The Question Remains: LVPD Awards Night
Greg really does love Sara's little black dress.
Number 22 in the Ducks in a Row Series.
………
Greg Sanders buttoned his tux shirt, standing in front of the tiny mirror above Sara's dresser in her bedroom. He grinned at his reflection, and turned to the box in front of him, carefully extracting the cufflinks, and slipping them through the holes in the fabric at his wrists.
"Greg? Have you seen my shoes?" Sara's voice carried from the bathroom down the hall, where she had been applying a trace amount of make up. Shoes, he had seen them somewhere…
"By the couch." He called back, stepping back to sit on the bed, and put his own shoes on.
"Oh! Wow I'm blind today. Thanks." She had located her shoes, and by the clicking of the heels on the hardwood floor, was walking down the hall to the bedroom.
Sara had stopped at the doorway of the bedroom, intent on investigating whether or not her heels were too high, but the sight of Greg doubled over, tying his shoes, in a crisp, freshly pressed tuxedo stooped her feet, and stole her vocabulary. He looked up at the silence of her footfalls, and squinted up at her as he tightened his shoelace. His eyes widened, and his jaw sank, as he stared at her, standing in the doorjamb with a similar expression on her face.
"Good God. I'd forgotten that you clean up well." Sara let a smile twitch across her lips.
"You're beautiful." He whispered, unable to move. The simple black dress she wore hung gracefully over the curves of her hips, hugging the swell of her breasts and the smooth plane of her stomach. She grinned, shifting her weight to a more suggestive position as he let his eyes roam over her curves, softened by the toddler in the other room. "Sara Jane." He raised his gaze to her eyes, tumbling into love with her all over again, as she ran a hand through her coppery brown curls, and smiled broadly at him, the mischievous glint in her eye he worked so hard to influence making it's way to the surface.
"Gregory."
"You look astounding." He reached out for her with one hand, and she entered the bedroom, coming to stand beside him. He smiled genuinely at her, and rotated is index finger in a circular motion. She turned around once in a circle, giving him 360 degrees of the little black dress that had only left her closet a handful of times since her graduation from Harvard.
"Whoa."
"That a technical term, Mr. Sanders?"
"Um."
"You've seen this before, I've had this for years Greg."
"I. I just, I love that dress. I didn't know you were going to wear that dress. And now that I know, and you've taken it out of it's hiding spot which is, by the way, a horrible injustice to both your body and this dress, all I want to do is take you back out of it again." He reached out for her, and she took his hand as he stood from the bed. He pressed a gentle kiss to her cheek, and smiled into her shoulder like a kid who won the biggest prize at the arcade. She wrapped her arms around his shoulders as his crept around her hips. Sara leaned into Greg's frame gently, and they stood there in the bedroom, in a comfortable embrace.
"You smell nice, Gregory."
"Soap, shampoo, and deodorant."
"It suits you."
"Simple hygiene."
"A side effect of the scent it creates."
"You're crazy."
"A side effect of being married to you."
"You like it."
"Obviously."
"Do we have time?"
"Anna is here, and Nora's sleeping."
"So no."
"We are supposed to be at the hall in a half hour Absolutely not."
"Damn."
"Waiting will make it better later on."
"Still crazy."
"I just did my make up, Greg."
"I can be fast."
"Ha! Fast is not how I would describe you." Sara laughed, leaning her forehead against his. "Anything but."
"Still, you like it."
"Indeed." She stepped back, out of his touch, and paused at the doorjamb. "Greg, we have to leave. I want to be there on time." The humor hadn't left her expression as she turned to walk down the hallway. He grabbed his jacket and followed her out, both of them bidding goodbye to Anna Finch, the teenager who lived across the street, who had settled herself down on the couch with the baby monitor in one hand, and the remote in the other.
………
Greg pulled up outside the reception hall of one of Sam Braun's hotels. The LVPD was holding it's annual awards and recognitions banquet, and both Brass and Nick were receiving awards. The invitation had said black tie, and Sara was relieved to easily spot Nick and Warrick standing in a corner, engrossed in conversation. Greg felt Sara slip her hand into his as they closed the distance.
Greg accepted a handshake from Warrick, and Sara a kiss on her cheek from Nick, and the four CSIs talked amongst themselves, waiting for the MC to tell them to take their seats to begin the ceremonies. Warrick got Greg going on a rant about some video game the two were having trouble beating, and Nick had spun Sara slowly, fully appreciating the dress that no one had ever seen her wear. Greg's hand found Sara's again, despite their separate conversations, and his fingers locked in a tangle with hers, resting on her hip.
