Part Seventeen - Evolution

(Forever)

Cyrus reached for the remote control as the end credits of "North by Northwest" began to crawl up the television screen, pressing the rewind button, muting the sound on the television immediately thereafter. "I do like that film," he said, a comment that was greeting with a chuckle from Sara.

"I could tell from all the attention you paid to it," she told him dryly, and he lifted one eyebrow at her, throwing the remote blindly towards the table. He did his best to hold a reasonably impassive expression on his face, but it was fairly difficult considering the position that he was in. They were in Sara's apartment, lying together on the couch, with him on his side, back pressed up against the back of the couch. Sara was lying on her back, one of his arms underneath her, one of her hands even now running up and down the arm that had held the remote control, the arm which was now resting against her body, his hand on her hip.

He'd wanted this to happen, had wanted to be here like this with her for a long time. He'd told her that much at the carnival the first time that he'd kissed her, and he hadn't been lying. It just blew his mind that that had happened only a couple of days ago. He kept expecting something to happen, for her to say that it had been a mistake, that they shouldn't be doing this, but it hadn't happened so far. He'd gone home from the carnival with her, had walked her to her door, but hadn't gone in to the apartment, telling her instead that he wanted to take it slow. Her sense of relief had been palpable, but she'd still kissed him for a long time standing in the hallway, and he'd literally had to tear himself away from her, had to force himself to leave. That had been two days ago, and he'd called her up yesterday, asked her out for dinner. She'd accepted, and he'd picked her up, despite her insistence that she could meet him at the restaurant. They'd had a nice meal and once again he'd taken her home. He'd gone into the apartment this time though, his goodbye even more protracted than the previous night's, and before he'd left, she'd suggested that he come over today before they both went into work, suggesting that they could watch a movie, agreeing finally on "North by Northwest."

She was right though - they really hadn't seen much of the movie.

"That's not my fault," he told her now, his fingers tracing patterns on the denim at her hips. "Someone kept distracting me…"

She chuckled soft and low. "It's not my fault you're easily distracted… "

"I'm not going to win on this, am I?" He already knew the answer though, wasn't surprised when she wrinkled her nose, shaking her head. "Didn't think so," he murmured, leaning down then to distract her some more.

He didn't know how long they stayed like that, sharing long slow kisses, before he pulled back. It was long enough for them both to be breathing hard, for her cheeks to be flushed pink, for her fingers to have strayed to unbutton the top two buttons of his shirt. If he kept kissing her, there was only one place where this was going to end up, and he didn't want to go there just yet.

She gave a sheepish smile up at him which he returned in kind, reaching out to tuck a strand of hair back behind her ear. It was the same gesture which had led to their first kiss, and he fought back a smile at the memory, covering it up by leaning forward, pressing a kiss to her forehead. Shifting slightly then, he arranged them so that she was wrapped in his arms, face to face, her fingers still playing with the material of his shirt. "I'm gonna have to go soon," he told her, because he had to get to work, wanted to shower and change at home before he did. "Work," he added, by way of explanation.

She screwed up her whole face in disgust. "No work… let's stay here."

He laughed out loud at that. "Top ten things I never thought I'd hear you say," he told her. "That's number one."

She slapped at his arm, but not hard, and she was laughing too. "I can be easily distracted too," she replied, and he shook his head, knowing that that wasn't true.

"All evidence to the contrary," he said, because she was the single most focussed person he'd ever met.

She looked up at the ceiling thoughtfully, tilting her head in consideration, before allowing him that. "Point taken." She ran a hand up his arm, her brow furrowing in concentration as she did so, and he knew, without knowing how, that what she was about to say was the opening gambit in the conversation that they'd been studiously avoiding over the last couple of days. "It's just… I'm doing a lot of things I wouldn't normally do lately."

"Oh? Like what?"

