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Author of 8 Stories |
Disclaimer: They still aren't mine…no matter what I do. Even with all the fantastic reviews I've gotten…I still don't own them…
A/N: I forgot to thank Cybrokat from YTDAW forum for being such a LOVELY beta. Oh, and thanks everyone for the reviews. I have learned my lesson, reviews make you feel so great, like you rock, and no one else exists in the world. So thank you, it means a lot to a newbie writer like moi. Note on the Jerry/George Bailey thing, I actually have a great uncle named Jerry Bailey, and this is where that came from. I fixed that, with some other formatting problems. Thanks also to Michelle C from YTDAW, who provided me with some inspiration on the part about 'Guess Who?'.
"'Shall'," Sara snorted, "God, I love that word. And 'twas, and hence…there's so many nice words."
Grissom gave her a strange look as he moved to clean up there glasses. Dumping them unceremoniously in Sara's sink a thought suddenly came to him. Unfortunately, Sara was too engrossed in her rattling off of words that pleased her.
" 'Tail', 'polygamy', 'grope', 'heed', 'shalt'…"
" 'Thou', don't forget 'thou'," Grissom interrupted, smiling broadly as Sara nodded in agreement with his assessment.
" 'Thou', thou shalt not forget 'thou'!"
Grissom chuckled and leaned against the counter, gazing at Sara fondly, unspoken electricity alive in the air.
"What?" Sara asked. She thought for a moment she'd done something wrong, it had always been so easy to do something wrong around Grissom, but just being around Grissom was worth the risk of displeasing him.
"I-uh…call me Gil."
"Oh," Sara said with relief, feeling that she could easily comply with his request, "Sure thing Gri—il." She faltered, knowing as soon as the start of 'Grissom' had left her mouth, that she had made a mistake.
"You just called me Grill didn't you?"
"Yes, I did. It's because you're so flaming hot."
Grissom let out a disbelieving snort, "I am not, nor have I ever been, 'flaming hot'."
"I disagree. Out of curiosity though, how exactly would you characterize yourself in terms of looks?"
"Brooding and scruffy."
Sara giggled at this description, "Scruffy? Yes, you do have this Grizzly Adams meets Bill Nye thing going on, but you are not brooding. You're sexily enigmatic."
Grissom blushed, fingering his beard in mild horror at the description she had just placed before him, and then he decided to turn the tables on Sara, "Ok, well then describe yourself."
Sara rolled her eyes at Grissom's pathetic attempt to change the subject, but decided to comply anyway, "Lanky and orthodontically-impaired."
Grissom smirked at her, "You are not lanky, and if you're referring to that gap, I happen to think it's cute."
"If by cute you mean horribly disfiguring, then yes, I agree with you Gri—dammit!"
"Gridammit. You're getting more and more creative. Try to write that off."
"I stubbed my toe, and I was cursing."
"You stubbed your toe? While sitting down, and being perfectly immobile? Remarkable. Curse those moving toe-stubbing traps that just jump right out at you."
Sara shot him an angry look and tried hastily to change the subject, "Ok, back to this whole 'Get to know Grissom' thing. What kind of music do you like?"
Grissom sighed at her own evasiveness, realizing how similar they really were to each other in character. "I don't know. Hardly anything that would interest you Sara."
"Ok, someone from within the last 30 years. Because I know you like classical, I'd like to know what else you like. Stuff with guitars possibly. Maybe a piano. Or heaven forbid….a synthesizer."
"No. Never a synth. That truly is the music of the devil."
Sara snorted and got up from the kitchen table to stand next to Grissom, mimicking his relaxed position against the kitchen counter. The closeness of Sara made Grissom more willing to talk, but truth was he had this strange fear of people disliking his choices in music. Music was something intensely personal to Grissom, every song he'd ever liked he'd related to in such a passionate way that if anyone ever criticized his music choices it hurt him, as though they had criticized a part of him.
"You know, I like Pink Floyd," Grissom offered, hoping that Sara didn't have some Pink Floyd phobia, or Floydia as Grissom playfully termed it in his mind, to distract him from the probable displeasure of musical rejection.
"Oh, Catholic School."
"What?" Grissom asked puzzled, thinking that this was perhaps some sort of code for 'You're a dumbass,' similar in nature to 'He rides the short bus' or other such terminology that people like Greg used.
"Oh, it's just that every guy I've ever met that's liked Pink Floyd has gone to Catholic School. Let's see, there was Tim, Peter, John, and Perry. I think it's some kind of weird rebellion against authority thing."
"Perry's not a very Catholic name," Grissom responded thoughtfully.
