This is a response to Miss Andromache's challenge over at geekfiction... my group of lovers... over there at geekfiction. Lovers... all of em. Yay, Mel!

"Whatcha up to?" Greg sauntered into the A/V lab, two coffee cups in hand; he plunked one down in from of Sara and sent her one of his charming smiles. She wasn't charmed, just amused.

Sara snatched the cup and looked up at him suspiciously. "Checking the email..."

Greg laughed, sipped his coffee, was burned by it... and sat down on a stool next to her. "You sound like Strong Bad..." he informed her.

Sara click, click, clicked the mouse and took the bait. "What... the hell is a strong bad?"

"Do you really want to know?" Sara nodded slowly. "He's a cartoon on-"

Sara held up a hand and took another swallow of the coffee he'd brought. "Stop. Don't go any further. You lost me at cartoon." Greg smiled and was content to watch her check her email, watch her long fingers play over the keyboard, watch her eyes flutter over the words. "Thank you for this, by the way."

There was something more than a crush to Greg Sanders, something more than an infatuation. It wasn't love but he was sure that it could be, if she would ever let him in. He doubted that she ever would. They were great friends and he hated to think that they would be nothing more. One day, a few weeks back, he'd encountered Warrick in the locker room and had asked him why he thought Sara wouldn't date him. Warrick laughed and patted the younger man on the back lightly. "Greggo," he'd said, "Sara is Grissom's lady. No one acknowledges it and no one questions it, but everyone knows it."

Greg nodded in confusion and sadness.

"Just don't go mentioning it to anyone though," and with that Warrick left Greg to ponder over what he had said.

Greg snapped from his reverie when she pushed back from her stool and stood. "Uh, yeah, Sara... wanna get a beer tonight or something?"

Sara paused in the doorway and smiled at him. "Depends on how I feel at the end of shift and," she continued with a sly little smile, "Depends if you have anything for me on the Ashlyn case."

Greg beamed and followed her out into the hallway. "Well that I can do for you mi-lady," he began with a flourish. "Nothing on the paddles, not even epithelials, which I thought was kinda weird." Sara nodded and kept walking. "But the ping ping balls themselves were covered in DNA, saliva."

Sara stopped in her tracks and Greg admired the little crease that formed in her forehead. "Well... what would..."

"Ever see that movie Jawbreaker?" Greg asked, waiting for her to answer. She shook her head in the negative and his head fell. "Well check it out on IMDB... these girls go to kidnap their friend for her birthday and take her for... pancakes or something...and they shove her in the trunk and put a jawbreaker in her mouth to keep her quiet... maybe that's what they used to suffocate her."

Sara's eyes lit up and she grinned at Greg. "Way to go Greggo, I'll go run it by Grissom."

As Sara walked away, Greg did a little victory dance but then it hit him who she was going to see: Grissom. He'd never hold a candle to him; they had this wonderful little history that he would never intrude upon. The lab tech meandered towards his DNA lab but stopped halfway there and spun around in a move that Michael Jackson would have been envious of. In a moment of pure lust and maybe even something like love he padded towards Grissom's office, being sure to stay out of the line of sight of the door.

Once he reached the door and found it closed, he moved forward and gently nudged it open, successfully gaining auditory access to the conversation they were having. 'Yes,' he thought, clutching his hands to his chest and moving to the side to listen and watch. 'Take that MacGuyver, and I didn't even need to pick a damn lock!'

Inside, Sara was explaining Greg's theory to Grissom and Grissom appeared to be rather shocked at the younger man's logic. "That would make sense, I mean the Ashlynd, Ashlyn, Aslyn-" Grissom sighed, pulled the glasses from his face, pinched the bridge of his nose and replaced the glasses. Sara laughed, low and throaty and scrunched up her nose as she sat down in the visitor's chair.

"I'm sorry, does my sudden speech impediment offend you?" Grissom quirked, the corner of his mouth turning up at the woman in front of him. Sara laughed again and Greg saw her lean forward in the chair.

"How long has it been since you've slept, Gil?"

'Gil,' Greg thought, 'She's calling him Gil? When the hell did this happen?

Grissom chuckled again and flicked open the file before him. "You would know, you're the one who's been keeping me up."

Sara's jaw dropped open and she leaned back and tossed her head, laughing full and hearty. "I can't believe you. I don't hear you complaining! Especially not with the way you talk in bed. This morning, that's it, I'm on dirty word patrol. One bad word out of you and you get a-"

Greg chose to forget he'd ever heard that word come from Sara's mouth and felt his heart plummet at the truth. So she was seeing Grissom... and Grissom was making her happy. Oh well, he supposed he could-

"Oh, know what? I forgot, I think I'm gonna go out for a beer with Greg after shift."

Grissom looked up at her briefly. "You guys seem to be doing a lot together lately." And though Greg wished the other man had said it out of jealousy, the older man's voice held a note of delight. "That's great."

"I think so," Sara said, smiling brightly. "He's a great friend. And I enjoy his company."

Grissom looked at her over the top of his glasses. "You enjoy my company."

Sara stood and smoothed out her pants. With a fake sigh she said, "Oh honey, but I don't have to clean his smelly socks and cook him dinner."

Grissom put down his pen and looked at her mock-incredulously. "Hey! You offered!"

Sara laughed again and gestured with her hand for him to follow her. "You're right, I did. Now let's go find Greg and tell him what a great theory that was."

Grissom pushed her out of the way and went to open the door, "Move out of the way, dopey." Sara laughed and touched his arm once, then moved in front of him.

Greg quickly shuffled up against the wall beside the door and watched them exit, half in sadness, half in awe.

Grissom's hand gently rested on her lower back, they exited the office. Greg wondered if he'd ever be able to make a woman that happy simply by guiding her forward.

He bet not.