She shrugged one shoulder, eyes narrowed on the movements of her fingers against the buttons of his shirt. "Being here like this," she said. "Having this conversation in the first place." That was uttered with a chuckle, and Cyrus found himself smiling. "It just… it feels like I only broke up with Hank five minutes ago… and now there's this… and it's you… " A sigh broke up her halting speech, and she looked into his eyes, doubt evident in her gaze. "I'm lousy at relationships Cyrus," she confided, and he stopped her talking by cupping her cheek with his hand again, pressing his thumb against her lips for a moment.

"We're friends Sara," he reminded her. "No matter what else happens, that's not going to change."

"You can't promise that."

"Sure I can." There wasn't a tremor of doubt in his voice, or in his heart. "I like you Sara. I've liked you for a long time." He'd told her that before, but in the context of this conversation, he didn't think it would do any harm to mention it again. "And if this thing between us doesn't work out, I'm still going to be your friend." Because she'd become too much a part of his life for anything else to be true. "I am always going to be in your life." She closed her eyes tightly at the words, and his hand moved from her cheek to her hair, fingering the fine strands carefully. "Don't think about it so much," he said. "Let's just go with this…see where we end up."

A smile broke through the doubt, and she opened her eyes to stare up at him. "That's the part I'm not good at," she admitted.

"Well," he reminded her. "You did say you were doing things you wouldn't normally do… "

The look she gave him might have been exasperation, a little amusement thrown in. "You've got an answer for everything don't you?"

"Not for what we should tell people at work," he said, regretting the words the instant they left his lips, because her face lost all traces of humour. "Or not," he added hurriedly.

She took a deep breath, closing her eyes for a second. When she opened them again, all the doubt that he'd ever seen in her face was back there, and then some. "Can we just… can we just not tell people for the moment? See where we end up?"

He smiled at the echo of his earlier words, his hand going to her cheek. "Yeah," he said, bringing his lips to hers again. "We can do that."

***

Cyrus moved through the halls of the police department, on his way to Brass's office. He wasn't quite sure why the captain was looking for him, but it wasn't exactly an unusual occurrence, more than likely for an update on the case that he was working on, the case of the two dead teenagers in the desert. He'd been surprised, but not unpleasantly so, when Brass had called him earlier on that day, telling him where the crime scene was, and that Sara and Warrick would be meeting him there. He'd been looking forward to working with Sara, he always did, but he'd be lying if he'd said that he wasn't a little worried about how it might feel to be working with her after the events of the last couple of days.

It hadn't felt any different though, he'd realised that from the moment that she and Warrick walked over to him, when he led them to the body. Sara was all business, the consummate professional, and if he didn't know for a fact that only hours earlier, the two of them had been lying on her couch, watching "North by Northwest" he would never have guessed that anything was going on.

Which, considering where they worked, and who they worked with, was not a bad thing he decided.

"You were looking for me?"

Cyrus poked his head into Brass's office with those words, and the older man looked up from his paperwork, motioning to him to come in and take a seat. "And close the door behind you," he added, setting down his pen, gazing at Cyrus thoughtfully.

"Everything ok Jim?" Cyrus asked when Brass seemed to have trouble getting to the point, leaning back in his chair, tapping his fingers against his chin thoughtfully. For a moment, Cyrus had a brief flashback to being fourteen and his father's face as he'd tried to explain to him about the birds and the bees, and when he cleared that memory from his mind, he wasn't so sure that that wasn't what Brass had him in here to talk about.

Brass's next words proved him right. "What's this I hear about you and Sidle?" he asked bluntly, and Cyrus squared his shoulders.

"We're working the Romeo and Juliet case with Warrick Brown," he parried, trying to get Brass to elaborate further, because he knew that between Nick's actions and the fact that the graveyard shift were an unusually observant group, fairly proficient at gossiping, there could be any amount of things that Brass could have heard.

"I'm not talking about the case," Brass replied, leaning forward and resting his arms on the desk. "I'm talking personally."

