Title: Triptych

Author: Jeanine (jeanine@iol.ie)

Rating: PG

Pairing: Sara/Warrick, Sara/Grissom

Spoilers: Everything up to the end of season three to be safe.

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: Grissom left two years ago… what effect does his return have on Warrick and Sara?

***

Grissom stands at the counter and pours himself a cup of coffee, but instead of drinking it straight away, he raises the mug to his nose, sniffs it carefully to confirm his first suspicions. When he's proven right, a slow smile spreads across his features. "Blue Hawaiian, forty bucks a pound, the finest that money can buy," he says aloud, a voice in his head that's not his own supplying him with the words, and the first sip he takes is just as good as he remembers.

It's good to know that some things never change.

The first sip, while good, is a little on the hot side, so he blows across the surface of the mug, thinking as he does so about his next move, about where he should go. He's not sure who's on tonight, if any of his old team are still here, and he'd rather not wander around the halls all night. If some things never change around this place, like Greg Sanders and coffee for example, he knows that the gossip routes are just as well established.

His thoughts are interrupted by a familiar voice, though it's not a voice as much as it's a growl of frustration, and even though it's not the most positive sound in the world, it is, quite literally, music to his ears. It means that the first person he's going to see is the person he's missed most of all, that she's not going to find out about his return second hand. He's going to get to see that look on her face and he didn't know until just now how much he wanted that.

Just like he didn't know until just now how much he's missed her.

She stands at the door to the break room with some lab tech he doesn't know, who's giving her a folder, explaining some kind of test results to her. From what he can overhear, it doesn't look like she's gleaned the results she was looking for, and the impatient sigh she gives as she looks heavenward certainly bears that out. "I need coffee," she mumbles, and the lab tech leaves her to it, chuckling as he goes, probably glad that he's escaped with his life.

"Still terrorising the lab staff I see," he observes; he can't help it. There's a smile on his face as he talks, and it stays there as Sara spins around to face him, her face falling in stunned surprise when she sees him standing there. Her hand flies to her chest in almost Victorian shock, and he realises as he fights back his grin that this is the first time he's ever seen her speechless.

"Grissom," she says. "You're here."

Once upon a long ago, he might have chided her for stating the obvious. Today though, he just nods. "Sara," he says, looking her up and down, the blue jeans and work boots, the simple red top. Her hair falls down to her shoulders, loose and straight, and under his gaze, she reaches up, tucking a lock of it back behind one ear. "You look well," he says simply, an understatement if ever there was one he thinks.

She swallows hard, nods her head as she looks down at the ground for a second. He's sure he sees her lips twist in a bitter smile, but when she looks up again, it's gone, and he's not sure if he just imagined it, if his guilty conscience is playing tricks on him. "I didn't know you were coming back…" she says, and he shrugs.

"I didn't tell anyone," he says, and knows instantly that it was the wrong thing to say.

"Sounds familiar," she says, and this time, he knows he's not imagining the bitterness.

An awkward silence ensues, and he's the one who breaks it, seizing on familiar territory. "So, I see you're still working on night shift. What about everyone else?"

She squares her shoulders, leans back against the counter. "We're all still here," she tells him. "Greg's working out really well as a CSI…though he's got a nasty habit of chewing out the DNA guys if he thinks they're not working quickly enough." She chuckles slightly at that, and Grissom permits himself a smile, hoping that that's something he'll get to see. "Catherine's supervisor…Warrick and I are still on graveyard…Nick transferred to days last year."

Grissom lifts an eyebrow in mild surprise, because in his day, no-one ever volunteered to go to Day Shift. "Is Ecklie still here?" he asks, because that's the only thing that makes sense to him, and he's shocked when Sara nods.

"Nick's not too happy about working with him," she allows. "But he does get to actually see his wife and daughter, so he doesn't complain too much."

There's a smile on her face and in her tone, but Grissom knows her well enough to hear the steel underneath, knows that there's a thinly veiled barb there. Still, it's all he can do to echo, "Wife? Daughter?"

Sara nods. "It'll be two years in November," she tells him. "And Sophie's a month old."

"Good for him," Grissom murmurs, and Sara smiles, that small gap-toothed smile that has haunted him for the last two years, and he basks in the image, so much better in person than in memory.

