Just before we get to the baggage claim, without any prompting from me, Sara slides her hand out of mine and returns it to her side. I leave my hand as it was for a few seconds, waiting to see if she takes it again, but she just keeps walking. I look at her, surprised. She smiles and gives me a look that tells me that she knows what needs to be done.

"Sara!" a voice calls across the room. We both stop walking, trying to spot whoever's calling. I'm scanning the area behind us when Sara taps me on the shoulder and points to the right. I follow her line of sight and catch a glimpse of a hand waving above the crowd as its owner yells, "Grissom!" After a few seconds, Catherine appears, elbowing her way through the hordes of suitcase-hungry people.

She zeroes in on us and jogs over. "Hey," she says, pushing her hair behind her ears and nodding a welcome. "You guys have luggage?"

She looks tired, I notice. "Have you gotten any sleep?" I ask her.

"Have you?" she retorts.

"We slept on the plane," Sara tells her. "You do look tired. At least me and Grissom didn't spend the night trying to run the lab and take care of two injured friends."

I raise my eyebrows a little. That's about the most charitable thing I've heard Sara say to Catherine in months, if not years. I catch her looking at me out of the corner of her eye; she's obviously aware that she's impressed me. She smiles - just a little quirk of the side of her mouth, not enough for Catherine to catch, but it's there.

Not wanting to let her have the upper hand, I deliberately step on the back of her shoe, pulling her foot half out of it. She stops, forces her foot back into the sneaker, and gives me a Just wait until I get you home look.

"Uh, guys?" Catherine interrupts. "If you're done with . . . whatever that was, your plane's luggage carousel just started."

We look guiltily at her, hoping our actions weren't too revealing. "Right," I say, starting toward the carousel. Sara starts to follow me, but I wave a hand at her. "I'll get yours,"

"Since when is he such a gentleman?" I hear Catherine ask Sara. I can't hear Sara's response, but I hope she has a good one.

I return to them a few minutes later with a suitcase in each hand. Setting them down by the two women, I wait for their conversation, which sounds suspiciously detailed, to end. When they're both quiet, I gesture to the suitcases. "Got 'em. What's the plan?"

"Willows Taxi can provide you with three options. One, I can drive each of you to your apartments and leave you. Two, I can take you back to the lab with me. Or three, I can take you over to Nick's house, which is where Brass dumped him and Warrick."

"Nick's," Sara and I say in unison. After thinking about that for a second, I say, "Actually, could you drop us off at my house? That way Sara and I can take my car to see Nick and you can get back to work."

"Ever the boss, aren't you," Catherine mutters darkly. In a normal voice, she adds, "No problem. Unless Sara wants me to drop her off at her place?"

I smell a trap. I wait for Sara to respond, trying to send her telepathic waves of Be careful!

I realize a few seconds later that I shouldn't have worried; Sara is as adept at hiding "us" as I am. "Grissom's is fine," she tells Catherine. "I don't want to take the extra half-hour going to my place would require."

"As you wish," Catherine says, turning off the highway onto a side street near my house. "So . . . how was the workshop?"

"Boring!" Sara says.

"Interesting," I say at the same time.

"Ah," Catherine says with an understanding nod. "Good to see you're both still yourselves. Gil, give me a call later - I want to hear about what you learned."

"I -" I begin.

"Here's your house," she interrupts, pulling into my driveway. "Everyone out, and tell the guys I said 'hi'."

"We will," Sara says, eagerly yanking her suitcase out of the back of Catherine's car with too much force and almost knocking herself over backwards. I reflexively grab her around the waist and manage to save both her and the suitcase.

Unfortunately, I now find myself clutching Sara to my chest. Which wouldn't be a problem, except that Catherine is watching with avid interest. I quickly push Sara back to her feet and back away. "I'll call you, Cath," I say pointedly.

"If you say so," she replies. As she climbs back into the driver's seat, she says over her shoulder, "Oh, and Grissom? You might want to stuff that pair of lacy panties back in your suitcase - the zipper's half-busted."