"We're friends," Cyrus told him simply. He left out the fact that they were in the process of crossing over the line, that they'd already crossed it in fact. After all, just friends didn't kiss the way that Sara and he had kissed when he'd taken her out for dinner yesterday. Just friends didn't curl up on couches in one another's arms, watching movies or talking quietly, occasionally interrupting the talking in favour of long slow kisses. But Brass didn't need to know any of that.

"That all?" Brass asked sceptically when it became evident that Cyrus wasn't going any further than that. "Because I heard that Stokes set the two of you up on a date."

"We went to a movie," Cyrus defended.

"And I've heard other talk about the two of you… since way before that."

"There's always talk," Cyrus pointed out, his eyes narrowing, because there was something in Brass's demeanour that he didn't like at all. "What are you trying to say?"

"I'm not saying anything." Brass held his two hands up in the universal sign for innocence, but that didn't do anything to soothe Cyrus's mood. He had the distinct feeling that Brass was trying to warn him off, and he wasn't happy about it, nor with his seeming denial of it.

"That's not what it feels like from here."

"Cyrus… " Brass sighed, looking away for a moment. "You're a good detective. And Sara's a good CSI. But she was also a good CSI in the Haviland case, when the defence attorney made her look like a chump on the stand over her relationship with the paramedic." He paused to let his words sink in. "You understand what I'm saying?"

"If you're asking me would I let a friendship interfere with my job, the answer is no. Captain." The word friendship was carefully chosen, as was the weighted emphasis on the word captain. The words were clipped, and Cyrus was sitting stiff as a statue, unmoving, not even blinking at Brass. "Will that be all?"

Brass sighed again. "You think I like saying this to you? You think I want to come down hard on the two of you? You want to know what I think, I think the two of you would be good for one another, God knows she needs to get out of that lab more." He fixed Cyrus with a serious gaze. "What I'm saying is, if you are seeing one another, and I'm not saying you are, and I don't even need to know about it if you are, is that there are people who could, and would, use it against you. So, you know, making sure you dot all the Is, and cross all the Ts might not be the worst idea in the world."

Halfway through that speech, Cyrus had begun to smile; he was able to greet its end with a nod. "I understand."

"Good." Brass's own nod was just as firm, and an unquestionable dismissal. "Now, go out there and catch some bad guys."

"Whatever you say." There was a beat as Cyrus stood up, looking down at Brass, looking right into his eyes, man to man. "Jim."

***

"You think we even have a chance?"

"No." Warrick's reply was uttered quietly, but Sara heard it nonetheless, and she stared after Cyrus as he walked Mrs Frommer out of the house to the waiting patrol car. Not for the first time in her investigative career, she wondered what the hell they were doing this all for, what was the point of finding out what had happened if nothing came out of it? She knew what was going to happen as well as Warrick, and well as Mrs Frommer did. The charges wouldn't stick, and before anyone knew what had happened, she'd get the baby back.

The ringing of Warrick's cell phone jolted her out of her reverie, all the more so as he looked from the phone on his hip to the child in his arms, and she knew what he was going to do a split second before he did it. Opening her mouth to ward off the danger, she didn't get the chance, because he thrust the child into her arms with a muffled exclamation, saying merely, "Here." She had no choice then but to take the baby from him with a certain amount of trepidation, because children really didn't like her, and she had no great experience with them. She shot him a dark look as he put the phone to his ear, answering it with his customary, "Warrick," but he either didn't notice the look or chose not to comment on it, saying into the phone, "Hold on…I can barely hear you…" before walking out of the room, down the hall and doubtless outside.

Rolling her eyes with impatience, her attention was diverted to the baby who had a novel way of assuring this - reaching out and grabbing a fistful of Sara's hair, giving it a good yank. Sara just about bit back a squawk of mingled pain and surprise, and set about adjusting the child on her hip, tracing the baby's knuckles lightly with one finger, hoping the touch would get her to loosen her grip. It worked too, the child releasing the lock of hair and grasping the finger tightly, her big blue eyes looking right up into Sara's face, unblinking. Against all odds, Sara found a smile coming to her face and she moved slightly, taking a couple of steps before turning and walking in the opposite direction, trying to find some other thing that might keep the child's attention.

