A/N: Just want to say a big THANK YOU to everyone who's been reviewing this story, especially Laura Katherine, who's given me some of the nicest reviews I've ever gotten J

The sound of curtains being yanked open, immediately followed by the stabbing sensation of bright light, wakes me up in the morning. At least, I think it's morning. I open my eyes groggily and squint at the newly-bared window. New York City stares back at me.

Sara's staring back at me too, I realize as I look away from the light. She's dressed in jeans and a t-shirt, looking extremely comfortable, and she's watching me. "Good morning, sunshine," she announces, stepping away from the window and toward me.

I wrinkle my nose. "What time is it? It's still way too early."

"It's past ten," she says with a smile. "You were really tired."

That wakes me up. Past ten in the morning? Oh god, I hope I didn't just make us miss the first session of our workshop. I sit up, eyes wide, and say, "What time were we supposed to be there?"

"Relax. First session isn't until noon; you've got plenty of time." She sits on the edge of my bed, an act that feels intimate despite the fact that both of us are wearing all of our clothing. "Besides, the first one's always pointless anyway."

"Yeah, but if you're not at the first one you're at a disadvantage for the rest of the week." I give her a teasing look. "Don't try to talk your way out of this workshop, Sara. I've heard it all before."

"In that case . . ." She stands up and gives her hair a flip. "Why don't you head on into your room and get yourself showered and changed into clean clothes."

My room? I look at the door that connects the two rooms, then at the bed I'm sitting on. "My room?" I repeat, this time out loud.

"You fell asleep there last night. I figured it was easier just to leave you there and designate it as your room."

There's a problem here. I look around the room, thinking, then finally figure out what that problem is: "But where did you sleep, then? If I slept in both my room and yours over the course of the night?" A terrible thought hits me. Oh god . . . I didn't crawl into bed with her last night, did I? I want to drop through the floor. I want to fall down dead, right here.

The horror must show on my face, because Sara looks at me coolly. "Don't have a heart attack. I slept on the couch."

"Which couch?" I ask, looking again at the magical door.

"Mine."

Well now that doesn't help very much, does it? "Which?" I repeat.

She rolls her eyes. "This one. In here."

I want to believe her, but that just doesn't make sense. Why would she sleep on the couch in her own hotel room?

Once again, she reads my mind. "I slept on the couch because I had a feeling you were going to wake up and switch rooms again," she explains as if I'm five years old. "I couldn't very well go to sleep in that bed" – she points to the other room – "because you were in there. I wasn't going to sleep on this bed" – she motions to the bed I'm on – "because if you came crawling in in the middle of the night, at least one of us was going to end up screaming like a little girl."

I wonder which of us she means. Her face gives no hint of who it is, and she simply shrugs. "Logic, Grissom."

Logic. Right. That thing that deserts me when I'm around her for extended periods of time.

 We make it to the conference room with ten minutes to spare. I'm hoping fervently that there's going to be lunch, since between Sara's disorganization and my sleeping late we didn't manage to get out of our rooms until just minutes ago and had no chance to eat anything.

I scan the room for anything resembling a banquet table and soon find one against the back wall. I grab Sara's arm – she hasn't eaten either – and make a beeline for the sandwiches I think I see.

She looks at me, startled, as I nearly pull her off her feet. "Geez, Grissom, calm down. The sandwiches aren't exactly being devoured by wild-eyed linguists bearing swords. They'll still be there thirty seconds from now." She's right, but my stomach is still skeptical, so I let go of her and tell her to go find us seats at one of the small tables lined up in the room, and I'll bring her a sandwich in a few minutes.

Turns out there are a few wild-eyed linguists (and non-linguists) roaming around the area, and I have to push my way through to get to the platters. I grab roast beef for myself and am looking for something with vegetation in it for Sara when someone taps me on the shoulder. I turn and take a step toward the tapper, expecting to see an impatient Sara waiting for her lunch.

It's not Sara. Sharon takes a large step backwards as my step forward brings me uncomfortably close to her. I immediately step back again and try to surreptitiously plan an escape. If she's going to start railing at me, I'm not hanging around!

To my surprise, she sounds almost apologetic as she greets me. "Hi, Gil," she says slowly. "It's, uh . . . good sandwiches, huh?"

I inwardly cringe. It's bad enough when I'm the only person who can't think of anything to say. When the person trying to converse with me can't either, we've got a real problem. "Good morning," I say politely, hoping that we'll just make our manners and then go our separate ways.

Neither of us says anything for a few seconds, and eventually it's too awkward for me to handle. I nod at her and mutter something about seeing her later, then turn to leave.

Her hand on my arm stops me. "Hold on," she says. "I wanted to apologize to you. Turns out I'm just not very good at it."

"You don't owe me an apology, Sharon."

"Yeah, well, maybe not," she replies, staring fixedly at the middle of my chest, "but I probably should anyway. I don't think you meant any offense yesterday, so I just wanted to tell you I'm sorry for going off on you. I deal with a lot of chauvinists in my department, so I tend to assume that I'll get that in life in general, too."

"It's not a problem," I assure her. "I didn't think my comment through before I said it." How nice, I managed to come up with an appropriate answer! If only I could do this with everyone else I speak to . . .

