Title: After the Look

By: Manigault

Disclaimer: They are so not mine and I have no control what happens to them except in fanfic; especially what happens to them in the editing room. They belong to CBS and all those other people they belong to, but not me.

Post ToYD

Spoilers for WtG season six finale

Don't read any further if you don't won't to be spoiled for the finale! This is my take on what could possibly happen. I'm wearing my rose colored glasses btw.

Any mistakes are all mine. This was not beta read, as it popped into my mind and did not pass inspection.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

How would Grissom and Sara go from the eye sex at the conference room table to the episode that could hopefully end with a bang?

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

She felt him watching her, his eyes boring into her soul as they sat across the table from one another in comfortable silence. The shift had taken place. Finally. After six long years of waiting for him to lower the walls that surrounded him, protected him, kept him from revealing his inner desires for her inspection; he was allowing himself to enter a new realm. One that accepted his deep feelings for her and permitted her to see his desire.

With a soft smile, Sara looked up and stared directly into his eyes. She watched as his gaze flickered to the table and then felt her own heart flutter as she witnessed his resolve strengthen as he brought his eyes back up to meet her challenge. And it was a challenge. Would he stumble and back away this time? She had the strongest feeling that he was not going anywhere, not without her beside him.

Their staring contest would have gone on indefinetly, but reality interrupted in the form of a ringing cellphone. With a deep sigh, Grissom pulled his phone from his pocket while keeping his eyes trained on Sara's face; afraid to look away and find that this new acknowledgement of longings would vanish.

"Grissom," his voice shook the slightest bit and he cleared his throat, feeling it tighten as her eyes flitted to his lips. "We'll be there in fifteen minutes."

Clicking the end button on the phone, Grissom sent her an apologetic smile and said gently. "This isn't over," he pushed back from the table and motioned towards the doorway. "Vartann has a DB on a train track. If you will find Nick, I'll meet you both at my car in five minutes."

Sara stood up and moved around the table, her eyes on Grissom who had not made any motion of standing. Amusement twitched the corners of his lips as she gave him a puzzled look that flashed with understanding when he glanced down and back up to meet her blushing face. She felt a thrill of excitment that she had caused his present discomfort and chose to give him a break by not harping on his situation. Everything was too new for her and she dared not test the waters just yet.

"I'll find Nick," she said with warmth. Practically dashing from the room she made a beeline for the locker room where she planned on grabbing her coat and then searc for Nick. She did not question why Grissom wanted Nick to go with them for one DB, knowing instinctively that they both needed the shake up of a third body to keep their focus on the job.

"Fine, Tina, do whatever you want to do." Warrick threw his cellphone into his locker and slammed the door before turning around to find Sara standing awkwardly in the doorway. "Wives." he said with a shrug.

"If you want to talk about it, Warrick, you know that I'm available," Sara sighed. "Well, not right at this second since I'm on the way to a crime scene, but later?"

"I'm cool, Sara." Warrick told her he was heading to meet Brass at a casino where he and Catherine would be processing a scene. "Maybe we can grab breakfast after shift and I can gripe about being married."

They grinned at each other and Sara agreed to have breakfast with him even though she was thinking again about Grissom and if he had any plans for them after shift. Taking her black coat out of the locker she went in search of Nick and knew that if she did not get control of the silly grin on her face then the grapevine would be growing wild in no time at all.

She and Nick were waiting beside Grissom's Denali when he approached with his distinctive lope, wearing a CSI crime lab ball cap and a navy crime lab jacket that was zipped up the front.

He pulled his keys from his jacket pocket and tossed them to Sara as he drew closer. "You want to drive?"

The question pleased her and she could not help but shoot a grin over at Nick before shaking the keys at him. Raising his eyebrows, Nick opened the back door and shook his head in mock horror. "Gris, you must have a wish to scare me."

Moving around the front of the car, Grissom slid into the front passenger seat and pulled his cap down over his eyes. It was the first time he had offered the driving privaleges to one of his investigators, preferring to be the one in control, but then Sara was not just one of his investigators and he wanted to do something to show her he was serious.

Vartann met them at the railroad track and motioned along the track towards where the body was located. He stressed body. "The man lost his head it appears," Vartann commented in the manner that was a weak attempt to take away from the grotesque nature of the scene.

Grissom had already moved away from the car and along the track towards the body, his flashlight in one hand as he shined it along the track. Withing minutes he was holding the light over the body and staring at the manner in which the victim had been killed. He could feel Sara approach and turned slightly to flash the light over her from head to toe.

She carried the silver crime lab kit in one hand, and he noticed that she had buttoned up the front of her black coat and wrapped a scarf around her slender neck. He pushed away the familar yearning that he felt whenever he saw her and concentrated on the victim. Sara came to a stop beside him, placed the kit on the ground and stuffed her hands into the pockets of her coat as she let her trained eyes sweep over the victim.

For the next hour they took pictures, processed the victim, and watched as David and another man removed him from the track and carried him off to the lab and Doc Robbins. Grissom had discovered the mans head several hundred feet from his body and that fact had intrigued him as he catelogued the information in his expansive mind. Nick had left a half hour before armed with the victims wallet and name as he and Vartann made their way back to the lab.

Alone on the track as they walked back towards the Denali, Grissom cleared his throat and decided to approach the subject that was weighing heavy between himself and Sara.

He opened his mouth to speak when his ringing cellphone shrilled through the cool night. Scowling, he held the phone up to his ear and said abruptly. "Grissom."

Sara stopped walking and turned to find Grissom clutching the phone in one hand as his face paled. "Is he alive? Uhm, I'll be there. Thanks."

Images of Warrick, Nick or Greg flashed through Sara's mind's eye as she heard his question and watched him lose all the blood in his face. Gripping his forearm between her hands, she peppered him with questions when it was apparent he was not going to tell her what had happened.

"Who is it, Grissom? What happened? Is it one of the guys?"

Her voice crept through his subconscious and he shook his head in a dazed manner. "Brass was shot. He isn't doing very well and they are taking him to the hospital." Grissom stared at Sara as if she would have the answers written on her face. "I need to go there now. I need-,"

His words had felt like a punch in the gut for Sara and she could not imagine Jim Brass being shot and lying in a hospital. Brass, who was Grissom's best friend. Brass, who had been there for her so many times over the past few years and whom she trusted explicitly.

"I'll drive you there, Gris," Taking his hand in her own she tugged him into a run as they hurried to his car and to Brass.

TBC