The flight from Las Vegas to Atlanta was uneventful, with the exception of Sara inducting Grissom into the Mile High Club in what was possibly the smallest, hottest airplane bathroom ever constructed. Unfazed by the heat and closeness, Grissom had enthusiastically forged ahead, causing a giggling and eye-rolling Sara to proclaim, "Grissom, you are enjoying this way too much!"
With a playful growl, he implored her to shut up and rid herself of her panties. Sara tugged at them and then looked around, complaining, "Grissom, how on earth am I supposed to get them off? I can't even move!"
Grissom gave her a withering stare. "How am I supposed to know? You're the one with all the experience in this situation."
A giggle. "I know, but God, I was a lot more nimble, then…"
"Really?" He waggled his eyebrows. "We'll have to work on getting you back to that condition," he said.
After a moment, she managed to shed the offending piece of clothing, and they got to work. Grissom had never had sex in an upright position before, and he was surprised at how difficult it proved to be. Never one to be labeled a quitter, however, he surged onward. When he finally came, red-faced and moaning into her neck, she whispered into his ear, "Welcome to the Mile High Club, Gil." He seemed to find that incredibly hot, and moaned into her neck with even more force.
A moment later, he pulled back from her neck, and they looked at each other and burst out laughing. "Oh, shit," Grissom muttered. "If I look anything like you do, we're going to be in real trouble. I don't think there's any way to hide what we've been doing in here." He watched as Sara's red sweaty face suddenly transformed itself into a look of pure evil.
She gave a mischievous giggle and then just as suddenly, feigned innocence as she raised her eyebrows and asked angelically, "Why, Griss, didn't I tell you?"
"Tell me what?"
"About the reason the Mile High Club is so prestigious."
"Sara, what are you talking about?"
Again with the evil grin. "Griss, everyone on this plane knows what we've been doing in here. It really doesn't matter how discreet you thought we were. We're in the forward lavatory. You think people don't notice when a woman goes in, followed by a man a minute later?" She could not help the wicked smile that was creeping across her face, quickly becoming a full-blown grin. "When we step out of here, we're going to come face-to-face with a plane full of people who know exactly what just happened. That's why the Mile High Club is so exclusive—not many people have the balls to do it, knowing that they're probably going to get a round of applause when they emerge. Now, do you want to go first, or do you want me to be a man and do it for you?" She smirked and watched him carefully, waiting for his response. She figured he would go red with mortification, or rage, or both. To her surprise, he simply shook his head and muttered, "Crap. I'm going to get beaten up. I've haven't been beaten up since eighth grade."
Sara wrinkled her nose and eyebrows at him. She didn't know which statement to address first. She went with the first one. "Beaten up? Why would you get beaten up?"
"Because all those men out there will wonder what a beautiful young woman like yourself was doing in here with an old codger like me. They'll probably think I raped you." As that last sentence left his mouth, the faintest of shadows flickered across Sara's face. Grissom's heart fell into his shoes as he realized the probable implications. Remembering the angry white scar on her hip, he thought, 'Oh, shit. Oh, fuck. God, I had hoped it wasn't that. I prayed that her response to rape cases wasn't personal. God, I think that maybe it is…FUCK!' It took only a millisecond for these thoughts to run their course. Remembering his earlier promise to drop the subject and not raise it again until Sara was ready, he touched her face and said simply, "I'm sorry, Baby. I wasn't thinking. I promise not to bring the issue up again until you're ready, but I do want you to know I'm sorry for saying that." The sorrow in his voice was evident, and Sara smiled at his contrition.
"It's okay, Griss." She reached up and squeezed his hand. Her smile faded as her eyes became distant with some unknown memory. "I promise we'll talk about it soon. I just—"
Grissom interrupted her, placing two fingers over her lips. "You don't need to explain yourself to me. I love you and I accept you unconditionally, with whatever baggage you're carrying. I'll wait patiently. After all," he said with a raised eyebrow, "I think you've done more than your share of waiting on me, eh?"
Sara smiled and shook her head. Dragging her mind back to their current predicament, she said, "So…you wanna go first? I'll follow after a few minutes."
In a particularly bold and un-Grissomlike move, he grabbed her hand and said, "Well, why don't we just go out together if everyone already knows what we've been doing in here?"
Sara's jaw dropped open. "God, Griss. What have you done with the Gil Grissom we all know and love? Are you on drugs?"
He laughed. "Come on, you game?"
She set her jaw. "Ok, let's do it. But you still have to exit first, even if I'm going to be right behind you."
"Deal."