"Yeah," she says softly, and when he looks at her, he's sure that her thoughts are a million miles away.

"I missed you." The words falling from his lips surprise him, but they stun her, and she literally takes a step back. So he takes one forward, but he's careful not to encroach on her personal space. "I know I did a lot of things wrong," he tells her, intent on making her listen to him, making her understand what he did and why he did it, hoping that she'll hear him out. "But I'd like to make it up to you… explain, maybe take you out for dinner… "

He stops when she holds up a hand, waits for her to speak, but the words seem to be a long time coming.

When they do, he wishes that he hadn't stopped.

"I'm engaged," she tells him, and he knows that his jaw drops, but he can't help it, because of all the things that he thought she would say to him, that wasn't one of them.

His gaze goes automatically to her left hand, to the ring finger there, and when he finds his voice again, he points out the obvious. "You're not wearing a ring," he says, his voice fading again when she reaches up, under the neck of her shirt. A gold chain glints in the light of the room as she pulls it out, holds it out to him, letting him see the ring threaded onto it. The row of three small diamonds glint as they catch the light, and his mouth goes dry.

"I don't wear it at work," she tells him, her own voice sounding hoarse, and it makes sense to him, too much sense. "We're getting married in two months… just after Christmas."

He just about manages to nod. "Congratulations," he says, the words almost sticking in his throat. "When do I get to meet the lucky man?"

When she stands up soldier straight, lifting her chin almost defiantly, he knows that he's not going to like the answer. "It's Warrick," she says simply, and for the briefest of instants, he thinks that his ears are playing tricks on him, that he's literally not hearing her properly. Because she and Warrick have always been friends, true, but there's been a distinctly frosty undertone between them as well, and he'd always had the sense that they were, on occasions, a powder keg waiting for a match to be lit.

"Warrick," he repeats dully, hoping that saying the name will help him to believe it. It doesn't. She doesn't say anything, lets the silence linger, until it's so awkward, even for him, that he has no choice but to continue. "Well… congratulations… " Even he can hear the insincerity in his voice, and he knows she didn't miss it either, knows it by the way she bristles.

"We've been together for over a year," she tells him, her tone almost defiant, and he knows a challenge when he hears one, rises to meet it.

"Do you love him?" he asks bluntly, and her jaw drops in what looks very like a combination of shock and anger, but the longer she looks at him, the more it leans towards anger.

"How dare you?" She doesn't shout though, which, in an encounter of surprises is just one more for the list. He quickly realises that she's gone beyond shouting, is too angry for that, so her anger is displayed in that still fury that somehow is more effective. "How dare you come back here after two years of nothing… "

Anything else she might say is interrupted by the ringing of a cell phone, and she bites her words off with considerable effort, wrenching the phone from her belt, flipping it open with such force that Grissom worries she's going to break the hinges. From her tone though, he'd never know that she was angry, all calm professionalism when she says, "Sidle." He turns away from her, listening to her side of the conversation, gleaning what information he can from it, only turning back to her when he hears her hang up. "Greg," she said, putting away the phone. "We're working a missing person's case… they've just found a body." It's on the tip of Grissom's tongue to ask for more details, but he stops himself, remembering just in time that, like a lot of things, that's not his place anymore. "He and Warrick are on their way… I need to meet them there."

She takes a step towards the door, but he can't let her go like this, can't leave things like this. "Maybe we can talk later?" he says, and she stops, turning slowly, staring him down with something that's now a combination of anger and pity.

But all she says is, "I'll see you around Grissom."

***

Sara knows that Warrick and Greg are on their way to the crime scene. She knows that they're expecting her to meet them there; she knows that they probably have a good idea of how long it's going to take her to get there, and are expecting her accordingly.

She knows all this, but still when Sara gets to her car, she doesn't turn the key straight away, doesn't go off on her way. She knows she could, but right now, she couldn't if she wanted to, and she's not so sure that she wants to.

For the first time in a very long time, maybe ever, she's not so sure that she wants to see her fiancé, not now, not when she's feeling like this. Not when she's not even sure how she's feeling.

