Yayyyy epilogue! I dunno, I figured there was a good pattern with the entire alternating Sara/Grissom thing, but I had to stick Nicky in here somewhere…

Anyway, thanks for sticking with me to the bitter end, or if you're just reading it now, hey, you didn't have to go through that god-awful year long wait! (I apologize again…) I hope you enjoyed it. Now that we know Grissom + Sara 3 + eternal happiness (I thought it only fitting I write that out like a balanced chem equation for those two), I might write a cute little story about life with the Grissoms and their Geeky Family Friends. I dunno, tell me if this is a good idea (probably not. Just because I want to imagine domestic life married to Nick Stokes and Court TV nights every Thursday at 9 with the rest of the team…). IM me (AIM/MSN info in my personal profile) and we can discuss, or just say hi. 'Cause I like you guys.

Thanks again!

--

"Something tells me I'm going to regret this, right?" Grissom asked nonchalantly, but Nick could sense a tiny hint of nervousness behind his supervisor's cool voice. He tried to hide his smile, turning towards the window.

"Naw man," Warrick reassured Grissom, "paintballin's where it's at."

"Didn't we have a case where we encountered a game? It was the monk case," Grissom remembered. "It's just… shooting little balls of paint at people."

"Sounds like fun," Sara said from behind. Nick couldn't tell if she was being sarcastic or not. But then again, there was always a little bit of sarcasm in Sara Sidle. He turned around to say something to her, but Grissom had just put his arm around her, and Nick quickly decided against it and turned around again. He could hear Greg shift a little awkwardly to the side.

With Warrick driving and Catherine calling shotgun, it had been a free-for-all for the rest of the van. Sara and Grissom were happy to call the back for themselves, leaving Greg, Doc Robbins, and Nick to fight it out for the third seat next to the couple. Nick had easily overpowered Greg, and even the young CSI had second-thoughts about hitting a crippled mortician, thereby accepting his seat next to Sara and Grissom.

"You know Greg," Grissom said without a trace of awkwardness, "we can stop if it makes you feel uncomfortable."

"No, you go right ahead," Greg muttered extremely uncomfortably. He leaned forwards. "Stokes, that seat's mine on the way back," he whispered into Nick's ear.

"Off, Greg," Nick replied, brushing at the side of his head. "I don't want your DNA on my face."

"Most women would pay for it."

"Pay for what?" Catherine asked loudly from the front seat. She turned around, eyebrow raised. "What, Greg?"

"Umm… hey, turn that up!" Greg shouted, clearly grateful for a distraction. "That's one of the best songs ever."

"Who?" Grissom asked as Warrick reached over and turned the knob.

"Who," Greg agreed.

"No, I mean, who…" Grissom started, but then trailed off as the familiar bassline kicked in. "Oh. The Who."

"Who?" Sara pushed, still confused.

"Who?" Nick asked for good measure. He grinned when he felt Sara bump his seat back, and he turned around. "Hey, it's not my fault you don't get out."

"WHOOOOOOOOOO ARE YOU, WHO WHO, WHO WHO??" Greg interrupted loudly, singing along with the song. "Come on guys, join in."

"No thanks, Greg," Catherine shouted from up front. She turned to Warrick. "You think you could get there any faster? I'm having this urge to shoot paintballs at Greg close range."

"I'm trying," Nick heard his friend replied through what sounded like gritted teeth. "Man Doc, can you hit him with your stick?"

Nick glanced over at the doctor, who seemed to be fast asleep in the seat next to him. Two white wires ran down from his ears. "He's got headphones in."

Warrick swore. "Smart man."

There was a moment in which only Pete Townsend crooned from the radio.

"Wouldn't it be ironic if we found a dead body on the road?" Greg piped up again after that blissful moment of silence.

"How would that be ironic, Greg?" Grissom asked.

Greg faltered. "Uh, well, I mean, usually we respond to the calls, right? And this time we'd be the ones finding it! And I mean, we'd be the ones calling other people in, because we're not on call –"

"What he's trying to say, Greg," Catherine explained, "is that, should we find a dead body, we're done paintballing."

"Sounds like I best avoid dead bodies then," Warrick muttered as he switched lanes. "Aw, come on, are you kidding me?" He let out a breath of frustration as the truck he had been trying to avoid swerved in in front of him.

Just like that, their van rolled down the Nevada high way.

Thirty minutes later (which, in Nick's opinion, was much too long), they finally pulled into the parking lot of the paintballing place. They quickly received their guns and their paint – except for Greg, who had his own.

"Own gun," he said proudly, brandishing his weapon. "Got it from a friend in college. And," at this point he flashed one of this smiles, "my own secret recipe for the paint. You ain't gonna get this baby off for a while. I've been developing it myself."

"Well, now we know what you're doing in that lab," Catherine responded wryly, loading her gun.

"So this is just a gun?" Grissom asked, looking his over. He seemed to be finding the thought of actually trying to shoot people slightly foreign.