After a few rudimentary attempts to make themselves look somewhat presentable, Grissom slid the latch back and opened the door. Holding Sara's hand in his own, he stepped out into the blissfully cool air. He figured he might as well get it over with, so he looked straight ahead at their traveling companions in the first-class section. They were more fortunate than Sara predicted. They didn't get applause, but they did garner quite a few large grins, as well as a couple of thumbs-ups from a pair of thoroughly wasted newlyweds. As Grissom led Sara back to their seats (which were, unfortunately, in the very last row of first class), a couple of businessmen-looking types reached up and punched his arm, muttering things like, "Way to go, man," and "Nice one, buddy." Grissom expected to feel nothing but keen embarrassment, but was surprised to feel an odd sense of pride. After all, he was incredibly lucky to have a gorgeous creature like Sara holding his hand and doing naughty things in airplane bathrooms with him.
As they finally settled into their seats, a flight attendant sauntered by, smirking. "Can I get you anything, Sir, Ma'am?" she asked politely, but with a knowing smile. 'Dear God in Heaven. Even the flight attendant knows.' Mentally smacking himself, he thought, 'Of course the flight attendant knows. It's not like she's never seen this kind of thing before.'
Aloud, he said, "Uh," momentarily taken aback.
"Drinks are complimentary in first class, Sir," she reminded him. He looked over at the besotted newlyweds. They had obviously been taking full advantage of all of the perks of flying first-class.
'Damn, do I look like I need a drink? I could sure as hell use a cigarette right now, though. I guess a drink will have to do.'
"Scotch, please."
During this entire exchange, Sara had been sitting next to him in her window seat, violently shaking with pent-up laughter. This was absolutely classic. She had no idea what kind of alien had taken over Gil Grissom's body, but she was sure as hell enjoying every minute of it. He was so…laid back. Anyone who had ever met the man for five minutes knew that there was not a laid-back bone in his body, but lately…who knew?
As an afterthought, Grissom said, "And a glass of wine for the lady here." As the flight attendant left to get the drinks, Grissom spoke to Sara, never removing his eyes from the forensics journal now lying in his lap. "Since you are so obviously enjoying this, I thought some alcohol might calm you down a little," he said dryly. Sara responded with a girlish giggle. Unable to help himself, Grissom added his own laughter to the mix as he reached over and laced his fingers through Sara's. She smiled contentedly as she leaned over and rested her head on his shoulder. He turned his head to plant a gentle kiss atop her curls. "I love you, Sara." He loved the way it felt—and sounded—to say that.
Brown eyes fluttered closed at the words. "Mmm," she murmured. "I love you, too."
----------
As the plane began its long descent through the clouds, the captain's voice came over the intercom. "Ladies and gentlemen, we are beginning our descent to Atlanta's Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport. We should be on the ground in about 35 minutes. The weather in Atlanta is stormy, with a temperature of 75 degrees. Because of the storm, we will likely encounter a fair amount of turbulence in our descent. If you have not already done so, please fasten your seatbelts now. For those of you who with connecting flights, I will now announce the departure gates of those flights…" As the captain began the long list of departure gates, Grissom nudged Sara awake. She wasn't wearing her seatbelt, and he wanted her to get it on before they encountered any turbulence.
"Sara? Love? Wake up, Sweetheart."
Sara lazily opened her eyes, raising her eyebrows and looking around with a yawn. She stretched her legs out in front of her as best she could. She thanked God for the extra leg room afforded by their first class accommodations. Grissom gently swept his thumb across her cheekbone, struck again by her beauty. "Baby, we're descending, but there's a storm in Atlanta, so the captain said to put on our seatbelts. There will probably be a lot of turbulence."
A look flashed across Sara's eyes—one that Grissom wasn't quite familiar with. She wrinkled her eyebrows together and clasped his hand tightly.
"What's wrong?" he asked.
"This is so stupid…" she began.
"What is it?"
"Um…I absolutely love to fly, but I'm petrified of turbulence," she said sheepishly. "I mean, for God's sake, I have a degree in physics. I know that turbulence is no different than encountering a bumpy road while driving, and that the plane is not going to just fall out of the sky, but…" Her voice trailed off. She shrugged. "I don't know, it's not rational, but it scares the crap out of me," she admitted.
Grissom's heart squeezed at the intimacy she displayed by admitting her irrational fear to him. "It's okay, Sar," he said. "If you want irrational fear, here's one for you. Clowns creep me the hell out. I can't stand the damn things." He raised an eyebrow at her. "There. Feel better? You're not the only one with strange fears." She gave him a nervous giggle. "Just hold my hand through the turbulence. Squeeze as tightly as you want. It'll be fine, I promise." He gave the top of her head yet another gentle kiss.
