6

Jim had been right. The crime scene had Grissom's name all over it. He spent hours collecting all his samples while Sara photographed and documented the scene. Finally, he was in his office with all his creepy crawly evidence while Sara processed everything else.

A knock on his door disturbed him, "Come in."

"Hey Gil, got a minute?"

"Yeah, Jim, what do you need?" Grissom leaned back in his chair, took his glasses off and pinched the bridge of his nose.

Jim closed the door and sat in the chair opposite Gil. "I just wanted to talk to you about your relationship."

Grissom looked up and raised an eyebrow, "Relationship?"

"Yeah. You know, for being a CSI you really suck at hiding the evidence."

"Hmm. I have no idea what you're talking about."

"Hey! This is me here. Not a cop talking to a CSI, just a guy talking to his pal." Grissom was silent, so Jim continued, "You wanna know where you screwed up?" After Grissom tilted his head to the side, Jim answered his own question, "I know you do. First, you told me to call her on her cell. Why would you tell me that unless you knew she wouldn't pick up if I called her at home? Second, she hung up before I got to tell her where the scene was. Third, you both pulled up within three minutes of each other and didn't even say hello to each other."

Grissom's only response was to suck in his cheeks and purse his lips. "Listen, I'm not trying to pry here. I just want to make sure you watch your back. Ecklie's been looking for a reason to get rid of you for a long time now. You don't need to give him any more reasons." Jim rose and walked to the door and without turning, "I'm happy for you, Gil. Sara's a great girl. Don't let her slip away again."

Gil leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes. He felt a headache coming on. How could he be so careless? Damn it! This was something that was so important to him and he was screwing it up already. He needed to talk to Sara. He paged her and a few minutes later, there was a knock at his door.

"Come in."

"Hey. You paged?"

"We need to talk."

"Okay." She closed the door behind her and sat in the chair Jim had just left. "What's up?"

"I just spoke to Jim. He knows."

"Knows?"

"About us. I guess we, in his terms, suck at hiding the evidence."

"Oh. You okay?"

"Yes. He's probably my closest friend, other than you. I would have told him sooner or later. This is just sooner than I anticipated."

"Is he okay?"

"Him? Yeah. He says you're great and I shouldn't let you slip away again."

"Again?"

"He knows that we were friends in LA. And he knows that I, uh, liked you when you first moved here. Then, with everything that happened…well he knew that I turned down that dinner invitation."

"I never knew you two were that close."

"He's always been there for me."

"So, where does this leave us?"

"Well, it leaves me with my bugs and you with the rest of the evidence. Then it leaves us…being more careful."

Sara smiled, "Okay. So there's only an 'us' to us. To everyone else, we're just you and I."

"Is that all right with you?"

"Grissom, as long as there is an 'us', I'm fine with everything else."

"Good, me too."

"So, how much longer are you going to be here?"

"I don't know. I need to see certain stages. But I also need some sleep."

"And food."

"Yeah."

"Well, when you decide to leave…I'll be home."

Grissom smiled at the unspoken invitation.