Geek's A/N: Well. Here it is. The end. I have to say, this has been an incredibly fun ride-from collaborating over the story, to seeing what Leslie was going to come up with next, to bitching each other out over our little cliffies! I hope you guys enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed being a part of it!

Scully's A/N: Yeah, what she said. Really though, thank you all.

For Las Vegas, it was frigid.

Water resists temperature change. In humid climates, the moisture in the air absorbs the sun's heat during the day and releases it again at night, keeping the temperature fairly steady—usually no more than a 20-degree fluctuation during any given 24-hour period.

But desert air…Desert air is a different story. With little to no airborne moisture, there is nothing to act an insulator. And so fluctuations of up to 90 degrees between day and night are not uncommon.

Like tonight.

Sara Sidle was shivering in her tiny, thin t-shirt and windbreaker, cursing herself for not thinking ahead. The dusk hours had been deceptive, however, and she had deluded herself into thinking that her heavy overcoat would not be needed this evening. How wrong she was.

The temperature had slid from a balmy 70 degrees at 9 pm down to a hypothermia-inducing 36 degrees three hours later.

The shivering she thought she could handle; it was her hands that were killing her. The fine, detail-oriented process of collecting forensic evidence was not conducive to wearing thick gloves, so her long, slender fingers were moving slowly, impeded by the cold. Her flesh had already constricted to the point that her wedding and engagement rings were sliding up and down her left ring finger, inducing her to worry incessantly about whether or not she would lose them. Finally, she had had enough. "Nick!" she barked.

His head snapped up, alarmed. "What is it?"

Sara's face softened. "Uh, sorry. Can you toss me a bindle, please? I think I'm out."

Nick tossed her the requested item and watched in keen amusement as she pulled off her wedding jewelry and placed it in the bindle, neatly sealing and labeling it before sticking it into her pocket. "I'm so damn cold my rings are about to fall off, and it's distracting me," she said by way of explanation. Standing up, she looked around. "Ok," she said, looking up at the sky. "We just need to make our way around the perimeter again and I think we'll be good to go. Let's just hope that rain holds off."

It didn't. Twenty minutes later found a now cold and wet Sara Sidle shivering at the back of the Tahoe as she and Nick loaded evidence inside. She was daydreaming about how wonderful the truck's warm heat would feel when suddenly a gut-clenching thought occurred to her. Closing her eyes slowly against the answer she feared, she turned to Nick and asked, "Nick? Which Tahoe is this?" 'Please don't say it's Catherine's, please don't say it's Catherine's.'

"Uh…" he thought. "I think it's the one Catherine usually drives. The one with the—" his eyes widened.

"Busted heater," they finished together.

Nick hung his head for a moment before slamming his hand flat against the back window of the Tahoe. "Shit!" He cursed. After a moment, he shrugged. "At least we'll be out of the wind and rain," he reasoned.

The ride home was miserable for both driver and passenger. Sara sat huddled in the passenger seat, knees pulled up to her chest, shivering as if the thin windbreaker didn't even exist. Nick was cold, as well, but was at least slightly distracted by wiping the fog off of the windshield every minute or so—the lack of heat had created more than just a comfort problem.

The rain had stopped by the time they arrived back at the lab, but the moods of both CSIs were definitely worse for the wear. Sara grabbed the evidence that needed to go to Trace, Nick grabbed the paperwork, and the two went their separate ways.

Which is how Grissom found Sara, striding down the hallway, bag in hand, sour look upon her face. Her hair hung in wet ringlets around her face, which he thought was adorable, but he exercised excellent judgment when he refrained from commenting upon that fact. The bigger story was that she was freezing. Obviously freezing. Her posture, the way she clenched her hands, her pale lips—it all pointed to the obvious—Sara Sidle was freezing cold. He spied Greg coming down the hall to his left and called out to him. "Greg! Come here."

His spunky lab-tech-turned-CSI did just that, trotting amiably over to where his boss was corralling Sara. "Everything filled out and in order?" he was asking her. She gave him a quick nod. He took the bag from her and handed it to Greg. "Take this to Hodges; tell him it's Sara's case, so he won't push it to the back of the line," he added, rolling his eyes. When Greg walked off with the bag, Grissom gently pushed Sara into his office. "Come on, let's get you out of that sopping windbreaker." She obediently held her arms over her head as he tugged the windbreaker over her head…and promptly began to gawk.

"Whoa," he said in a low voice.

Sara growled at him, and shot him a glare. Sure, her shirt was nearly see through and the chill had caused... distractions... but there was a more pressing matter at hand. "Oh, stop being such a guy and ggget me a sweater or something."

Her lips had gone nearly completely numb. A violent shiver ran through her, snapping Grissom from his reverie and he brought her over to his couch and sat her down, unfolding the tattered afghan that lay on the back of it. Sara took it with appreciation and brought it tightly around her body.

Gil moved to his desk, reaching into a low drawn to retrieve a sweatshirt. And he looked at her, seated there. Her cheeks were pink from the wind; her hair was shiny with crystal drops of precipitation dripping off the end. Rivulets sluiced down over her cheeks in slow rivers. Entirely cold, looking increasingly helpless, his heart clenched. It clenched even more so when he realized that she was toying with her wedding band absently.

"How long were you out there for honey?" Gil asked, striding over to her, placing the worn cotton in her shivering hands. Quickly, he sat and took her hands between his. Sara smiled childishly and sat back.

"In the rain? A few minutes, Nick's a tad worse off than I am though, he had to drive back; his legs just kept cramping up. You know, Cath requisitioned to have that fixed forever ago." She shot him her best glare. "You really should get on that."

"Done," he replied firmly. "I'll have it taken care of first thing tomorrow."

They sat in comfortable silence for a few moments, as Sara slowly regained some warmth in her body. Then out of nowhere, she emitted a small chuckle.

"What?" Grissom asked, curious.

A slow smile was winding its way across her lips. She shrugged shyly, saying, "Nothing. Just...remember the last time we did this?"

Grissom wrinkled his eyebrows. "Did what?"

"Grissom!" she said, exasperated. "This is where it all started. Last time I got stuck in the frigid desert with inadequate clothing, I came back to the lab, still freezing, and you gave me a UNLV sweatshirt and an afghan, and we ended up in a screaming match because you said you wanted what you couldn't have. Hello?" she asked, rolling her eyes good-naturedly.

Grissom's eyes lit up, and he sat back on the couch with a self-satisfied look on his face. "Ahh," he said. "The wheel is come full circle."

"Your good friend Willie Shakespeare, I assume?" Sara asked, smiling.

"None other than King Lear, as a matter of fact."

Sara leaned forward, letting the afghan fall away slightly. Grissom stared at her, enamored with her wide brown eyes, her still-wet hair, and the lips that were full and red from exposure to the cold. She held his gaze for a minute before asking in a low, throaty voice, "Do you still know what you want?"

Grissom tore his eyes away from his wife's face and lowered them to her left hand. He reached out and fingered the rings that encircled the third finger, then grasped her hand and pulled it to his chest. As he placed her hand directly over his heart, he locked his eyes on hers and murmured through constricted vocal chords, "What I want is so deeply imbedded right here that nothing will ever be able to remove it."

Sara laughed at him, long and low and throaty. Beautiful. "That... is probably the cheesiest thing you've ever said."

Grissom grinned, leaned forward and kissed her gently. "Hey, can't blame a guy for trying."

Her arms wound around his neck then, and she brought his forehead to hers. "No, no you can't."

End