Half an hour later, as the plane touched down on the wet tarmac in Atlanta, Grissom finally managed to extricate his hand from Sara's death grip. He flexed it painfully. She had certainly taken him at his word when he told her to squeeze as tightly as she pleased. To her credit, though, the tight clutching of her fingers was the only outward sign of her nervousness. And Grissom had to admit, the turbulence had been pretty bad. There were even a couple of drops that had gotten his heart racing. During the worst one, during which (by Grissom's best estimate) the plane dropped a few hundred feet, Sara had uttered a barely audible gasp. Once Grissom's stomach returned to its normal locale in his abdomen, rather than somewhere up in his head, he had reached over with his free hand and tickled her belly to distract her. The gratitude in her eyes had absolutely melted his heart (and momentarily dulled the pain in his other hand).
As the plane taxied to the gate, Sara glanced at his hand mournfully as he attempted to get some feeling back into it. "I'm sorry, Griss," she said with a grimace. "I didn't mean to hurt you."
Grissom chuckled. "It's okay. I'm sure the blood supply hasn't been permanently cut off."
Sara punched his arm lightly. "Hey, you're the one who told me to squeeze as much as I needed to."
Grissom nodded in agreement. "Noted," he said amiably.
----------
Fifteen minutes later, they were wandering around the airport, plenty of time to kill before their connecting flight. Grissom was being Grissom, spouting off his useless tidbits of information about Hartsfield and the city of Atlanta. God only knew where he picked up this kind of information.
"Sara, did you know that Hartsfield is the busiest airport in the world?"
"Really?" she replied. "I thought that distinction belonged to O'Hare…"
"Not anymore. And this airport is the largest employment center in the state of Georgia."
Sara gave him a withering look before turning on her heel and heading into a Sunglass Hut she had just spotted. It had dawned on her during the flight that she had forgotten to pack sunglasses.
Grissom followed her, unfazed and still yakking about the airport and the city. "Hartsfield has four runways of varying lengths—two Category III runways, one Category II runway, and one Category I runway. Oh, and this is cool—the underground People Mover connects all terminals together on a 3.5 mile loop. You never have to wait more than two minutes between trains. And as far as the city itself goes, Atlanta is the largest city in the Southeastern United States. Some very prestigious companies call Atlanta home. BellSouth, CNN, and SunTrust bank are all headquartered here. You've heard of Peachtree Street, of course. Did you know that there are over fifty streets in Atlanta with Peachtree in the name? Peachtree Battle Road, Peachtree Hills, and the list goes on and on…"
Sara stopped in her tracks and turned to face him. She tilted her head slightly to the side, raised an eyebrow, and gave him an 'I-don't-know-whether-you're-totally-annoying-or-totally-adorable' look. "Grissom," she started. She was about to say something totally sarcastic when she just stopped and asked him in wonderment, "Where do you get this shit?"
He stopped short and burst out laughing, unable to help himself. The way she was looking at him was simply too cute. Shaking his head, he stepped to her, throwing his arm lazily around her neck, and walked into the Sunglass Hut with her. "What do you want in here?" he asked.
"Oh," she replied. "It dawned on me during the flight that I forgot to bring sunglasses. Yeah, I know—I'm super slick. Who packs for a trip to Florida but forgets sunglasses, right?"
Grissom laughed at her self-deprecating act. "Hey, it could happen to anyone." Looking around, he said, "Well, pick out what you want. It's on me."
"Grissom—" she started.
"Shut up, Sara. Just pick out some sunglasses, for the love."
"Well, just so you know, I was going to buy Oakleys, but they're over a hundred bucks a pair…"
"What the hell?" Grissom said, yanking his own Oakleys off the top of his head and looking at them like they were some alien species.
"Uh, Grissom? You okay? What's wrong?" Sara was looking at him like he'd lost his mind.
"These things are over a hundred bucks a pair?"
"Yes…" Sara didn't know where he was going with this.
"Damn—Nick gave me these for Christmas. I mean, I figured they weren't cheap, but I never dreamed he'd spend that much on me."
Sara chuckled. This man was so brilliant, yet so adorably clueless about some things. Here he had laid out thousands of dollars for her in the last few days, and he was freaking over the price of some Oakleys. "Ok, so I take it you don't want to buy me the Oakleys, then?" Sara ventured.
"No, no, that's not it. I don't care—buy whatever you want," he said distractedly. "I just can't believe Nick spent that much on me for a Christmas gift. Why would he do that?"
Sara giggled again. "God, Griss, you're so dense sometimes. Nick did it because he adores you. He looks up to you, Hon. He did it because he wanted to."
Grissom shook his head. "Remind me to thank him again when we get back, ok?"