Another hand touches my arm and I look again at Sharon, assuring myself that she's still two feet away from me. Who is it this time – and what's with all the touching today, anyway?  The hand slides up to my shoulder. What the . . .?!

"Good morning, Sharon," Sara says with a fake smile and a saccharine tone. "Nice to see you again."

Sharon, to my relief, nods pleasantly. She looks to Sara, then me, and says, "Did you guys get settled in your rooms ok? I ended up having to switch rooms in the middle of the night because my first one had a broken pipe."

"Nope, our room . . .s are fine." Did I imagine the pause that I think I heard before Sara pluralized the word? She turns to me and says brightly, "Come on, Gil – we'd better sit down and scarf our lunch."

She just called me "Gil." When was the last time that happened? Sara, like everyone in Las Vegas, almost never uses my first name, and I wonder what the occasion is. Guess that'll give me something to think about during the first break of the afternoon. I look at her and say obediently, "Okay," then look back at Sharon. "Nice seeing you again," I manage before Sara starts walking away, pulling me with the hand she still has on my shoulder.

I give Sharon an awkward nod and move to follow Sara. She answers my nod with an amused look. "I'll talk to you later," she tells me with a smirk. "First break."

I don't get a chance to nod this time before Sara yanks me away. I allow myself to be led back to my seat, then look at her questioningly. "You just pulled me away from your lunch." I raise the roast beef sandwich in my hand and wave it toward the table we just left. "I've got mine."

She gives me an exasperated look and walks away from me, back toward the sandwiches. I wonder why she's so stressed out already, when she was perfectly happy twenty minutes ago in our room . . .s. Hmm, come to think of it, I can see why she would almost use the singular form. Since we had the adjoining door open pretty much all night and morning, it does rather seem like we're in a suite and not two separate rooms.

But that's another issue entirely. I watch her walk away, pondering her reactions. As far as I can tell, she's been fine until each time we encounter Sharon – the other woman seems to get Sara's back up. I wonder if they know each other somehow. Barstow isn't all that far from Vegas, and I know that Sara sometimes goes out of town on her nights off. Maybe they have a common acquaintance. A boyfriend?

The thought of Sara with a boyfriend, any boyfriend, rapidly drains away the content I've been feeling. The idea of a boyfriend about whom she cares enough to feud with another woman over is even less palatable.

A few minutes later Sara returns, a half-sandwich in each hand. They look like they're made up completely of lettuce. Doesn't strike me as appetizing, but I guess she likes it. She pushes aside her purse and agenda and slumps into the chair next to me, taking a hungry bite of one of the sandwiches, and sighs. "God, I hate these things."

I smile. This is the Sara I know how to deal with. "Just don't fall asleep and don't start fighting with the lecturer," I advise, "and you'll be ok."

"It's not even that," she says, wrinkling her nose. "It's dealing with all these people. You know, having to make small talk and pretend I like people who are idiots."

I take a bite of my own sandwich, swallow, then say, "You could do what I do and just ignore the people as much as possible."

"Right." She snorts. "Because clearly you haven't struck up a friendship with that red-haired chick."

She must be talking about Sharon, since that's the only woman I've spoken more than two words to since we've been here. A chick, huh? Interesting – Sharon's got to be at least Sara's age, probably older. I wonder why Sara's using a less adult term to refer to her. "You mean Sharon?" I ask as though I don't know already. "She and I spoke on the plane, remember?"

She rolls her eyed and gives me a you're-dumber-than-I-thought look. "Uh, yeah, Gris. I'm fully aware of that. Thus my point about you making friends, which doesn't strike me as 'ignoring people as much as possible'."

I shrug. "She spoke to me first. I did say, 'as much as possible,' remember? I couldn't very well ignore her."

". . . done it enough times to me," I think I hear Sara mutter. I raise my eyebrows, waiting for her to continue on in that vein, but she simply takes another bite of her sandwich and looks away from me.

I quietly eat my own sandwich, figuring that eventually Sara will get fed up with my silence and spit out whatever's bothering her. My plan is foiled a minute later, though, as another woman about Sara's age – is everyone here at least ten years younger than me? I wonder, looking around the room – steps onto the makeshift stage and clears her throat.

The room gradually quiets down as we focus on her. When it's reasonably still in the room, the woman introduces herself as "Grace from the NYU Linguistics Department" and gives us an overview of how we're going to spend the next three days. It's doesn't sound much different from how I've spent innumerable workshops: some basic exercises the first day, followed by lectures and smaller group lessons in the following days.

"Grace from NYU" asks us to write two narratives of things we've done in the past few days, one true and one false. We're to try make the false one as believable as possible, as though we were trying to pass it off as an alibi. She leaves us with that assignment, telling us that we'll have until three PM to write the two tales.

Sara and I look at each other. I know she's wondering the same thing I am: how could it possibly take three hours to write two little stories? She shakes her head and shrugs, digging a pen out of her purse. "Might as well get started."

A/N: I did consider having them wake up together, but I just so hate doing the predictable thing that ultimately I couldn't make myself do it. Gotta be strangely creative…it's an obsession or something!