Disclaimer: I don't own them, I didn't create them, and I don't profit from them. But if I had the chance, I'd love to buy George and Jorja a cup of coffee.
Author's Note: This is in response to a challenge I issued to my fellow Snickers.
Tuesday 2:00AM
"There is no Arizona, no Painted Desert, no Sedona." Sara sang softly as she sifted through the contents of a wallet that had been found on the victim of a murder she and Nick were investigating.
"Yes there is." Nick stood there in the doorway of the layout room with an amused smirk on his face.
Sara glanced up perplexed. "Huh?" She hadn't heard him come into the room.
His smirk gave way to a smile. "Arizona is one state over."
Sara finally realized that he'd heard her singing and tried to restrain an embarrassed smile. "Did Greg come up with anything?"
"Not yet." Nick remarked and walked over to where she sat, glancing down at the contents of the wallet spread out on the layout table. He let out a chuckle as he pointed at what appeared to be a school photo. "My brother had hair like that."
Sara looked up at him with a raised eyebrow. "And you never had a strange haircut?"
"By the time I was in high school, long hair was out." Nick replied. He glanced at some of the other contents and shook his head. "Looks like this guy didn't throw anything out." He picked up an ID card. "Who keeps their student body ID card from Junior High in their wallet?"
"Maybe he thought it was a good picture." Sara tilted her head slightly with an odd expression on her face.
"Well at least it doesn't appear that he's a member of the Star Trek fan club." Nick snickered.
"Better." Sara looked smug as she held up a card and smiled. "Lifetime membership to the Spam fan club."
Nick looked startled. "There's a fan club for Spam lovers?"
Sara smirked. "Apparently."
"And I thought my social life was suffering lately." Nick muttered as he shook his head in disbelief.
Sara leaned back in her chair and crossed her arms over her chest, raising an eyebrow doubtfully in his direction. "Your social life is suffering?"
Nick had a deer in the headlights expression on his face. "Uh." He wasn't sure what to say.
"So what exactly does 'uh' mean?" Sara felt her lips twitching upwards.
Nick lowered his voice to a conspiratorial tone. "I haven't had a date in months."
Sara pursed her lips together to keep from laughing. Nick had a reputation as a ladies man and the fact that he couldn't get a date surprised her and pleased her at the same time.
Just then, Greg Sanders came into the layout room. "Your substance." He held out the printout of the breakdown.
Nick took it and looked at it a bit quizzically. "Fudgesicle?"
Greg nodded. "With traces of some sort of herbal tea. Peppermint, I think."
Sara took in Greg's appearance and began to giggle. "What's with the lime green lab coat?"
Greg looked slightly annoyed. "Ecklie's experiment in employee efficiency."
Nick and Sara exchanged a glance and shrugged their shoulders.
"He thinks that if he color codes the lab techs he'll get his results faster." Greg explained with a tone that clearly implied that he thought the dayshift supervisor was as useful as a bugle at a deaf school.
"Hmm." Sara pursed her lips and furrowed her brow as if she was considering whether she thought it was a good idea.
Greg rolled his eyes and turned to leave, slipping as he neared the door, grabbing onto the frame to keep from falling all the way down. "Why they have to wax the floors right before our shift I'll never understand." He pulled himself upright and walked carefully back down the hall to the DNA lab.
Nick let out a loud snort as he started to laugh uncontrollably. "That was funny as hell."
Sara deadpanned. "Hell's not very funny."
Nick stopped laughing for a split second until he saw Sara's mouth twitch into a smile as she started to laugh along with him. The pair might have kept on laughing if a rubber band hadn't zinged in and smacked Nick on the forehead.
"Ouch." He looked annoyed as he glanced out into the hallway, ducking as he saw another rubber band flying through the air. He reached over and grabbed Sara's arm pulling her off of her chair and into a crouch on the floor. "Looks like Greg and Archie are having another rubber band fight."
"Greg! My office now!" Grissom's voice growled down the hallway.
Just as Nick was getting ready to stand up, Sara touched his knee. "What's a map of Vegas doing on the bottom of this layout table?"
He glanced at it and shrugged. "Good question."
As they both stood up, Sara let out a sigh. "I don't think I'm getting anywhere with this wallet."
Nick leaned his elbows on the layout table and glanced over at her. "So are you still coming with me up to Lake Tahoe to my buddy's cabin this weekend?"
Sara nodded, still staring at the wallet contents spread out before her. "Yeah. Who else is coming?"
"Uh, Greg's bringing his new girlfriend and Warrick said he was coming, but Grissom said he has a court date to prepare for and Catherine mentioned something about taking Lindsey shopping for Irish dancing shoes for a hopscotch tournament at her school." Nick answered, looking at her a bit too intently.
"What?" Sara looked at him looking at her with a curious expression.
"Uh." He quickly gestured towards a small photo sitting with the rest of the contents of the wallet, trying to change the subject. "What's this guy doing with a picture of the street sign in front of the White House?"
Sara looked amused. "That's not what I was talking about."
