Title: Welcome Home

Author: Viggorrah

Disclaimer: If I owned CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, do you seriously think I would be writing this? I would be writing screenplays, not Fan Fiction and meeting with William Petersen and the rest of the stars of the show. Who the hell do you think I am?

Summary: Epilogues don't have summaries…do they? 8/

Epilogue

Gil Grissom exited his office and strolled down the well-lit hallway of the Crime Lab. He had been released by his doctor to come back to work about four and a half weeks ago. Ecklie was still on Administrative Leave when Grissom went back to work and he was so happy he almost jumped for joy. Grissom had to stay at the lab and work on anything the rest of his team brought in, but tonight was the last night of that. He was going to be leaving the lab to go work on a case. He had saw mostly everyone already and he told them to wait in the breakroom for their assignments. That was almost ten minutes ago; Grissom had lost track of time and he was on his way there now. When he finally saw the breakroom and his team sitting in there talking amongst themselves, he opened the door and went inside. They all fell silent as he came in and opened the folder in his hand.

"Alright...Greg, Nicky: you two have a double homicide near Lake Mead. Detective Vega said he'd meet you out there; he's on his way." He handed the white slip of paper to Nick, who turned to his partner for the night and smiled. "Catherine: you have a DB at the Bellagio on the Strip." Grissom handed her the white slip of paper. "Sara: you, Warrick, and I have a triple homicide out in Henderson. Jim's already out there." He handed their slip to Sara and addressed all of them as a whole. "We all have a busy night ahead of us, guys. We shouldn't waste time; get going." With that, Catherine, Greg, and Nick exited the breakroom and Grissom turned to his partners for the night. "Meet me at my Denali in five minutes."

"Sure thing, Gris." Warrick answered him and left to go get his fieldkit. Sara followed Grissom out of the breakroom.

"Hey." She said. He looked back at her over the top of his glasses and grinned.

"Hey, Sara. You ready to work?"

"I'm always ready to work; I take after you."

"I'm one lucky guy, then, aren't I?" She smiled at him.

"You sure are." She changed to her Criminalist demeanor. "You seem to have fallen back into the Supervisor swing of things relatively nicely."

"Yeah. Now, I get to fall back into the normal swing of things by actually leaving the Lab to work on a case."

"It's been good to have you back."

"It' been good to be back, Sara." They reached his office. "Is your fieldkit in here or in my truck?"

"It's in your truck; I left it there last night after the case." Grissom put his folder in the back of his fieldkit, closed it, and carried back to the door.

"Let's go to the truck, then. We don't want to keep Warrick waiting."

"Right." She led the way from his office and towards the front of the Lab. Sara and Grissom passed the front desk and proceeded to go outside and to Grissom's Denali. He unlocked it, popped the truck, and placed his fieldkit on the floor of the truck. Sara had gotten in on the passenger's side and closed the door. A few seconds later, Warrick came gracefully walking out of the same door that they had just gone out of and over to them. Grissom took Warrick's fieldkit from him and put it next to his before shutting the truck door. He went to the driver's side and got in his truck.

"Alright, guys. Are we ready? You have everything?"

"I'm all set, Gris."

"Me too."

"Good. Let's go tackle this triple homicide."

--

Jim Brass stood right inside the "Crime Scene" tape, waiting for whoever was going to be working this case with him. He had been there for thirty minutes already and, to be perfectly truthful, he was getting antsy. Jim had already interviewed the man who found the bodies and sent him to stand and look pretty off to the side somewhere with an officer. He waited ten more minutes before he saw a dark blue Denali pull up and park between two cop cars. The lights were turned off, and three people climbed out and grabbed what seemed to look like giant briefcases from where he was standing. Jim knew which of the CSIs they were by three distinct clues: the silver fieldkit one man was carrying, the outline of one man's hair, and the tall, slender body of the woman. 'Gil, Sara, and Warrick are so different and yet they work so well together..' He smiled as they neared him.

"Hey Jim." Grissom said when he was holding up the tape for Sara and Warrick to go under. Jim held it up for Grissom as he came under and told him the basic lineup of the crime scene.

"Three DBs; two female, one male. David's running a tad bit late, so I can't tell you TOD yet, but COD is easy: blunt-force trauma to the head. These kids were hit with something solid and thick. They seem to be in their late twenty's, early thirty's. One's in the hallway, another's floating in the pool out back, and the last one's in the kitchen." Grissom was surveying his crime scene and listening to Jim at the same time. When Jim finished, Grissom had everything planned out already.

"Warrick," He called. "It looks like you get to go swimming." Warrick smirked and nodded. "Sara, why don't you get the one in the hallway?" Warrick had gone ahead and went inside ahead of the other three. "I'll take the one in the kitchen." Sara had waited for him and Jim and they went inside as a group.

"Ok, Grissom." Jim followed Grissom to the kitchen and watched his friend observe the body that was lying on the floor. He put down his fieldkit and grabbed some Latex gloves to put on.

"So, it seems that you're all the way back now, huh?" The glove popped as Grissom let it go.

"Yeah. It feels great to finally have everything back to normal. And I mean everything." He put his other glove on and crouched down near the body. Grissom began extensively observing the body; he couldn't move it until the assistant coroner, David, pronounced them.

"I'm glad you're back. It's been too long since we've been on a case."

"Thanks, Jim."

"I guess you could say this is your third home; the crime scenes, I mean." Grissom looked at him curiously. "Welcome back home." He smiled up at his old friend and nodded once.

"Thanks." He answered. "Oh, and Jim? Do me a favor: would you go get us some coffee from a gas station somewhere? Sara, Warrick and I didn't feel like participating in Fear Factor tonight." Jim started laughing.

"Yeah...Sure thing, Gil."

End