Title: Turnabout

Author: Jeanine (jeanine@iol.ie)

Rating: PG

Pairing: Sara/Warrick

Spoilers: Fight Night, Cool Change

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.

Summary: Sara teaches Warrick about turnabout

Notes: Companion piece to Something to Smile About but can be read as a stand-alone.

***

He doesn't think she knows, but she does.

How can she not?

How can she not know that he watches her, when she can feel his eyes on her, the intensity of his gaze almost like a physical touch, making her heart beat that little bit faster.

She never calls him on it though, never lets him know that she knows.

Part of it is because she likes to know that she's got the upper hand on him, a remnant of their old competitiveness, though she admits that they're still competitive, just that it's not as vitriolic as it once might have been.

Part of it is because it's their little secret, something that she delights in knowing. She can be doing something perfectly innocuous, running prints, or reading a report, or just talking to someone, and she'll feel a shiver going up her spine, feel the hairs rising on the back of her neck, and she knows that if she turns around she'll see him standing there. He won't be looking at her, because he's too quick for that, and he'll have looked away before she can catch him, but she'll bite the inside of her cheek to keep back a smile because she'll know.

It might be their little secret, but there's a part of her that can't believe that no-one at work has worked it out yet, has seen the little interplay between them. Of course, she knows that no-one's looking for it, and hence they don't see it, but still it amazes her that they're the number two crime lab in the country, that everyone there is paid to be observant and interpret what they see, and yet they can't see what's going on right under their noses.

Especially not when he looks at her like that.

Especially not when she looks at him the same way.

Not that that's a huge surprise; after all, she knows that everyone looks at him that way. How can they not? And while she's never been especially part of the gossip circuit around the lab, she's heard enough to know that the general consensus around the place is that he's the hottest thing there, and that's one of the mildest things that's been said about him. Whether the topic of conversation is his eyes, his chest, his backside, or just his body in general, he's a popular guy.

And that's another part of why she delights in their little secret, delights in knowing that he looks at her like that. Because there's just enough of that tall gangly teenager that she saw every day in the mirror still left in her that she can't quite believe a man like that would ever be interested in her.

She admits that she noticed his looks herself, the very first time she met him. Oh, she knows that she was supposed to be investigating him, and she knows that she did her job, did it well, and she'd do it again the same way. But she can remember vividly standing in that small casino on Blue Diamond Road, the biggest dive that she'd ever been in, looking at him at the gaming table. She'd seen his ID photo at the lab, that's how she'd known what to look out for, but the photo hadn't done him justice. Even knowing that she was supposed to be investigating him, even though she wasn't one for entertaining such thoughts, when she saw him sitting there, in bright white T-shirt with a pissed off look on his face, he was still, as her mother would say, a fine figure of a man.

And when she got up close to him, got a chance to look into those green eyes, pissed off as they were at her, she felt a shiver run up her spine.

She was almost glad when they began talking, and it was apparent that they were going to clash every time that they talked. After all, if they'd got along great, that would have been just too good to be true. So she investigated him and made her report, and even when Grissom saw fit to ignore her recommendation, and they were still fighting one another every time they spoke, she didn't let herself worry about it unduly.

Then somewhere along the line something miraculous happened.

They became friends.

They became friends, and even though she would sometimes look at him and be bowled over by those eyes or that body, he was always her friend, and only her friend.

Until the time that he became more than that.

She thought it was just a one time thing, until it happened more than once, until it kept on happening. But they never dated officially, there was never anything serious between them, they both knew that. Warrick was free to see other women, and she was free to see other men. Not that she did, not until she met Hank that is. But she's been seeing him for the past few months, though it's not serious either, and she wonders when she became the kind of woman who thinks nothing of dating one man - and denying that she's even doing that - while at the same time finding herself falling into bed with someone she calls one of her best friends.

She thinks she should feel more guilty about it, but she doesn't.

It can be awkward sure, especially during the times that the three of them are in the same vicinity, which thankfully for her doesn't happen too often. It happened recently though, during this case. She and Warrick were at the hospital to see Molina, acting on Grissom's orders, and she was trying to pretend that she hadn't been grossed out by the spit bucket, which was easier than she'd thought thanks to the memory of Warrick's lips on hers after he'd helped her out of the boxing ring. She'd been brought back to reality after five minutes in the same room as Molina and his disdainful attitude, and she'd felt her skin beginning to crawl more than it had when she'd held the spit bucket as he'd looked her up and down, a look in his eyes that she didn't like. She'd swabbed his hands as quickly as she could, ignoring him as best she could, but she didn't miss Warrick bristling beside her, his barely contained impatience like a fourth person in the room. Molina might have thought that it was a reaction to his fast-talking, but she knew better.