Shocked is a pretty good word she thinks, because how else could she be feeling when Grissom walks back into the lab, into her life, as if he'd never been away? A distinctly bitter voice in the back of her mind reminds her that he left without a word, so it shouldn't be that surprising that he'd return the same way.

That same bitter voice reminds her that Grissom left almost two years ago. He's undoubtedly not the same man that he was back then; she knows for damn sure she's not the same woman. She's grown, she's changed.

She's fallen in love with another man.

She's not in love with Gil Grissom any more, she tells herself firmly. She's over him, he means nothing to her anymore. He shouldn't have the power to turn her legs to jelly, to make her hands shake and her stomach churn. He shouldn't be able to do that.

Yet she finds herself sitting in her car when she should be going to a crime scene, with her legs and hands shaking, her stomach churning.

With considerable effort, she pulls herself together, turning the key in the ignition and starting her drive, though how she gets to the crime scene is one of those mysteries of life that she knows she'll never be able to explain to anyone. She sees Warrick and Greg straight away, standing at the edge of the crime scene tape, and inside, she can see David Philips kneeling beside a body. That's good for another deep breath in, because their missing person was a young woman of twenty-four years of age, a mother of one, and from what Greg told her on the phone, it was a horrible death. There are days, she sighs, pulling herself out of the car, when she really does hate her job.

The two men turn to her when she calls out in greeting, and Greg looks pointedly at his watch. "What, did you get lost on the way?" he quips, and she tries to smile, which is harder than it might appear, especially when Warrick is looking at her, a vague suspicion of worry in his eyes. This is why she didn't want to see him right now, because he knows her, and he knows when she's feeling bad and trying to hide it.

"Not quite," she says, avoiding prolonged exposure to Warrick's gaze, smiling instead at Greg. "As a matter of fact, I was talking to someone."

"Ah, gossip, thy name is woman," Greg says, shaking his head in mock sorrow, and she wants to remind him about all the times that she caught him gossiping, or flirting, or basically doing anything other than working back in his DNA-mad-scientist days.

She wants to tease him about that, but Warrick's question stops her. "Who?"

She smiles, because what else can she do, and bites the bullet. "Grissom," she says simply, and their reactions couldn't be more different.

Greg's jaw drops open in surprise, his lips immediately thereafter turning up in a huge smile. In the space of a couple of seconds, he looks to have grown a couple of metres, and he's practically bouncing up and down with excitement.

Warrick's face goes slack, and she sees worry burn through his eyes like fire through kindling. It only lasts for a second though, then he pastes a smile on to his face, and while it might fool Greg, she knows what a real Warrick Brown smile looks like, and this one isn't even close.

"You're kidding me!" Characteristically, Greg's the one who first puts his thoughts into words, and Sara shakes her head in response. "Man, that's cool! He just showed up, no call, no nothing? What's he been doing with himself?"

Sara's eyes widen, her shoulders rise and fall in a shrug. "I don't know," she says. "I was only talking to him for a minute, then you called me… " It's a lie, and she's pretty sure that Warrick knows it, but Greg can't know that, and she knows Warrick won't call her on it. Not here, not now, not like this.

Any further discussion is precluded when David calls up "Guys… I'm ready," and she silently blesses the man for his timing. Greg pinwheels around instantly, ever eager to start work on the case, but Warrick doesn't move. He's still looking at Sara, and she looks down at the ground because she can't look at him.

So she only hears him saying, "Greg, why don't you go on down, start with the photos? I'll fill Sara in on what we know so far."

Greg's only too eager to comply and doesn't need to be told twice, and Sara hears him move away. But she still doesn't look up, not until she feels Warrick's presence beside her, close enough to touch her. He doesn't touch her, but she really wishes that he would. She chances a glance up at him, sees him looking down at her with that vaguely concerned look on his face, and her eyes slide off him, and she turns, looking down at Greg asking David questions as he snaps pictures.

