Thanks to Sara for the read through and Mr. Cheesefires for the beta.

"I'm running out of ideas."

Grissom plucked the glasses from his face and promptly planted his face into his palms. "I'm running out of ideas," he reiterated.

Sara licked the sauce from her mouth and then dabbed at it with a napkin. "Huh?" She took another large bite of her eggplant sub and recrossed her legs. While waiting for him to answer, she cracked a Diet Pepsi, stuck a straw into it and unknowingly taunted him once more with her mouth.

When he didn't offer up any response, she sat forward and spoke. "You're running out ideas for... what? You can't just say that out loud and not explain-"

"Ideas for... you know, going... out." He finished his sentence meekly, his voice distinctly forlorn. It was, to her, absolutely adorable and she had to smile around the straw of her soda. Worrying the little plastic thing between her teeth, she ran through the possibilities of what to say to him.

Sara cleared her throat and pulled the straw from her mouth. "What, you mean like, dates?"

Grissom sighed, exasperated, his cheeks red. "Yes, as in dates, Sara."

Sara, in a moment of pure cleverness, placed her can on his desk and folded her hands in her lap. "I uh, are we dating Grissom?" Looking down at her hands, she swallowed hard. "I just, I thought we were, you know friends."

Sweat broke out on his brow and he fought with his tongue to form coherent words and string them into a sentence. It wasn't so much happening for him. "Oh, I, Sara, just... never mind, I thought-"

Sara sighed heavily and brought her sub back up for another bite. "Oh, Griss," she said after she had swallowed. "It's just too easy... the look on your face-"

"What?"

Sara grinned at him, playing with her straw, twirling it in the can. "I don't know, I think we're past dating. Though if dating means we can keep on with the kissing and you know, the sleeping together... I'm all for voting." She quirked her brow at him, dangerously, feral, and it made his lips turn up just a tiny, tiny bit.

"So... we're dating."

Sara shrugged and went back to eating. "Up to you," she mumbled around a mouthful of eggplant.

Grissom smacked his hands on the desk and she laughed. "Sara!"

"It's up to you!" She laughed again and took the last bite of her sub. Licking her lips again, she sat forward, looked back and forth conspiratorially. "But yeah, between you and me, I'm fairly certain that we're dating. And what's more... I think we're pretty good at it."

Grissom's brow creased as he thought about that statement. "Are we?"

Sara grabbed her trash and tossed it in the barrel behind his desk. After that, soda in one hand, she splayed the other over the back of his neck and leaned in. "Ohhhh, you better believe it," she whispered into his ear and left the office.

Grissom regarded his egg salad sandwich for awhile, and then tossed it, picking up a file and flipping it open, hoping to lose himself in the monotony of paperwork.

But he couldn't turn his mind off, it was running wild with 'maybes' and 'what ifs'.

They saw each other twice that night, once in trace and once as she was about to leave the lab. He made sure that she was coming by his house afterwards and they left it at that, Grissom still in a mood, stuck somewhere between elation and despair.

She arrived at his house a half an hour late. It'd been her idea to cook dinner in and she wanted to find something that they could both settle on for dinner.

Sara had stood for nearly five minutes in the meat department, wondering if she could do what she'd wanted to do. Relationships meant compromise, and if it made him happy, if he ate it, she'd try to cook it. Compromise, yes. Compromise was the key word.

So, Sara reluctantly reached out and grabbed a package of chicken breasts. After running through the produce sections she brought her purchases to the checkout and paid.

Her driving was somewhat erratic as she zipped off to his apartment, not wanting to be so incredibly late that he thought she was ditching him. She hopped out of her car and grabbed the grocery bags and ran up the stairs, arriving at his door breathless.

She was looking at the floor when he opened the door and she looked up and was thrown off course by what she saw.

The living room was alight with the warm glow of candles, the scent of vanilla sauntering out to entangle her senses.

"I thought you were running out of ideas," Sara said smugly, passing by him, into his home.

Grissom smiled and watched her as she walked by him. "Well, let's say I was inspired. And I thought," he began, voice low and sexy, moving over to where she was standing. "That we could christen this new phase of our friendship with a, gee, I don't know, hello kiss?"

Sara, all smiles, turned to face him, planting her hands firmly on the counter behind her. She looked up at him and waited. "Well, what are you waiting for, this is your idea."

So he kissed her, rather hungrily, making her moan in that distinct way he'd been longing to hear. Sara kissed back, just as thoroughly, pushing him across the kitchen, back into the other counter.

"Uh, yeah, you're uh, you're gonna take me to the bedroom now and I'll uh... make food later." She began kissing his neck, wet, opened mouth kisses that trailed down onto his collarbone.

Grissom's voice was breathy and oh so sexy when he spoke. "But I was just getting the hang of this dating thing." His own mouth attacked her neck, forcing her to claw down his back.

"Oh," she started. "But that was before the candles and the, ah god, the vanilla and the, jesus, Griss! Before the whole love thing..."

Grissom stopped kissing and pulled his head back from her. "But, I thought that was all in the past. That we had to rebuild from the rubble and..."

Sara laughed and kissed him again, wrapping her arms tightly around his neck. "Oh, you think you're that easy to get over, Gil Grissom." He regarded her for a moment, at a loss for what to say. She kissed him on the nose, making him smile skeptically. "Not even close."

Grissom, in a moment of pure insanity, wrapped his hands around her thighs and lifted her from the ground. Sara gasped and chuckled at his sudden movement. "So there's something else here, is there."

"Oh, well," she drew out, grinning. "That's up to you!"

Grissom's face turned to a frown and he growled at her and began moving towards his bedroom.

Sara laughed and buried her face into his neck. "I mean, it's really a multiple choice question... you can have 'a', the friendship and the things that come with that... 'b' the dating and the things that come with that, or, 'c', the whole 'lover' thing." She laughed again as he moved to set her down on the bed.

"And what about 'd'?" Grissom asked, standing in front of her.

Sara regarded him beneath tousled hair with her sparkling eyes. "Option 'd'?"

"All of the above." He growled and moved to kiss her. She laughed again, feeling lighter than she had in years.

"That has to be the cheesiest thing you've ever said to me. But yeah, yeah we can work with option 'd'."