Convention

Disclaimer: Don't own, don't sue. So wouldn't be worth it.

When she had agreed to do this talk, a few months back, she hadn't realised quite what she was letting herself in for. She blamed Grissom entirely. 'Fancy doing a workshop on momentum and the gunshot wound next month?' He'd asked.

Of course, her first question had been 'Who for?'

'A small convention in town on characterising gun crime.' He'd answered simply.

Small convention had turned out to be every and any person to even remotely be involved in the country's latest war on gun crime. Ok, so she would only be talking to people like her, forensic scientists and a few cops, but even then it was well over a thousand people.

Grissom hadn't appreciated her concern one bit. 'You've talked at conventions before.'

'Yes, in front of fifty maybe a hundred people. They're calling this the biggest gun crime prevention scheme EVER!'

Of course, she wasn't that nervous. Or that afraid of looking out over a sea of faces all looking at her and waiting for her to speak words of wisdom. All laughing when only single vowel sounds came out before she ran off the stage and kept running until she got to Grissom's office and increased the firearm statistics once again.

And of course, Warrick hadn't laughed at her.

She looked at him now, across the break room, daring him to say anything. He looked back down at the article he was reading on the latest mass spectrometers being introduced, but Sara could still see the curve of his lip, the smirk to his face.

'What?' She finally asked.

Warrick looked up. 'Nothing.' He'd said, further irritating her.

'No come on. What words of wisdom do you have? Imagine them all naked? Look up and meet people's eyes to make the presentation seem more personal. Speak slowly and clearly and whatever you do don't drop your atches.'

'You're nervous.' He stated.

Sara narrowed her eyes at him, but at this point was far too immersed in the nightmare of falling up the stage steps to disagree.

'I would be to.' He confided, which didn't help Sara one bit with her current problem but was a slight comfort anyway.

'I'm going to fall up the stairs. Then I'm going to see all those people and develop a case of mouthus dryus, won't be able to mutter a single word and have to run off the stage, at which time my trousers will probably decide to rip at the seam and reveal my good luck panties.'

Warrick was fighting to keep a straight face, but failing miserably. 'It will be fine. Honestly. You'll stand up, impress them all with your knowledge of flight trajectory and then walk sedately of stage. There you'll probably puke your guts out but at that time it won't matter and you can relax.'

'Thanks Warrick.' Sara said, her voice a mix of sarcasm and genuine appreciation for the vote of support.

'And I'll be there to make sure you have someone to celebrate with afterwards.'

'You're going? You never told me!'

'I wanted to surprise you.' He said. 'So if you want to imagine me naked, go right ahead.'

Sara wanted to give him a look, but had to laugh.

'I've never talked in front of so many people before.' Sara said, relaxing slightly for the first time in at least three days.

'You'll do fine. All you gotta do is find the most boring looking person there, and concentrate on them.'

'Why the most boring person there?'

'Well you wouldn't want to look at me and get distracted by my great looks now, would you?'

'No I can see how that would be a problem.' She said, laughing.

The day of the convention came around much too quickly for Sara. Of course she'd done notes, foot notes, and foot notes for the foot notes. Her night off had been spent muttering to herself like a mad women in the middle of her apartment, trying to get the speech word perfect. Which for someone who was a perfectionist was almost impossible.

She was at least satisfied that the speech made sense, if nothing else. An opening case file of the time she, Warrick and Nick had had to process a barn with something like one hundred and nine bullet holes, finding out that a gun was swung down a cane whilst four boys played "Let's dodge a bullet or two"

She had statistics. She had opinion. And she had diagrams. Could never do without diagrams. All carefully laid out and backed up in the presentation tool she had on her lap top. With overheads just in case the computer failed or something. She was prepared. At least, that was what her mind said. Her heart was still stuck on finding out how many stairs there were up to the stage and how many exits there were off it.

Thankfully, she was the second speaker that morning. Not much hanging around. Although the first glance at the hall and what a thousand people really did look like all amassed sitting and chatting together almost sent her running for the hills. Or at least the fake pyramid, anyway.

They had twenty minute slots to make their presentation. Of course she had to be second behind a guy making a speech on the ways in which to collect casings, who talked for exactly thirty three minutes and four seconds on a subject that was even covered in forensic class in a shorter time.

She was introduced. There was polite applause. Everyone looked half asleep already and it was only ten thirty in the morning. She found Warrick in the audience, smiling in encouragement, and felt touched once again that he had come.

So she decided to wake them up a bit by showing a video of a gun battle between two gangs, which at that time of the morning seemed especially violent and bloody.

She made her speech. Missed out a part on collating evidence and having to go back. Fluffed some statistics so that only three percent of the population carried guns, to which there had been hearty laughter. So she'd joked that that would be in an ideal world, and if that ever happened half of the people in the room would be out of a job. More laughter. Sara decided that that was her joke for the day and she shouldn't try anymore. She got through the presentation, lasting a respectable nineteen minutes. And then fell over a heel as she walked off the stage.

It was only as she crossed back round to the auditorium, where coffee was being served and doughnuts being laid out, that she found out everyone from grave yard had been there to listen.

'You all came?' She asked rather stupidly, seeing all their faces suddenly appear.

'We all came.' Catherine told her. 'You didn't do bad.'

Nick pushed Catherine out of the way with a frustrated sigh. 'You did great.' He told her, giving her a brief hug.

'Very interesting statistics.' Grissom said, although he was fully serious.

'You got the joke then.' Sara dead panned.

'The computer graphics were cool.' Nick said.

'You should have told me you were coming; I would have put up more pictures to help you understand all the long words.'

'Ha ha.'

'So, did I distract you?' Warrick asked.

Sara shot him a questioning look.

'I saw you looking during your presentation, trying to imaging me naked. Probably why you fluffed your line so bad.'

'Yes.' Sara said with a sweet smile. 'I'd just imagined you in Y fronts. Put me right off.'