A couple of side streets later, Sara slowed down her strolling, removing her sunglasses. She looked to her surroundings adjusting her eyes to the shaded light of the sun-obscured narrow cobbled streets, flanked by dull, grey apartment buildings. The only colour brightening up the street came from the soft reds and blues of the painted wooden shutters on the windows and of flowers dangling down from window pots.

"Are you sure you know where you're going?" she asked with laughter in her voice.

Gil turned round, smiling. "I thought you said you trusted me."

"I do. I do. It's just…" Sara looked back to where they'd come from, "we seem to have lost the tourist trail and-"

"You doubt my ability to follow a trail?" he asked with an inquisitive arch of his brow and a sad pout.

Sara pinched her lips together to stop herself from bursting out laughing. Was that him reacting as a typical man or as a CSI? An ex-CSI, she reminded herself. "No, No. I trust you."

"Glad to hear it!" They carried on walking hand in hand until they rounded the corner and Gil stopped, announcing proudly, "La Place du Tertre."

Sara gasped, tightening her grasp on Gil's hand as she took it all in. At first glance, it looked like an old-fashioned open-air market square with rows of stalls under brightly-coloured umbrellas and parasols with hordes of tourists milling around. But it wasn't the kind of French markets Sara had visited on her previous wanders. No. It was an outdoor art gallery with the artists displaying their work for free and for everyone to admire.

No wonder Gil's mother dreamed of coming to this place, Sara mused.

Although the place was saturated with people, Sara could feel the same air of calm that permeated Paris. She imagined that if they had been standing there fifty years ago, it would have been pretty much the same; it was as though the place hadn't moved with the times as the rest of Paris had. This place had a very French bohemian look and feel to it.

Yet again, Gil had managed to take her breath away. She stood mesmerised on the fringe of it all, eyes wide reflecting the reds and yellows and greens of the square. She was grinning. "I've read about this place," she murmured transfixed. She turned and looked toward her husband. "How did you know?"

Gil smiled and kissed the tip of her nose. He shrugged a little self-consciously. "My travel guide," he said. Met with Sara's disbelieving stare, he explained, "Apparently, some of these apartments are haunted by the spectres of artists past. Their spirits live on. It was the Mecca of modern art in the nineteen-forties; this place saw the birth of movements from Impressionism to Cubism to Fauvism to Surrealism," he smiled a little sheepishly. "It's all in the guide. You ought to give it a try."

"I'd much rather hear it from you."

Sara stood dithering, uncertain whether she should break the spell and venture into the crowd when Gil made the decision for her.

"Come on. Let's go investigate; see what all the fuss is about."

Most of the artists weren't even particularly talented but there oozed a magic from the place that had Sara gawking.

"Look," she whispered loudly, giggling, "This one thinks he's Picasso." She nudged Gil's shoulder, nodding toward one of the thickly-moustachioed street artist painting under his colourful umbrella. So far, they'd encountered two Dali look-alikes and this one made it four Picassos.

Gil nodded. "Talking of Picasso, did you know that he used to live in one of the apartments over there?" he said, pointing to a shabby-looking grey building across the square. "That's where, it is believed, he-" He stopped talking abruptly, his attention distracted by a little curly blond-haired girl – she couldn't have been older than three – trying very hard to sit very straight on the next artist's very tall stool. Her bare legs were dangling, not reaching the ground and she was posing, beaming her best grin.

Gil stilled, enchanted by the sight and Sara leaned in closer to see what had so suddenly captured her husband's attention. He was so engrossed in watching the portrait the artist was chalking that he completely forgot all about what he was saying. The latter was just about to get started on the feature that had caught Gil's attention in the first place: the little girl's smile. It was just like Sara's.

"This one's good," Grissom told Sara after a moment observing the artist and his work. He turned round to find Sara grinning, entranced by the same little girl. Grissom's heart filled with love as he looked on wistfully.

Her sitting over, the little girl jumped off the stool into her mother's arms, saying, "Maman, je peux avoir mon bonbon maintenant?"

Sara burst out laughing. "Did I hear her right?"

