A/N: Incredible amounts of props to Rosa, who once again helped me brainstorm and typo-check my way through an important and exceedingly long chapter!
A/N 2: For the reader who was terribly concerned that I would never end this, you will be pleased to know that the whole point of the last ten chapters or so has been the lead-up to the end of the story, i.e. the wedding. Also, though I appreciate the comparison to such a famous book, War and Peace is made of 570,254 words and 365 chapters, whereas "More Plant Lovin'" only consists of roughly 150,000 words and 130 chapters.
Chapter 130
Grissom groaned indelicately for the third time in as many minutes and shot Sara a pleading look. "Come on, this is a thing women do. You don't need me there, you'll have plenty of fun with everyone else."
With a shameless grin, Sara wiggled her eyebrows. "It's not just a 'women' thing, Gil. The whole point of a shower is that they want to celebrate us getting married. What, do you not want to celebrate? Having second thoughts about the whole getting-hitched thing?" she asked with a smirk.
He harrumphed at her, though a smile was playing on the corner of his lips. "You know, Sara, at this point even if I were having second thoughts, I wouldn't tell you – it would give you too much satisfaction." Sighing, he gripped the door handle as though preparing to jump out of the car and tried for the last time. This attempt was a whine, plain and simple. "Saraaaaa, do I have to? We already have a whole houseful of stuff; it's not like we need three new china patterns or something."
She snorted. "What, you think our friends – the psycho club – are going to give us things like plates? Try again, bugman – you know it's more likely to be a new ant farm for you and a, hmm . . . a Kama Sutra or something for me, just so they can see us get embarrassed." She was gratified to see Grissom's eyes widen and a flush rise on his cheeks. "Embarrassed, Gris, or just making plans for later?"
"Sara!"
"Sorry . . . couldn't resist." She checked the sign on the corner of the street they were approaching. "Olga Drive, this should be it." Turning right onto it, she swung the car into a parking space in front of the restaurant Catherine had ordered them to be at in – she checked her watch – three minutes.
When Grissom gave her another pleading look, she only shook her head. "Suck it up, big guy. If I've got to be here, then so do you."
Their friends, most slightly inebriated, were already sitting down inside the restaurant. "Hey guys!" Catherine trilled as she caught sight of them. "Damn Sara, I can't believe you really got him here. More power to ya'!"
Her greeting was echoed by the other members of the group. "What up?" Nick said with a lopsided grin, and began to giggle slightly.
In an action that seemed strangely reminiscent of . . . something that was tucked back in Sara's memory, Warrick reached out to smack Nick in the back of the head. "You know you're giggling, bro?"
Nick immediately shut up and puffed out his chest, trying to look macho.
Susan, two martinis in the hole, punched Nick's arm, then rubbed where she'd just punched. "You are such a dork. Real men don't giggle!"
"Oh, bite me," he retorted, and reached out to ruffle her hair in the way he knew she hated.
Brass's voice brought then all back to the real world. "Ahem." When he had their attention, he smiled slightly. "See, I was under the impression that we were here for something other than to watch you two kids bicker," he said, raising an eyebrow at the still-giggling pair.
"Right!" Catherine jumped in. "Yeah, there was this thing called a 'wedding shower' we were gonna do . . . So Sara, Grissom – sit on down."
As they did, Sara leaned into Grissom and whispered, "She sounds entirely too happy about this. You think it's the alcohol, or you think she's got something that we won't like planned?"
Grissom shrugged elaborately. "You're the one who wanted to do this, Sidle. If it were up to me we'd be home and saving a small fortune on babysitter money right now."
"Now," Catherine continued, pretending not to notice the whispers, "as per your request, Sara, we aren't playing any games or anything today. We'll have a nice, sedate lunch, during which we'll all give you our best wishes." She paused, waiting for the inevitable sighs of relief from the two most attention-hating people she knew, then continued, trying to hide the huge smile that was threatening behind her calm face. "Nope, no games or anything . . . just . . . presents."
Her tone immediately washed away the complacency that Grissom and Sara had just begun to feel. "Uh, Cath?" Sara asked cautiously. "Why exactly do you say 'presents' like it's the funniest thing in the world?"
With an exaggeratedly unconcerned look on his face, Greg spoke up. "Now, Sara, why would you think that? We're all just here to, uh . . . celebrate." Unlike Catherine, who had years more experience, Greg was unable to keep his laughter from bursting out. "Celebrate!" he repeated to himself, squinching his eyes shut and slapping his knee. "Celebrate!"
