Disclaimer: I do not own CSI or any of the characters in this story...except Thomas who is in fact a real cat.
Spoilers: None.
A/N: Thank you so much to everyone who reviewed the first two chapters, you've made me want to post this chapter a lot sooner than planned! Reading your comments made my day, thank you :)
New Home
Chapter Three
Once everyone had calmed down, and explained to Grissom and Sara what was so hilarious, the topic of conversation moved back to work. This gave Grissom the chance to excuse himself to refill people's drinks, and Sara the excuse to help him. Although the kitchen stood fairly close to the main living space, they were able to move to the far corner, out of eye and earshot of the others.
"Gil that was way too much fun! We so have to think of another way to mess with them!" Sara whispered excitedly to a grinning Grissom.
"I haven't laughed that much in I don't know how long! But don't you think we've been cruel enough? They're our friends, they deserve to know the truth."
Sara was about to point out once again that it was their fault for not figuring it out themselves, when Nick called to her from the living room. "Hey Sar, don't you have this exact table in your apartment?"
Sara had no idea how to respond to Nick's question and stood staring at Grissom for help. Luckily Grissom was a quick thinker and managed to formulate another devious plan in mere seconds, realising Sara was right, it really was worth messing with everyone a while longer.
They both returned with drinks in hand and Grissom answered Nick's question on Sara's behalf as they placed the glasses on the table in question. "Sara has been getting rid of a few of her things and we both thought her table looked rather good in this room."
Sara was impressed. Not only had Grissom subtly hinted about their relationship, but he'd also managed to do it without lying to their friends at all. In fact so far nothing either of them had said or done had been a lie, which made her feel a lot less guilty, and a lot more mischievous.
Unfortunately Grissom's answer didn't satisfy Catherine as much as it had Nick and the others. She had picked up on how comfortable Sara seemed in Grissom's new house, and remembered Sara's earlier admission that she'd already met Thomas. Putting two and two together and getting five, Cath asked a question of her own.
"So Gil, how come Sara got to see your new house before the rest of us?" She asked, honestly thinking them friends and nothing more.
Sara wasn't convinced Catherine really was that clueless but then again, only half an hour previous Cath had honestly believed Grissom was gay. She surprised herself at how quickly she was able to come up with her next, honest but vague, comment.
"I helped him move his stuff in Cath, and he needed a little advice on where everything should go."
Grissom knew it was obvious around the lab that he and Sara were friends, but he was unsure if any of the team considered they might see each other outside of work. If the others hadn't thought of this before, he worried they would figure out the entire truth before he had a chance to mess with them some more. For a distraction he decided it was time for the Grand Tour they had been waiting for.
"So guys, how about I show you around the rest of my new house?"
That morning, Grissom and Sara had gone through every room and purposely left one quite obvious clue of their relationship in each. Besides the furniture and the occasional knickknack of Sara's, most of the house was full of Grissom's things, or new things they had bought together. It made Sara laugh to think that Nick and Greg had so far only spotted her coffee table in the living room, and not her lamp or the paintings that once lined her apartment wall.
The main clue as to Sara's presence in the living room had been a photograph of the two of them, taken on their one-month anniversary. It stood in a bright blue mosaic frame on the side table. They had decided not to plan an excuse for it in advance; it would be a personal game to see who could come up with a plausible explanation first. So far they hadn't needed to worry.
Grissom began the tour with the kitchen. It was fairly large, as both him and Sara loved to cook. The obvious clue here was the rather large collection of vegetarian cookbooks on the shelf above the oven. Sara would never have asked Grissom to change his diet for her, but he had done so after only a week of her moving into his apartment. Nobody had noticed his sudden conversion to vegetarianism at work, but they both thought the books were extremely obvious. Apparently not.
The next stop on the tour was the main bathroom. The shower screen and closed medicine cabinet hid any beauty products of Sara's, but they both felt that the two towel bars, one holding blue towels, the other pink, were a blatant and major clue that Grissom was in fact living with a woman. Again they were mistaken. There were the usual comments and compliments, but no mention so far of any of their clues.
The guest room was where a lot of Sara's old furniture had ended up, but once again Greg and Nick seemed oblivious. Sara found it odd that out of all her furniture they had only ever really paid attention to the coffee table. The fact that there was a guest room at all was the clue here, that and the very feminine way it was decorated. Though Sara figured as she'd already admitted helping Grissom with the house, the others probably wouldn't give it a second thought.
From there they moved next door to the office. Grissom had wanted to spend less time at the lab and more at home, so primarily this was his space to work. However Grissom had insisted that no room in their house be entirely his, or entirely hers. He wanted everything to be theirs, and so in the office were two desks and two chairs. Hundreds of forensic journals lined the walls, case-files were scattered over both desks, as was stationary of all descriptions.
The clue in this room was the fact that there was two of everything. Both Sara and Grissom were naturally organised people and they shared a taste for simple decorating; but there was no mistaking the fact that one desk was a lot more feminine than the other. Just as Sara had hoped, it was this room that encouraged someone to ask a question.
"So Gris, what's with the second desk?" asked a suddenly suspicious Greg.
As with the photograph in the living room, Sara and Grissom had decided not to plan a response to such a question. They thought it would be more fun to think of one on the spot. Unfortunately neither realised quite how impossible that would prove to be. They hadn't even reached the master bedroom and already their little game was surely over.
Grissom's lack of an answer only served to make Greg more suspicious, and now Nick, Warrick and Catherine were looking to him to explain. Unwilling to lie to his friends, Grissom said the first thing that came into his head.
"It's my fiancés desk, we share the office."
TBC
A/N: Thank you again for the reviews. I hope you enjoyed this chapter. I realise the storyline is a little stupid and mostly out of character, but i guess i needed to write the most lighthearted thing i could after the season finale spoilers, and after seeing the finale i needed to post my 'happy' and 'silly' story! chapter four up soon.
