"So he came all the way out here?" Sam asked later that morning, peering at a beaming Sophie over the rim of his coffee mug. "Because she's a better drug than nicotine?"

Sophie made a rude noise. "Oh, come on, Sam. Could you at least try to act like a human? This is, like, a star-crossed lovers thing!"

"Hate to break it to you," Walter pointed out coolly, "but they don't look very star-crossed to me. He's here, she's here . . . Mark let it slip to me that he's staying with her . . ."

Four heads snapped around toward Walter and asked in unison, "What?"

"He's doing what?" Will stressed.

Walter cringed, knowing he'd let a very big cat out of a very small bag. "Oops."

"Tell," Sam ordered.

"There's nothing to tell, I swear. All I know is Mark told me that he thought that Grissom wasn't at a hotel or anything and he was pretty sure he was staying in Sara's apartment."

"You call that 'nothing'?" Sophie gave him a look of disbelief. "That's huge! Obviously Sara's not going to have strange men over for sleepovers . . ."

Sam let out a cough with the words, "How do you know" buried in it and Sophie glared at him. "Seriously. Don't even try to tell me you think this is normal for her."

"I have no idea what's normal for her," Sam retorted. "I'm not the CSI she's best friends with or mentor to."

"Could you two stop bickering long enough to let someone else talk?" Jack harrumphed from across the table. "I think we should get back to the matter at hand: Will and Sophie's story about what Grissom told them."

"Exactly," Sophie said triumphantly. "Now, as I was saying before Sam interrupted me so rudely . . ."

Sara yawned as she shifted her car into Park in front of her apartment building. "I never knew politics could take so much out of you," she said, her words distorted by the yawn. "I'm dead tired."

"No breakfast, then?" Grissom asked noncommittally. "You said when you're tired you don't eat."

She shrugged. "Yeah, true, but if you want I'll stay up with you while you eat. Gotta get that health food and clean air into you somehow, right?"

The mention of clean air made Grissom wince. He still hadn't decided whether to confess his smoking indiscretion to her or not; he was going back and forth between believing she'd be sympathetic and believing she'd hit him with a frying pan for being so weak. "Uh, yeah," he said, finally noticing the dead air between them. "Yeah, I'd like you to eat with me or, failing that, at least sit with me."

"No problem. Just poke me if I fall asleep in your corn flakes."

Sara was amused when Grissom insisted on holding open her apartment door for her. "What is this, an experiment? I can let myself in, you know."

Grissom gave her an impassive look. "I know," he said simply, and left it at that.

"Sooo . . ." Sara automatically opened her refrigerator and looked into it. "What do you want?"

"This is starting to sound familiar," Grissom said with a laugh as he looked over her shoulder. "Someone not in the know might think you're Miss Domesticity."

Without turning to look at him, Sara stuck her tongue out of the side of her mouth. "Who says I'm not? Besides, this is just good hospitality. Blame it on my being a kid raised in a B&B."

"Good point." He broke off and moved his attention to the shelves in front of him for a moment. "You know, I think I'm just going to go with some cereal again. That's always safe."

Sara stepped sideways, moving out from in front of him, and nodded. "Sounds good. You know where everything is," she added, tipping her head toward the cabinets. "I'm gonna turn on the TV while you get yourself set up." She wandered off toward Grissom's makeshift bed, otherwise known as her futon, settled on it with the remote control, and began flipping.

Grissom was pouring milk into his bowl of Cheerios when he heard Sara exclaim, "Hey!"

"What?" he asked, leaning over the breakfast bar and trying to see the television. "Something good?"

"The Tao of Steve," she said with a grin, not taking her eyes off the TV. "One of the funniest movies ever!"

"Sounds spiritual." He picked up his bowl and spoon and moved into the living room.

Sara grinned at him and stole a still-dry cheerio out of his bowl as he sat down. "Nope, not really. That's actually the name of the guy's strategy for picking up chicks and/or getting laid."

". . .  Oh."

"Just watch. You'll figure it out soon enough."

A minute later, he grimaced. "Is he really . . ."

"Yeah. In the library. Keep watching."

Sara was amused to see Grissom's facial expression vacillate between shock and amusement at the sometimes-crude humor of the movie. "I'm gonna go make popcorn. Will you eat some?"

He nodded, then snorted at the television and revised the nod into a shrug. "I don't know if I can keep it down while watching this."

Sara shook her head in mock sadness. "You're hopeless. Can you not appreciate the fact that he's falling for someone with more brains than him?"

"I was thinking more along the lines of being disgusted by the way they're portraying the men as vapid and useless."

Moving into the kitchen, Sara protested, "Oh, come on. He's not useless – he's a teacher. And the other guys . . . well, ok, maybe they're a little useless. But it gets better, I promise."

She was back a few minutes later with a bowl of popcorn and a can of soda. "What happened to your 'health food'?" Grissom asked with a pointed look at the fare in front of her.

"We're watching a movie! This doesn't count." Defiantly, she shoved her hand deep into the popcorn, pulling out a handful of the stuff. "Mmm, grease."

Grissom only gave her an amused look, then shifted his attention back to the movie that, despite his complaints, was beginning to grow on him.

The bowl was half-empty when Grissom reached into it and spoke again. "Oh, this just makes me feel great."

"What?" Sara asked with a confused look. "Popcorn?"

"No." He pointed to the screen. "A guy practically half my age being told he needs to stop smoking and lose weight. Where does that leave old-timers like me?"

