Well, at long last another chapter. I have a reasonable excuse, my partner and I bought a house so were tied up playing bank and lawyer tennis. We've also been planning our wedding which happens on Sept 6, thus this is the only chapter you get for a while cos I'll be swanning around Spain and Italy for six weeks – sucks to be me huh? I promise to take a notebook tho and I'll write while sipping good red wine – yep, really sucks to be me.

Yes I know this is short by my usual standards but I wanted to capture the conversation between Greg and Rilie in insolation; you'll have to sue me for being a romantic.

I do appreciate the patience of the two people left reading this fic.

BTW: To whomever nominated my fic for the Greg Sanders Appreciation society awards, thank you, I'm flattered you feel it's worth it

Thanks as always to my wonderful beta 'tasha, whom, despite having a husband and children still, has the patience to read my unedited writing. You gotta love a beta who gets your jokes [either that or feel sorry for her]

All snakes who wish to remain in Ireland will please raise their right hands

Saint Patrick

A hypothetical paradox:
What would happen in a battle between an Enterprise security
team, who always get killed soon after appearing, and a squad of
Imperial Stormtroopers, who can't hit the broad side of a planet?
Tom Galloway

We are all agreed that your theory is crazy. The question, which
divides us, is whether it is crazy enough to have a chance of being
correct. My own feeling is that it is not crazy enough.
Niels Bohr

It was a beautiful day, the sun was shining, the birds were singing and those few, brave souls that had managed to rouse themselves this early went about their business with a bleary-eyed determination that bespoke discipline rather than any significant measure of enthusiasm. The only hint of disharmony in this placid scene was an unholy cacophony as the Edith Piaf medley coming from the café's speakers clashed violently with a lone piper plying his craft outside the nearby science block.

 Into this aural assault strode a man, a man of determined mien; if it had been a small town in a generic western mothers would have been pulling their children off the streets and shops along the main street pulling their blinds down for this was obviously a man with a mission. But lo, there were no moustachioed men in black hats in sight and the undertaker wasn't around to rub his hands in a grotesque parody of concern, so the non-existent townspeople breathed a sigh of relief and returned to their celluloid existence.

Our hero, however, was not so composed as appearances would suggest. A brief précis of his thoughts, if one was gifted – or indeed cursed – with telepathy, would have revealed an incomprehensible stream of gibberish consisting largely of 'oh god', 'oh shit' and 'run away before she bites me'. 

Despite his terror, his fear of rejection and indeed his expectation of being mauled and spat out like a feline hairball, Greg had dressed for the occasion. It should be noted, however, that Greg's concept of dressing for the occasion and that of the average person were light years apart, and thus Greg looked like he'd dressed in a blender; a large, active blender of malicious intent. Fortunately, the staff at the café, made Greg look relatively normal, insofar as their standard attire was deemed to come from the Psychedelic Nightmare school of Hawaiian shirt design, and thus by comparison, Greg was able to quietly seat himself at a table without causing undue alarm to the more conservatively inclined clientele. 

As Greg had, through his brief scholastic sojourn, come to be regarded as a regular by the cafe staff, he didn't have to wait long for service. Today, service was provided by what appeared to be a failed genetic experiment in part comprising various elements of a parrot, an orang-utan and what was unmistakeably some kind of feather duster; most days it answered to Tim.

"'Lo Greg."

"Tim"

"Usual?"

"Make it four shots."

"'Kay. Can we expect Little Miss Sunshine?"

"Yep, Rilie should be here shortly."

"Care to make a mood prediction?"

"Are you serious?"

"Never hurts to ask. Health and safety is a primary concern of this establishment, With Rilie around I feel neither healthy or safe; anyway, her usual?"

"Yep"

"On you?"

Greg shrugged, "Why not?"

"Probably 'cos she'd gut you if you didn't have it waiting for her when she arrived."

"True."

"Right, won't be long."

"Cheers Tim."

True to his word, Tim was back within two minutes bearing the requested cups of coffee, the hissing and snarling emanating from Greg's testament to the strength of his brew. The arrival of the coffee was followed almost instantaneously by the arrival of Rilie, who, whilst appearing to be awake said nothing until she'd inhaled half of the demi-tasse that waited upon her pleasure.

