Rating: T
Spoilers: "Time of Your Death" (season 6)
Disclaimers: Of course everything CSI is mine, all mine… in my fantasies!
Wordcount: 1383
Category: humour/romance
Author's Note: Written in response to the Unbound Challenge from 6 May 2006. Post-ToYD. I'm way over my 1000 word limit, but once I got going, I just couldn't help myself! As always, characters' thoughts are in italics.
The Recipient
by Lapsus Stili
"You're my fantasy."
Sara gasped.
Sara stared.
Sara blinked.
Sara blinked again, gave her head a shake, and re-read the Post-it note tucked in the casefile she just opened. "You're my fantasy." As intriguing as this penned phrase was, the lone "G" scribbled below it was simply astonishing. Luckily there was no one else in the breakroom just then, so her dumbfounded expression was witnessed only by the microwave and coffee maker.
Holy shit! So much for fantasies being best kept private… Sara mused.
As her shock finally began to wear off, her gaping mouth snapped shut and a wry smile soon made an appearance. Forgetting about the Beddington case for the moment, she flipped the folder closed again and clutched it to her chest. After a brief pause, Sara found herself drifting out of the room as if on a cloud. Next stop… Grissom's office, whether she was conscious of the destination or not.
From the spot in his doorway that she had long ago proclaimed as her own, Sara stared in, grounded only by the solidity of the steal doorframe against her shoulder. In the dim light sat her own fantasy. The silver-streaked man was hunched over his laptop, tappa-tappa-tapping away on a report. He was so engrossed in his work that he was oblivious to his silent witness. Although watching him was one of her favorite pleasures and she could easily do so for hours on end, Sara cleared her throat to catch his attention.
"Hmmm?"
The querying half-grunt was not quite what she had hoped for. He didn't even look up, just kept plugging away at whatever he was doing.
She tried a more exaggerated "A-HEM!" this time, followed up with a broad smile when he finally looked her way.
"Oh, hey Sara. What can I do for you?"
Well, not the warmest greeting in the world, all things considered… of course, it did take him 6 years to finally make a move, and even then he couldn't do it to my face… "Can I talk to you for a minute, Griss?"
He peeled off his glasses and eased back in his new ergonomic armchair, his lips twitching into a polite smile. Taking him up on his implied invitation, Sara crossed the tiled floor and perched on the seat in front of his paper-strewn desk.
She sat looking at him with a warm, knowing smile. Gil simply looked back, but instead of sharing her expression, his was more one of curiosity. After a moment of impasse, his eyebrows raised up in time with his upturned hands and shrugging shoulders. Ok, I guess he's playing innocent about this…
"So… I picked up the file from the transitions bin like you asked me to," she began, "You were right, I DID find something very interesting in it."
A-ha, the 419... he realized. "Great. Once Greg had finished adding his sketches from the scene, I figured you could run with it for a while since the trace lab can't get started on those unknown fibres until morning after all. What did you come up with so soon?"
Now it was Sara's turn to be bitten by the curiosity bug. What the hell? "Um… I didn't… start my research yet… I… uh… kinda got sidetracked by a little something, ya know?" She cocked a brow and pursed her lips, hoping he'd finally give up the charade and they could just get this out in the open at last.
Grissom, however, was getting a bit impatient with this vague conversation that didn't seem to be going anywhere. "Which was…?"
This elicited a sharp huff in response. That's it! With a mixture of annoyance and mild amusement, Sara blurted, "Oh, for Christ's sake! You know I've wanted you all these years, too. I think we can safely assume this fantasy thing goes both ways, right? Can we please just stop all this pussy-footing around and finally do something about this!"
Her boss couldn't have looked more stunned if Ecklie had come skipping into the room dressed as Peter Pan right then. Grissom's mouth was moving, but no words came forth… just a few random garbled sounds.
Realizing that he wasn't acting coy, but truly had no idea what she was talking about, Sara tore open the file to verify that the mystery note hadn't simply been a figment of her imagination. Nope. There it was… indigo ink on a dull yellow square… an admission of his attraction with his initial right below it, and…
Oh no!
In a flash of clarity, Sara's eyes slammed shut, her wince almost palpable. She blindly tossed the manila sleeve towards Grissom, allowing him to see the evidence himself.
His next statement, "This isn't my writing," came as no surprise to the mortified figure who was slowly folding in on herself. Argh... could I possibly be ANY more pathetic? ran through her mind repeatedly, interrupted only by the occasional Someone please just kill me now!
"You said that Greg was the last one to have this casefile before me, right?" she asked once she had steeled herself and dared to meet his gaze again.
"Yes." My God, she IS still interested…he thought.
Nodding her head, she continued, "And it was originally supposed to end up in trace next?"
Picking up on her train of thought, Grissom agreed again. The corner of his mouth twitched upwards. He tried to suppress the smirk fighting to show itself, but it was a losing battle. "Jessica got a headache and asked if she could leave early. That's why I had you skip ahead with it in the first place."
It was amazing how many varying shades of red had washed across her face in the last minute. "Uh-huh… the new trace analyst. Half the guy's in the building have been falling all over her since she started last month. I can't believe I… God, just this morning Greg was talking about working up the nerve to finally ask her out."
Oh Sara, you're even more beautiful when you blush… A chuckle rumbled from the other side of the desk, "Guess he thought he'd grease the wheels a little first – too bad he didn't know that YOU'D be finding his confession instead of Jessica."
He's laughing! He's still speaking to me and he's actually laughing about this! Maybe there's still hope yet? "Ya… lucky me," she mocked.
There was a lull then, and the two repeated a similar dance of glances as they had earlier in the conference room after the team had wrapped up the Powell case. Grissom broke the silence with a whispered, "I think I'm the lucky one."
A satisfied calm spread through her as his words sunk in.
Sara beamed.
Grissom winked.
Sara snapped her fingers and announced, "Hey, I have an idea." She stood and leaned across the desk, accidentally-on-purpose giving Gil a clear view down the front scoop of her neckline. Her rummaging in his utensil cup for a red pen was successful. With her most careful and feminine writing Sara filled in, "You're mine too" below Greg's original message, closing the folder when she finished.
"What are you up to now?" he wondered aloud. He was looking her in the face, in her still stooped position, but was secretly thankful for his excellent peripheral vision that revealed to him that her bra matched her burgundy top perfectly.
"Just playing cupid… I might not have been the intended recipient, but I'd say it worked well for me," she retorted with a wink of her own. "Let's see if it'll work for them as well."
"Shift's pretty well done. You wanna grab some breakfast somewhere?"
With a content sigh, Sara came back with, "I'd like that. I'll just drop this in Greg's inbox and I'll meet you out front."
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
The next morning Greg wandered in armed with a steaming cappuccino, arriving before anyone else for a change. He noticed the single file waiting at his desk and he dove for it with anticipation. Reading the response to his note, he fired both arms above his head, very nearly sloshing hot coffee over himself in the process, and did a spastic victory-dance around the room, chanting a single line over and over:
"This is just too good to be real!"