Title: Bounce

Spoilers: Playing with Fire. Possibly anything leading up to that, but I don't really think so.

Archiving: . Anyone else, ask permission and I'll probably say yes.

Notes: This is just something I've been dabbling at. It's partly an attempt at Drakkenfryre's "Make Grissom Suffer" challenge, partly just me wasting paper. Anyway, as you'll see, it's nowhere near done yet. Which is the reason I say I've been dabbling at it, kinda in between chapters of MPL. Anyway, hope you enjoy what I have of this story. Feel free to send me feedback at

More notes: This is a G/S fic. Or at least it will be. So don't flame me when you read this part - keep telling yourselves that it's all part of the plot development to get Grissom and Sara together.

"Sara! Sara!" Grissom called, walking quickly toward her retreating form.

Sara kept walking, refusing to look at him. "Go home, Grissom. My ego can only take two shreddings a day and you've used them both up." She waved a hand over her shoulder as though he were a pesky insect. She didn't hold the front doors for him as she passed through them, though he was only inches behind her.

"Ow! Dammit, Sara . . ."

"Go HOME, Grissom."

"No," he said flatly.

Sara whirled around to face him. "Why the hell not? Jesus, Grissom, I just threw myself at you and you turned me down flat. Do you want to rub some more salt in the wound or something?

"Ow!" she growled as Grissom grabbed her upper arm. "What the hell!" Grissom's face was inches from hers as he pushed her insistently into a small niche.

"Just shut up, Sara. I'm trying to talk you and you're running away." He wasn't surprised that Sara only pursed her mouth and gave him a sour look. "I thought you were ballsier than this." As he'd expected, that got a reaction.

"My balls are plenty big, Grissom. In fact, judging by tonight, they're a hell of a lot bigger than yours!" She tore her arm from his grasp and headed for the parking lot again.

Grissom heaved a sigh. "I'm trying to apologize, Sara!" he called after her. "Would you rather leave and keep telling yourself I'm not sorry about what just happened?"

"You know, Grissom, I don't care at this point. Just let me be. I need to think."

"I'm not giving you a choice. Come on." He grabbed her left hand and almost fell over backwards when she screamed.

"Let GO! Ow, shit!"

Suddenly realizing that he had just squeezed her stitched hand, Grissom dropped it like it was a hot iron. "I'm sorry, Sara. Here, let me take a look."

Before he could get a grip on it again, Sara snatched it out of his grasp. "I think once was enough, ok? Just . . . let me go home."

Grissom shook his head and took a much gentler grip on her right wrist. "No, Sara. Please? Let me feed you, at least, to make up for it."

She gave him a furious look. "As I recall, Grissom, you just turned me down when I asked you to get something to eat with me. Are you having memory problems?"

Grissom gave up. He clamped an arm around her waist and began to propel her toward his car. Sara began to protest and he hissed in her ear, "Shush, Sara. Do you want to explain this to everyone?" She growled and dug in her heels, refusing to walk. Grissom simply lifted her slightly off the ground to avoid the friction and kept walking, trying to ignore the squirming woman who was muttering obscenities in his ear.

Sara's mind finally processed what was going on and she began to wonder why she was struggling. Grissom was whisking her off to his car with his arm around her waist . . . and she was trying to kick him in the shin? Helloooo! She went limp, forcing Grissom to carry almost all of her weight.

He finally reached the side of his car and dropped her against it with a grunt. "Change your mind?" he asked her with a raised eyebrow.

"We'll see," she said suspiciously. "Where are we going?"

He shrugged. "Your choice. My house or the diner."

She sighed. "I have a feeling we won't want this to happen in public, whatever 'this' is going to be. Your house, then."

Grissom gave her a surprised look at that. Quickly, while she wasn't paying attention, he grabbed for her left wrist, bringing the injured hand up so that he could look at it. A spot of blood about the size of a dime was spreading on her bandage. "Shit," he muttered. "I think I popped one of your stitches. Looks like dinner will have to wait – we're off to the hospital now."

"I'm fine, Grissom. I told you that. I don't need new stitches." She pulled her hand from his grasp and gave him a dirty look. "Can we just go eat?"

"No, Sara. Do I need to walk you through this? Stitches are meant to help your wound heal. If you break the stitches, not only are you letting the cut open to infection, but you're slowing the healing process and making it more likely that you'll end up with a scar."

"I don't CARE!" Sara nearly shouted. She shoved Grissom back and strode quickly to her own car, digging the keys out of her pocket as she went. Grissom was shouting after her, but she tuned him out. She just wanted to get in the car and lock the doors before he caught up with her.

Just as he reached for the door handle, Grissom heard the locks snap shut. He jumped back, knowing what was coming next, and true to form, a pale-faced Sara floored it out of the parking lot. He sighed. It was no use going after her; he knew she wouldn't let him into her apartment.

That evening he went to work even earlier than he usually did. The lab was still being fixed and he needed to supervise. Or at least that's what he told himself. The real reason, he knew, was that he was hoping he could catch Sara alone before shift started.

To his disappointment, Sara Sidle the workaholic did not arrive for her 8PM shift until 7:59. By that time the rest of the team, Grissom included, were gathered in the break room. Grissom was flipping through the folder of current cases, trying not to think about his idiocy; Nick and Warrick, seated next to each other, were alternately whispering to each other and directing dirty looks in Grissom's direction; and Catherine, determined to put in her time, suspension or no, was giving all four of them bemused looks, wondering what was going on.

