Authors Notes: I've had this story in my head for ages; I've just never had the patience to write it all out. As usual, these wonderful characters don't belong to me. I'm just borrowing them. I promise that I'll return them in mint condition.
"So," Nick started, "when are we going to meet the woman who stole Gil Grissoms' heart?"
Grissom glanced up from his pile of paperwork in the break room to not only see Nick, but Warrick, Catherine, and Greg all standing in front of him. Looking back at the stack of papers he took of his glasses and gently rubbed his temple. He let out a long sigh knowing that there was going to be no way drop the subject without raising more suspicion.
It didn't shock him that the entire lab knew about his mysterious girlfriend. It was his fault for letting it slip in the interrogation room.
"You really want to meet her?" Grissom replied looking back up at his team. They all nodded and tried their best to mentally persuade him to say yes. "Fine." Taking out his cell phone he held down the '5' button connecting him to Sara.
"Oh! Lucky girl." Greg said sitting down at the break room table, "She gets a spot on speed-dial. I bet we don't have that privilege."
The others followed Greg's lead and sat down, all with a cup of coffee in hand.
"Shut-it Greg. The man's on the phone!" Warrick replied exasperatedly, "Besides, I want to hear this conversation. This could mean that hell might actually be freezing over."
He could feel himself let go of whatever was bothering him when he heard her voice on the other end. The others noticed the change as well. Their usually uptight boss suddenly was relaxed and calm. Worry lines from years of working in the lab disappeared and they all swore some of his grey hairs turned back to dark brown.
"This must be some woman." Nick whispered watching his boss transform from workaholic to an unrecognizable lover.
They listened as he invited her over to the lab for dinner with the rest of his team, reassuring her that it was a slow night in the lab and everyone was dying to meet her. After a few moments of silence on Grissom's end his eye lit up, she said 'yes'. The rest of the conversation was short and to the point, yet again telling her that everything's going to be okay.
He hung up the phone and slid it back in to his pocket. "She's on the way to the office to pick up some files for work; she'll be here in 10 minutes." He replied.
"Awesome!" Nick said with more enthusiasm than Grissom had ever seen come from the man. "Is she hot?" Greg added quickly.
Grissom couldn't help but chuckle at the question. "If you mean beautiful Greg, then yes, she's hot" The word 'hot' coming from Grissom's mouth as a way to describe a woman was not something heard everyday and caused Greg to giggle.
"So how long have you two known each other, much less how long have you two been dating?" Catherine asked once Grissom sat back down at the table. This was the first reasonable question anyone had asked all night, which shocked him coming from Catherine. He was expecting more of a 'Is she good in bed?' kind of question or something along those lines.
"Well..." he started, trying to mentally come up with a way to explain how he met Sara without giving away too much detail as to her identity. "I first met her during an Entomology conference at Harvard twelve years ago. She was absolutely brilliant in the field even though she had never taken an Entomology course in her life."
"How the hell was that possible?" Greg asked, looking confused.
"She paid attention. Asked thought provoking questions. She had this energy to learn that I had never seen before." Grissom continued, looking around the room at nothing particular. "I approached her after my lecture and asked her out for coffee. We hit it off immediately, but I had to come back to Vegas the next day. So I gave her my contact information and made her promise that if she ever wanted a job as an Entomologist she would come track me down."
"Did she go in to Entomology? Because one of you is scary enough, I don't think the world could handle two Grissoms." Warrick said with a laugh.
"No Warrick, she chose a different career path that lead her to the west coast." Grissom replied with a look of nostalgia. "But we still stayed in contact all those years and it wasn't until she got a job transfer to Las Vegas did I see her again."
"How long ago was that?" asked Catherine, playing with the swizzle stick poking out of her coffee. This was so unlike Gil, to stay attached to one woman for all these years. Maybe it was like him, but she had never considered that option.
"When she came to Vegas? Almost seven years ago." Grissom replied back, looking anywhere but the four people in front of him.
"So you guys have been dating for SEVEN years and you've never told us!" Catherine said rather shocked at Grissoms revelation.
"No." Grissom said chuckling to himself. "It took me five and a half years to get my head out of my microscope to ask her out again."
"Why did you wait so long?" Nick asked.
"I was afraid that I would be rejected. I wasn't the same man I was ten years ago. I thought she would have moved on to better and younger men." Grissom said, dejectedly. "Hell, I was afraid that the woman I had fallen in love…"
All four choked on their coffee when the word 'love' escaped Grissoms lips.
"…with all those years ago had changed. I didn't want to go back and be disappointed." Grissom was playing with the end of his sleeve, folding the fabric, buttoning and unbuttoning the two small buttons that held cuff in place. He didn't dare look at the rest of his team.
"So wait… hold on… you fell in LOVE with a woman you met for one day." Warrick asked. This was becoming too unreal.
"Yea, I guess." Grissom shrugged. "It made me a believer of love at first sight." He finally looked up and saw looks of sympathy coming from Catherine and Greg and looks of admiration from Nick and Warrick.
"What happened when she came back to Vegas?" Greg asked anxiously. "You can't just leave the story at that. This is becoming the most interesting thing I think I've ever heard in my life."
"Please continue." Nick said, refilling his coffee mug and offering the pot to those around him. "Just make sure none of us are drinking when you decide to make any more personal revelations."
