Grissom stopped in the narrow aisle of the plane and checked his boarding pass again. The row he was looking at was clearly labeled as "Row 6," but his ticket told him he was in the fifth row, not the sixth. "Uh, excuse me," he tentatively asked a bored-looking flight attendant, holding out his boarding pass to her, "is this a typo? I don't see a 'Row 5'."

"Up past the galley," she informed him shortly. "Last row, first class. Would you please move along, sir, you're holding up the line."

Grissom blinked, but allowed himself to be pushed forward into the first class section of the plane. Taking another hard look at his boarding pass, he verified that it still said that he was in seat 5D. Having made sure of that, he checked the label above the row he was standing in. It was Row 5, and seat D was an aisle seat.

What the . . . Sara had booked him a first class seat? There must not have been anything else left; he would have to pay her back for it. Slipping into the row, he glanced around the empty seats surrounding him and pulled out his cell phone, dialing Sara's number from memory.

"Hi, you've reached Sara Sidle," her recorded voice informed him after five rings. "I can't answer the phone right now, so please leave your name, number, and the time you called. If this is Grissom, I know you probably want to yell at me, so leave a message and I'll get back to you as soon as I see it. Thanks!"

So she wasn't answering her phone. That was unusual for Sara, and he could only assume that she was screening her calls to avoid hearing his lecture. When her voicemail beeped at him, he said, "This is Grissom. Do you realize that you booked me in first class? Well, if you do, I know it's two or three times as expensive, so I'll write you a check for the difference as soon as I get there. They're going to be closing the cabin doors soon, but if you're screening your calls, as I'm sure you are, call me back within the next ten minutes and it should be fine." He hung up without saying goodbye, thinking too hard to realize it.

Five minutes later, his phone beeped, informing him that he had a new text message. Curious, he navigated to it in the phone's unfamiliar "messaging" menu, expecting an advertisement. To his surprise, it was from Sara.

"Yes, 1st Class," it informed him. "Did it on purpose. Don't whine, not letting you pay me back. Enjoy the flight."

Well, he thought as he settled himself in the seat, he'd see about that. There was a way to talk Sara into taking the money; he'd just have to figure out what it was.

*****

He didn't know what he'd expected to find when he emerged from the gate at Newark Liberty, but it definitely wasn't a beaming woman throwing herself into his arms. Still, he managed to drop his bags and catch her with one arm. "Uh . . . hi," he murmured tensely, feeling slightly embarrassed at the scene they were making.

"Hi," Sara answered, pulling away from him with an unreadable look on her face. She could feel how tense he was with her touching him. "You've only got the one little suitcase?" she asked briskly.

Grissom was silent for a moment, trying to interpret her sudden shift into all-business mode. "Yeah," he said slowly. "That and my carry on."

"Ok, let's go then." She turned on her heel and began walking toward the escalator that, a sign informed her, led to the baggage claim and exit.

"Sara?" he said to her retreating back.

"Yeah?" she responded without turning around.

"I'm glad to see you."

Stepping onto the moving stairs, she turned to face him. "Oh yeah? That wasn't exactly a display of how glad you are to see me, back there."

"Sorry. I don't do scenes, you know that."

"Yeah, well . . . oh, fine," Sara sighed. "Moving on . . . how was the flight?"

"Besides the fact that you tricked me into First Class?"

"Yeah," she said with a slight smile. "Besides that."

"It was very nice," Grissom said. "My seat went back so far that it was almost horizontal, and there was no one in front of or behind me. But I still want to pay you back for the difference, if not the whole thing."

"No, Grissom."

"Yes."

"No! Come on," Sara said. "I can barely fit in economy seats, and you're taller and broader than me. I didn't want you to suffer like I did on the way out here." She shrugged. "I'm not taking any money from you. And if you try to sneak it to me somehow, I'll just mail it back when I find it."

Grissom scowled. "It's not right."

"Forget 'right' for once," she said with a smile. "Just imagine how sucky it would have been to fly here with someone in your lap and your knees jammed into your stomach, and enjoy the fact that you didn't have to deal with it."

He nodded reluctantly. "You're right, it was much nicer. Ok, I'll just say 'thank you,' then. And I'm going to take you out somewhere really nice to thank you."