"Think so," Gil replied equally as amused. He resumed walking with Sara soon falling in his step. "If I promise you a sweet, will you sit still long enough for the man to do your portrait?"

Sara arched her brow, feigning reflection before shaking her head in the negative.

"An ice cream?" he asked, his tone inquiring yet in the way he said it, it was clear that Gil knew he had Sara in the palm of his hand.

Sara swayed her head in ambivalence before narrowing her gaze at him. "Chantilly cream on top?"

Gil shrugged pulling a face that seemed to say "It's entirely up to you, my dear."

"All right. Deal."

Just as she was uttering the words, Gil stopped dead in his tracks, a mischievous smile tugging at his lips. He motioned with his head towards a painter, silently enquiring whether this one would do.

Sara merely shrugged her shoulders. It doesn't matter much to me. The result will be the same.

"C'est combien pour faire le portrait de Mademoiselle?" Gil asked in his best shaky French, earning him an appreciative head bow from the artist. He leaned in close to Sara and whispered, "The French like it when we try to speak their lingo. You should try it."

But Sara wasn't listening to Grissom's little aside. Mademoiselle? Has he already forgotten we're married?

The Frenchman looked up from his easel. "Euh…pour la jolie dame? Forty euros," he said in perfect, if rather stilted and heavily accentuated English.

Gil beamed proudly at the comment. "I give you twenty," he replied almost immediately, all businesslike. The man shook his head no.

Is he bartering?

"What?" he said, on noticing Sara's rather put-out expression. "My guide says we should haggle." He shrugged his shoulders. "It's expected."

Am I a piece of meat?

"Besides, the money I'm saving will pay for the ice creams."

Grissom took some bills out of his wallet and returned his attention to the artist, lifting his eyebrows in silent query. "Twenty-five euros and it's my last offer," he said, flashing his cash. The Frenchman shrugged a Gallic shrug, smiling.

"Come on Sara," Gil said, giddy with excitement. "The man and I have come to an understanding."

Sara let out a sigh, smiling at the painter. While she was taking her place on the stool, Gil had a quiet word with the man, who pulled a facial shrug before nodding his head with more fervour than Sara would have liked. She made an inquiring face at her husband, who merely smiled innocently back.

Under Sara's unsuspecting eye, the artist swapped his chalk for a black felt-tip pen and clipped over his big A5 size sketch sheet a postcard-sized one. He studied Sara at length and got started on his masterpiece.

When he had finished – and to Sara's amazement it took him no longer than five minutes– she got up to look at the finished picture but Gil snatched it off the man, thanking him profusely before quickly moving away from Sara.

Sara caught up to her husband and reached up to get the picture but Gil help it out of her reach.

"Gil," she said in a warning tone.

He knew that tone. It was the same tone his mother used to use when he was a kid, when she accidentally stumbled upon one of his unfinished experiment. The women in his life were strong, independent women and as was the case with his mother then, he had no choice but to comply and own up to his little subterfuge.

He heaved a great sigh, bringing his hand down to show Sara her picture. She burst out laughing.

"I wanted to use it as a postcard to send to the guys back home," he said rather sheepishly.

"Are you kidding me?" Sara asked, gawking at the caricature in her hand. Her forehead was three times its normal size; her mouth or rather lips were so luscious that they covered half her face, as for her eyes they were rather googly. "God, I look like Mr Magoo. Mr Magoo with hair."

"You're not mad?"

She shook her head. "Put your money where your mouth is," Sara said, making a bee-line for a nearby ice cream van intent on ordering her well-deserved three-scooped, chantilly-covered cornet. "I'll deal with you later!" she added with a waggle of her brow.

But Gil had other ideas and slipped his hand into hers, leading her in the opposite direction toward the bright red canopy of the terrace of a café overlooking the whole of the square.

Ten minutes later and they were seated at a round table, so small that their knees were touching, perusing their respective menus. When they had ordered, Sara excused herself to go to the ladies while Grissom resumed people watching. On her return, she found that although Gil was still turned toward the square, his previous carefree relaxed gaze and expression had shifted. He looked a little sad. His body was there but his mind was somewhere else, lost a million miles away.