"Well, you're quitting. There's half of it right there. I mean, you're not fat like him anyway, and you haven't had a cigarette since you've been here, right?" Reaching for some popcorn, she unintentionally brushed her hand against his and quickly pulled it back an inch, eyes moving to his face.

Grissom didn't move his hand away from its spot on the edge of the bowl, and he simply looked at her with an impassive expression that he hoped hid the rush of guilt he was feeling. To tell or not to tell?

He must have waited too long, he realized after a few seconds, because Sara took a closer look at him. "Right?" she repeated. "I haven't seen you with one since you've been here, at least . . ."

"I had one tonight," he blurted, deciding that confession would be therapeutic. "It was a moment of weakness. I hadn't had any cravings up until then, but I just got a little overwhelmed. Maybe because you weren't there," he said tentatively. "It was, uh, a tough ride to the scene."

"Why?" She looked puzzled. "Like you got lost?"

"No, more like I was being interrogated . . . without the interrogation."

"Um . . . what?"

Embarrassment was beginning to show on his face. "Your CSIs kind of, well, conned me into telling them why I'm here."

"Where? Here?" She gestured toward the floor. "In my apartment? Or 'here,' in New Jersey?"

"They don't know I'm in your apartment, and I certainly didn't tell them about it."

"So you told them . . . what? That you're here for vacation and to quit smoking, right?"

He shook his head. "Worse."

"Worse? I don't like that word, Grissom."

"Yeah, well, I don't particularly care for it either. What I mean is that they got pretty much the whole story out of me."

"Whole story," she parroted. "Like . . . you and me? The e-mails?"

"Some."

Sara closed her eyes for a moment and shook her head in disbelief. Grissom had spilled the beans? What had happened to the reserved, silent Grissom she had known for ten years? "Tell me the whole thing."

He thought for a second. "Well, there isn't really that much to tell that you don't already know."

"Yes," she said through a tight smile, "but I want to know what they know."

Grissom sighed deeply and took another handful of popcorn. "I told them that we knew each other since you were in college, and how we met and everything. Just an overview, you know, no detailed descriptions."

"There isn't much detail in our meeting, anyway." This was said in a flippant tone that Sara hoped hit the right balance between being amused by his weakness and being annoyed at his big mouth.

Sara looked no happier having heard the beginning of his tale than she had before hearing any of it, and Grissom silently acknowledged that he'd have to eat crow before he was allowed to sleep. "Well, I didn't tell them," he said defensively. "But as I was saying, I told them a little about that, and a little about how you ended up with me in Las Vegas . . ."

" 'With' you?" She snorted indelicately.

Without thinking, Grissom looked down at the bowl where their hands had just touched while he said quietly, "You know what I mean. Obviously not 'with'."

Appeased by his agreement, Sara nodded. "Go on."

Letting his head fall back on his shoulders, Grissom let out a breath through pursed lips. "Let me put it this way – your CSIs still know much less than my CSIs do about what's gone on between you and I."

"Me."

"What?"

"Me. It's 'between you and me'."

He gave her an exasperated look. "Does it matter?" When Sara assumed a supremely unconcerned look and waved a hand at him, he started again. "They know where and how we met. They know the highlights, so to speak, of what happened in Vegas, like, uh, why we fought and about Hank, and . . ." Whoops. He immediately knew he should have known better than to mention the other man. "About all that stuff," he said quickly, trying to cover it up. "And they have a very general sketch of why you left, and why I came here."

"In other words," she began slowly, "they know everything they wanted to know." Unable to help herself, she reached out and lightly smacked Grissom on the side of his head. "Are you crazy? Now the entire office is going to know the story!"

"They promised to keep it to themselves, Sara."

"And you believed them? Grissom, they're, like, twenty years old! They don't even know how to keep a secret!"

"I think you underestimate them," he said with a frown. "Youth does not automatically equal ignorance."

"Of course it does," she said in a tired voice. "Everyone is going to know."

Taking a moment to steel himself, Grissom crossed his arms in front of him and said, "You know, it doesn't have to be a secret. We don't work together anymore; it's not like our connection being known will have disastrous consequences."

Sara glared. "Not for you, maybe. You get to go home eventually. Me, I'll be stuck here with twenty people who think I import dates or something."

"Uh, Sara . . . we haven't gone on a date."

"Does it matter?" She waved a dismissing hand in front of her. "They'll think that. And poof, there goes the professional respect they have for me."

Unable to argue any further, Grissom stood up. "I obviously can't change your mind about how the world works, but I feel that I should point out that it's not considered weakness to have emotional connections to other people. In fact, I would say it's even encouraged by most of the world. "

Moving the bowl of popcorn from her lap to the floor, Sara sighed and stood up, facing him. "You don't get it. Things work differently in your Grissom-world than in the real world." She shook her head. "I'm going to bed, to either fall asleep or think up some ways to do damage control."

She turned and would have been gone had Grissom's next comment not stopped her. "They think it's a great idea, you know. You and me."

Looking back at him, she shook her head. "Well, I'm glad someone knows whether it's a good idea or not. Good night, Grissom."

Seconds later, he heard the click of her bedroom door closing. Looking down at his hands, Grissom realized that they were trembling slightly. Whether it was from nicotene withdrawal or from the quasi-argument with Sara, he decided, it wasn't a good sign. Now that two more people knew his situation, he was going to have to put them to work if he had any hope of convincing Sara.