Greg flicked a glance across to the counter where Tim merely raised an appreciative eyebrow as if to indicate that Greg had indeed made the smart choice. Returning his gaze to his companion he was somewhat unnerved to find her regarding him in much the same way that a hawk regards a small rodent whom it is considering in the same light as a Frenchman regards a plate of snails. 

Deciding that if they were talking it would give Rilie less of a chance to scare him, Greg bravely initiated conversation.

"So, here we are then."

"Well, there's a clichéd start to the morning."

Greg grinned, "You can do better I suppose?"

"Of course, but I'd need more coffee, the neurons, which control metaphor and the general descriptive process, are currently dormant."

"I thought we agreed that you going to be awake when you got here."

"Do you see toothpicks?"

"True enough but you know the zombies from the evil dead?" Rilie indicated her assent, gesturing, albeit warily, for her companion to continue, "Well they'd bob and weave around you without too much difficulty."

"Gee thanks" was the somewhat sour reply, "And why are you so bloody chipper this morning?"

"Would you believe that I'm basking in the pleasure of your company?"

"Not really, I'd more readily believe that you've planted a bomb under Mueller's car in order to avoid handing in your latest composition assignment."

"That's next week. This week I'm plotting the overthrow of a third-world country."

"I think you should concentrate on Mueller, there's enough chaos in third world without you adding to it."

"True, but if I'm in the third world then I'm far enough away from Mueller to get an extension on my assignment."

"I wouldn't bet on that."

The young man smiled ruefully, "Neither would I, but it's worth a crack."

An uneasy silence descended on the pair, both knew why they were there and both were too scared to make the first move, despite both having admitted their mutual attraction. In Greg, the uneasiness displayed itself as loudness, as bravado and like a ten year old that shows their interest in someone by running up and punching them he launched verbal sortie after verbal sortie each designed to demonstrate to the women opposite him that he was there and that he'd brought all his plumage with him. For Rilie's part, she became truculence personified, if one had only a passing acquaintanceship with Rilie, one would assumed that she wasn't not a morning person and that she was caffeine deficient, but for those who know her they would have spotted the nervousness, the lack of expansive gesticulation, the furrowed brow, the lack of abuse, all were signs that Rilie wanted to run.

For two such talented, intelligent people, they were pretty use in the grand scheme of relationships clearly this was a Dear Abby moment, and Abby was nowhere to be seen.

After mentally tossing a coin and losing, best of twenty-five, Rilie decided to make the first move.

"Greg, shut up," she snarled. She then reached across the table, grabbed him by the collar and kissed him. So much for subtlety.

The Kiss was interrupted by a crash from behind the counter, as he, who was currently Tim, fell off his seat in shock – it could have been amusement but the banana flan that covered his face made precise identification somewhat difficult. Greg, for his part, was doing a fairly impressive impression of a goldfish, accepting, as you do, that goldfish are neither bright red or found with coffee dribbling out their nose; while true that Rilie's kiss was more than welcome, Greg wished she'd timed it a little better. Better in the sense that he'd swallowed first.

Observing his dilemma, Rilie grinned somewhat sheepishly, although without hint of remorse; she'd been through her own personal hell lately and since depression is the gift that just kept giving it was either go all St George on it or share it around. The way things had ended up, she had, to all intents, kissed the dragon and ridden off with the damsel, although she had her doubts as to how Greg would look in a wimple.

Greg, for his part, having recovered his dignity – which had crawled off into a corner to have a quiet seizure – was about to Errol Flynn his companion when his cell-phone launched into a castrated version of The William Tell Overture.

"'lo? Grissom, what's up?…..You got my note?…..At the university…..No, I can't skip class, my lecturer will turn me into a lamp shade…..What's that? You'll write me a note? Thanks so much…..

OK, OK, I'll see you at Ecklie's in half an hour…..You too, bye."

"What was that all about?" Rilie asked, if he skipped now she'd turn him into a lampshade.

"Grissom, I had an idea last night and he wants to follow it up."

"Soooooooo…...you're leaving?" Greg recognised 'that' tone and winced internally.

"Yep, spectacular timing huh? How about dinner tonight, my place, I'll introduce you to my cat."

"Along as it's not on the menu, that's fine. Alright Greg, I'll see you tonight, now go away, I need another coffee."

"'kay, see you later."

As Greg left the minds of the two young people held two distinct thoughts, Greg was asking himself why he didn't kiss Rilie goodbye, while Rilie was wondering where the hell Greg lived.