When Will and Sophie walked into the team room, the rest of the team, with the exception of Sara, were already there, lounging in their usual positions.

"'Sup?" Sam asked, eyeing the pair upside-down from his position hanging off the side of the couch. "You guys got anything good?"

Mark put down the book he had been reading and rested his chin in his hand. "What's this about, anyway?  I was just getting to a good part," he said, gesturing to his book.

"It'll still be there when we're done talking," Will assured him. "This is juicy, anyway – you're gonna want to hear it."

Jack and Walter exchanged worried looks. "What, exactly, is 'it,' Will?" Jack asked cautiously. "Sophie?" he tried when Will didn't answer him.

"Well, I was curious about the guy we heard Sara talking to, so I asked Will to do a little research."

"What guy Sara was talking to?" Sam said incredulously.

Jack pinned Sophie with an incredulous look and said, "You actually decided to invade her privacy? What did you do?!"

"I didn't invade her privacy," Sophie contradicted. "Maybe I invaded his privacy just a little, but he's not the one who's my friend to begin with. Ok, so anyway," she said, turning away from Jack and focusing on the other men, "here's the story. At a scene the other day, Sara took a phone call that wasn't an emergency and wasn't about work. Jack and I heard her call the guy 'Grissom,' and we decided that it was a guy from Las Vegas, someone she might be interested in."

The men gave her skeptical looks and Sophie correctly inferred that they thought she was putting a girly, romantic spin on things. "Don't look at me like that," she protested. "Jack was there too and he had the same idea."

All heads swiveled toward Jack, who gave Sophie an "I'll get you when you least expect it" look. "Yeah, she's not making it up," he finally admitted. "But I have no idea what she just went and did with Will."

"Well," Will said, picking up the narrative, "Sophie asked me to do a little digging and find out what I could about this guy, so I went through their system looking for records. Turns out that he's . . . What?" he asked, noticing the raised eyebrows around the room. "It's not like I uploaded a virus to their system or something, I just went in through a little security hole!"

"Shush," Sophie ordered. "Let's just skip to the good stuff, ok?" Will nodded after a second, and Sophie said to the group, "Turns out that 'Grissom' is Gil Grissom, the entomologist. You guys've probably heard of him on the job at some point, because I know I have.

"Well anyway, he's 47 and he's the supervisor of the night shift at the Las Vegas lab, so I was right about that part. There wasn't anything wonderful in the records – I mean, it's not like there was a file saying, 'Gil loves Sara' or anything – but we found out that he's a decorated employee and is considered to be one of the best in the business."

"I got his address and phone number, too," Will added, "and we checked out where he lives through a satellite map service; it's a nice place. Looks like he makes plenty of money."

Jack leaned his head back against the wall and sighed. "But you didn't find out anything having to do with him and Sara as a pair?"

Sophie shrugged. "Not really. There were three employee evals that he filled out on Sara, and they were all favorable, but again, nothing conclusive."

"So you went to all that trouble and found jack?" Sam asked with a smug smile.

"I'll find something," Sophie said. "I'm determined."

*****

Sara's desk phone rang just as she was getting ready to head home. Giving it a nasty look, she snatched up the receiver and let out a brusque, "Hello?"

"Ms. Sidle, this is Anna at the front desk. I've got a man on the phone who's asking to speak with you about 'something important.' That was all he'd say. Do you want to take the call?"

"Um, sure," Sara said with a mental shrug. "Transfer it over." She returned the phone to its base so the secretary could enter the necessary key code, then picked it up immediately when it rang again. "Hello."

She recognized the voice that issued from the receiver, but could make no sense of what it said: "You could just ask, you know."

"Grissom? That you?"

"Yep."

"Um, what could I 'just ask' about? Try using complete sentences."

"You could have just asked me whatever you wanted to know about me, Sara. You didn't need to do it illegally."

Sara tried to process that sentence, but could think of no context that applied. "Ok wait. Back up. I could have found out what, and what the hell do you think I did that broke the law?"

Grissom paused. "I don't know what you found out," he said with less confidence, "but breaking into a government computer system is definitely illegal."

"Ok, stop right there," Sara said firmly.  "Have you switched to smoking something stronger than cigarettes? I didn't break into any computer. I wouldn't know how even if I wanted to!"

"You, uh . . . you didn't?"

"No!"

There was silence. Seconds ticked by, and finally Grissom said, "You didn't break into the computer system here."

"Right."

"Well, someone from your lab did! Archie found a break-in in the server logs. Someone using a computer registered to the Bergen County lab got into the system, and all they looked at was files on me. Personnel, old evaluations – evaluations of you, might I add."

Sara's jaw tightened. "Shit."

"What?"

"I had two CSIs with me when I talked to you last time. I bet they decided to do a little investigation on their own, for whatever crazy reason. Listen, can I call you back?"

"Uh, yeah. I mean no! No, don't hang up yet. I have other stuff I want to talk to you about."

Sara raised an eyebrow to her empty office and leaned back in her chair, stacking her ankles on her desk. "Other stuff? Like what?"

Grissom sighed. "I caved."

" 'Caved'? What do you . . . oh, Gris, tell me you didn't buy another pack!"

"Well, uh, no. Technically, I had a leftover pack."

"Grissom."

"I know! I know, Sara. I tried to talk myself out of it, but, well, it didn't work."