She keeps her back to him, waits for him to tell her about what they know, the way he told Greg he would, but she's not surprised when that's not what he does. He doesn't speak, and she's on the verge of begging him to say something, say anything, when she feels his palm on the back of her neck, the warmth of his skin such a contrast to the coolness of the night. His fingers find the top of her spine, knead that spot gently, and she knows what the touch means. She knows that it's a wordless question, an enquiry if she's all right, as well as a promise that he's not going to push her, not going to put any pressure on her. He doesn't need an answer, just wants her to know that he's there for her. She closes her eyes for a moment, leaning into his touch just a little, just enough to let him know that she understands, that she's grateful, and one hand goes to her chest, tracing absently the shape of the ring she wears around her neck, the ring he gave her.

The combined weight and warmth of gold and skin ground her, centre her, and she takes a deep breath, knowing what she has to do. "Let's go," she says, stepping towards Greg.

Warrick follows her, and she can feel his eyes on her back the whole way.

***

Warrick's glad when Greg volunteers to drive back to the lab, because he's not sure that he'd be the safest person to have behind the wheel in his present state of mind. He's also not going to deny the fact that he hopes that if Greg is driving, he'll be less inclined to tease Warrick, but he realises all too quickly that he should have known better.

"I'm just saying," Greg says merrily, never taking his eyes off the road. "I've never seen you do that for any of the other CSIs you've worked with."

Warrick rolls his eyes, staring out the passenger window. His arm is propped up on the passenger door, his chin resting on his fist, and were it not for Greg yammering away, he'd be lost in thought. "She had a headache," he reminds Greg. "What, you wanted her in the lab, making herself worse?" Playing on Greg's friendly, and not so friendly, feelings for Sara probably wouldn't be the worst idea in the world he tells himself, and he knows he's right when Greg backtracks hurriedly.

"No, of course not." He sounds indignant that Warrick would think such a thing, but he bounces back quickly. "I'm just wondering if you'd do the same for me or Catherine or Nick… "

"Greg." Warrick's voice is firm, and Greg's head turns sharply to look at him, and Warrick realises, not without guilt, that he may have been a little more abrupt than necessary. "Sorry." Rubbing his hand over his chin, he sucks in a deep breath, thinking before he speaks. "She was sick," he finally settles on, though he knows it's a lie. "She needed to go." The words "away from me," linger in his mind, though he doesn't speak them out loud.

When he looks over at Greg, the younger man is looking over at him too, his head flying crazily between the road ahead of him and Warrick beside him. "She didn't look that bad to me," he objects, and Warrick forces himself to chuckle, as if there's nothing wrong, as if his relationship might not be falling apart around him.

"It's Sara," he reminds Greg, and his friend's face clears, accepting the validity of the argument. To ram the point home, Warrick continues with, "You think she's going to lose face in front of anyone?"

"Including you?" Greg's voice has swung all the way back from concern to teasing, but this one Warrick can handle easily.

"Especially me," he counters, making Greg laugh. Mercifully, it also seems to close the conversation in the younger CSI's mind, leaving Warrick to his thoughts.

What he'd told Greg had been a mixture of truth and lies. Yes, Sara had complained of a headache, and she'd displayed all the classic symptoms - furrowed brow, distracted silences, rubbing the bridge of her nose, her forehead, every so often. The three of them had worked the crime scene, and it had been obvious to him that she wasn't at her best, and he'd cornered her quietly about it when they were almost finished, asking her if she was ok, telling her that it looked like she had a headache. She'd seized on the excuse quickly, a flash of gratitude in her eyes, and when he'd suggested that shift was almost over and she could go home early, she'd leapt at that suggestion too.

But he knows that she didn't really have a headache.

Or if she did, he's pretty sure he knows the cause.

He knew something was wrong with her the instant she stepped out of the car, began her walk towards him, because he hadn't seen her look that upset, that confused in a long time, certainly not in the last year and a half or so. He'd had an odd feeling about what might have been wrong with her, and hearing Grissom's name had only confirmed his suspicions.

He feels the beginnings of a headache starting low in the base of his skull as he pictures the look on her face tonight, remembers how she looked in those first weeks and months after Grissom's departure. He's not so sure that she can go through that again, and if he'd been asked a few hours ago, he would have said, without thinking, that she wouldn't have to. He would have said that Sara's feelings for Grissom were a thing of the past, that she was in love with him, that they were going to get married and live happily ever after.

