Sara grunted uncooperatively when Grissom tapped her shoulder ten minutes later. Not bothering to open her eyes, she rolled toward him and moaned, "Nooo . . . I want five more minutes."

"Uh, Sara . . ." He quieted when he felt her arms go around him again, knowing that she had no idea how much he wanted to acquiesce to her request. "I really think we ought to get up now."

"No." Her mouth was in a definite pout now, he noted.

"Yes," Grissom said, giving her shoulder a firmer push. "Up, now. I'm not the one who's going to have to explain to an inquisitive team why their boss and the guy they think she's shacking up with arrived late together."

Sara opened her eyes.

"Gotcha." Grissom smiled. "Now come on, get up – I want time to feed you before work."

"Feed me? What, like you're going to hold the spoon?" Despite the rebellion implied in her words, Sara sat up and scratched her side. "Ugh, I feel like I barely slept."

"You were pretty soundly asleep when you woke me up. You've operated on far less sleep than this."

She sighed. "Yeah, but it's so warm in here," she said, spreading her hands over the blankets that still covered Grissom and most of her.

"Take a hot shower."

She gave him another of her laughing looks; Grissom figured it out himself this time. "Or a cold shower, if you feel that's necessary . . ."

She grinned at him. "Why, Grissom! I didn't know you had this stuff in you!" Leaning over to him, she slid her fingers through his hair. "Nice 'fro, by the way."

"Nice . . . what?"

" 'Fro. Your hair is sticking straight up."

His hand went to where hers had just been, attempting to restore some order to the mess. "And I don't even have a good reason for it to be this messy."

Sara gave him a considering look. "A 'good reason'? What would that be?"

He shrugged theatrically. "Oh, I don't know – perhaps that I had been rolling around in bed with a very attractive woman that I'm too old for?"

"Rolling can be arranged," Sara said with a grin. "Do you need to have that reason, for your male pride or something?"

"Will rolling result if I say 'yes'?"

"Yes."

"Yes."

Sara shook her head with a laugh. "It's a new experience to volunteer myself to be manipulated to feed a man's ego. Come on," she said, beckoning to him.

Grissom blinked. "Uh . . ."

"Work with me on this, Grissom."

Sternly ordering himself not to look this particular gift horse in the mouth, Grissom shifted a few inches over in the bed, placing himself alongside Sara, then stopped again. "Does this feel awkward to you?"

"Yup. But, really, it'd be weirder if it didn't." After a few seconds of silence, she realized that he wasn't going to make the first move. "I do not want to hear about this later tonight from my CSIs," she warned him, then cupped his cheek in her hand and leaned into him.

They shared a feather-light kiss for a moment before Grissom pulled back and wiggled his eyebrows at her. "And the rolling . . .?"

"Jerk." She stuck out her tongue. "Your turn."

The words were hardly out of her mouth before Grissom's mouth was on hers again.

"Pizza." Sara looked at the red, green, and white awning above the restaurant they were pulling up in front of and couldn't help laughing. "I should have known."

"I did tell you, way back when you hated me, that when I next saw you I was going to feed you pizza whether you liked it or not." He waved a hand toward the front door. "This place comes highly recommended."

"Let me guess – Sophie."

"Yes, actually," he said, looking surprised. "You're good, you know that?"

"Yeah," she said. "I know. So . . . shall we?"

Sara took a sip of her soda a few minutes later and cocked her head to the side. "So you actually asked them where a good place to take me out was?"

"Well, I didn't ask them so much as they told me. You've got a wily pair of matchmakers on your hands."

Sara's face tightened at the mention of matchmaking and she quickly took another sip of soda to camouflage it. "Yeah, uh, they're sharp."

"What?" Grissom had caught the change in her face, though he couldn't identify it, and he knew that there was something going on inside of her head, but damned if he could figure out that was, either.

Sara looked up, meeting his eyes. "What?" she echoed.

He attempted levity: "I said it first." When she didn't offer more than a weak smile in return, he sighed. "I was asking what's wrong."

"Nothing's wrong. Why do you ask?"

He couldn't keep the sharpness from his voice as he said, "Don't bullshit me, Sara."

Her eyes widened at his tone. "Excuse me! Exactly how am I bullshitting you, praytell?"

"We're never going to get anywhere with this if you feel that you can't tell me what worries you about it."

" 'This'? 'It'?" She gave him a purposely-obtuse look. "More specifics, please?"

Grissom closed his eyes for a moment, dredging up some patience. "You might as well have rung an alarm bell when I mentioned that Sophie and Will were matchmaking. Obviously, something about it still bothers you even though you told me that I'm forgiven."

"Well, maybe I'm not upset at you about it, then."

He didn't know how to break through the wall of defensiveness that she'd thrown up. "Do you want to leave?" he asked on a sigh. "If you'd rather just go to work and get some privacy from me . . ."

"No." She shook her head firmly. "Privacy is probably a bad idea. Can we just . . . change the subject? Talk about something stupid while we eat?"

" 'Stupid'," Grissom mused. "Well, I spoke to Greg last night."