Grissom smiled. A genuine smile, one like no one had ever seen before on the face of that man. "Why is all of this so hard to believe, so shocking?" He asked. He could see the discomfort on the faces of those around him, so when Greg answered first it was a shock to hear the youngest CSI take a stand.
"It's just in all the years we've known you, you haven't been the most open with your emotions, except for anger." Greg explained, referring to the many altercations with Ecklie.
Picking up from where Greg left off Nick continued, "You've been so confined to your world of bugs, that it didn't seem possible to have enough room for a woman between your tarantulas and work."
Catherine and Warrick nodded in agreement, Nick and Greg explained in better words than they could. The past five minutes were more of a shock than hearing that even Ecklie was married and had a daughter.
All five of them sat in silence for a moment before Greg asked, "Can we hear what happens at the end? Does the prince get the princess?"
Again Grissom smiled his beautiful smile, "After… last years 'incident' involving Nick." He tried to step carefully around that subject because it was still tender after all these months, "I finally called her and asked her out to dinner. I realized that life was to short to not know if I had a chance with the woman who stole my heart in that coffee shop twelve years ago."
Grissom paused for a moment, thinking how far he had come in the past year and a half. How much he had changed and grown. It was the most wonderful thing to have ever happened to him.
"She hadn't changed." Grissom continued, smiling. The others could see the reappearance of the man they saw on the phone only minutes ago. "And I wished that it didn't take me so long to realize what I had… There were so many time when I thought I had lost her, so many time where I wanted to give up, so many times where I pushed her away when she tried to get to close."
Catherine was the first to speak after a lengthy and slightly uncomfortable pause. "Griss, that was…" She couldn't think of anything to complete that sentence, she only spoke to break the silence. Grissom had opened up more in the past ten minutes than all the years she'd known him.
Greg, picking up on Catherine's awkwardness completed her sentence, "… that was Oscar worthy Mr. Gil Grissom." He was successful at breaking the tension and after a beat everyone laughed.
"Actually I have a favor to ask of all of you." Grissom said as he reached in to his pocket pulling out a small box. He placed it in the middle of the table. "Do you think it would be to soon?"
Not a hundred percent positive of where he was going Catherine reached out and picked up the box and opened it. The diamond caught the light and refracted around the room, showering the walls in tiny rainbows.
"God Grissom, it's beautiful!" Catherine exclaimed. Warrick, Nick, and Greg just stared at the ring, unable to find the words to express what they were thinking at that moment.
"How long have you had this?" Nick asked staring at the beautiful diamond centered on a platinum band. It was simple, sophisticated, and very much a ring Grissom would pick out.
"About a week." Grissom replied, finally looking each of his CSI in the eye. "I guess I haven't gotten enough courage to actually go for it." He shrugged as Catherine slid the velvet box back to him.
"The question is," Warrick started, "does she love you enough to spend the rest of her life with you?"
As many times as Grissom had thought about the situation that was his one fear, that she wouldn't and doesn't love him. "Ah Warrick, you just asked the million dollar question." Grissom replied, opening and closing the box just to keep his hands busy. The more he talked about proposing the more nervous he was getting and the others saw the sudden shift in emotions. "I know she does. I'm just scared that I'm seeing something that's not there. That…"
Catherine interrupted him in an attempt to calm his already shot nerves. "Gil. If this woman has know you for twelve years, kept in contact with you for five years not to mention you were a thousand miles apart, spent the past five and half years waiting for you to make a move, then actually spending a year and a half making you the happiest man alive. I say she's in love Gil. She's very much in love."
The others nodded in agreement. Content with their answers Grissom put the box back in his pocket and asked one last question, "Do you think I should do it tonight after dinner?"
"With all of us watching?" Greg asked. "Don't you want to do it some place romantic? I mean we're you co-workers, I'm sure we would ruin the mood or something."
Grissom replied looking at the group. "You guys are my family, my friends, and most importantly people who I care about. I want you to be there. Beside I'm going to need the moral support."
"Then I guess you already know the answer to your question." Nick said, smiling at Grissom.
"What question?" Sara asked as she leaned up again the doorframe. No one had heard her open the door leading to the break room and her voice seemed to shatter the fragile aura or the room.
Grissom watched as everyone's faces went pale when they realized that she was standing there, his Sara. It was almost funny to see their reaction knowing about Sara and his rocky non-relationship. All the while not knowing that it was Sara whom he was talking about.
"Are you guys okay?" Sara asked noticing the color draining from her co-workers faces.
"What are you doing here?" Greg asked in a panicked whisper. This was neither the time nor the place for Sara to come in on her spare time.
She though she saw glances of fear pass between the eyes of everyone but Grissom. Sara looked at them and grinned, "I was on my way here actually when Grissom called and invited me out to dinner."
If it was at all possible, Catherine, Nick, Greg, and Warricks faces all went three shades lighter. "I'll be right back I need to go grab those files from Grissoms desk before we head out." Sara could barely wait until the door was fully closed behind her before laughing.
They stared at Grissom. If there was ever a moment for mental overload for the CSI this was it.
"Wha…?" Catherine started.
"Is Sara…?" Nick attempted to say.
"You're going to…?" Greg stuttered out.
After a few seconds Warrick was the first person to speak in comprehendible sentences. "So you're telling us that it's Sara. It always has been Sara. And if tonight goes right it always will be Sara."
"To sum it up nicely, yes." Grissom simply said.