Title Crossword
Author wobbear
Rating K/G
Disclaimer Are you kidding?
Author's note/spoiler info The scenario is: Sara and Grissom are living together. With their dog. I know I posted a fic recently explaining why the dog came to be called Hank. But that's a ridiculous name and I prefer Bruno, so Bruno it is.
I was trying to do a crossword last Friday. There was a combined clue, something to the effect of "William Petersen's role on this". The two answers were "Grissom" and "CSI". And somehow this fic came about …

Summary A man, a woman and their dog. And a crossword. GSR


anagram (noun) A word or phrase spelled by rearranging the letters of another word or phrase

Bruno lay on the living room rug, feet skyward and eyes closed to better concentrate on his bliss. If he were a cat, he would most certainly have been purring. Stretched out beside him, Sara stroked Bruno's belly in long passes, occasionally pausing to softly thump his sides. Sara laughed as delighted grunts burbled from the boxer, encouraging her to continue. "You really love this, don't you, boy?"

Grissom was on the sofa, working on the New York Times crossword. In her peripheral vision, Sara noticed him peering over the top of his reading glasses. Before he snapped his eyes back to the grid, she glimpsed in them a wistful expression.

She had stopped the petting and Bruno soon whined, nudging her shoulder with his nose. She rolled out of range. "Whoah, boy! Your face. Nowhere. Near. Mine." She tapped him very gently on the nose in time with each word, as she celebrated her narrow escape from dog drool. It was a running battle with him, and they both enjoyed it.

Bruno's tail thumped enthusiastically on the rug and he wriggled closer. Sara started her ministrations again and a doggy moan of ecstasy escaped him.

"Oooh, you're a slobbery drool-faced mess, aren't you?" Sara's voice was warm with affection. Somehow this dog had started to make her talk strangely—but he didn't seem to mind, she reflected.

Grissom, on the other hand …

Sara looked over to see him frowning at the folded newspaper in his hand. He looked up fleetingly, and she could have sworn he looked … yes, tetchy.

Despite the rug, the hard floor was making itself known. After a final flurry of petting, Sara finished up with "Nap time now, buddy." Understanding that his session was over, Bruno whooshed out a happy sigh and rolled over into a comfortable snoozing position.

As she stood, stretching her arms above her head, Sara's blouse rose and she caught Grissom sneaking a look at her bared midriff. She watched him furrow his brow and look back to the crossword, pursing his lips in a show of concentration.

Sara plumped down close beside him on the sofa, jostling his left elbow.

"Hey!" Grissom griped. His irritation was clear; normally he would raise his arm to let her snuggle in close.

She leaned back into the pillows, observing as he pretended to work on the puzzle. In ten minutes he didn't once put his pen to the page, but his jaw clenched repeatedly.

Once he looked over at Bruno, who was now snoring softly on the rug. He muttered, "Taking a break from your boyfriend, are you?"

Then he returned his eyes to contemplation of the crossword, sucking in his lower lip and worrying it between his teeth.

Sara refused to respond to that silly comment, but she started to think.

Things had been fine before.

She replayed recent events in her head.

After spreading the banana-bran-walnut mix evenly across the muffin tins, she had put them into the oven—17 minutes, timer on. Then she had joined Bruno on the floor for their togetherness session.

Something clicked in her mind just as the timer beeped. Once the muffins were cooling on wire racks, Sara returned to the sofa beside the silent Grissom. He'd made no further progress on the puzzle.

"Can I have a look?"

Grissom passed the newspaper into her reaching hand, then put his pen into the other. He took off his glasses and leaned forward, elbow on knee, rubbing his closed eyes.

"Headache?"

"No", he said tersely, then shrugged. "Just …"

He stopped there, but Sara didn't press him. Instead she carefully studied the crossword. Finding a clue to a 16-letter answer that he had yet to fill in, she gazed briefly at the ceiling, then scribbled some letters in the palm of her hand. After staring at it for a few moments, she drew a line over one of the clues and wrote in a few words.

"Try 25 across." She announced, handing the paper and pen back to Grissom. She rubbed the writing off her palm as she did so.

"Whuh?!" He frowned at her. Then he glared at the page. "What's this?"

"What does it look like?"

"Looks like you've messed with my crossword," he grumbled.

"C'mon, give it a try," Sara cajoled. She wanted to nudge him out from under his dark cloud.

Grissom relented and read out, "Twenty-five across—'Negates floor show? What the jealous boyfriend does.'"

"It's an anagram", commented Sara helpfully.

He looked over the top of his specs again. "Thank you, I got that." In a measured tone reminiscent of his lectures, he continued, "An apparently nonsensical phrase in a cryptic crossword clue generally indicates that the answer will be an anagram of some of the words in said clue."

He screwed up his face and wrote the likely letters in alphabetical order in the white margin of the page: A E E F G H L N O O O R S S T W

"It breaks down 7 letters, then 2, 3 and 4."

"This is ridiculous," Grissom murmured, all the while working on word combinations.

Despite his protests he was playing along with her. Sara decided he deserved a little help. "I'll give you a hint. The clue was based on my personal observations at the time."

"You know, I kind of figured that." He looked at her, a glimmer of a smile starting in his eyes.

"And it is an anagram of 'negates floor show', you've got that right."

Grissom chewed the top of his pen as he looked yet again at Sara's clue. He repeated it: "'Negates floor show? What the jealous boyfriend does.'"

He shook his head, "Not getting it."

"The two middle words are 'on' and 'the'." She tilted her head to one side as she watched him working through possibilities.

All of sudden he stopped. He squinted at her, and she saw the corners of his mouth edge upward. Then he counted letters, checking, before a satisfied smirk spread across his face.

Sara walked over and sat opposite him on the coffee table.

He carefully wrote the letters into the correct squares, and turned the paper to show Sara:

GLOWERS/ON/THE/SOFA

He looked over at Sara, smiling apologetically.

"Sorry, honey. Uh … I admit, I was a little annoyed at all the attention you were giving Bruno. I needed help on the crossword." He shrugged. "Seems stupid now."

"Sure does." Sara tempered her curt response with a goofy grin.

"Am I forgiven?" He reached for her, pulling her onto his lap.

"Hmmm … I'll have to think about it." Sara glanced over at Bruno, who was twitching lightly in his sleep, and secretly got a grip on the bottom hem of Grissom's shirt. "Might have to do some more tummy rubbing, see what effect it has on you."

"You're not going to wake him up just to test me, are y—Hey! That tickles!"

END

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