I freeze, trying to decide whether to feel embarrassed or frightened. In fact, I stay frozen for five seconds after her car is gone - until Sara hooks an arm around my neck and applies her body weight. I feel like a tree being climbed by a monkey, but it does succeed in bringing me back to reality. "Stop!" I say, pulling her arm off me. When she does, I look at her sternly. "You packed the suitcases."

She raises a hand as if she was being sworn in. "I swear to god, Grissom, the zipper was fine when I closed your suitcase!"

I glare, which seems to amuse her rather than intimidate her. She starts giggling. "Which do you think would be worse: Catherine thinking you got in my pants, or Catherine thinking it's your lacy thong and there's something she never knew about you?"

I sigh. "Perhaps she'll go against character and be discreet."

"Uh-huh, and perhaps I'll quit CSI and become an exotic dancer."

I wink at her. "I'd definitely come to that show."

"Oh, shut up," she huffs, walking toward my garage. "Get your car."

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

We're still speaking when we pull up to Nick's house, which I'm pretty sure is a friendliness record for us, at least in Las Vegas. I park in his driveway, noticing that Brass's car is still there. "Three of them," I tell her. "Ready?"

She sighs but doesn't move to get out. "Is this . . . going to be ok?" she asks, gesturing from herself to me and back again.

"What?" I say. "Us?" She nods. "You mean am I going to pretend I hate you?" She nods again. I purse my lips and give her a disapproving look. "I'll have you know I'm a better actor than that. For your information, I intend to completely ignore you," I tell her.

She rolls her eyes and opens her door. "Back to normal, in other words. Ok, let's go."

She doesn't sound upset; I think she understands that I'm not saying that I'm going to keep ignoring her even outside of Nick's house. Trust, I tell myself. That's a good sign. I follow her out of the car and to Nick's door, allowing her to ring the doorbell.

Brass answers the door and smiles craftily when he sees us. "Wow, two of you at once!" He calls over his shoulder, "Double geek alert, guys!" I hear clattering and rustling as Nick and Warrick do . . . something. Hide the girlie magazines, perhaps?

Sara brushes past Brass and me and makes her way into the living room. I hear her say hello to both men, but then Brass distracts me by nudging me and saying, "Brought Sara, eh? Maybe it was more convenient for the two of you?"

"Shut up," I admonish him. "We just got off a damn plane and came straight here."

"Uh-huh," he said skeptically. "I'll be watching you kids."

I fake a laugh and walk past him to join Sara in the living room. "Grissom!" Nick exclaims. "Sara said you were here but we didn't believe her."

"Why wouldn't I be here?" I ask.

"Well . . ." Nick breaks off and looks at Warrick, who shrugs. "You and Sara don't usually pair off outside of work."

Sara stiffens imperceptibly. I clear my throat. "Sara and I just flew in from New York, Nick. We were at a workshop, not 'pairing off'."

"A workshop," Brass echoes behind me.

"Shut up," Sara tells him - the same order I gave him a few minutes ago. "We're here to see how you two are. You scared the hell out of us!"

"Aw," Nick says, giving her his usual boyish smile, "we're fine. We should be working instead of lying on these couches, but Catherine insisted."

Sara walks over and sits on the edge of the couch near Nick's head. She stares down at him, and I assume she's looking at his new stitches. "Nice," she says after a few seconds, touching his head. "That bald spot's going to last a while."

"Don't remind me," Nick groans. "It looks ridiculous. I swear, I'm not going to be able to get a date until it grows back!"

"Well, given that your other option was bleeding all over everything," I say, "it's the lesser of the two evils. It's hard to get a date when you're dripping blood, too."

"That's our Grissom, ever the pragmatist," Warrick says from the couch he's stretched out on.

"No kidding," Sara grumbles.

Choosing to ignore her baiting, I ask, "What are your prognoses?"

"Our what?" Nick says.

Sara smiles, but allows Warrick to be the one to fill him in. "He means he wants to know what the outlook for our injuries is, idiot!" Looking at me, he says unhappily, "They threatened me with my shoulder popping back out if I start using it too soon . . . Assuming it stays where it's supposed to be, I should be able to work again in a week, except for lifting."