Instead, she found something that caught hers. A gentle chuckle had her turning to see Cyrus standing in the doorway, arms crossed over his chest, a grin on his face. Unaccountably blushing, she grinned back at him before a coo from the baby had her looking back down, whispering to the child, "What's wrong?" Then, louder, her eyes flicking back to Cyrus, "What's he laughing at then?" She was talking to the child, but she was looking at him, and he knew it, and responded accordingly.

"Oh, I'm not laughing at anything," Cyrus said, pushing himself away from the doorframe, crossing the room towards them, and Sara stopped talking, something in his expression gluing her feet to the floor. Her eyes locked on his, and when he stood in front of her, his hand outstretched to run a finger down the baby's cheek, Sara found it hard to catch her breath. "Just enjoying the view is all." His voice was so low that Sara wouldn't have been able to hear it were she a foot further away from him, and she felt shivers run up and down her spine.

Shifting on her feet again, she couldn't help but notice that the baby was transfixed by Cyrus, was staring up at him with wide eyes, and she bit back a grin, noting that young as the child was, she had undeniably good taste. She knew that she should be trying to come up with a snappy comeback, but the expression on Cyrus's face was making it difficult for her to think, the only thought in her mind that once more, they were right in the middle of what Catherine and Lea would most definitely characterise as "a moment."

The moment was broken by Warrick coming back into the kitchen, talking as he walked, something about Nick and the phone call and horses, whatever the hell that all meant, but she only looked over at him when his voice trailed off, and she saw his glance darting from her to Cyrus before it settled on her, a half-smile landing on his face. "Am I interrupting something?" he asked, and Sara schooled her face into a blank mask, hoping against hope that she wouldn't blush.

"No," she said, and she knew he didn't believe her when his eyebrow quirked upwards.

Cyrus had dropped his hand when Warrick first asked his question, and now he did his best to change the subject. "Uniform's bringing her in," he said, referring to Mrs Frommer adding, "And I called child services, they're on their way."

Sara grunted, as much as at the thought as the fact that the child had once more grabbed a handful of her hair. "For all the good they'll do," she said while trying to persuade the baby to let go, something that amused the two men hugely.

"Be that as it may," Cyrus said, helping her as best he could, "It has to be done." When Sara's hair was once more her own, he took a step back. "I'm heading back… you two gonna be ok here?"

It was Warrick who answered, that same half-smile on his face. "I think we'll be fine," he said, in a tone that had Sara's heart sinking, because she just knew he wasn't going to leave this alone. Cyrus though, either didn't hear it or just didn't react, because he just nodded and left, with an instruction to call him if they found anything of note.

Once he'd left, Sara looked at Warrick, then just as quickly away again, stepping towards the crib. "I'll put her down," she said. "Why don't you start in the kitchen?" She bent over the crib, letting her hair fall down over her face, temptation for the child that was mercifully out of her reach, but which had the bonus of shielding her from Warrick.

"Yeah," he said simply, his tone giving away the smile she couldn't see, but she heard him walking away. "Why don't I do that?"

To her surprise, when she joined him in the kitchen, he didn't say anything, and they went about collecting evidence in the comfortable silence that characterised their working relationship. Child services came promptly to take the baby, and the caseworker was as despondent as they were about their chances of any charges sticking. It didn't take too much longer for them to finish, and it was on the long drive back to Vegas that Warrick made his move.

"So... " he said slowly, keeping his hands on the wheel and his eyes on the road. "You gonna tell me what I walked in on earlier?"

Sara glanced over at him, then out the passenger window, resting her chin on her arm, fighting off an air of déjà vu, remembering an apartment, a suicide that wasn't, and a closet floor that didn't have the good grace to open and swallow her up. "Walked in on?" she parried, complete with a little shake of her head and narrowed eyes to show that she was searching her memory banks and finding no recollection of whatever inconsequential event he was referring to.

