Disclaimer: Still not mine, though I'm working on it.

A/N: Needed a fluff-break. Beta-ed again by LibraryLady61. I couldn't have done it without you.

Summary: Grissom figured that Sara and Greg shared a thing which he couldn't get hold of. He turned and tried to run away but Sara grabbed him at the collar of his lab coat. A little tribute to Sara and Greg.

Rating: PG

Spoilers: Come on, you know them probably better than I do.


CHAPTER FIVE

Sara and Greg tried to pin a regional map on the wall, when Sara's part slipped out of her hands. She laughed when she noticed that Greg covered with the rest of the map.

"Will you help me out here?" Greg's voice came muffled from under the paper.

"Sara, Greg! What the…?" Grissom entered the room.

Sara giggled. "I wrapped up Greg. He is ready to be FED-EXed I guess."

Greg uncovered himself, his face beet red from embarrassment he avoided Grissom's glance.

"Can I give you a hand with that?" Gil asked her with a wink, jumping into the game.

Sara glanced at him in surprise. "Naw, I'll handle that package." And smiled at him, glad to find him in good mood.

Greg looked from Sara to Grissom and noticed well the improved chemistry going on between them. At least they started talking to each other again and joking even when it's on my account. But watching them exchanging flirtatious looks, as far as bug man would go with that anyway, he wished he could do that Star Trek thingy and simply beam himself away. Not that Greg felt embarrassed, he just wanted them to seize that special moment, as they didn't get too much of them. And Sara actually looked so happy.

She's adorable. She's all woman. Beautiful, tough when needed, but also full of heart. Greg thought. I guess I've a serious crush on her. But not a chance with Grissom around. Or Nick. Or David. Phillips? Lab's gossiping about them having kissed once. What does he have that I haven't? Or Brass? Naw, not him, the detective is definitely not a member of the Sara Sidle fan club. But the looks he gives her? Probably just looking after her. Yeah. This must be it.

Greg simply took a couple of steps back in order to give them some privacy, when Sara said "Greggo, you're not going anywhere. Come on we've some work to do." Simply turned her back at Grissom and grabbed the map.

"We have to locate and pinpoint all events and establish the timeline of the murders. Perhaps we find out the route of our hit man and can forecast his direction." Sara explained.

Grissom nodded. "Due to the statements of the several witnesses, or falsely convicted people I should say, Sam narrowed the profile down. Male Caucasian, probably short blonde hair, brown eyes, 35 to 38 years old. Maybe working as a consultant, a freelancer, commuting between Arizona and Nevada, eventually Utah, as related crimes were only committed in these states. Although we processed all the cars we didn't find a viable finger print or DNA material, no hit in AFIS, CODIS or any other database we consulted. This guy must be clean as a whistle."

"Why not a sales agent or a craftsman?" Greg wanted to know.

"Well, due to his well-groomed appearance, wearing suits and ties Sam simply deducted craftsman. Also there were no obvious signs or remains of products or brochures and to the people's impression he just wasn't the selling kinda guy. Sam had worked together with a forensic artist on the face of our Mystery Man. Combined it with the profile she'd developed, and together with our partial evidence she had it already narrowed it down by visual comparison to 148 hits in the driver's license data base."

Sam Starck entered the room quietly while Grissom stated the facts and listened to his explanation.

"The twist is though" continued Gil, "that the hit man varies with facial hair and wigs. So still a heck of a legwork and interrogation procedure involved for Vega, Brass and the rest of PD. It will probably last days if not weeks if Sam can't narrow it down further."

"Do I hear you criticizing my work, Gil?" She asked.

Grissom turned around, startled but smirked at her "Are we touchy, Sam? I would never do that. Actually I appreciate what you have done to the case so far and it's great to have you on the team. We're certainly making progress here."

Sam and Grissom left together while Sara and Greg concentrated back on the work lying ahead of them.

They finally managed to pin the map on the wall and started flagging the crime scenes or body dump sites as they were.

"What do you think, was that?" Sara asked more to herself recalling the light chat Grissom and Sam had fallen into while leaving the room.