"Ooookay," Grissom said in his I'm-the-boss tone. "Since you guys seem to have something planned after all, why don't we skip the secret-keeping and skip ahead to the 'Embarrass Gil and Sara' part?"
"Works for me," announced Catherine, and the rest of the group nodded. "Boys?" she asked, looking at Nick and Warrick. "You two want to go first?"
Both men grinned, then Warrick pulled two flat items out from behind the table while Nick switched places with Susan so he could sit next to Sara. As he handed one of the packages to Nick, who promptly shoved it behind his back so Sara couldn't peek, Warrick spoke. "Ok guys, well we figured that now that you're getting married and all, it's about time you start acting like a married couple and getting bored with each other. So to help each of you along on that, we got you . . . these." As Warrick said "these," he handed his package to Sara and Nick handed his to Grissom.
As she eyed the object in her hands, Sara blinked in confusion. "A calendar?"
"Turn it over, Sara," suggested Grissom, who was staring at his with his eyebrows up around his hairline.
She did. "Oh my god, you guys are evil!" A chorus of "What?" and "huh?" rang out as everyone tried to pile over the person next to them to see what surprised Sara so much. "It's . . ." Sara began to explain, then was interrupted by a laughing fit.
Grissom, patted her back, beginning to laugh himself, and picked up where she'd left off. ". . .his and hers calendars. Sara got a, uh" – he sneaked a peek over her shoulder to read the name - "Chippendales calendar, and I got a . . ." He stopped and began to turn red.
"And he got a Sports Illustrated Swimsuit calendar," Sara finished, wiping tears of laughter off her cheeks. Reaching over, she half-hugged Warrick, then Nick. "You guys are insane, you know that?
"Ohhh," Catherine said with a mischievous smile at her, "Greg and I can beat that."
"Uh-oh," Grissom managed, though he didn't look particularly frightened. "I'm afraid to ask."
"So don't ask!" Greg chirped. "Just let us give you what we got!"
Grissom and Sara looked at each other and shrugged. "Go ahead," Sara said apprehensively, and held out her hand for whatever the pair was going to give.
"Nope," Catherine said, still grinning. "Your hand isn't going to hold this, Sara. Better give us both."
Sara did, and was handed what was perhaps the tackiest beach bag she'd ever seen. It was made of that frustrating sort of plastic/vinyl material that's guaranteed to stick to a sweaty body at the beach, and emblazoned all over with pictured and names of the various tourist traps in Las Vegas. "Um, Catherine. In case you hadn't noticed, we don't live near the ocean, and we already know the sights of the Strip."
"Never mind that," the other woman said, making shooing motions. "Go on and open it, it'll all start to make sense soon."
Sara, looking exceedingly wary, handed Grissom the bag and ordered him to open it. When he did, the first expression on his face was confusion. Reaching in, he pulled out what looked like a can of hair mousse. "Um . . . what is this?" he asked blankly.
Taking it from his hand, Sara examined the item in question. "Body mousse? What the hell's a body mousse for, to style Grissom's leg hair?" Still confused, she took another look. "Dr. Licious's Body Mousse? 'New Strawberry Flavor'?"
Greg couldn't contain his snort. "Man, you guys are so repressed if you don't know what that stuff is for!"
"GREG!" Sara yelped, finally figuring it out. "I can't believe you guys bought us this stuff! And it has . . . sprinkles? SPRINKLES?" Unable to control it, she tumbled over sideways, landing between Nick's back and the back of the booth. "Can't . . . breathe . . . Laughing too . . . hard!"
"Uh, Sara?" Grissom said as he reached for the next item in the bag. "I think you'd better sit up and look what else they gave us." When she was sitting upright again, he began to hand items off to her one at a time, identifying them as best he could. "Body oil, which I assume is similar to the, uh, mousse . . .Twister? The game? Ooookay, we'll look at that later . . . a beach ball?" He stopped to give Catherine a strange look. "This is all a little incongruous, isn't it, Cath?"
Catherine simply shrugged. "Keep digging."
"Fuzzy . . ." He coughed. "Fuzzy handcuffs." After the laugher that broke out at that item had died down, he glared dangerously at the grinning pair who had contributed this odd gift bag, then continued. "Good-diver Chocolate Body Paint? Hell, I didn't even know stuff like this existed!" he said without thinking, then turned a violent red when he realized what had just come out of his mouth.
