I know it had taken forever for me to get this update to you guys but with work, school, tutoring, training, kids, husband…it had been a little hard to find time to breath, let alone write. This is the last chapter before the wedding and then the chapter for the wedding, which will more than likely be more of a serious chapter than the jokey kind. Hope you enjoy this one though.
Preparations
Sara was the last to emerge from her room and came out looking a bit flustered. Grissom gave her a questioning look and she just nodded, her eyes a little misted. She excused herself and headed to the bathroom to freshen up.
"How about some dinner everyone, my treat" Grissom said to the room and they all nodded their heads in agreement. Sara returned a minute later refreshed and with no signs of her previous condition.
The crew sat and enjoyed a nice meal while trying to figure out what had just happened. "I'm sure it had something to do with the party at the end" Cath spoke up. The rest of the guys shook their heads in agreement; they couldn't imagine what else it would be for.
"I wonder if my dress is going to be the same shade as the ink that was processed, it was such a pretty shade of blue" Cath kept on. Sara smiled slightly and looked over at Grissom, he just smiled back.
After conversation (predominantly held by Catherine) and dinner, everyone was ready for a good nights sleep. It was going to be back to schedule the following night and they had been up for 24 hours.
Sara and Grissom dragged themselves into the house and immediately headed towards the bedroom. The two of them were asleep by the time their heads hit their pillows. The same was true for the rest of the team; even Cath stopped thinking of the days events.
The next night Grissom and Sara came in with their heads together, talking about the finishing touches to their plans. They walked into the break room and almost ran into a young woman, Sara looked up and recognized the woman right away.
Grissom looked confused, but when the two women began to almost scream and bounce up and down while hugging each other he was pretty sure this must be Colleen, Sara's best friend from College.
"Sara, you look so good. You're glowing!" Colleen said when they finally separated. "And you must be Gil, right?" she asked, extending a hand for him to shake. He took her hand in his own and reveled at the grip the small woman had.
The three of them were sitting at the table when the rest of the crew began trickling in. Sara introduced her friend to them all and Colleen and Nick immediately hit it off.
"I hate to break this off guys, but we actually have work to do" he waved the assignments he had in his hand "and there is plenty to go around." They each said their goodbye's to Colleen and then grabbed their assignments for the night.
Sara got Colleens hotel information and then gave her one last hug before going to her own scene.
Halfway through the night Nick was passing Grissom's office when he noticed Sara in there with a tall elderly lady. There was no speech being passed between the two, out loud anyway, and he was curios as to who it could be. He had his file to give to Grissom any way and went into the room under the pretext of dropping it off on his desk.
"Hey Nick, how did the case go?" Sara asked as he dropped the file on Grissom's desk.
"Ended up their kid was the one who stole the statue and the parents decided not to press charges." He responded. He turned to the other woman and gave her a nod of his head. "Sorry Nick" Sara said quickly, "this is Mrs. Grissom" she said out loud and signed. "Mrs. Grissom, this is Nick Stokes."
Nick shook the woman's hand, noticing for the first time the similarities between her and his boss. "Nick, how nice to meet you, Gil has told me so much about all of you." She spoke to him. Nick looked a little taken aback, he was under the impression she was deaf.
Sara recognized the look on his face and clarified for him. "She can read lips and can talk Nick" she said. He straitened his face and apologized. "Please, call me Margaret. I feel like I already know you with all Gil has told me" Grissom talks about us to his mom?! Nick thought to himself.
Over the next week there was a steady trickle of people randomly showing up in Grissom's office or the break room, even the reception desk. Cath was the one to meet TeLena, a foster sister of Sara's. Greg ran into Brenda, a close former colleague of Grissom's, who promptly asked for a tour of the lab.
Melissa, a former workmate from her job in San Francisco turned up late on Friday night and was greeted by Sara. The crew never knew all these people were actually here for one event and they never connected it because they never mentioned the arrivals of the others.
Sara and Grissom continuously smirked at each other over this fact, highly trained CSI indeed! Grissom was almost ashamed…almost. That night during assignments Ecklie showed up with another envelope.
"Last one guys" and he dropped it in the middle of the table. Cath launched herself at the envelope but Sara was too quick for her and got to it first. She opened it slowly, causing everyone to give her a death glare.
"Alright, alright…" she said quickly ripping the paper out of the envelope. She read it and then passed it on to Catherine. Her eyes grew wide with excitement, "we get to go to dinner at the Bellagio on Saturday, Oh my God, that's tomorrow!" she gasped.
The guys all smiled at each other with excitement as Catherine finished reading the letter. "we all need to meet up there at two o' clock to pick up our garments. We need to check into the reception desk and they will escort us from there." She finished.
The lab was buzzing for the rest of the shift due to the excitement from the nightshift crew. Catherine was practically floating in anticipation. When end of shift came everyone jetted out of the lab to get some sleep, excited about the day ahead of them.