Author's Note: This is a piece set after Inside the Box but before "What Lies Ahead" (a Greg-angst story I posted up here a while back). You don't need to have read Ahead to get Beneath, or vice versa. Chapter 3 is from Brass's point of view. Each chapter covers the same amount of time. Sorry for the delay!!!

Important: All text before the line break is thoughts.

What Lies Beneath, pt 3

::sigh:: Why am I standing here ordering her a primo-vegeburger when I should be over at Jack in the Box getting a good ole greasy meat burger? Because you care for her you big lug, that's why!

That girl... I would bring her a vegeburger if there was only one place in Vegas that made 'em. I would bring it if Vegas were snowed over during a tornado and an air raid. Sara is just that important.

I wonder why she doesn't see it.

Huh? Oh yeah, right kid, $5.28, sure. Here you go. Stop staring at me! What, you never seen a LVPD detective trying to get a vegeburger??? Okay, fine, I do look like a meat-eater. It's for a friend, sheesh! I hate when people stare at me like they're trying to figure me out. That's my job, dammit, and I do it damn well. Pimple-faced little kid better not turn up in my interrogation room anytime soon, I'll permanently remove that disrespectful smirk.

So here I am, bringing one of my favorite CSIs a vegeburger during the middle of the night. Lucky for me this place stays open so late. Or lucky for her, rather. Or... lucky for both of us 'cause now I have an excuse to go over to the crime lab and check up on her, make sure she eats something and moves around a bit...

Someone's got to keep her healthy and it seems it's gotta be me. Grissom still hasn't come to grips with his feelings for her. Catherine and Sara fight like cats and... well, cats. Warrick is too reserved to really feel for her, and Nick... he doesn't have much sway with her. She'll listen to me (or at least pretend to) while I lecture her on her condition. She wouldn't take that from Nick. She would definitely take the lecture from Grissom (and maybe even act on it), but here we are at the beginning of the circle again.

Oh, my friend, you're great with bugs but awful with women. Anything with less than six legs and you're a disaster. Grissom's even bad with lizards and four-legged things. Fins? Never. I'll bet that fish I got him didn't even last the week. Thank goodness that Komodo is on back-order (permanently if I can help it). The dragon doesn't deserve to die such an unpleasant death.

Wow... alliteration. I'm good. I'm also driving through Las Vegas without thinking about where I'm going. That's bad.

So Sara. And Grissom. Taken apart, they're two good friends. Put together and they're an unpredictable mix. Like water and oil they're best kept separate. Maybe they're more like... gasoline and napalm. All it takes is a spark and... damn, nevermind, that was a bad analogy.

Thing is, they could be so good for each other if she would stop trying so hard and he would loosen up.

Unfortunately she has stopped trying, ever since the explosion at the lab. Sara's been on hold since then, which is exactly why I'm taking her a damn vegeburger. I figure, while she's eating maybe she'll lighten up enough to tell me what's going through that pretty head of hers. She seems to have lost all interest in Grissom, in food, and in sleep. The last two she's really never had much of a regard for, but the first... something's definitely up.

I'll bet $100 to Warrick that Grissom hasn't noticed a thing about the "new" Sara. I'd wager that he's sitting his office blissfully unaware that his loyal pet has stopped caring about anything but work, if she even really cares about that.

I have to get past him. I have to talk to Sara alone, Grissomless, or I'll never get anything out of her. How to do that...

I'll tell him it's official case business. That leaf case she was workin on, that body dump. No, wait, he'll probably quiz me on why I've got a take-out box in my hands.

Maybe I could leave it at the front desk, then come back for it, circle around the hallway, and then back to Sara. But I don't know where Sara is... What if I run into him again while I'm looking for her?

Ha! I'll page Sara as soon as I get to the parking lot. She can tell me where she is exactly, and I can go in from the closest entrance. I'll park a distance away so I won't see Grissom should he happen to be leaving at the same time I'm entering. My cunning is finally paying off.

::pause:: Traffic's a pain even at this time of night. Sometimes I wish I could (legally) use the undercover siren and clear the streets out a bit...

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Brass surprised himself, his own gruff voice calling out pleadingly in the emptiness of his car. "I'm almost there Sara, almost there..."

TBC....

Author's Note: Pardon the abrupt ending but this is a transitional chapter. I'm setting myself up for the long run (hehehe). The next chapter is GS interaction, then in chapter 5 our hero Brass comes in :)