With a smirk, Sara took the bag from him. "I think that's enough out of you, bud. I'll finish this while you try to recover your dignity." Reaching in, she pulled out the last item, a frisbee. "You guys are both insane," she told Catherine and Greg as she examined the toy for any possible sexual twist. "You know that, right?"
Greg just smirked. "You shall understand soon, my sweet."
Grissom cleared his throat. "Bad idea, Sanders. I don't think I'm going to like any guy who gives Sara a bag full of, uh, bedroom stuff, and then calls her his 'sweet.' Back off," he said, faking a dangerous tone.
Cringing behind Catherine, Greg managed a "Yessir!"
"Okay," Sara asked. "Who or what is next?"
"That'd be me, Sara," Brass offered. "And before you get your hopes up, you won't be getting any more of that kind of thing from me." He calmly handed her a carefully wrapped gift box.
"Why Brass," she grinned. "You've gone classy!" She carefully slid a finger under the ribbon and slid it off the box, then peeled back the edges of the paper. Looking up, she noticed that everyone was staring at her impatiently. "What? I'm a careful unwrapper!" she told them as she pulled out the last edge and examined the unmarked box. "Hmm, no visible evidence on the outside. Anyone got an ALS handy?"
"Just open it, Sara!" Nick ordered.
"Oh, shut up," she shot back, but did as ordered. Pulling out the box's contents, she blinked. "Towels?"
"Well, they're monogrammed towels," Brass tried to explain as Sara unfolded them.
"So they are. Gris, take a look. These are swanky!"
Grissom only shook his head and laughed. "Thanks, Jim. I'm sure they'll come in handy somehow – probably to dry the baby after baths."
"Ohhh," Susan cut in teasingly, "I think you might find better uses for them. Here, open mine next." She thrust a misshapen wrapped object across the table toward Grissom.
Unlike Sara, Grissom usually preferred to just yank off the paper to get to what was underneath, and this time was no different. The paper had covered a basket full of . . . things. "Suntan lotion, Susan? And aloe? This brings us back to Sara's point that we don't live near the ocean." He pulled out more small items, all beach- or sun-related. "Well, uh . . . thanks." He was surprised when Susan didn't look at all offended at his flat tone, only kept smiling at him.
When Grissom had put everything back into the basket, Catherine stood up. "Ok guys, there's one more present. We all chipped in on it," she explained, handing Sara a ribbon-bound bundle of cloth.
Sara turned the pile over. "What the . . ." she began, then decided to find out for herself. Tugging on the end of the ribbon, she untied it and shook out – well, tried to shake out – the briefest bathing suit top she'd ever seen. Blinking, she pulled out the next piece and found equally skimpy bikini bottoms. "Guys, you know I don't wear things like this!" No one answered her.
Somewhere between confusion and frustration, she tugged out the last piece of fabric. After a few seconds of looking at it, she screamed a laugh, then threw a hand over her mouth to quiet it. "Gris . . . Grissom . . . I think this is, uh . . . for you," she managed, and threw the neon green Speedo at him.
Grissom gave the thing a look of horror. "Good Christ!" he yelped, and quickly threw it back at Sara.
"Oops, wait," Sara said, cutting short the bathing suit duel that was about to begin. "I dropped something out of it." She bent over to pick up whatever had fell, then straightened up slowly. "Guys . . ." she said slowly. "Are these tickets to something?"
"Give me those," Grissom said, and snatched the pieces of paper out of her hand. "Princess Cruise Lines?" He turned suspicious eyes to Catherine. "Explain."
"Figure it out for yourself," she retorted, and motioned him back to the tickets in his hand.
"Princess Cruise Lines," he read again, "welcomes you to our cruising family." Following that were a date – "May 28th 2004," and the words "Round trip: Trans-Atlantic."
"A cruise?" Sara squeaked. "You're sending us on a cruise? But we . . . I, the baby . . ."
"She'll be over a year old then, Sara, and eating solid foods," Susan pointed out. "And Catherine and I will share her while you're away."
Sara was drawing a blank on how to construct a coherent English sentence. Looking down, she met Grissom's equally glazed eyes and allowed herself to fall back onto the seat, half-on him and half-off.
Giving her a small smile, Grissom kissed the tip of her nose. "I guess that explains the beach ball," he whispered.