"Did you know that there was carrot cake in the break room?" Nick knew he'd been caught staring at her and he was doing his best to backpedal.
Sara chuckled. "No wonder you can't get a date."
"Huh?" Nick swallowed hard.
Sara looked smug. "If you wanted to ask me out, all you had to do was ask." She turned back to what she was working on and tried to restrain her smile.
Nick just stood there wide eyed and gape jawed that Sara had just implied she'd go out with him.
"Nick, close your mouth. You'll catch flies." Sara was smiling and she was doing her best to keep Nick from being able to tell.
Nick broke himself out of his reverie. "Actually, that's not true. The last time I said that in front of Grissom, he corrected me. According to him, they prefer decaying flesh."
Sara rolled her eyes and chuckled. "Ok." She glanced over at him. "Don't you have something you're supposed to be doing with our case?"
"I'm all caught up, what's taking you so long?" Nick teased as he leaned his elbow on the layout table.
Slightly annoyed, Sara looked up at him.
"Ok, I'm going to check with Archie to see if he's been able to get into this guy's laptop." He flashed her a grin on his way out the door.
Saturday Morning
"He really had a webcam on his cat's head?" Nick asked Greg a bit incredulously.
"I saw it with my own eyes." Greg replied a bit smugly. He was sitting in the back seat next to his girlfriend Lisa who was also the new receptionist at the lab. "He even got a certificate of achievement for the implementation of the idea."
"Poor cat." Sara remarked from the seat next to Lisa.
"Those webcams are light, Sara." Warrick defended.
"Actually, I'd have to agree with Sara. He tried to put a homemade helmet with the camera mounted on top of it on the cat's head and it didn't like it so he ended up just putting it up in the corner of his apartment to see what his cat did all day." Greg admitted.
"What did the cat do all day?" Lisa glanced over at Greg with a dazzling smile.
"It slept." Greg wrapped his arms around Lisa nuzzling her neck. "But you're cuter, Snooky."
Lisa giggled.
Warrick chortled from the front seat at the way Greg was gushing. "Lisa, I hope you know what you're getting yourself into."
Sara turned her attention to the view out the window as Greg and Lisa started trading kisses in the seat next to her.
Nick glanced in the rearview mirror at her. "You doing ok, Sara?"
She glanced up and smiled at him. "How long until we get there?"
"Another couple of hours. Do you guys want to stop for something to eat?" Nick offered.
"Yes." Warrick interjected. "I didn't eat before we left and I didn't get lunch last night." Warrick had left straight from work, having had to work a few extra hours at the end of shift.
"Alright, there's a place just up ahead. We can stop there." Nick gestured towards a building set off the road with a sign out front mounted on a tractor tire.
Sara looked at the place a bit skeptically. "Should I be scared?"
Nick chuckled as he parked the SUV.
The group made their way into the small restaurant, noting a series of black and white photos on the wall of feet and a nondescript painting.
"That's just plain weird." Nick commented as they stood there waiting for a table.
Sara sidled up beside him and leaned over and whispered in his ear. "Actually, they're done by a photographer from San Francisco. I saw them in a gallery up there a few years ago."
Nick smiled at Sara's proximity. "I was actually talking about that painting. It's pretty ugly."
"Hey you guys, we've got a table now." Warrick commented, gesturing towards Nick and Sara and then rolling his eyes at Greg and Lisa who couldn't seem to keep their eyes or their lips off of each other.
As the waitress approached their table, Warrick smiled at her. "What's your soup of the day?"
"Chicken noodle." She smiled back at him and winked.
"I'll have a bowl of that, a salad, a chocolate shake and a cheeseburger." Warrick glanced at her nametag. "Thanks, Stella."
"You're welcome." She glanced around the table at the rest of the group. "What about the rest of you?"
"Uh, do you have veggie burgers?" Sara looked at her inquisitively.
She smiled widely. "We sure do."
"Great." She smiled back. "I'll have that and an iced tea."
"Same for me." Nick added, smiling at Sara.
Warrick's eyebrows went up in amusement as he watched his coworkers who he'd watched flirt with each other for years stealing glances as each other.
"Uh, salad and Diet Coke for me. What about you, Greggy?" Lisa sounded as gushy as Greg had earlier.
"You're enough for me Snooky." He grinned at her and then glanced at the waitress. "Uh, cheeseburger like my man Rick over there and a Coke." He pointed at Warrick and gave Stella a knowing wink.
The waitress smirked as she wrote down the rest of the order.
Later as they pulled into the driveway of the cabin perched on the shores of Lake Tahoe, Nick glanced over at Warrick who was asleep in the front seat with a content smile on his face after getting Stella's number. In the backseat Greg and Lisa were in the middle of a fairly intense kiss and Sara was pressed as close to the door as she could get. As soon as the SUV came to a stop, Sara sprang from the vehicle.
Nick climbed out and chuckled at Sara. "You can have the front seat on the way home."
"Thanks." She gestured towards the vehicle. "The air was getting a little thick in there. I think that Lisa was a little excited about that stuffed lion that Greg bought her at that toy store."
