Dim Sum
Las Vegas, Friday afternoon
"Korean?" Sara eyed him pensively. "As in wicked hot pickled veggies and grilled dog?"
Greg looked hurt.
"That's an unfounded stereotype, and unworthy of you, Sara." He considered. "Dog is about as common in Korea as rattlesnake is here. Sure you can find it, but it's not like it comes in the Happy Meals."
"Catherine, what do you think of Korean food?" Sara looked to where Catherine was reading reports Warrick had just brought her from trace.
"Sorry?" Catherine blinked, trying to pull herself out of the report she was in. "Kim chee. Clears the sinuses."
"There you go!" Greg turned back to Sara, grin fixed impishly in place. "Come on, it'll be both nutritious and educational. Everyone's been working too hard, and we're all fried. The natives are restless and fortune favors the bold. Let us beat the drums to summon Kong!"
His relentless cheer and willingness to actually say whatever came into his mind were starting to erode her resolve. Sara sighed, and squinted off into the distance as she contemplated the offer.
"Okay," she relented at last, "but there better be beer involved."
"Bonus," Greg noted, nodding enthusiastically.
"Meet you there at seven," Sara told him, already wondering what she was getting herself into.
Grissom, who had overheard much of this, shook his head sadly and went back to work on a mound of neglected paperwork that was threatening to displace jarred insects from his desk. He closed his eyes, and for a moment, he was elsewhere.
San Francisco, 6 years previously
"Lou what?" he asked, chopsticks hovering over the steamed wan little lumps.
Sara, fresh faced and with a beaming smile, indicated the dumpling-like objects on his plate again. "Lou bo bing. Fried turnip cake. Come on, with the sauce, though, you have to try the sauce."
They laughed, and she guided his inquisitive but inexperienced pallet through the intricacies of real China Town dim sum. She'd not been a vegetarian then, and had placed tiny morsels of fish, rice, beef and pork on his plate in a bewildering progression. Soon his naturally analytical nature took a back seat and he relaxed into the moment, enjoying the company of the young woman who had assisted him at the university lectures.
Gil had dated, had loved and had even wooed in his day, but until he met Sara Sidle he had not understood beauty, or the release of letting yourself be lost in a shared moment. During their walks around campus, discoursing on everything from the Unibomber Manifesto to the secret life of tics, they had simply fit. She was not a breath of fresh air, she was his atmosphere, and had he been able to understand that this would be the finest moment in his life, he could not have savored it more.
She had taken the lou bo bing in her nimble fingers, at last, and popped it into his mouth with a casual intimacy that had shocked and thrilled him. Her fingertips left a tiny comma of sweet sauce on his lower lip. He brazenly traced her fingertip with the tip of his tongue as he tasted the dim sum. It was the best thing that had ever happened to a turnip, he decided.
Las Vegas, Friday afternoon
Gil opened his eyes and found he was slowly licking his lower lip, as the paperwork lay unread before him. He shook his head and tried to focus on the task at hand.
He was completing requisitions for expendable field kit equipment and supplies, everything from evidence bags to sun block, the last item one he had added to the standard kit after Nick had returned from a DB in the desert with second degree sunburn on his neck a few months past.
Grissom had wondered how a man who had grown up in Texas had managed to get sunburned in thirty minutes of evidence collection. Nick had pointed out that at home, he had always had a good tube of SPF 30 in the console of his jeep. Grissom had added the zinc-oxide tubes to the standard field kit that week.
Las Vegas, Friday evening
Sara, eyes watering, grabbed Greg's beer and took a long pull. He watched a combination of empathy, distress and clinical detachment.
"I guess the kim chee takes a little getting used to," he admitted. "But hey, sinuses are clear as advertised, right?"
"They're clear," she managed at last, "because that stuff burned a hole in the top of my head."
She wiped her eyes with her sleeve and took another drink of his beer.
"I feel like I've been maced. Good, but hot, oh man."
He nodded, signaling the waitress for another beer.
"Yeah, the red pepper flakes used in kim chee are actually the same ones they use to make pepper spray. They pickle shredded Nappa cabbage and daikon radish with the flakes and let it ferment with a little white soy and green onion." He reached out a hand and touched her arm. "If I buy you another beer, will you forgive me?"
She looked at him quickly, and she felt a powerful wave of déjà vu, a brief moment of lightheadedness unrelated to the rush of beer into her system.
San Francisco, 6 years previously
"If I buy you another beer will you forgive me?" Gil Grissom fixed his mournful eyes on hers. He truly looked remorseful.
She looked down at her handbag, a little clutch that carried her ID and this and that. It was now dripping with a combination of shitake mushroom julienne and duck sauce, which Gil had swept from the table into her lap while expansively recounting an exciting bit of blood spatter evidence. The case, involving a short order cook with a meat cleaver and a customer whose remains had not been discovered, both revolted and fascinated her.
"You're lucky it's just my little bag and not my going out purse," she explained, dabbing futilely at it with her napkin. "Now, about that beer?"
Gil had indicated to the waitress to bring another round.
"I'm sorry," he asked, "your 'going out purse'? I thought we were out."
"I only have two purses. I have this little bag, no much worse for wear thanks to the eminent Doctor Grissom." He bowed in rueful acknowledgement. "And I have a formal bag my grandmother sent me when I got my B.S., this incredibly inappropriate little crazy ass expensive Dior purse. You should be wearing diamonds and three kinds of couture underwear just to hold it, much less take it anywhere."
She laughed, a wanton unselfconscious laugh that seemed to catch his attention. She admitted to him, "I've never even taken it out of the closet. Where do I go with Dior, you know?"
He grinned, and noted dryly, "Or with three kinds of couture underwear."
She thought she was going to be able to keep a straight face until he winked at her. At that moment, she knew she wanted to go with him back to his hotel.
Las Vegas, Friday evening
"Greg, I had fun." She leaned against her car, as he awkwardly shifted from foot to foot. She knew what was coming, and she was not looking forward to having to shoot him down again.
"Sara, I'm glad. I really enjoy your company." He had such an honest face, every emotion he felt played across it. She wondered for a moment what it would be like to be with a man who expressed everything he felt.
"There's something I've been wanting to tell you, actually," he continued, "but there never seemed to be the right time."
"Greg, really, listen-" she began, but he cut her off.
"I like you. Just, you know, as a friend. I know that you're in this complicated place emotionally, with Grissom." He nodded. "Yeah. I notice stuff. I just want you to know, if you're ever in need of someone to just be a friend, I'm here."
He leaned in and awkwardly kissed her cheek, and she recovered enough to hug him briefly and whisper her thanks. He turned and walked to his car, already regaining the bounce in his walk. She leaned against her car and shut her eyes against the call of memory.
San Francisco, 6 years previously
"Your mind is back in Las Vegas already, isn't it?" Sara lay beside him on the rumpled sheets of the hotel bed, her eyes large and luminous in the darkness.
"I'm sorry," Grissom told her, hating himself for admitting it. "I should have told you. There's someone… it's over, but it can be hard to let go."
She nodded, and reached a hand out to tentatively touch the bare flesh of his shoulder.
"It's okay, Grissom." She felt him sigh. She closed her eyes and lay, for the last time, naked against him. "I just want you to know, if you're ever in need of someone to just be a friend, I'm here."