
"The fun never ends," Sara muttered sarcastically. "Let's hope we have a spare."
"Maintenance wouldn't release the vehicle without a spare tire," Grissom reassured unconvincingly.
"The way tonight's going?"
Much to their relief, the spare was indeed present, and the jack was located without much difficulty. Grissom proceeded to raise the truck's deflated wheel off of the ground. "Why don't you wait in the car so you don't get drenched?"
"And make it harder for you? It's okay, I won't melt." She shrugged. "Besides, you need me to hold your flashlight."
If Grissom were honest with himself, he would have had to admit that he had ulterior motives for wanting her out of sight. She was adorable—too adorable—with the wet curls framing her face. Temptation tugged at his resolve. Sara grinned good-naturedly as she rolled the new tire to him.
Once the tire was changed and the equipment tucked away, the criminalists returned to the shelter of the SUV. Grissom turned the key in the ignition. Nothing happened. He tried again. Still, nothing happened. "No, no, no," he protested.
"You've got to be kidding me," Sara couldn't help but chuckle over the absurdity. What else could go wrong? If she couldn't laugh, she'd cry. She absent-mindedly rested her right arm on the door armrest on which she had spilled her sugar-laced coffee only an hour before. "Dammit!" she groused, extracting her arm from its sticky perch. "Criminalist, entomologist, medical examiner…I don't suppose you're a mechanic, too?"
"No." Grissom flipped open his cell phone and dialed, and after a pause informed the person at the other end of their location and need for roadside assistance. "It's going to be at least an hour or more, thanks to the weather," he said as he put away his telephone. He stared off into space and removed his glasses.
"Tired?" Sara asked softly.
"Just thinking. I'm trying to come up with an adequate scientific explanation for the disaster that's this night."
"Chaos theory won't cut it?"
"It could, I guess."
"Let's break it down," Sara suggested. "You oversleep and get to work a little late. Then, oh goody, we have a decomp in the middle of nowhere, half buried in sand. I spill hot coffee all over myself and the truck's interior. Nothing to change into, of course. Then the sky opens up, destroys what little evidence we have, and turns our sandy decomp into a muddy decomp. But, on the bright side, it washed the coffee out of my shirt." She grinned. "We start to head back to the lab, but get a flat tire. And now, with only a couple of hours left in the shift, the engine's dead. Sounds like chaos to me." Sara yawned. "Sorry."
"I overslept and still I'm tired," Grissom admitted.
"It's the rain."
"Close your eyes," he said. "Take a nap. We're stuck here for a while." He worried that his protectiveness might upset her, but she looked so exhausted he was willing to take the risk.
Sara said nothing. She looked out of the window in an effort to ignore his instruction. Soon enough, however, her eyelids drooped and her body began to slump. When his sleeping colleague drifted into his space, Grissom pondered the wisdom of his advice. She was so close. His arms instinctively closed around her to prevent her from leaning on the bulky center console.
She awoke slowly, the persistent drowsiness making her struggle to orient herself. Gradually, it all came back to her. Coffee. Decomp. Grissom. Flat. Grissom. Rain. Grissom. Daylight was breaking over the eastern mountains, and the rain had stopped. Grissom. Grissom—oh God! She was being held by a sleeping Grissom! And it felt incredibly good… and right. She knew that she should extricate herself from his embrace; after all, she definitely shouldn't get used to this. At any moment, he would awaken and push her away, literally and figuratively.
Somehow, instead of extricating herself, she snuggled closer to him. How was it that he could call her "Honey", but then he could behave as though he felt nothing? And now, after telling her to go to sleep so that he wouldn't have to talk to her, he held her tightly against his chest. The flashing light in the rearview mirror caught her attention.
Sara moved back to her own seat, and the sudden motion caused Grissom to stir. The department's tow truck driver tapped on the driver's side window. "Pop the hood, Grissom," Sara said.
Grissom, still not fully awake, obliged. He followed the mechanic's directions as the man work to discern the problem with the engine. Sara stood next to the open hood. "Any idea what's wrong?"
"Dead battery," he responded.
"How did it die in the few minutes it took to change the tire?"
"I don't know," the mechanic shrugged. "Maybe the alternator? I'll jump it, but if I were you, I wouldn't shut it off again until I got back to the garage."
After the Denali had started and the tow truck departed, Grissom buckled his seat belt and looked at his companion uneasily. "Sara…you're not going to tell anyone that…"
"That you slept with me? No."
He gave her a quizzical look, prompting her to continue. "Because I don't think anyone would believe me."
End