"Why didn't you call me? I talked you out of it last time you got a craving, why didn't you try that again?"

She could picture the pensive look that must have been on Grissom's face. "I didn't want to bother you," he admitted. "I interrupted you at a scene last time, and look at the havoc that seems to have caused."

"Hey, I'm the supervisor now, I get to delegate at scenes. If I hadn't had time for you, I wouldn't have talked to you. Seriously."

"Thanks, Sara, really. But I think . . . it's just not working. Maybe I'm too old to quit again. Maybe I have a death wish. I don't know what it is, but I just don't think I'm going to be able to do it."

"Ohhhhh no. You're not getting off that easy, Grissom." Sara stared at the ceiling as an idea jumped into her head. "I'm hanging up, ok? I've gotta check out a few things about you and the computer stuff. I'll call you back when I get home in an hour or so, ok?"

"Well, I . . ."

"Bye!" Click.

*****

"No way, Soph," Will was saying heatedly when Sara found him in the team room.

"Will! I'm paying you for this with my pride anyway, why can't you just suck it up and fini . . ." Sophie's voice trailed off as she caught sight of her boss leaning against the doorway.

"Go on, Sophie. You were saying that you had already paid Will to snoop into my past?"

Will and Sophie exchanged looks, then both started talking at once.

"I didn't ask him to . . ."

"Wasn't my idea . . ."

"Shut it," Sara snapped. "You guys want to cut the bull and explain to me why you hacked into the Las Vegas computers? Or maybe why you were digging through the records of only one person?"

Silence.

"Ok, then maybe you want to start with what made you think I wouldn't find out about this?"

More silence.

Sara shrugged. "Okay, you don't have to explain if you don't want to. You can just go clean out your lockers."

"What?" Will asked incredulously.

"I said, 'You can go clean out your lockers'. You not only misused department resources, but you also used those resources for illegal purposes. Both of those actions are major no-nos in the lab's rule book, so unless you guys are prepared to explain your action to me, I'm going to have to fire you."

"You're kidding," Sophie said.

" 'Fraid not. I'm not going to bend the rules far enough to bury what you did, especially not to help people who just violated my privacy. So you either start talking now and convince me that you had a good reason, or you're gone."

Will sighed. "It wasn't my idea, I swear."

"Will!" Sophie said, giving him an indignant look.

"Well, it wasn't! I'm just telling the truth." Turning his attention back to Sara, he continued, "Sophie came to me and said that you were talking to someone on the phone at a scene and the person's name was 'Grissom' and it was probably was a 'he' from where you used to work."

"And?" Sara said with a raised eyebrow.

"And I asked him if he could find information on whoever it was," Sophie said, giving Will an angry jab in the ribs. "To make sure everything was ok. You know, that he wasn't stalking you or anything."

"You're a bad liar, Sophie," Sara said calmly. "You just couldn't stand not knowing who it was, could you?"

"Well . . . that too. I'm sorry, ok? But really, I did want to make sure that you weren't talking to a serial killer or anything. So yeah, I asked Will to check him out."

The corners of Sara's mouth rose slightly. "And what did you learn from checking 'Grissom' out?"

"He's definitely not a serial killer," Will said. "We know you worked with him in Las Vegas and he was your boss, and we know that he's gotten a lot of commendations from the city. And that he gave you good evaluations." He shrugged. "Other than that, we didn't learn shit."

"Mmm-hmm, that's what I expected. You guys have a lot to learn if you want to become effective snoops." Sara paused, then added pointedly, "Which I suggest you don't. It tends to piss people off juuuust a little."

Neither Sophie nor Will had anything to say to that, and they simply nodded. "Okay," Sara said after letting them absorb her displeasure for a few seconds. "You guys can go get ready to leave – but do me a favor and hang around another half hour or so?"

"Why?"

"Because I'm asking you to."

"Hey, I got nowhere better to go," Will said simply, and left the room with Sophie trailing behind him.

*****

Twenty-five minutes later, Sara hung up the phone and smiled. Peering through her half-open door and into the team room window, she noted with satisfaction that Will and Sophie had, indeed, stayed and waited for her. "Guys!" she called across the space. "Come on in here for a minute, then you can go home."

When the two miscreants stood in front of her desk a few seconds later, Sara grinned. "I've got good news for you guys."

"You're not going to fire us?" Sophie tried hopefully.

"Well, that too. But that wasn't what I was going to say."

"Okay, then what were you going to say?"

"I was going to say, Sophie, that you guys are going to get your wish. You're going to be able to find out as much about Grissom as you want."

No response from either of the two.

"Um . . . why?" Will finally asked. "That doesn't sound like it's as good as it's supposed to sound."

"It's fine," Sara said lightly. "You guys are going to be able to snoop to your little hearts' content," she added smugly, "because Grissom is going to be taking some vacation time in Vegas and coming here. To see this lab, among other things. And you two, since you seem so desperate to learn about him . . . you two are going to be in charge of him while he's hanging around here."

Will made a show of pushing shut his hanging jaw. "He's just . . . coming here? For fun?"

"I haven't actually told him about it yet," Sara said eyeing the calendar on her desk, "but yeah. He's coming here. Monday."

"Monday?" Sophie asked, somehow no longer sounding surprised. "Like in two days?"

"Yep."