Finally time for the ceremonies to begin, the nightshift was seated at a small table off to the side. Sara pulled Greg's hand into her lap, holding his fingers with both of her hands. They listened to a dozen or so police officers and detectives give speeches, Brass among them.
They called Nick's name, he was receiving recognition for a series of covert operations in which he assisted police officers by being first bait, then a decoy, then finally the leverage in a drop off, much to Grissom's hesitancy. Greg had started to fidget, listening to Rory Atwater commend CSI Stokes on his courageousness and slick dialogue with the suspect in a high profile kidnapping/homicide case. His thoughts strayed to Nora, and he wondered vaguely if the seventeen year old was taking good enough care of his child. He rubbed his thumb along one of Sara's fingers absentmindedly, keenly aware of the sliver of a cell phone in his pocket. Leaving Nora with Anna Finch wasn't an uncommon thing for them to do, but Greg had just worked two triples, barely seeing his daughter in her waking hours in a week and a half. Seeing Sara dressed up was exciting, but eating dinner on the couch in his sweatpants with his three year old, at this point sounded much better.
He smiled, marveling at how fast their lives had become about Cheerios and Sesame Street.
Sara's gentle squeeze on his hand brought him back to the awards night, and he leaned toward her to catch her whispered comment.
"She's fine, Greg." He gave his wife a small smile, and glanced around to Warrick on her right, and Catherine on his left, noting that everyone else was paying polite attention to Atwater and his droning.
"I know. I worry."
"Relax."
"I can't Sara, all of LVPD is in this room, and no one is out patrolling the city." He missed her rolling her eyes at him, and her soft smile, as she was amused at his restlessness. She crossed one leg over the other, so that her foot hooked itself around his calf, and the gentle rub of her foot against his leg seemed to lull him slightly, and he visibly relaxed. Atwater had moved on to the officers that had gone above and beyond a few minutes later, and Sara felt her cell phone vibrate in her purse against the leg of the chair. She reached down and picked it out of her purse, glancing at the screen.
She tapped Greg on the shoulder, showing him the text message on the phone:
"NORA FINE. MR. S NO WORRY- HAVE GOOD TIME."
She silently arched a graceful eyebrow at him, and he smiled.
"You told her to text you part way through the evening didn't you?" Greg's whisper was barely audible, but Sara nodding politely.
"I told you she was fine. Relax."
…
An hour or so after the presentations had been made, and the dinner plates had been cleared, Greg and Sara wound down the idle chatter with the rest of the shift, and were able to slip away from the festivities around midnight, neither being on call, as they both ended up, with a stroke of genius good luck, to have the night off, an odd occurance, but a welcome one. Sara bent and kissed Nick's head, ruffling his longish hair affectionately, and husband and wife bid their goodnights quietly, slipping out the side door. Greg wasn't ten steps out the door and he had run his fingers over the house number, checking on Nora. Sara smiled softly at him, waiting as he neurotically checked in with Anna. She turned her attention to him as he snapped closed his phone, and he grinned childishly at her, taking her hand and swinging it playfully between them.
"Anna said she fell back asleep about an hour and a half ago."
"Good." He nodded, cocking his eyebrow suggestively at her.
"Now. The question remains." He grinned at her, and she glanced at him questioningly.
"Which question is that?"
"Ah, whether or not we're going to make it to the bedroom before I get you out of that dress." He wrapped an arm around her waist, and kissed her breaking contact with her only when they had reached the Denali. He climbed into the driver's side, and turned the ignition, watching as his wife climbed in beside him. She tossed a handful of curls out of her face, and sat back, fastening the seat belt, flashing him a broad, genuine, loving smile, before touching the radio, and turning the music from the baby Einstein CD they had in the player to one of Greg's Sex Pistols albums.
"What? You going to drive, or stare at me?" Her voice brought him out of his thoughts, and he flashed a grin back at her, and tossed the Denali into reverse, backing out of the parking spot, and out on to the main road.
That dress always fell off her curves so gracefully.
………
A/N: we're nearing the end… this is the last of the gaps to be filled… the rest of the series will be posted in order. Once I'm finished with it, I'll revise each story, and post all 35 in one multi chapter story. Nora's is three or so in this one. I'm going to update the chapter of 'Transitions' that's been weighing down on my chest before I touch the rest of this monster. I guess I'm not ready to say goodbye to Nora. Well, there's still six more to go.