Tropical Scents

TEASER: Grissom runs into someone he never expected to see in Las Vegas.

DISCLAIMER: Last time I checked, the evidence was stacked against me in my claim to own even a single stock option in the many partners who make up the CSI franchise. Therefore, I plead guilty to the charge of having fun with the crew and promise to have them back in time for the next night shift to start.

RATING: R for sexual content

SPOILERS: Anything is possible through "NHI".

AUTHOR'S NOTE: I'm not holding this hostage for reviews, but if you're so inclined, encouraging feedback would be nice. I have a fire extinguisher for flames, however.

- - - - -

A faint whiff of lime and coconut caught Grissom's attention as he sat as his desk working on the never ending paperwork of a supervisor. He sighed as he watched Warrick and Sara laughing in the corridor outside his office, each holding a cup from the nearby smoothie place. He had no doubt that Sara's lime-garnished cup held a piña colada drink. The content of Warrick's cup concerned him not at all, even as their laughter caused the Vegas native to slosh some of his beverage onto his own shirt.

He was glad to see Sara enjoying herself again, however brief it might be, but he wanted that laughter to be with him – hell, for him or at him – with a desperation that kept him awake during the day. If he allowed himself complete honesty, it wasn't just her laughter he craved. Everything about her drugged his senses and his sensibility: her astounding intelligence, her impeccable logic, her dry wit, her gap-toothed smile, her quirky left eyebrow, and every inch of her long, lean body. The tropical fruit scent only made it worse as it evoked a powerful, beautiful memory of better times with her.

He had only told two people in the world the depth of his attraction to Sara. Others knew, or thought they knew, but only those two women had heard the whole story from him of his own free will. One of those two joined Sara and Warrick as he watched, and something she said prompted Sara to double over laughing as Warrick glared with what Grissom knew to be feigned offense and yelped, "Catherine!"

Grissom would have bet good money that whatever Catherine said had to do with the fruit garnishing Sara's drink. He doubted that it had to do with what brought such wonderful memories of Sara to his mind, but Catherine did know the story. So did the other . . .

He sighed again. It was bad enough that the rumor mill still referred to his alleged tryst Lady Heather once in a while; if anyone knew about his not-so-alleged tryst with one of America's most famous sex therapists, he wasn't sure he could ever face them again. Heather thought she knew him and thus told him things about himself that had elements of truth; Hank did know him because she got him to talk about himself – a lot. If anyone ever cross examined him about the two relationships, he would have to answer honestly that Heather might have been a distraction, had he allowed himself to lower his walls, but Hank met some real needs.

He opened his desk drawer and pulled out a black velvet jewelry pouch. He studied it for several seconds, turning it over in his hands before he tugged it open and tipped it up to empty its contents onto his desk.

Grissom could think of any number of people whose reaction would have been stupefied surprise had they entered his office just then. The cloisonné piece had no evidentiary markings to belie his interest in the object as purely personal. He who avowed only science as his religion took comfort from a cross.

He heard Hank's sultry Southern voice in his head as he stared through the memento. "You've named your love for Sara, Gil. Now you have to work up the courage to claim it. If you don't, you'll have no one to blame but yourself for your unhappiness."

He wouldn't have been able to express in words why the cross and its accompanying charge comforted him, had anyone known enough to ask. But in some strange way, the advice gave him hope. Well, the advice and the winking golden-green eye that flashed in his memory along with a final command: "Send it back to me with your wedding invitation, Gil. And for God's sake, don't do a Vegas wedding."

He remembered laughing at her there in the lobby of the hotel in Scottsdale, looking right into those eyes with which he should have been besotted. Her four inch heels brought those eyes right to his eye level. "Hank, I don't have much choice but to do a Vegas wedding. That's where we live."

She had swatted him on the chest and called him a smart ass, and then she got into the airport shuttle and disappeared from his life, leaving in her wake only the cross, her words, and three nights of the best sex he had ever had.

His phone rang; he sighed one more time and put the cross away, tucking the velvet bag into its place in the drawer as he went back to his job deciphering the final moments of the now dead.

- - - - -

Grissom knew that Sara emulated him entirely too much. That evidence appeared at every turn, and this day was no exception. He was not at all surprised to find her working the trace from the murder/suicide he had tossed to her and Warrick earlier in the shift.

Nor was he surprised to hear her humming Vivaldi as she danced around the table, divining from the evidence what it would say to her to help them find the truth of what happened at a house in west Vegas. He stood watching her from the doorway for longer than he should have, just because sometimes he had to have a fix of whatever it was that drew him to her as the moth to the flame.

His phone vibrated in his pocket. He wasn't surprised to see Catherine's text message: WB GN ND U/S ASAP. He shook his head at the urgency Catherine could infuse into 13 characters, especially since this particular emergency had nothing to do with work.

He cleared his throat in hopes that he would get Sara's attention, but it didn't work. He just started to speak anyway. "I love to see you so dedicated to your job that you work two hours past end of shift on the start of your weekend."

The grin that split her face caused his heart rate to spike. "Thanks, I think."

He gave her an answering smile and took a couple of steps into the lab, wanting the conversation to be a little more private. It wouldn't do for anyone to overhear what he supposed would be called banter if Josh Lyman and Donna Moss on The West Wing were doing it. "I obviously didn't put enough sarcasm into that statement."

"Are you telling me to go home?" He loved the quirked eyebrow that accompanied the question, as though she were trying to emphasize the absurdity of him, the ultimate workaholic, telling her to go home.

"Sara, hon . . ." He came so close to calling her "honey," a word he associated only with her and with the best times of their relationship, whatever it had been. He met her gaze as he stroked his beard, wondering how to say what he knew he needed to say. "Sara, go home. Live life for a couple of days. Hell, go play with the living for a couple of days."

She laughed at him.

He fought the grin that wanted to come at that laughter by crooking his head down to look over his glasses at her. "I wasn't joking, Sara." The smile won anyway.

"Neither was I," she said under her breath.

What the hell does that mean? He knew what he wanted it to mean, but that would have to wait.

"Close up shop and we can go for coffee at the usual place. Catherine is planning something for Warrick's birthday and wants us all there."

"How is she going to keep Warrick out of it? Won't he be suspicious if we all go to breakfast without him?"

He just smiled more, feeling at ease around her for the first time in more than a year. "The rest of them went to breakfast an hour and a half ago. Catherine just called to say Warrick went home to sleep."

"Oh."

He nodded at her. He took three steps to leave, but stopped in the doorway and spoke without turning around. "What weren't you joking about, Sara?" Maybe it would make her think about him like he hoped she had when she first arrived in Vegas so many years ago.

"Figure it out for yourself," she told him, tucking her head down just a little.

He took only a little comfort from the fact that her lips were upturned in a smile, even if he couldn't see her eyes.