Chapter 41

Chaos

Stepping through the doors of CSI was like coming home for Gil. The same harsh lighting, the same sounds of life as it bustled all around him. It was comforting, coming back to it after having been away for it from almost a week.

Sara yawned, "it's good to be back," she said, she sounded unenthusiastic in her exhaustion. She stumbled tiredly behind Gil in the hall.

"I'm gonna go find Cath and find out what's on top priority right now," Gil stated, "you go take a cold shower, wash the sweat off—"

Sara blinked, she stopped in mid-step,"Are you saying I stink?" she asked, sounding somewhat slightly offended.

"Sara…We've both been over twenty-four hours without a shower in warm airport conditions, without a deodorant in sight – we both stink," he stifled a yawn, "a shower will waken you up. When you're done, come back to my office – by then I'll have figured out roughly what needs to be done right now and where you need to be."

"Okay," Sara nodded. "Wow." She said with a sigh, "trip is finally over…"

"Yeah…it is…" he noticed small fluffy feather clinging to the shoulder of her top, he reached over and picked it off with an absent tenderness. As much as the threat of backlog of work was looming over him, he didn't want to walk away from her at that moment. The trip wasn't the only thing that felt like it was over, he was very aware that for the next few days, all their time would need to be exclusively concentrated on work.

"Thanks for havin' me along," Sara smirked, she turned to head towards the locker room where she could make use of the private shower. "I'll catch you later."

Gil watched her disappear down the hall, his mind shifted back to thoughts of being on the bed, of that absurd purple bra of hers, of how the top of her breasts had swelled out of it, how her flesh felt against his fingers, his lips, and his tongue.

No, no, no. Remember the deal. Work is for work, when you're at work you think only about work. We really have to focus. The lab is in a bind, I need to concentrate on only work. There's plenty time later to think about the purple bra, he chided himself.

As he passed by the lab he glanced through the windows to see a rather weary looking Greg Sanders, working with an intense nervous tension. Greg raised his head to see him, his face lighting up as if Gil had been his hero who'd come to save the day. Gil gave a slight wave, and kept on walking.

As he stepped up to his office, he found the door wide open. He stared past the threshold to see Catherine Willows sitting behind his desk. Both her cellular phone, and the office phone were ringing persistently, she was frantically searching through a pile of folders on the desk for a case file. There was a cigarette smoldering in an ashtray and she picked it up to take a quick and rather frenzied drag before stubbing it out.

Gil took this one quick moment to examine how much paperwork had piled up, his in tray was stacked, his out tray barely had two sheets of paper in it.

"Fear not," Gil spoke up finally, "for the reinforcements have finally arrived," he smirked.

Catherine raised her head, her own face lit up just as Greg's had moments earlier, "oh my god, you're finally here," she looked as if she might be close to tears, Her hair was pulled back tight from her face in a ponytail that made her features seem sharper, making her face seem as if it might have aged ten years within the passage of six days.

Catherine rushed up from the desk to hug him, he was overwhelmed by this, but realised it spoke of just how glad she was to see him right at this moment, "where's Sara?"

"She went to take a shower to try and wake herself up before starting work," Gil said, he held up a plastic bag, "this are for you."

Catherine moved back, took the bag, opened it and gazed in, "tampons!"

"Sssh," he put his finger to his lips, motioning for her to be quiet, "lets not have people assuming I shop for your personal items. I sent Sara for them," he added.

"You're a life saver," Catherine said gratefully.

Gil moved behind his desk, "Cath, you are aware this is a non-smoking building," he pointed to the ashtray.

"Yeah, if you'd been here for the past six days dealing with this shit you'd be smoking too – at least forty a day. When all this is over I'm going to have to break out the Nicotine Gum again," she sighed.

"Okay, so tell me…where are we at?"

It was almost the end of the shift, and things weren't completely under control – no where near under control at all. But everything immediate and prioritized had been dealt with accordingly. Catherine was beginning to slowly calm down, and Gil somehow managed to clear some of his paperwork, still managing to go out on the field to investigate a crime scene on his own. Sara was in one of the interview rooms with a suspect, Warrick was examining evidence, and Greg was still snowed under with DNA samples in the lab.

Gil hadn't had the chance to enter the lab all night, fifteen minutes before the shift was due to end, he slipped in quietly, the Lab was deathly silent save the soft humming of the computer. Greg turned to see him, "hey," he said.

"Still backed up?" Gil asked, he noted the workload. A pile of envelopes and packets in a tray by Greg's side.

"I'm coping," he assured.

"Cath told me you were getting pretty stressed out," Gil confessed.

"I'm fine. So how was Scotland? Can't have been great if you came back so early…" Greg was swabbing the inside of a used condom.

"It was great, but the hotel caught on fire," Gil responded, he moved to the long tray of packets and envelopes of DNA samples from various cases. Everything was out of order, it was no wonder Greg was going out of his mind.

