The little weasel was gone by the time Grissom got out the door of the interrogation room. He looked back at Sara, who was watching him with a "you'd better get yourself under control or you're in deep shit" look on her face. Waving off her concern, he headed for Ecklie's office, but his prey wasn't there. Only one more possible place Ecklie'd run and hide, he figured, but to Grissom's surprise, he hadn't run straight to the sheriff, either. Grissom shrugged. The man would eventually wander into his grasp, and when he did Grissom would nab him.

Still thinking about what he was going to say to the younger man, Grissom headed, by mental default, to the break room. He almost stopped short at the sight of Ecklie in the room, but forced himself to keep walking as if he weren't surprised. "Conrad."

"Gil."

Good, Grissom thought, Ecklie looked nervous. "So how has your day as a peeping tom gone?" Ecklie's mouth opened, closed, opened, and closed again; he didn't seem to have been anticipating this form of confrontation.

Finally he managed to speak, but rather inanely. "I'm not a peeping tom."

"You don't call standing unnoticed as you watch other people interact the actions of a 'peeping tom'?" Grissom smiled easily. "You were watching me and Sara, Conrad, and I don't appreciate it."

"The city of Las Vegas probably doesn't appreciate two of its CSIs having, uh, personal interactions during work hours."

Grissom's eyes narrowed. "I don't know what you saw, Ecklie, but I was comforting Sara because a suspect had gone after her with personal attacks."

Ecklie didn't back down. "Do you comfort all your CSIs with a kiss?" Before Grissom could answer, Ecklie threw up his hands. "Don't answer that, Gil, because I don't really want to know. Listen, congratulations on whatever it is you have going with Sara. Really," he added at Grissom's disbelieving look. "You know I don't particularly like you, but even I could see that you two have been panting after each other for years, and if nothing else, I'm glad you put such a nice girl out of her misery."

"Are you sure you're Conrad Ecklie? You're not his good twin or something?"

"Don't joke, Gil, because I'm not in the mood for it. Yes, I am congratulating you on this thing, but I don't appreciate your courting being carried out in the middle of the shift in front of the entire building staff. I don't care if you're screwing her brains out after-hours, but – hey Gil, stop that." Grissom was stalking him, and Ecklie was about to be backed into the counter.

"I don't ever want to hear such filth out of you again, Conrad. No one is 'screwing' anyone else, and if I hear rumors to that effect, I will know exactly who started them. And you'll regret it."

Ecklie gave up. "Fine, Gil, whatever you say. Just keep it out of the office." Before Grissom could make a retort, he added, "And you know how much it pisses me off to have to congratulate you. So you just consider how pleased I must be to see you two paired up if I actually say 'congratulations' out loud. Now go home and get out of my face, because your shift's over and it's time for ME to be in charge." With that, he made a swift exit, leaving Grissom staring after him in disbelief.

Sara almost ran into Ecklie as he made his escape from the room. Startled, she jumped back and almost tripped over her own feet. He grabbed her arm to keep her from falling on her butt, but quickly dropped it when she leveled a dark glare at where he was touching her. "Watch it," she snapped.

Ecklie, very aware that Grissom was watching him through the doorway, raised his hands in a gesture of surrender. "Sorry, Sidle. Didn't see you. Oh, by the way . . ." He lowered the volume of his voice, nearly whispering to Sara, "You have your hands full with him. Oh, and Sara?" He raised his voice back to normal. "Good to see you finally snagged him. Enjoy while you can." Having said this, he gave her a stiff sort of nod and headed for the parking lot at a fast clip.

Sara stared after him, head spinning. She furrowed her brow and muttered to herself, "Did he just say what I think he said?"

She was startled yet again when Grissom spoke almost in her ear. "Yeah, he said it."

Letting out a small squeak, she spun around to face him. "Don't DO that, Grissom!" She pushed him out of the way and stalked into the break room, snagging the biggest mug she could find and filling it with Greg's special coffee. "I need my fix of this stuff, it'll settle my nerves."

Grissom frowned at her. "First of all, Sara, coffee will make you MORE jittery, not less. And second of all, isn't that Greg's private stash?" Sara only shrugged. Grissom took that as a "no" and began to fix his own mug of the brew.

Suddenly Greg came skidding into the room.  "Guys! Ecklie SMILED at me! What's going on . . . hey!" he cut himself off when he saw Grissom's mug of coffee. "What's with that? Dude, you know that's MY coffee."

"Sara's drinking it, and you don't have a problem with that," Grissom shot back.

"Yeah well, if you were my age, my height, and a girl with a killer figure, you could drink it too."

Sara snorted in a very unladylike manner, then got control of herself. Fluttering her eyelashes flirtatiously at the younger man, she grinned. "Why Greg, you flatterer you!" Looking down at herself, she added, "You really think I have a killer figure?"

"Hell yeah," Greg responded, then punctuated this assertion by throwing his arms around her, dipping her, and giving her a smacking kiss on the cheek.

When he set her upright, Sara was laughing so hard she was almost crying. "Greg! You…!" She collapsed in a chair, still laughing, and managed to hiccup out, "God, when was the last time I laughed this much in one night?" Greg tipped an imaginary hat at her, grinning like a maniac.

Grissom watched this all with a scowl.