AN: Little bit of season 10 for you guys, hope you like…

Thanks to WalkerTRngr for the beta help!

Disclaimer: I don't own anything relating to CSI

Family Affair

Sara stares at her phone, eyes narrowed as if it's a living being that might attack at any moment and not an inanimate object. She knows she should call Gil – his last class ended almost an hour ago, so he'll be back at their small Parisian apartment by now, probably sipping a cup of strong coffee by the open window, overlooking the bustling street below.

She should really call him, and definitely before he turns on the TV to watch the news, because the death of Olivia Hamilton is sure to make it over the Atlantic. But her husband is nothing if not a creature of habit – she knows he'll wait for the six o'clock news on CNN, which gives her an hour to figure out what to say to make sure he doesn't jump on the next plane to drag her back to the relative safety of the French capital.

I'm fine. Definitely start with that. Though then he'll know something is up before she even has a chance to explain what happened…

Maybe she should start with the woodchipper story, he'll find that interesting, and then try to slip in the whole shooting thing casually and hope he won't notice.

Yeah, like he'd ever miss oh, and by the way, I might have gotten shot at.

Sighing, Sara grabs her phone and navigates to the right number, only pausing for a few seconds before hitting Call. She knows there's no good way to do this, so she might as well just… do it.

"Hi, honey. How was your first day back at the lab?" he answers after the first ring.

"It was… interesting," she replies, honestly.

"Interesting?" he repeats, and she can tell by his voice that he's already getting suspicious. "How, exactly?"

"Well…" she starts, "I don't know if the news has made it over there yet, but Olivia Hamilton was killed in an apparent car crash here yesterday."

Grissom hums. "She was an actress, right? I heard a couple of the students say something about Vegas earlier, so I might have eavesdropped on their conversation a little."

"Shocking, professor," she teases. "Anyway, it definitely wasn't as open and shut as it seemed at first. I won't get into all the details, but essentially, the killer tried to cover his tracks by sending a bunch of guys to break into the lab and steal a body. Not Olivia's, her father's."

"You're already losing me," he admits on a chuckle.

"It was a pretty complicated case," she replies. "But we solved it, so that's good."

"It is." He pauses. "Why do I get the feeling there's something you're not telling me?"

She huffs a breath. "Maybe because there is?"

"Sara…"

"I might have gotten… shot at… a little."

The line is deadly silent for a long moment. "How… exactly do you get shot at a little?" he then asks, voice carefully neutral, a sure sign he's not happy. "That's not something that requires a grading scale. Either someone shoots at you, or they don't."

"Well, they shot in my general direction," she amends. It's technically true… sort of. "But I'm fine, I promise. You can ask Nick if you don't believe me, he was right there next to me."

Grissom sighs over the line, and she can almost see him remove his glasses and pinch the bridge of his nose.

"I'm sorry," she apologizes when he doesn't say anything for a few long minutes. "I promise, I was not planning on putting myself in any kind of danger last night. In fact, that's the first thing on my list every shift – don't get shot at."

There's a strangled half-laugh over the line. "Honey…"

"I know, I know." She pauses, takes a breath. "Do you want me to come back?"

"Yes."

"I…" Sara trails off, hesitating, because she wasn't expecting him to actually come out and say it. She knows he would rather have her in Paris with him – on a strictly personal level, she would rather have him here in Vegas with her, too, or be back there with him – but they talked it through, thoroughly, before she accepted Ecklie's offer, and she thought they were on the same page.

"But I'm not going to ask you to do that," Grissom continues before she can come up with something to say. He sighs, deeply, and her fingers itch to run through his curls, rub that spot at the base of his neck that always makes him hum with contentment. "I know why you need to do this. I support you, one hundred percent, you know that."

"I do," she assures him quietly.

"But that doesn't mean I'm not going to miss you, or that I'm not going to worry about you… especially when you're in the field."

"I know."

"So… how about this? Unless something happens that you think I need to know about, or that you think will make the news over here… don't tell me, OK? As long as you're OK, that's all I need to know."

Sara nods, even though she knows he can't see her. "I think that sounds like a good plan," she agrees. "So, how was your day?"

"Not as exciting as yours, that's for sure."