Sara frowned as she shut Grissom's front door behind the last of their friends. "What the hell are we gonna do now, Gris?"
He shrugged. "As far as I can see, we have two choices. First, we can go to the sheriff and complain about the 'vicious, unfounded rumors' being spread about us." He hooked his index fingers in the air, putting quotation marks around "vicious, unfounded rumors." "Or second, we can go to the sheriff and tell him the truth."
Sara didn't have a thing to say in response to that. "I don't know! Damn, have I mentioned lately that I can't handle everyone else knowing about my life before I do?"
Grissom couldn't hide his grin. "Uh, yeah, I think you did mention that once or twice. In a loud voice." He put an arm around her shoulder, drawing her towards him. "I think – my opinion on this is – that we should tell him the truth. If we go in and lie to him now, we could probably get away with it . . . but then what are we going to do if we get to a point where he has to know the truth?" He didn't want to mention anything resembling the word "marriage" - Sara was skittish enough as it was.
She shook her head helplessly. "I need to think. I need to go to bed. I'm going to start screaming soon if I don't get down to doing one or both of those things." She punched Grissom in the arm when he put his hands over his ears and squeezed his eyes shut immediately after hearing this. "Not funny, you ass. I'm serious, my mind is a freaking mess right now. I blame you, again!"
"Hey, I'm always here if you need someone to blame." He released her shoulder and took her hand gently. "But I think you're right, sleep is sounding good right about now. My back doesn't want to know what you have in that computer of yours to make it weigh as much as it does."
She scowled, but didn't hit him again. Instead, she squeezed his hand and smiled crookedly. "Two eighty-gig hard drives and a fluorescent light tube. And 512 megs of RAM, and a G-force video card. And a CD burner, DVD-ROM . . ."
Grissom tuned her out as she continued to list all the components of her computer. Unlike most relationships, in this one electronics were her thing, not his. But then, he reminded himself, since when had the two of them had a normal relationship? He had spiders and hissing cockroaches, she had computers and conductors. Finally Sara's monologue ended and he took the opportunity to cut in. "So we decided on 5:30, right? It's noon now, that gives us . . . less time to sleep than I want to think about."
As she pulled off her blouse, Sara grinned at him. "Oh you're just a wuss. Real CSIs don't need more than five hours a day." Grissom harrumphed at her, trying to look angry, but within five minutes they were both asleep, both teasing and the sheriff forgotten for the moment.
When the alarm clock went off at 5:30, Grissom woke to find himself alone in the bed. He sat up, confused, and scanned the room for Sara's form. No woman studying on the floor; no sound of the shower running; certainly no warm body next to his in bed. Well, maybe she was making friends with Fluffy again, he decided. Just as he was about to get out of bed to search, she walked into the room fully dressed and coiffed.
"Hi, sleepyhead," Sara said playfully. "About time you woke up – I've been up for an hour thinking about our problem already."
"And what conclusions have you reached?" he asked, grabbing her arm and pulling her back onto the bed. He dropped kiss after kiss on her face, making her laugh too hard to answer him.
"Uncle! Uncle!" she finally managed to giggle. "I decided that . . . hmm, that's nice . . . decided that we should um . . . mmmm, Grissom! . . . should talk to Mobley before we start work tonight. And tell him the . . . stop that, you're distracting me . . . tell him the truth."
Grissom released her hand, suddenly turning serious. "Are you sure, Sara? We don't have to do this, and I don't want you to think that you have no choice. Nor do I want you to regret your decision once we're actually facing the sheriff."
"No," she said firmly, "I'm sure. Like I said, I spent the last hour trying to work this out, and coming clean is the only solution I can see that isn't going to come back and bite us in the butt in the future."
"Ok, so we'll tell him the truth." He stopped and looked at her. "Um, Sara . . . what, exactly, is the truth?"
She threw a pillow at him. "The TRUTH, Mr. Genius, is that we've been seeing each other – dating, if that sounds better – and that we've recently decided to give living together a try. That's all there is to it."
Grissom shook his head. "Things are never so simple with Brian, Sara. You know I'm not exactly his favorite person."
"Well there's nothing he can do," she snapped. "Departmental policy doesn't expressly forbid coworkers seeing each other. As long as our relationship doesn't lead to 'preferential working conditions,' he can't throw the book at us. No matter how much he might hate you or me," she concluded triumphantly.
"Officially, you're right," Grissom sighed. "But rules can be bent either way. If he wants to get us in trouble, he can do it. I'm sure Ecklie would have no qualms with helping Mobley dredge up some weak misconduct charges."
"No, that's the beauty of it! They won't!"
"Uh, Sara . . .what exactly would make you think that they wouldn't conspire against us?"
"Because! Because, my dear Grissom, I have connections. Connections who see things. In point of fact, I have connections who happen to be lab techs who observed some interesting interactions between Mobley and Janet."
Grissom blinked. "Janet? The secretary?"
She grinned. "Yup. Janet, the secretary, who also happens to have a boss named Brian Mobley."
"You, my dear, are amazing! I always knew some good would come of Greg being madly in love with you."
"Actually," she told him teasingly, "that tidbit came from Archie, my white knight in lab coat armor."
He shook his head, laughing. "You have way too many supporters around CSI, Sara. Remind me never to cause trouble with you lest Greg, Archie, or Nick attack me." He noticed that Sara raised an eyebrow. "Ok, ok . . . or Catherine, or Warrick. Or my own damn spider!" He grinned. "Now, can I have one more kiss before I have to get into that cold, lonely shower?"