Now he finds himself wondering if Sara's feelings for Grissom were only muted by his absence, if her feelings for him are simply those of rebound guy.

Though if he's honest with himself, that's always been his deepest fear.

He deals with this fear the best way he knows how, by working. For all the things that Sara has learned from him, that's something that he's learned from her. So he tells Greg that he'll deal with logging in the evidence, leaving Greg free to roam the labs, chase the techs for whatever needs chasing. Greg's eager to accept, muttering something about the shoe being on the other foot nowadays, and Warrick watches him go with a smile before going back to the monotonous business of logging evidence.

By the time that's done, it's time to go home, and he goes to the locker room, grabs his jacket and walks into the open air. It looks like it's going to be a beautiful morning, and any other day, he'd be pleased to be heading home, hoping to spend some quality time with his girl.

Today though, he's stopped in his tracks when he walks into a familiar face that he hasn't seen in too long. "Grissom," he says, nodding in greeting, crossing his arms over his chest. "Heard you were back."

Grissom nods too, his hands down at his side, apparently relaxed, but to Warrick's eyes, there's a line of tension across his shoulders. "Warrick," he says, his tone neutral. "I hear congratulations are in order."

They've been engaged for four months by now, but such good wishes still make Warrick smile, no matter who they're from. "Yeah," he grins.

"I was actually looking for Sara," Grissom continues, still in that same neutral voice, but there's something in his eyes that Warrick doesn't like, something that makes his hackles rise, wipes the grin from his face. "She around?"

"She's gone home already," Warrick tells him, and that's all he intends on telling him. However, he was always told as a kid that he lacked discipline, and he knows that he hasn't improved with age. That much is proven when he hears his own voice asking, "You going to tell me what you said to her?"

Grissom blinks owlishly. "I didn't say anything to her," he says, but Warrick doesn't believe that for a second.

"Don't give me that," he says, barely keeping a rein on his impatience. "We're at home before shift, she's fine. We work on the case, she's fine. We meet at the crime scene, she tells me she's talked to you, and she's a wreck." He's walking a fine line there, he knows, because nobody who saw Sara at that crime scene, not Greg, not David, would characterise Sara as a wreck. Warrick however, knows better, because he knows Sara better. "What did you say to her?" he demands again, and Grissom gives him a dead-eyed stare.

"I didn't say anything to her Warrick," he replies. "But there's unfinished business between Sara and me… there are things we need to discuss."

Warrick hears the words, purses his lips in disgust. "Like?" he demands.

Grissom shakes his head, avoids the question. "There's a lot about me and Sara that you don't know Warrick," he begins, but Warrick cuts him off angrily.

"Like the fact you two slept together the night before you left town?" He flings the accusation at Grissom, and takes great satisfaction in seeing the neutral expression vanish from Grissom's face. The older man's mouth opens slightly; if this were anyone other than Grissom, their jaw would be touching the ground.

"She told you?" he asks, and Warrick blows air out between his lips.

"She's my wife Grissom," he grinds out. "We don't keep secrets from one another." He's surprised when Grissom talks over the second part of his sentence, is so angry that he's sure he's misheard what Grissom just said. "What?" he asks, because he has to be sure.

"I said, she's not your wife." In contrast to Warrick, Grissom is completely calm. "Not for another two months."

A long silence ensues, and Warrick finds himself counting to ten in the hopes that it'll stop him from punching Grissom's lights out. He wishes that it was because the older man was wrong, but he knows that the opposite is true. Grissom's right; Sara's not his wife, not officially, not at all. But the fact of the matter is, to Warrick, they've been married ever since she smiled and said yes, let him slip that ring on her finger. Ever since then, maybe since even before then, he's considered Sara his wife, and to have Grissom of all people pointing out that she's not is a bitter pill to swallow.

"So," he finally says. "It's like that is it?"

He meets Grissom's gaze, holds it. "I love her Warrick," he finally says, and somewhere far in the distance, Warrick's sure he can hear his heart breaking. "I made a mistake leaving. I don't intend on making the same mistake twice."

"That's not your decision to make," Warrick tells him slowly, but once again, Grissom has the answer to that.

"No," he says. "But it's not yours either."

With that, he turns and walks away, leaving Warrick looking after him.