"Jealous, Sar? You simply don't like other woman around him, right?" Greg said.

"Greggo how dare you!" Sara pricking him with the needle of a flag.

"Ouch. Hey, you're going to kill me. Haven't had a tetanus shot in years." Greg rubbed his sore arm.

"Greg, you can't be serious. Immunization is mandatory. You can't get away from it. We are working with hazardous material all the time. You can get yourself in serious trouble here."

Greg looked ashamed. "I'm afraid of syringes." He grinned sheepishly.

"You just have to find a simple distraction while you get your shot. Come on we finish that here and then go to Doc Robbins. He always keeps a couple of tetanus shots in case one needs a quick booster shot. He did my last one. Just don't tell anybody, otherwise he might get into serious trouble."

They entered the coroner's office and found David Phillips.

"Hi, Dave." Sara smiled. "Doc Robbins around?"

"Nope, Sara." David looked up with that dopey glance of him he always had when Sara was around.

"Greg needs a tetanus booster. You know where he keeps it?"

"Sure, Sara. I can do that too, no problem." David was pleased to help her, even when it involved Greg.

Greg glared at both. "This is evil. This is conspiracy." He turned and tried to run away but Sara grabbed him at the collar of his lab coat and drew him near to her.

With a seductive voice she whispered sweet words in his ear and started caressing his neck, nibbling his ear lobe, then she pulled off his coat. With Sara just inches away, Greg simply forgot everything around him, the lab, David, even the syringe.

"Oh, Sara." He sighed, gently striking a strand of hair away from her face and taking her by her arms to draw her on to his chest. Sara welcomed him with a smile and pursed her lips. He took the nod of her head as a yes and kissed her, tasted her lips, explored her mouth. She began to loosen his belt, ohmygawdsarawhatsgoingonhere, then his brain short-circuited while she unbuttoned his slacks. With his mind already gone south, he simply lost himself this very moment when…

"Ouch!" Greg shouted, shocked by the injection David gave him in his back.

Furiously he turned around, stumbling with his trousers around his ankles, nearly falling he managed to grab David by his collar. "What the fuck!" he glared at him.

David chuckled, "Sorry Greg. That wasn't personal. Doc Robbins did the same to me a couple of weeks back. I mean," he blushed "with Sara, um, doing the trick. She does a very good job in that respect." He grinned sheepishly at Sara his face beet red.

"Nice butt, Greggo!" Sara said slapping his naked back. "but you should get dressed properly now, we certainly don't wanna be caught in the act, right?" She grinned bold as brass.

"THAT's HARASSMENT!" Greg shouted half in anger half in despair, making himself decent again.

Sara looked at him, patted his shoulder, than gently kissed his cheek.

"You're a good kisser too." She winked and gave him her best Sidle Smile then said bye and thanks to David.

"Am I?" Greg looked at her calming down instantly. "You owe me, Sidle." He tipped with a finger on her chest. "Let's have dinner together. You pay."

"Any time, Greg. Any time." She chuckled. "Glad I could help." She said with a vicious smile.

"Oh, Sara. You are so mean. You are so adorable. I guess I simply love you!" Greg said quipping.

"Yeah, who doesn't." A hoarse voice commented from behind. Not more than a sigh.

Greg and Sara turned around wondering, but whoever said it, was already gone.


Catherine just returned from Phoenix where she had worked together with the Arizona colleagues from CSI. She wanted to cross-check the evidence to exclude a coincidence of circumstances. And it turned out that the signature of the older cases were a match to the crime Warrick had been involved in and the last one in Nevada.

Nick had met with a CSI up in Salt Lake City, Utah to compare a similar crime. But the murdered girl over there had nothing to do with their current cases. It was just coincidence, which would at least narrow down the cruising radius of Mystery Man to Nevada and Arizona.

Warrick needed to have his blood tested for traces of drug or chemicals which might have knocked him out when he tried to help in the fake car break down. His doctor had found a tiny injection wound in his neck.