Sara's face relaxed as she realized that he was cooperating. "Are you calling Greg 'stupid'?"

"No, not really. More 'silly' than 'stupid,' I'd say. I could tell that he was desperate to ask where I was and if I had any news about you, but I think he was afraid to spit the words out. He kind of danced around it."

"What'd you tell him?" she asked, tucking a loose strand of hair back behind her ear. "You haven't been threatening him or something, have you?"

"Nope, no threats, though it might be fun to see his reaction. I told him that I was having a nice vacation and asked him how things were going at the lab."

"And how are things going, then?"

"Well, Greg lost a bet to Nick about Catherine's, uh, bra size – this was done without her knowledge, you understand – and he had to pay up by putting all of Nick's evidence to the top of his list until the end of the week."

Sara gave him a disbelieving look. "And you're complaining about my CSIs being nosy? Geez, I hope Catherine found out and paid them back."

Grissom shrugged. "Greg couldn't talk long because Catherine was stalking him and he had to keep moving. I suppose that would be your answer."

"Good." She shook her head. "Man, if I ever found out anyone was making bets like that about me . . ."

"I doubt that they are. I know there's a pool going on for the date you'll return – and someone has the 'not returning' option, too – but I don't think anyone's gained enough courage to discuss your underwear when there's still the chance you can come back and kill them for it."

"You make me sound so violent!"

"Are you claiming you wouldn't do them harm if it happened?"

"Well, no. I guess not. But still."

"Sara, the bottom line is that they all miss you. The betting is just a way to keep you in their minds and to keep the hope that you will come back."

Sara sighed. "They really shouldn't . . . that makes me feel guilty. Like I'd be letting them down if I don't choose them."

"In a way," he said, taking a bite of his slice of pizza, "you would be. The thing is, you have no obligation to not let them down, either. You were honest with them – us – from the first day you thought of taking this job, and I honestly can't see anyone in Vegas not understanding why you would want to get out of there."

"Oh?" Sara set down her own slice and regarded him contemplatively. "So why would they think I 'wanted to get out of there'? Because of you?"

"Somewhat. Also because they all know you're too good to be an underling your whole life."

She shook her head. "No, I don't think so. I'm not much better than everyone else on the team, if I'm better at all, and they're all still there."

"Sounds to me," he said levelly, "like you've been thinking about this."

"You think I don't feel like the worst friend in the world?" She turned her palms up in a helpless gesture. "You think I don't feel like I let the entire lab down by leaving? Well, I do. And I feel guilty for having found a job here that I like, because I know it increases the odds that I'll be letting down the Las Vegas people yet again if I decide to definitely stay here!"

"That's quite a mouthful." Grissom could almost touch the anger she was feeling at herself, and he didn't like it. "I'll tell you again – you have no obligation to all of us other than to treat us with respect and to do what will make you happy."

"Doesn't stop me from feeling like I do."

"If feelings were under our conscious control," he pointed out, "I don't think either of us would be sitting here. Unfortunately, they're not, and we fall victim to things like useless guilt."

"That's nice of you to say, Grissom, but you can't tell me that you're not also sitting there hoping that I suddenly turn around and ask for my job back."

"Of course I am. I'm also sitting here hoping that you'll be willing to discuss what happened today with me as we eat, but I know that you don't want to and I feel no resentment for that fact."

"Yes you do."

"No, I don't. Disappointment, perhaps, but not resentment. I know better than to try to make you talk when you're not ready."

Swallowing the last bite of her crust, Sara sighed. "This didn't end up being stupid stuff."

Grissom nodded. "You're right. I've decided that the trick is this: it's not nearly as scary if you back your way into the conversation as if you take a flying leap into it."

"Interesting imagery," she commented.

"Not my point." He popped the last bit of his slice into his mouth, chewed, and swallowed, then continued, "It's true, though – we just had a serious conversation without either of us having a panic attack, because we went into it under the label 'stupid stuff' and not 'important stuff that needs to be discussed'."

"But did we decide anything?"

"What's to decide? Here, I'll teach you something I learned through years of frustration." He leaned across the table, looking like he was about to impart some incredible tidbit of wisdom. "Conversations don't always have to lead somewhere, and decisions don't always have to be made out loud."

"That's deep. More of your Grissom-Buddah-Zen philosophy, huh?"

"No." He shook his head firmly. "It's not philosophy. It's reality – and the only reason I recognize that reality is because I've made enough mistakes that I blundered into it using no wisdom whatsoever."

She cocked her head to the side, studying him for a long second before she nodded as though she had reached a conclusion. "Ok."

"'Ok'?"

"Yes, 'ok.' I accept that what you said makes sense. And it makes me feel slightly less guilty about this." She gestured toward their table. "About this situation. About any other, I don't think so."

"Like I said, Sara – words don't have to lead anywhere but where they go."

She gave him a small smile. "'Deep Thoughts by Gil Grissom.' Do you make a pocket guide to life?"

"Give me a few more years to turn that one out," he said with an answering smile. "I've still got a lot to learn."