"Nick?" I say with raised eyebrows.

"A day or two," he says, giving Warrick a smug look. "I just split the skin, didn't dent anything important."

"Wasn't anything important to dent," Warrick snorts.

Sara laughs. "Clearly you two are well on the road to recovery." I'm surprised when she looks over at me and says, "You ready to go, Gris?"

"Now?" I ask, surprised that she doesn't want to stay longer.

"Yeah," she says with a nod. "As much as I love you guys," she tells Nick and Warrick, "I'm exhausted, hungry, and grungy. I need to get home."

"Hey, no problem," Warrick says with a sympathetic wave of his hand. "We're not going anywhere in the meantime."

She smiles slightly. "I knew there was a reason I liked you guys. I'll check in with you later, ok?"

"Sounds good," says Nick. "Bye, Gris."

"Uh, bye," I say quickly. I'm not sure whether I should also say I'll check in with them, to be polite, or whether Sara's just that much closer to them. I settle for, "Give me a call when you're feeling better." Both men nod.

Sara reaches for my hand, immediately checks herself and pulls her hand back, and walks nonchalantly past me. "See ya," she says over her shoulder.

"Bye," both men say.

I follow Sara out of the house. When we're settled in the car, we both let out deep sighs of relief. "You think they bought it?" she asks me.

I consider that. "Nick and Warrick, yeah. Brass . . . I'm not so sure."

She sighs again. "Yeah, that's what I thought. Think he'll say anything?"

"I don't think so. He likes you."

She raises her eyebrows. "He likes me?"

"Oh, be quiet," I tell her, starting the engine. "You know what I mean."

"Mmm," she says noncommittally. "Where are we going now?"

I hadn't thought about that; I just automatically pointed the car towards home. "You want me to take you home?"

She nods. "I wasn't kidding when I told Nick I was tired, hungry, and dirty. Trust me, you don't want to be around me right now."

"You've been ok so far," I point out. "Actually, you've been amazingly calm, considering what's going on."

"Uh, well, thanks. I think. But I'm still dirty. And, well . . ." She gives me a meaningful look and I think I feel my ears turn red.

"Would you like to, uh," I begin, feeling silly about having to issue an invitation after days of living in each other's pockets, "do something later today?"

She looks at me, eyes wide. "You're kidding."

Shit. "No . . ." I say. "Would it be better if I was?"

She shakes her head. "No, no. I'm just surprised that, well . . ." She looks away from me, out the window, and finishes, "I'm surprised that you're not trying desperately to get rid of me."

Damn, this is what I was afraid of. Just the state of being in Vegas has triggered our old habits. "I don't want to get rid of you," I tell her. "I guess sometimes it seems like that . . ."

"Only sometimes?" she says cynically.

"Sara," I say firmly. "I have made some big adjustments over the past few days. Believe me when I tell you that one of them is the elimination of any desire to push you farther away from me - mentally or physically."

"Really?" Her voice is soft and I'm afraid she's going to start crying. I don't know what to do with crying women. This could be bad.

"Really." I glance at her quickly, assessing the amount of trouble I'm about to encounter. To my surprise, she's actually smiling, sort of. "So," I try again as I turn the corner onto her street, "would you like to do something today?"

She says nothing until I've pulled into her parking lot and popped the trunk. By the time she gets out to retrieve her suitcase, I've decided that I won't be getting an answer, so I'm surprised when she sets her suitcase on the ground and walks around to my window. I roll it down and wait.

"You . . ." she falters, then says so quickly that I can barely understand her, "How about you give me a call when you're settled." With that, she turns on her heel, picks up her suitcase and walks into her building.

I know she purposely left that statement ambiguous. "When I'm settled" could mean in an hour, it could mean tomorrow, it could even mean Don't come back until you've learned to function like a normal human being.

So . . . which one is what she wants? Feeling torn, I back out of her parking lot and head for home.