About the same time Sophia was discharged from the hospital, Nick and Sara had both been cleared by both IAB and the department shrink to return to work. It had been several days since their date out at Red Rock Casino and now that the reality of work had arrived, there was also the reality of having to maintain a professional demeanor at work regardless of the fact that they had no plans to hide their relationship from anyone.

Sara felt nervous as she walked into the lab that night; she had told Nick that while pulling over in the Starbuck's parking lot to make out under the guise of picking up coffee on the way to work was perfectly fine, making out in the parking lot of the lab or the locker room was completely another. She didn't even want him to hold her hand as they walked in the door together. She was trying to focus on getting to the locker room and to the briefing so she could immerse herself in a case and keep her mind off of the last few days at least until after shift was over.

Nick trailed after her with an amused expression on his face. The fact that Sara wouldn't even look at him as they walked seemed to draw more attention to them than if they'd walked in holding hands. They rounded the corner into the locker room and Nick smirked at her. "Sar, are you even going to talk to me while we're at work?"

Sara turned around to face him and it took a fraction of a second for her to notice his expression. She smirked back. "Define talking." Their relationship was definitely at that stage where they had difficulty keeping their hands off of each other; something that over the last few days especially they hadn't even tried to do. Now that they were at work, however, she felt like they needed to maintain a certain amount of professional decorum.

Nick let out a soft chuckle and then glanced down before raising his eyes to hers. "I promise you again that I can be professional at work. But we did decide that we aren't hiding our relationship either, Sara. I think we'll just have to learn as we go." He had never really dated a coworker before that he saw in the course of a day as much as he saw Sara and it could potentially be very awkward for the rest of the team if they were too overtly affectionate towards each other. But he also didn't think they any of them except maybe Grissom would really care if they were seeing each other.

"I'm just nervous, Nick." This wasn't the first time that Sara had made that confession. But she was nervous about more than just everyone finding out the two of them; she was nervous about working with both Nick and Grissom.

Nick could read her like a book. "About us or is this about Grissom?" He was coming to the realization that whether he wanted it or not, there was always going a fear that Grissom would come between them, whether as their supervisor, or as Sara's former lover. He had decided that regardless of the feelings she was still struggling with, he was going to give their relationship all he had and then if for some reason things didn't work out between them he would know it wasn't because he had held anything back.

Sara couldn't help herself and she reached over and gently touched his face. "Both maybe." She let out a soft sigh. "I don't want him thinking that we can't handle working together." A smirk began to flit across her face. "And I'm not sure if we can handle working together." She only mildly protested when Nick's hands came to rest on her waist.

"We can handle it." Nick smiled confidently as he pulled her a little bit closer, quite pleased when Sara leaned into him and slid her arms around his waist, her cheek coming to rest against his chest. "We've always been professional and we'll continue to be professional."

Sara tipped her head back and looked up into his eyes. "We weren't dating before." She had a point; it was much easier to act professionally with someone you hadn't slept with.

"That's true." Nick smirked at her, thoroughly amused at the fact despite their agreement that they needed to keep the displays of affection to a minimum while they were at work that they were standing in the middle of the locker in rather cozy proximity to one another and he desperately wanted to kiss her. "But we are now so how would you suggest we behave?"

Sara kept eyeing his lips and had a sudden urge to lean up and kiss him. "Probably not like this." In the back of her mind as their lips connected and Nick eagerly kissed her back she knew this was a bad idea; anyone could walk right in and catch them. She fought a surge of panic for a moment before she realized that they weren't hiding this and she began to kiss him back with gusto.

"I guess the rumors were true then." A rather smug looking Warrick Brown chose that moment to saunter slowly into the locker room to get ready for the beginning of shift and the lip lock he found Nick and Sara in only confirmed what had been circulating around the lab for the last few days.

They pulled away from each other both of them with smiles on their faces, but Nick's smile was decidedly more smug than Sara's. "Depends on what you heard." He knew all too well how quickly a factoid about someone in the lab could very quickly turn into something rather overblown depending on when the information hit David Hodges.

Warrick let out a knowing chuckle and shook his head as he opened his locker. "Just that Archie saw the two of you looking pretty cozy at the Dave Matthews concert the other night. He said he was going to say hello, but that by then you two were otherwise occupied." Of course that had been the rumor once he'd gotten to the source of the information; by the time he'd heard it a fourth time it involved a wedding at one of those chapels out on the Strip where he and Tina had tied the knot.

Sara was doing her best to keep the color out of her cheeks as she leaned against the bay of lockers and looked at Warrick. "That's true." She was somewhat surprised that Warrick didn't grow a third ear or his head didn't spin around at the news that she and Nick had become an item and she found herself feeling very relieved.

"What else did you hear?" Nick was certain that Warrick was giving him the shortened version of things; he'd worked here long enough to know that the rumors seldom stopped at just the truth.

Warrick shut his locker and a lazy smirk spread across his face. "Before or after Grissom chewed Hodges a new one?" The whole exchange had been rather priceless and it had left David Hodges rather speechless; something that no one in the lab really recalled having happened ever.

"Before." Nick glanced over at Sara to see if she was as surprised as he was that Grissom had interjected himself into the situation. She didn't seem to be and that made him relax a little; he was their boss after all. The fact that it sounded like he was defending Sara's honor was something he didn't even want to contemplate.

Warrick crossed his arms over his chest and regarded his two friends. "Well I'm pretty sure that everyone knows now that you didn't get drunk and elope." He paused for just a fraction of a second before deadpanning, knowing full well that the pair had just started dating. "Unless of course there's something you want to tell me."