DISCLAIMER:Don't Own it. No Money Made... Just for fun and enjoyment.

A/N: I know I have been torturing Sara, but come on, you have to admit it's kind of fun... At least on my side. ;) Anyway, the pain is no where near over, since we still have the rest of the week. Enjoy!

REVIEWS: Thanks to all who have reviews have been great, and believe it or not, I am still getting little flashes of ideas from them periodically. So, if it seems like Sara's angst is getting stronger, you have no one to blame but yourselves. ;)


Chapter 24

The boys were each going through stacks of paperwork toward the end of the first shift of the week. Warrick was waiting for the Photo Lab to finish developing the photographs he had taken of the victims from the quadruple murder that night at the Bellagio. However, he still had to finish putting the log of his photographs into the case file, and that was what he was working on there at the break room table. Nick and Greg were still cataloging everything that they had collected in the hotel room. Their joint report looked to be the winner for the night in terms of number of trees killed to document everything for the shift.

Nick looked up from his evidence log and had a pensive expression on his face. Warrick noticed him out of the corner of his eye and decided he needed some prodding to break up the monotony of their joint paperwork project, "Is that gas, or you got somethin' on your mind?"

"Ha, ha, 'Rick…" He smirked at the other man before answering, "No, I was just thinking; how did Catherine get the hotel manager to agree to let us practically strip that suite?"

"You're kiddin', right? I bet even Greggo there knows the answer to that one." Warrick gestured in the younger man's direction and Greg's head popped up in response.

"Answer to what?" He was pulling the earphone out of his left ear.

Nick shook his head at Greg, "Why the manager of the Bellagio let us strip the suite?"

"Are you kidding? That was a suite for whales." Greg shrugged off his question and bent his head back down into his evidence log and finished his answer, "They're gonna have to completely remodel it before another one would set foot in it. So we just saved the hotel management a bundle in disposal costs."

Warrick laughed at Nick and gave Greg a high five across the table, "Nice work… Good to see you payin' attention, little man."

Nick shook off their admonishment and went back to working on his evidence log before asking another question, "So, am I the only who's noticed Grissom lately?"

Greg was back into his own world of death metal music, so he did not respond to Nick's question, but Warrick sighed with exasperation, "Man, I don't think I can handle three people crushin' on the boss man 'round here."

"Screw you, bro." Warrick laughed as Nick did not receive his joke well. "You know exactly what I'm talkin' about… He's practically been smilin' lately." Nick shook his pen at the other man, "And he's been doing this for weeks now, slowly gettin' better all the time." Nick thought about it a little more, "I'd say it's been goin' on for 'round a month now."

"Yeah… The man has been a lot easier to work with lately." Warrick realized that it was around the same time that Stephanie had accepted the job in the morgue, but he was not about to say anything to that effect. He had made a promise, and he was going to keep it: nobody was finding out about Stephanie and Grissom from him. Well, almost nobody… But that ain't 'til Friday. He turned his attention back to Nick, "Why; you complainin'?"

"Hell no! I was just wonderin' if he hadn't finally got some or somethin'." The two men were laughing at the humor of Nick's statement. What they did not know was that Sara had been just about to walk into the break room when she caught the tail end of that discussion, and then turned quickly to walk away. As she was rounding the corner in the hallway, she bumped headfirst into someone.

She might have fallen straight to the floor, had not a strong pair of hands gripped her at the shoulders and held her steady. She was making her apology when she finally recognized her victim, "Hey I'm really sorr-…" The words stuck in her throat, and she struggled to recover from the shock, "Ah, sorry, Grissom… I guess I was just-."

"Thinking about something else? I think I understand the predilection." He held her away from him and looked her over for a moment, "Are you okay?"

Every word was a fight to maintain her composure, and she was not sure of anything coming out of her mouth at that moment, "Ah… Um… Yeah, I'm fine." When he released his hold on her, she finally broke eye contact with him, and it helped a little, "I just realized I'd forgotten something in the ah, the ah, the Trace Lab. So, I was heading back that way." Sara had made it through another sentence, but she was almost sure that Grissom had noticed her difficulty.

"Actually, I snagged it when I was just there… No one needs to deal with Hodges this early in the week." Grissom rolled his deep blue eyes at the mention of the infuriating tech from Trace, and the action nearly hypnotized Sara. Grissom continued, "Looks like you were right to be so persistent with those drain traps."

At the word trap, Sara realized Grissom was talking again, and once again fought to break eye contact by taking the report from his fingers. "Yeah, that's what it looks like." Sara had no idea what she was agreeing to at first, but figured it out as she forced herself to read the report and get control of herself.

"Anyway, good work on the tub. Because of you, we have a suspect to give the detectives." Grissom looked down at his watch and then back up at Sara, "You know what? There's only a little bit of time left in this shift… Why don't you call it a night and get some rest." He bent sideways and craned his neck around to get a look at the side of her neck, "I'm still worried about that cut, and we can finish up the paperwork before the end of shift. Besides, Catherine is still processing some of the stuff from the scene, and we're likely to need some fresh eyes when we start up again tonight." Grissom returned upright and gave her a little, half smile, and Sara's heart melted even further. Without any regard to what he had just done to her, Grissom walked away, leaving Sara to contemplate her predicament.

She whispered to herself as she headed for the locker room and her face sunk into a desolate expression, "Nick's right… She is making him happy."