"Sure thing, Babe."
Grissom's heart fluttered at her term of endearment.
A few minutes later, Sara had picked out a pair of sunglasses. The frame was silver, and the lenses had a slight pink tint to them. They looked perfect on her. As Grissom stood at the counter, paying for them, she wrapped herself possessively around his arm. Grissom was beginning to think he could get used to this.
As the clerk gave Sara the bag, she leaned up and kissed Grissom's cheek. "Thank you," she murmured.
He looked down at her, smiling. "You are so welcome."
They wandered back out into the Atrium of the airport. Their connecting flight would be leaving in about an hour and a half, so they still had a little time to explore before finding their gate. Sara gave Grissom's hand a sudden squeeze as she spotted something. "Ooh, I have an idea," she cooed. She tugged at him and he obediently followed her. She pointed up at the wall, where a sign proclaimed "Welcome to Atlanta" in huge metal letters. She dug in her purse for her phone. Grissom gave her a questioning look, but said nothing. Sara looked around for a moment before stepping up to a nice-looking couple.
"Excuse me," she said to the woman. "Would you mind taking a picture of my boyfriend and me?" she asked sweetly, handing the woman her cell phone. "Just push this button here, and if you don't mind, try to get the 'Welcome to Atlanta' sign in the picture." Grissom's stomach fluttered at her use of the word 'boyfriend.' 'Oh, my God…I'm Sara Sidle's boyfriend!' he thought giddily.
Sara shoved him backward toward the wall. "This is for the guys at the lab, in case they don't believe Catherine. Here, kiss me while she takes the picture." Grissom was still in shock, but gathered his wits enough to pull Sara close and press his mouth lovingly to hers for a moment.
"Ok, got it," the smiling woman said. Grissom reluctantly pulled back from the kiss. Sara thanked the woman profusely for her time and took the phone back, looking at the picture. It actually looked pretty good, to Grissom's surprise. Sara typed a message to go along with the picture.
Cath, Just in case the guys don't believe you. We all know the evidence never lies, right? You can prove we're in Atlanta together! Thanks for everything, Cath. Love, Gil and Sara
Sara showed Grissom the message, then typed in Catherine's cell phone number and hit "send." She giggled like a little girl as she leaned into Grissom for a hug. Grissom smiled and wrapped his arms around her.
"Hey," he said. "Let's grab a bite to eat, then try out the People Mover!"
Sara just shook her head in amusement. Some things never change.
----------
Forty-five minutes later, they had enjoyed the food at Houlihan's and were headed to take the People Mover to their next gate.
"Grissom!" Sara complained when she saw it. "It's just a friggin' subway!" He had talked it up so much, she had been expecting something really cool.
"Yeah, what did you expect?" he smirked.
"You suck," she teased.
"Not as well as you do," he replied, making Sara's jaw drop in shock. He continued, "I won't even comment on the appropriateness of your jaw hanging open like that…"
"Damn, Grissom," she muttered, much as Catherine had after his last blatantly sexual comment that day. "What has gotten into you?"
He leaned in close and put his arms around her. Leaning down to nuzzle his face in her hair near her ear, he murmured, "I am so madly in love with you, and I loathe myself for not having allowed this to happen years ago. Any questions?"
Speechless, she just looked up at him, lips slightly parted, and shook her head.
TBC…
A/N: Wanna know why I have such an intimate knowledge of the Atlanta airport? Well, first of all, I live about an hour and a half north of Atlanta, so I have oft utilized the airport there. But the real reason is that when my husband and I got married, we honeymooned in Cancun, and our flight left from Atlanta. We drove to Atlanta following our wedding, and the flight was scheduled to leave at 10 am the next morning. We arrived at the airport at 8 am, only to find that the flight had been pushed back to 11 am, then to 1 pm. The flight continued to be delayed, delayed, canceled, rescheduled, delayed again, and finally rescheduled. We ended up taking off at 11:30 pm that night, FIFTEEN AND A HALF hours after we arrived at the airport. We effectively lost an entire day of our honeymoon, considering we were originally supposed to arrive in Cancun in the early afternoon, and didn't check into our resort until 3 am. Let me tell you, by the time we boarded that flight, I never wanted to see Hartsfield again. Ugh. What a way to start a marriage, right?
Oh, yeah, and the Oakleys that Sara buys are exactly like the ones my sister has. My sister and I are both very similar looking to Jorja Fox in terms of coloring and such, so I figured if they look perfect on my sister, they'd look perfect on Sara. Yeah, I know--I'm really random today. It could have to do with the massive amount of allergy drugs that are in my system right now. Tennessee is beautiful, but it is a friggin' PIT when it comes to allergies.