When Sara breezed in, looking unconcerned, she took the seat on Nick's other side. Leaning over to squeeze his arm, she said something quietly to him. Grissom could only catch the words "thank you" and "night."

"Are you about ready, Sidle?" he asked waspishly.

Sara only nodded serenely and listened with half an ear as Grissom assigned her, along with Nick, to a case as far from his as possible. Big surprise there, she thought to herself. He was already regretting chasing her out last night. Reason number 312 why she and Grissom would never happen, she thought with a small, bitter smile. "Move on, Sara," she reminded herself. After last night she knew he wasn't ever going to come around, so why was she still so focused on him? The hell with that!

Nick could tell Sara was hung up on something. He knew her well enough that he could have noticed it even if she weren't letting him lead her through the parking lot by the arm, staring ahead, deep in thought, but the fact that she was indeed doing those things made it that much more obvious.

"What's up, Sar?"

He wasn't surprised when she muttered, "Fine." She wasn't paying any attention to him or to the fact that she was about to trip over a curb. Nick pulled her back just in time to prevent the latter, shaking her back into reality for a moment.

"Don't bullshit me, Sara," he said in a stern tone. "I asked what's up with you tonight, and you ignored me. Spit it out, hon."

Sara sighed. "Just Grissom, as usual." As they got in the Tahoe, she settled back in her seat dejectedly. "It's over."

"What?"

"I'm giving up on him. He's never gonna come around and we all know it. I'm sure everyone's laughing at me for pining after him for all these years."

"No one's laughing at you, Sara. I think that everyone who's aware of your thing with him – and that's not as many people as you think – has pretty much decided Grissom's insane to be brushing you off."

She shook her head. "Yeah, right. Well, I am SO done with him now. Seriously. I wasted three years of my friggin' life on that man, and what'd I get back? Headaches and faint praise. Screw him!"

"Hey, whatever Sara. You know the rest of us are gonna support you whether you keep mooning after him or not."

"Mooning!" Sara buried her face in her hands, moaning in embarrassment.

Nick reached over and rubbed her back. In typical Nick fashion, he said, "Come on Sara. It'll be ok. So maybe Grissom doesn't get it. The rest of us get it. I get it."

She managed to look up and offer him a weak smile. "Thanks. At least I know I've got you. Hey, um, you wanna get pizza or something tonight? I want to go out. Assert my independence and all."

"Sure," Nick grinned, and swung the Tahoe into a parking spot at the convenience store they were supposed to process.

"Yo, man," Warrick prodded when he and Grissom were at their own scene. "What's up with you and Sara lately?"

"Not your business, Warrick," Grissom said over his shoulder.

"She's upset."

"Whether Sara is upset or not has nothing to do with me."

Warrick carefully put away his dusting brush and straightened up. "What are you smoking, Grissom? You know it always has something to do with you."

"No, Warrick," Grissom said, standing to face the younger man. "I don't know any such thing. What I know is that Sara is a very emotional woman and that she takes everything to heart."

"I'd take it to heart too if I had gathered every shred of my courage, asked someone out, and been turned down flat. With an insulting look thrown in for good measure."

Grissom scowled. "I see that nothing stays quiet very long at CSI. Has Sara been telling everyone?"

Warrick shook his head in disbelief. "You don't know her very well if you believe that. I only know because she had Nick over last night, started crying, and spilled the whole thing."

"Nick?"

"Yeah, Nick," Warrick told him sarcastically. "Brown-haired guy, about yea tall? From Texas? Works with us every night of the week?"

"I know who Nick is," Grissom snapped. "I just didn't know that he and Sara spent so much time at each other's homes." He would not feel jealous, he told himself. Sara was free to see whomever she pleased, especially after last night.

Only a blind man could miss the consternation that was drifting across Grissom's face. And Warrick wasn't blind. "Not like that, Gris. At least not yet," he added slyly.

He was being played with now, Grissom decided. "Enough chatter, Warrick. Let's try doing some work, please? I would like to get back to the lab sometime before end of shift."

"Whatever you say," Warrick said lightly, retrieving his dusting brush. "You're the boss."

As it turned out, even hardly speaking each other, it still took Grissom and Warrick until 7AM to finish gathering the evidence. It seemed like every person in Las Vegas had left their prints on the cashier's counter that night.

As they walked into the building, they passed Sara and Nick going the other way.

"Hey, where're you two off to so early?" Warrick asked with a grin.

"Finished our case. Easiest one we've had in months," Sara told him. "So we're going out to get some breakfast."

Warrick considered. "Hmm . . . where you guys gonna be? Maybe I'll stop by once me and the bossman have finished with our stuff."

"Well, we're going to be at the Yuma diner," Sara said slowly. "But we, uh . . . this is just for the two of us, ok? We'll have breakfast with you another time."

Nick's face registered surprise when Sara spoke. He hadn't known that Sara wanted to go just with him, and he wondered whether it was a good sign or bad. Too bad she was still fixated on Grissom, despite what she said, he reflected. She was his kind of girl, but Grissom had somehow laid silent claim to her long ago. Figuring he ought to say something, he threw in, "Yeah, sorry bro." Less was more when it came to supporting one of Sara's on-the-spot decisions. He got a brilliant smile in return.

"So, we ready to go?" he asked, holding out an elbow for her to hook her arm through.

"Yep!" Sara responded sweetly. Giving a befuddled Grissom and a smiling Warrick a nod, she followed Nick out the door.

"Guess we gotta revise that 'not yet' part, huh Gris?" Warrick said quietly. "Good thing you really don't want her like that. You'd be pretty pissed off right now if you did, I bet."