"I already have somewhere in mind," Sara said with a grin. "I think you'll like it." Stepping off the escalator, she led Grissom to a set of sliding doors. "I'm parked out here," she told him, gesturing toward the parking garage across from them. "Ready to go?"

"Sure," Grissom said, stepping through the doors.

*****

Grissom gave the building in front of him a wary look. "I'm . . . staying with you?"

Sara cocked an eyebrow. "Um, yeah. Is that gonna be a problem?"

"No. No, not exactly. I just thought – is this where your brother lives?"

"Oh, no," she said with a laugh. "This is my apartment building. I moved out of Jeff's house, finally. I've been here . . . hmm . . . three days now. Since the day before I called you."

"Oh. I had thought . . . You don't want me to stay in a hotel?"

"Hotels around here are crazy expensive. The Meadowlands are, like, a ten-minute drive from here, so all the sports tourists and stuff stay there. I figured it would be easier and cheaper to just put you up here." She paused. "Unless you mind."

"I don't 'mind,'" Grissom said slowly. "I just thought that you would be uncomfortable with it."

Sara laughed. "Grissom, I might be uncomfortable if you crawled into my bed in the middle of the night, but I'm not going to freak out over the fact that you'll be on the futon." She was amused to see Grissom turn bright red at this.

"Enough talk, ok?" she said, breaking the silence after a few seconds. "Let's get inside and get you settled."

Grissom followed her wordlessly, struggling to put the image of crawling into Sara's bed out of his mind. She'd said it would make her uncomfortable, he reminded himself – so why was he so tempted to do it anyway?

Sara stopped in front of her door and narrowly missed being knocked over as Grissom pulled to a surprised stop behind her. Swinging the door open, she gestured him inside. "After you."

*****

The inside of Sara's apartment surprised him, Grissom decided that evening as he waited for Sara to change into her work clothes. He had expected something utilitarian. Something sensible and simple, like her personality. Instead, her apartment was a sort of shrine to Sara's life. The walls were covered with picture frames holding pictures that ranged from what he assumed was her high school graduation portrait to a picture Catherine had snapped of him while he wasn't paying attention. The latter picture, he noted with pleasure, occupied the center of her kitchen wall – a spot she would see regularly.

"Ready," Sara said, coming up behind him. Noticing his distraction, she asked, "What are you looking at?"

"Just observing. You have a lot of photos here."

"Yeah, I guess I do," she said, ducking her head nervously. "It's kinda the way I catalogue my life. I'm not a diary sort of person, but I want to remember things. So I get pictures of them." Eager to change the subject from what she considered to be an embarrassing hobby, she tugged on his shoulder. "Ready to go? I'm dressed, obviously."

"Sure," Grissom said, watching her out of the corner of his eye as they walked to her car. Was Sara angry at him for looking, or did her pink face mean she was embarrassed by his observations? "So, uh . . . what are you going to do with me tonight? At work, I mean. While you're working." Damn, he could have phrased that so much better!

"Well," Sara said, giving him a curious look as they paused at a stop sign, "I was going to give the kids a break and let them all go out alone tonight while I get you acquainted with the lab and everything."

" 'The kids'?"

She grinned sheepishly. "Yeah. That's kinda how I think of them. They're all younger than me, and I really do spend a lot of time teaching them . . . that's just how they've grouped themselves in my mind."

"Interesting," Grissom noted, staring out the window at the building Sara was about to park in front of. "Is this it?"

"Yup. Welcome to beautiful Hackensack, New Jersey," she said ceremoniously. "Are you underwhelmed yet?"

"It's, er . . . nice."

"Not nearly as engaging as Vegas, huh?" she asked with a grin. "Well, come on in and I'll introduce you to everyone."

As they walked through the metal detector at the entrance of the building, Sara said, "Oh! I forgot to tell you about your keepers."

"My . . . what?"

"Your keepers. Sophie and Will – they're the ones who broke into your files, and as their penance, they're in charge of you when I'm not around. Feel free to give them a hard time, or to go all 'Zen master' on them if they need it."

"Who are these people, again?"

"You'll see," Sara said with a mysterious smile. "You'll see."