Unfortunately, this was Warrick, and he wasn't going to be held off by a ploy so transparent. "You know what I'm talking about," he told her. "You and the good detective were looking pretty cosy there."

Sara shrugged, still not looking at him, still trying to project that air of casual indifference. "News to me," was all she said, and Warrick chuckled.

"Come on… " he said. "You're telling me that nothing's going on between the two of you?" Sara said nothing, and he continued with, "I know Nick set the two of you up… I also know Lockwood good as told him to butt out, that the two of you were just friends…" A burst of heat flared on Sara's cheeks, because that had been true at the time, though not any longer, and for once in her life, she wasn't quite sure what to say. On one hand, she didn't want to lie to Warrick, was pretty sure that he'd see right through her anyway. However, nor did she want her personal life subjected to lab gossip; she'd been through that with Hank, and once was more than enough. "You sure don't look like just friends to me," Warrick concluded and she looked over at him then, shooting him a look of irritation.

The look vanished the instant he looked back at her, only briefly, but in that instant she saw in his eyes not amusement, not teasing, but real concern. "Why are you so interested?" she asked curiously, and he shrugged, eyes on the road.

"I'm not supposed to want my friends happy?" was all he said, the words having the unmistakable ring of truth to them, and based on that, Sara made her decision.

"We're seeing each other," she admitted, any further words cut short by a whoop from Warrick.

"I knew it!" he crowed, and Sara wondered if she'd done the right thing.

"But it's new," she told him quickly, hoping to make him understand. "I mean, I know it's a while since Nick set us up, but nothing happened then… we've been seeing one another as friends, but it's only in the last week… and it's not like we're serious or anything, I mean, it's not that long since Hank and I… "

She'd been talking rapidly, her words falling over one another in an effort to make themselves heard, and Warrick lifted one hand from the steering wheel in a calming gesture. "Whoa, whoa, slow down there," he ordered. "Take a breath."

Sara did so, closing her eyes and gritting her teeth. When she spoke again, it was accompanied by a sheepish smile. "Sorry," she said. "It's just… we kinda don't want people to know yet. Not until we know where we're going. You know?" She was struck once again by déjà vu, by how closely the two conversations resembled one another, and it surprised her, because what she was feeling for Cyrus was nothing like she'd felt for Hank. There had been none of the questioning, none of the second-guessing that came between making a choice between him and Grissom. There had just an easy slide into something comfortable, and she'd barely realised that she was falling for him until she was in too deep to back out.

Not that she wanted to back out. She'd felt like she was taking a chance with Hank, but there was none of that with Cyrus. She knew exactly where she stood with him, and to her surprise, it didn't scare her. In fact, she was beginning to think that she wanted it very much.

If Warrick found their conversational territory familiar, he didn't comment on it, instead looking at her and nodding. "I know," he said, his countenance serious. "And if that's your way of asking me to keep quiet, you got it."

She leaned back against the seat, tilting her head back with a sigh of relief. Then a memory came to her, of the last conversation and of one before that, and she rolled her head to look at him with open suspicion. "This isn't going to be like the time I told you about Hank and the whole lab ended up finding out, is it?"

He snickered, shaking his head. "You ever gonna let that one go?"

"Nope," she said with a giggle, and he rolled his eyes.

"Not a word," he said seriously. "I promise."

Sara shot him a grateful smile, and turned her gaze back onto the road ahead of them, letting herself relax as he drove. He didn't speak again, and nor did she, her mind on the way that Cyrus had looked at her as she'd held the baby in her arms, the look that had been in his eyes. Gooseflesh rippled on her arms and the hairs rose on the back of her neck at the memory, and she allowed herself to think thoughts that had never occurred to her before.

If Warrick wondered about the smile on her face, then he didn't ask.