"Yeah," Nick responded warmly. "You use it like any other. Just press the trigger—"

Grissom seemed to want to test this out, and without hesitation (or thinking it seemed, Nick decided later) pressed the trigger without first noting where the gun was pointed.

There was a stunned silence as the entire group watched the pellet of paint travel towards Warrick, who had been sizing up the playing field, and hit him squarely on the side of the face.

"What the –" Warrick began, reaching up to his face in surprise. "Sanders, if you…" he trailed off as he turned to see Grissom, eyebrows raised, mouth slightly open in an expression of complete confusion. "….Aw hell no." Warrick shook his head. "It's on, boss, it's on."

Grissom paused for a moment, then dived – yes, dived­ – behind an upright wooden plank just as Warrick's pellets crashed down on the wood a second later. Seeing his chance, Greg quickly took his gun, aimed right for Catherine, shot it, then scampered off into the course. With a yell of anger, Catherine barely stopped to wipe the paint off before charging after Greg, screaming of bloody murder.

This left only Nick with Sara and Doc Robbins, and Nick felt two sharp stings as he was hit from both sides. Springing into action, he quickly shot one at Sara, who was going for the same wooden plank that Grissom had dived behind, before pursuing Doc Robbins.

Surprisingly, the mortician was nowhere in sight. Nick crept through the bales of hay, ducking from wayward shots and ignoring Greg's pleas for mercy from, presumably, Catherine, somewhere nearby. Where was that doctor? He had only turned for a second…

"Hey Nick!" someone shouted, and he turned to see something coming at his face. He ducked quickly, then sprang up in time to see Doc Robbins reloading. He quickly shot one himself, watching in satisfaction as black paint crashed on top of Robbins' head. "It's not over, Doc," he called. "It's not close to being over."

"Whoo," Warrick's voice said from somewhere, and Nick realized that Warrick had crawled behind the same bale of hay. "Dayum Nicky, he's crippled already. Go easy on him."

Nick made a gesture of indignation at the shot the doctor had laid on him. Warrick raised his eyebrows. "Nice." Quickly, he took his gun, and shot Nick on the same spot. "Yellow and blue make green, don't it? Hmm, isn't that the color of Grissom's gun? Gee, I think I saw him over there last."

"Don't you know, the splatter's different," Nick responded as he shot Warrick back just as quickly. "Just look at the rims of the paint – you shot me at close range, and Doc shot me from afar. Any level one CSI could tell you that this came from two different guns." Leaving Warrick, he ran off to find the doctor.

Doc Robbins seemed to have a knack for disappearing, and once again, Nick found himself completely lost. Deciding he would wait for Robbins to come to him, he crouched behind a bale of hay.

"Nick!" someone whispered, and he turned to see Greg cowering. "Nick, she's going to kill me."

"Aw man, you earned it." Nick popped Greg a good one on the shoulder. "At least when you die, Grissom will be around to figure out what happened."

"No, see, that's also a problem," Greg begged desperately, "I shot Sara in the face. I think he's going to kill me too."

"No, I think he has something better in store. I bet he'll feed you to his cockroaches. And then put you in with his fetal pig. Hey, good view of the office, right?"

"You're a good friend, Nick. You're a good friend. I appreciate that."

Nick grinned. "Anytime."

The game raged on. Allegiances changed just as rapidly as the game itself progressed (at some point, Grissom and Sara were involved in a full shoot out, which finally ended when both of them rounded on Warrick, who was failing miserably at imitating the high-noon sound effect in cowboy movies), and Nick found himself covered in all colors. As they finally wearily boarded the van again as the sun slowly began to creep over the horizon, it was all Nick could do to keep his sore body awake.

He paused as he began to board, then stepped down. "Yo Greggo," he said. "You can have my seat."

Greg's surprise was apparent even through the layers of paint. "But you totally killed me at paintball. I forfeited."

Nick shrugged. "Yeah well, I'm letting you have it." He smiled. "Just take it, Sanders. Grace offering, you know how it is."

Greg nodded, and clambered in. Nick let Sara and Grissom climb into the back before he followed after them, and Doc Robbins stepped in to fill up the last seat next to Greg. Checking that they were all set, Warrick started the car.

As they slowly rolled out of the parking lot, with the sun now streaming into the windows, Nick laid his head back on the seat. His cheek still throbbed where the butt of Sara's gun had hit him when they had collided full force into each other, and he had a feeling there was going to be a nasty bruise there for the next couple of days. He stole a glance at her. She was already asleep, head on Grissom's shoulder. Grissom himself had his arms around her, and he was absently playing with her hair as he looked out the window, clearly deep in thought.

Smiling, Nick turned away from them as he closed his eyes. Everything's going to work out fine. What did I tell you, Sara? It just took a little bit of time, a little bit of digging, and a little bit of understanding. He let the soft bumping of the car slowly lull him into sleep. No doubt things were bustling back at the lab, as they always were, and after a much-needed rest, they were all ready to jump back into the game.