Nick nodded as he pulled their bags out of the back of the vehicle. "I had forgotten about that place, it's sort of a strange place to put a toy store, but they seem to do pretty good business up here."
"It's no stranger than a drive through coffee stand attached to it." Sara commented as they ascended the steps of the porch and walked into the cabin.
"See I told you he had Monopoly." Nick gestured toward a shelf in the entryway that had several board games on it.
"Do you want to play?" Sara raised an eyebrow inquisitively.
"Hell yeah." He grinned back at her as he dropped their bags on the floor.
They settled themselves on a thick dark rug in front of the fireplace and began to set the game up. They had gone several times around the board when a bleary eyed Warrick stumbled into the cabin with his bag over his shoulder.
"I'm gonna grab a room and get some sleep. See you guys later." He had pulled a couple of double shifts that week and was completely worn out.
"Ok, man." Nick hardly looked up as he contemplated whether it was worth it to buy Marvin Gardens.
An hour and a half later, the two competitive CSIs were trying to out build each other by placing houses and hotels on their properties, Sara having secured Boardwalk and Park Place early on.
"You're serious?" Nick looked at Sara skeptically from where he lay on his side across the game board from her.
She chuckled and nodded. "It was an actual dissertation. This guy used hamsters in his physics thesis."
"Actual hamsters?" Nick still looked like he wasn't completely buying her story.
Sara pursed her lips together to keep from smiling as she lay on her side on the rug. "Ok, they were actually computer generated. He figured in the weight and density of each of his pet hamsters and then he calculated the trajectory that way."
"Hamster trajectory." Nick couldn't help but laugh. "Now that's a phrase you don't hear everyday."
Sara furrowed her brow. "Do we even want to know where Greg and Lisa are?"
Nick thought about that for a moment. "As long as they aren't in my Denali, I don't think I care."
Just then the front door opened and in walked Greg and Lisa carrying their bags.
As they began to walk gingerly across the floor, Nick cleared his throat. "What's with the wet hair you two? It's not raining outside."
Greg grinned a bit too broadly and Lisa blushed as he answered for both of them. "Just a tip for the day, don't skinny dip in an alpine lake. I think I've got a sunburn on my butt."
Sara held her hand up to her mouth as she started to giggle and Nick snorted.
Greg and Lisa headed down the hallway presumably in search of a first aid kit and a room to change their clothes in.
Nick and Sara dissolved into fits of laughter, and just as one of them had almost stopped the other got them both started again. As their laughter finally tapered off, Nick looked over at Sara and noticed her smiling at him. He nervously cleared his throat as he continued to look at her. "So, you said something earlier this week." He scooted a bit closer to her. "You said if I wanted to ask you out, I should just ask you out."
She felt her smile widening as she watched his face. "I might have said something like that."
He scooted a bit closer scattering a few houses and hotels from the game board. "So would you?" He looked at her expectantly.
"Are you asking?" She raised an eyebrow.
His gaze went from her eyes to her lips and back again. "Uh huh."
"Uh huh." She smiled again eyeing his lips.
Nick looked a little confused. "Uh huh as in yes?"
She nodded and scooted closer to him, completely obliterating the rest of their game of Monopoly in the process. "Yes."
He grinned and leaned towards her, putting his hand on her hip. "Good."
Sara let her hand rest against his chest as she looked into his eyes. "So what are we going to do now that you've asked me out?"
He leaned in and kissed her softly, smiling as he pulled away. "I thought we could start there."
"Ok." She smiled and leaned in and kissed him, closing her eyes.
They began trading long deep exploratory kisses, oblivious to their surroundings and the fact that Warrick had woken up, walked in and then retreated with a smile on his face.
Sara's eyes fluttered open after one particularly intense kiss and as Nick leaned in to kiss her again Sara's eyes went wide and pushed Nick away. "Stop, I can't do this."
Nick looked shocked, confused, and hurt. "Sara?"
She looked at his face and then shook her head. "No, it's not you, it's that." She pointed to the end of the rug. "I didn't see the head before."
Nick followed where she was pointing and noticed that the rug they'd been laying on was actually a very large bearskin and it still had the head attached. He turned back towards her. "It's a bear."
She nodded earnestly. "I know. I can't do this on that." She bit her lip not wanting to hurt his feelings.
Nick raised an eyebrow. "How do you feel about the couch?" He glanced over at the plaid covered sofa. "I'm pretty sure no animals were harmed in the manufacturing of the couch."
Sara smirked and swatted at him. "Thank you for being so understanding."
"No problem." Nick grinned and pulled himself off of the floor, offering Sara his hand to help her up.
As she stood, she wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him, smiling against his lips as he began to walk them back towards the couch, before stumbling against it and pulling Sara down with him as he fell onto it.
Sara giggled against his lips.
They trade a few more kisses before Nick pulled back and looked at Sara with a mischievous smile.
Sara raised an eyebrow at him. "What?"
"What would you say to skinny dipping?" He waggled his eyebrows at her.
She giggle and rolled her eyes. "I didn't bring any sunscreen."
The End