Also Mike Mander, the former suspect of Grissom's last case had been examined. He couldn't remember anything except after discovering the dead girl beside him, he simply panicked and ran away, when Highway Patrol arrived. He was set free to go after interrogation, but asked to stay in town in case of further questions.

"Hi, David." Warrick said to Hodges and gave him the blood samples. "Two to go, now please. I'm waiting."

Hodges looked at him. "This is actually not on my list of priorities, I've already a backlog of…"

"Hodges, spare me the details. We have a serial on the loose and he is probably escalating, killing on shorter intervals. We need the results yesterday! You understand that, right?" Warrick glared at him fiery, one hand swatting David's shoulder. The pain made him wince.

"Uh! Yes, Sir!" David Hodges hurried back to work, rubbing his sore shoulder.

Meanwhile the team gathered in the break room for update.

"The girl found near Page was first, than followed by the dump sites in Phoenix, finally ending with the cases in Clark County." Sara explained.

"Looks like he's counting upwards somehow. One in Page, two in the Phoenix area and two near Vegas, so far. I'm guessing we'll soon find a third victim." Greg said.

"Good work, you two. Also the time scale seem to say that he's escalating. Repeat business on shorter intervals and body count going up in his assigned hunting grounds. So we certainly have someone travelling, working based on contracts maybe, picking up female hitchhikers on occasion, then shooting them? Why?" Grissom asked unascertained.

The profiler answered "Gil, I'm actually surprised that you ask motive. I thought you just were interested in facts stated by evidence." She teased.

Grissom shrugged. "I listen and learn. So teach me motive, Sam."

"Mystery Man has been described has friendly, handsome, and well-groomed. I guess he picks up the girls, tries to get a hit on them, maybe even succeed with his effort. But as the coroner told us none of the girls had been raped. Some of them didn't have sex for months and one was a virgin even. So obviously he doesn't get off on sexual intercourse. My guess, he's impotent and blames the girls for his inadequacy."

Meanwhile Cath, Warrick and Nick had joined. Nick jumped to conclusion. "So he punished them."

"So it seems." Sam confirmed.

Catherine nodded and reported the results from her trip to Phoenix PD. "All the bullets were different, which made it so difficult to connect the crimes the first time. Hence our hit man has to keep a certain amount of unregistered weaponry at his disposal. Perhaps we can also add that to the killer's profile."

"Ok, but we simply can't have Brass and Vega bringing one hundred something viable suspects in for interrogation to find out if they are physically incapable of sex and keep a collection of unregistered guns. Come on." Warrick said.

"Well, that would be fun." Sara smiled. "I can do that."

"Sure, you would." Greg commented and gave her a playful nudge.

Grissom figured that Sara and Greg shared a thing which he couldn't get hold of. Certain looks, as if they were somehow closer since they worked together on his team. Sara flirted with Greg, but also mentored him professionally in the field. And no doubt that Greg worshipped Sara, which she obviously seemed to like.

It will probably just take another couple of weeks before they would start seriously dating, I guess. Grissom frowned. In a couple of years Sara would take over and outrank me, for sure she's already outclassing me once a while. She's a brilliant mind and her socializing with co-workers improved tremendously since she had been in counselling. He mused. When time has come, Sara would be ready for it! But will I be prepared to give it away? Will I be prepared to give her away?

"Grissom? You coming?" Catherine asked. "We're going to take a break, have some dinner."

"Uh, what?" Grissom realized that the other had already left. "No, I guess I'm not that hungry. Go without me."

"Oh, oh, Gil! Cranky?. What's bugging you? Or should I say who's bugging? My guess, Sam or no, don't tell me it is still Sara!"

"Cath, don't go there. I also don't backbite on your relationship with Warrick. Leave it alone." Grissom said.

"Oh, I don't mind. Honestly. What do you want to know about me and Warrick? I'll tell you everything." Catherine teased.

"Cath!" Grissom gave her a warning glare. "I rather prefer not to have the details here. Stop it."

"Then make it stop, Gil. Come on, join us, train your social skills once a while." Catherine took his hand and forced him out of his chair.

Grissom shrugged in resignation and sighed. "Ok. You win. This time!"