She'd wanted to ask him about it as they walked out to the car, because she'd never seen him act that way before, and she wasn't sure what it meant, if it meant anything at all. But before she could say anything, he was on the phone to Brass, and then Hank appeared, asking her if he could talk to her for a minute. Warrick had gone on walking, with scarcely a look back, and Sara had thrown him a worried look, telling him that she'd be with him in a minute, before going off with Hank.

As it turned out, Hank had been showing her what turned out to be some pretty vital evidence, and he hadn't been bothered in the least by seeing her with Warrick. Not, she noted, that he knew that there was a reason he needed to be concerned. But Warrick hadn't turned a hair over it, and she hadn't either, not really. It was the absence of a reaction on both their parts that bothered her more, because she really couldn't tell what it meant for the two of them.

If it meant anything at all.

So she does what she always does when she doesn't know what to do; she works. She sits in the lab, and she does her thing and she finds out that Molina injected mercury into his gloves, that the circular pieces of leather that Warrick and Grissom found in his locker are the same diameter as a fourteen gauge needle. But what she doesn't know is if a few ounces of mercury would be enough to cause the damage that was done to Laroi Steele.

Warrick nods, accepting her point, but Grissom's eyes light up like he's just had the best idea in the world, and he says some of the most beautiful words that she's ever heard.

"I smell an experiment."

He looks at her as he speaks, and she smiles, because she knows the experiment that's going to have to be carried out, and she knows that there's only one person in the room who's capable of doing it.

Grissom doesn't let her down, outlining what's going to happen, and she's grinning the entire time, no spit bucket necessary, no kiss either.

There are days when she loves her job.

She stands at the computer, Grissom at her side, as Warrick punches the bag, with ordinary boxing gloves. The rhythmic thudding, so familiar from the boxing video that she and Warrick looked at over and over, echoes in the room, even over the whirring of the computer, but this time, its noise doesn't make her wince.

She barely even notices the noise, because she has to keep an eye on the computer results.

Which is not the easiest thing in the world to do when she'd much rather watch him.

Pleasurable and all as it is for her to watch him exercising in this state of dishabille, she still can't quite fathom that those arms, capable of exercising the level of force that she can see on the computer, are the same arms that have held her close to him at night, making her feel safe and protected, never once as if she was in danger. Nor can she imagine that those hands curled into fists inside the stiff leather gloves are the same hands that trace lazy patterns up and down her back as they lie in bed together, are the same hands that are so gentle as they move through her hair.

She can't quite make sense of it, but when she sees those muscles working in his arms, moving underneath the white of his tank top, she doesn't really care all that much.

He glances over at her, asking if he's done enough yet, and she flashes him a little smile, telling him that she needs a little bit more. He turns back to the punching bag with nary a word, but she thinks she sees a hint of something in his eyes, something that indicates that he's all too aware that scientific discovery is the furthest thing from her mind.

She stops him then, loads the gloves up with mercury, and the same thing starts all over again. This time, she can see the muscles having to work harder to compensate for the extra weight of mercury, but she has to file that particular image for later perusal when straight away the computer records that the punches this time are far heftier. When the machine hits overload, she calls out to him to stop him, but this time it's he who doesn't hear her, and she has to repeat herself a couple of times before he stops.

"And mercury kills Steele," Grissom announces, pleased that they've worked out what happened, and with a few words, he excuses himself to call Brass, to tell him that they need to bring Molina in. She finds herself looking forward to questioning him, because after the little scene at the hospital, she really wants to wipe that smirk off his face.

Then she glances over at Warrick, who's taking off the mercury-weighted gloves, and she moves to help him, stripping the tape from one, then the other as he flexes his fingers. This close to him, she can hear his heavy breathing, see his chest rise and fall with each breath, and it brings to mind other times, other places, where she's observed those phenomena.

"Easy for you to smile," he chides, his face a mask. "Damn, those gloves are heavy."

She bites down on the inside of her cheek, but it doesn't help. "You knew what the experiment would entail," she points out, but he's having none of it.

"Like I could say no, with Grissom breathing down my neck like that," he counters, and she has to concede the point. "I'm glad my misfortune was entertaining to you."

His words sound cruel, but there's a certain sparkle in his eyes, a certain tilt upwards of his lips, that tell her he's slightly amused by the whole thing. And of course, there's the fact that even with the gloves off, they're still standing close to one another, in each other's personal space.

"I had to watch the experiment," she says, her voice low, and he raises a sceptical eyebrow.

"Uh-huh."

She doesn't let his scepticism worry her, just shrugs. "Well, you know what they say," she says, letting her voice trail off teasingly, and his eyes narrow, as if he knows that she's got an ace up her sleeve, as if he's expecting some knockout punch, he just doesn't know what it is yet.

"What's that?"

Her smile threatens to split her face when she answers, "Turnabout's fair play," because how many times has she caught him watching her?

His face stays blank at first, then she sees his eyes flicker, and a matching smile breaks across his face, because she knows that he understands.