"Shouldn't let Sara play with matches," Greg joked, he used his wrist to wipe the sweat from his brow.

"Hey…"

Gil and Greg both turned to see Sara enter, she looked exhausted, her eyelids drooping slightly.

"Hey," Gil said, just the image of her there brought back visions of seeing her on the bed again, he tried to force the images away and focus on work, "everything okay?"

"I just wrapped up a case," Sara moved over, "I know there's fifteen minutes left to the shift, but…I'm so tired, I don't think I can do anything else," she explained.

She did look tired – to the point of perhaps collapsing. Gil felt the concern for her, "You should knock off early. Fifteen minutes is fine…"

"Can I knock off early too?" Greg asked hopefully.

"This needs done immediately," Gil said, he held up a packet, "it was mixed in with the non priority stuff," he pointed out. "Get this done, and then you can go."

"Yes!" Greg lit up once again, "will do."

Gil gestured towards the door to Sara, and he followed her out there, closing the door behind him, the hall was quiet as it usually was between the shift change. "How are you getting home?"

"Walking?" Sara responded, more of a question than an answer. "My car is at home," she reminded.

"Get a ride home with Greg, you're exhausted, you'll end up collapsing before you make it past the parking lot."

Sara smirked, "Okay…"

Gil stepped a little closer, he felt the irresistible urge to kiss her, to reminder how of how passionate the kisses had been over twenty-four hours ago on the bed.

"How are you getting home?"

"I'll ask Catherine for a ride…"

"Cath has had about as little sleep as you've had," Sara folded her arms.

"She's also taken caffeine pills and she's still more alert than either one of us," Gil smirked, "we'll be fine. Go wait in the locker room, I'll tell Greg I'm ordering him to chauffeur you."

And then, much to his complete astonishment, he did something he had not planned to do at all. He stepped forward, took gentle hold of her arms, and kissed her forehead tenderly. It had been something he'd been doing all week whenever he parted with her. He'd grown so accustomed to doing it, that right now, it had just happened without being deliberate.

It wasn't until after he'd done it he remembered suddenly where he was and what he'd really just done. A public display of affection in his workplace – when he was trying to keep the relationship a secret. He'd forgotten himself completely, something that he wasn't completely used to doing, and certainly not in his place of work.

Sara looked at him blankly, he could see she wanted to ask why he'd done it, but he knew if she did he would never be able to answer. "I…uh…" he turned towards the glass to see Greg on the other side inside the lab, staring at them in disbelief, mouth hanging open. It was lucky that the hall had been devoid of any other people to witness the public display of affection.

"See you tomorrow, Sara…" Gil said, and he waved her off quickly. He went back into the lab, he was ready to receive the onslaught of questions he knew Greg would have.

"Did I just see you do that or have I totally lost my mind altogether?" Greg asked blinking, he had a swab in one hand, poised as if he'd been ready to do something with it, but had left it there in the air as if he'd frozen in shock.

"You lost your mind years ago," Gil said, "I don't want Sara walking home – she hasn't slept, will you drive her?"

"You're avoiding the question," Greg retorted, "you just kissed her – out in the hallway. You never do that, not to anyone, not even to Cath, and she's like your bestest buddy…"

"I kissed her head, and it was just a friendly gesture, to say thanks for putting in the overtime on her day off."

"Should we all expect this 'friendly gesture' on the head every time we pull in overtime?" Greg asked raising an eyebrow. "Because I gotta say, as much as I like praise, your lips and my head just aren't going to be meeting anytime soon."

"Keep this up and the next time you do overtime, you shouldn't even expect to get paid," Gil warned.

Greg suppressed his smirk and lowered his head to try and hide this as best he could, "right."

"Back to my question. Will you drive Sara home?"

"Yes. As soon as I'm done," Greg assured.

"Fine. She's waiting in the locker room for you. Drive carefully, okay?" Gil sighed and left the lab.

As he made his way back to his office, he found himself reliving the moment when he'd kissed Sara's forehead right there in the hallway. He couldn't quite believe he'd done it at all. It was so careless, foolish, frightening, and most of all, completely unlike him.

This…is the beginning of the end, he thought.

Someone personally deemed me "Queen of updates".I think this is the 4th in 24 hours. Do I get a prize? J/K.

Thanks to everyone who's been reviewing so far, I'll be adding the list of reviewers in the next chapter (I like to keep things nice and even.)

So how about Gil, huh? I know people will say it's very OOC but I've had the same thing happen to me where I've done something completely out of my character without even realising it and then realising it minutes later and being mortified, some people might be able to relate. This was really an homage to the Friend's episode when Chandler kissed Monica in front of Phoebe and Rachel before either of their friends knew they were romantically involved. I just liked the idea of doing it without even having thought about it, hehe.

SS