Sara gently tapped him on the arm as she sat back down but he didn't respond. "Gil?" she called softly. "Is everything all right?"

Gil slowly turned his head, shaking it as he snapped out of his daydream. He smiled a little uneasily, a smile that didn't quite reach his eyes and took Sara's hand in his. He turned it palm up, caressed its ridges before kissing it very softly.

Sara inclined her head to the side, her lips curving downward wondering what could have darkened her husband's mood so suddenly and so unexpectedly. She reached her free hand to his face, running her fingers the length of his cheek down to the dimple on his chin before hesitantly tilting his head up so he had no choice but look at her.

He lifted his right shoulder and heaved a sigh. "I'm sorry about before," he said his voice no louder than a whisper. "That was kind of-"

"Something Greg would have done?"

Gil smiled. "I was going to say 'a goofy teenager' but Greg'll do just fine." He dropped her hand and rubbed his face. "Regardless, it was…insensitive. I shouldn't have made fun of you."

"You didn't," she said softly. "It's nice to see the old you pop up once in a while."

His quirk of the brow said it all.

She laughed. "You know what I mean; not the old old you, just the old you. I love seeing you so relaxed, so carefree…behaving like you haven't a care in the world." She paused. "Besides, you can rest assured that I'll have my own back at some point."

Gil half got up, stretching over the table and put his hand behind Sara's head, gently pulling her toward him. He tilted his head to the side and kissed her on the mouth, a long, slow lingering kiss that had customers at the nearby tables shake their heads at. Breaking up the kiss, Gil only had eyes for his wife and smiled, whispering, "Thank you. I look forward to it."

Sara snorted at his effrontery. But when in France she reminded herself… But before she could reply, the waiter cleared his throat, interrupting them before placing their ice creams and bill in front of them. Sara beamed her biggest smile at him, moving back to make space for the ice creams, her eyes widening in wonderment while Gil paid the man.

"How do French women keep so slim?" Sara asked in hushed tones when the waiter had given Gil his change.

Gil looked around them. "Well to go by their reputation, I would say-"

"Please, Gil, don't even go there."

Gil frowned before chuckling at Sara's innuendo. "No, I was going to say…never mind." Okay, so maybe now wasn't the time to get into a debate about the merits of a well-balanced diet of three sit-down meals with no junk food. Instead, he picked up his spoon and scooped up a big spoonful of hot chocolate covered pear with a little vanilla ice cream.

"Oh! This is heaven," Sara moaned, chewing on a strawberry coulis covered peach segment topped up with Chantilly cream. "I am putting so much weight on-"

"It's nice; I like it," he cut in his mouth full.

"Shit!" Sara coughed up the ice cream that had gone down the wrong way. "You noticed?"

Gil's deer-caught-in-headlight expression raised a giggle from Sara.

"You got to stop your daily trips to the bakery for my morning brioche or I'm going to turn into one of these," she said with a nod toward her Pêche Melba. Just to prove her point, Sara scooped another spoonful and savoured every single morsel of it. "Seriously though," she mused after a while in contemplation, "I have been piling on the pounds since we've been here. Four to be exact."

"It doesn't show, dear; you wear it well."

"So do you," Sara said softly, her eyes fixed on scooping up the last of the vanilla ice cream.

Gil narrowed his gaze at her, pushing his half-eaten Poire Belle-Hélène away in mock-disgust. "Oh well, I'm just going to have to cancel tonight's reservation then," he said matter of fact.

Sara's head snapped up. "But we ate out yesterday."

Gil shrugged innocently, reaching for his ice cream. "I had it all planned to the last detail but if you're worried about your figure, we could do something else instead."

Sara's brow lifted in interest. Something else? "Could we not do both?"

"I'm sure that could be arranged."

A/N: Sorry, this chapter is so long, I got carried away by all the fluff. Surprisingly, I'm really enjoying writing this bit of nonsense, it's a great way to offload. So, dare I ask for it? Would you like some more or have I exhausted all the fluffiness I possess?