"Right, because Gil is the 13th, slightly mentally disabled fisherman apostle that no one ever talks about."
"I was just commenting, you don't have to bite my head off."
Sara merely stared at him appraisingly before asking another question, "Are you ticklish?"
"A little," Grissom admitted, and then he knew he had made an incredibly stupid mistake. Sara developed an evil glint in her eye and she practically tackled him, her fingers digging into his ribs as he burst into a fit of mortifyingly girlish giggles, "Hey…stop…stop this…that's not funny!"
"Then why're you laughing?"
"Stop tormenting me, you harlot!" Grissom breathlessly shouted between fits of laughter.
"Harlot?" Sara giggled questioningly, momentarily ceasing her assault on Grissom's ribs. Grissom seized the moment and grabbed her wrists, lifting her hands well away from his poor assaulted ribs.
It was at this very moment that they both realized that they were painfully close to each other. Far to close for either of them to breathe properly. Grissom bent forward to kiss Sara, but pulled back quickly in a moment of hesitation, resulting in an odd head-bobbing gesture that made Sara giggle at him.
"Just kiss me all ready, dammit. You look like a chicken."
"Shut-up. You're ruining the moment."
"You're chicken-headed gobbling thing ruined the moment long ago," Sara snorted, making Grissom blush.
"You best be nice to me, or I'll keep you pinned up against your kitchen cabinets indefinitely."
"What? No food? No water? Cruel and unusual punishment! Living the rest of my life with you pressed up against me."
"Horrible," Grissom whispered throatily, as he found himself impossibly drawn to Sara, moving closer, millimeter by millimeter until there lips, for lack of a better word, collided.
Suddenly Sara made a little yipping sound and bolted from his embrace.
"What?" asked Grissom, deathly afraid that he'd done something wrong or that perhaps he was a horrible kisser.
"No, not you," Sara assured him, "I just got kidney punched by a fucking frying pan, the kitchen gods are opposed to our relationship."
"Kitchen gods? What? Are they the things that always manage to make me burn my croissants?"
Sara giggled maniacally.
"Why are you laughing at me?" Grissom questioned curiously.
"You. Cooking."
"I can cook."
"Oh yes, gourmet Pop Tarts."
Her comment about Pop Tarts suddenly reminded him of something else she had said earlier.
"You should take me to Barnes and Noble," Grissom mentioned.
Sara blinked at the abrupt subject change and then poked him sharply in the stomach, "Moment killer."
Grissom huffed a little and watched as Sara turned away from him.
"I don't feel like going anywhere. Let's play a game, and then later we can decide if we'll go to work or not."
Grissom nodded stupidly, "Which game would you like to play?"
"Um…Scrabble."
Grissom blanched and Sara thought it looked a bit like he'd seen a ghost.
"What? Did Scrabble kill your parents and dismember your pets as a child? I mean, that's what kind of look you're giving me."
"I just…this is stupid."
"What?" Sara pressed, opening a closet and whipping out the Scrabble game.
"I always feel that women try to give me secret messages through Scrabble. It's an irrational fear that stems from the time Elizabeth Brightly scored with the word "Ignoramus" and then promptly broke up with me."
Sara tried to contain the laughter that bubbled up inside of her, and merely responded with a sympathetic nod, "I promise Grissom, I won't give you secret messages through Scrabble, ok?"
Grissom nodded, and helped her set up the game. Soon they were looking at the letters they had, in full game mode, prepared to take the other one down in a fit of glorious grammar war. Except that Sara had this horrible pinched look on her face and she was squirming.
"What?" Grissom asked, noting her unease.
"I can only do one word."
"Then put it down."
"This word is going to make you think that women give you secret messages through Scrabble tiles, that Castro killed Kennedy, and that the FBI transmit things on your dental crowns."
"I don't have dental crowns, and besides this word couldn't be that bad."
Sara looked up, horrorstricken, "It's terrible."
"Just play it."
Sara shook her head and slowly laid down three tiles to spell the word 'SEX'. Grissom merely gazed at her blankly, there eyes locking for a moment, until he suddenly burst out into a fit of laughter.
"I don't think I'm emotionally stable enough to play Scrabble with women," Grissom replied thoughtfully, and Sara merely nodded.
"It could be like that thing in Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy. There's an invisible force at work around you, that instead of being the question that goes with the answer to the meaning of life, it's just the subconscious thoughts of women around you, so that whenever Scrabble tiles are pulled at random, that little force field affects it."
"So, you subconsciously want to have sex with me?"
"It's either me, or the Scrabble board," Sara replied daftly, trying to change the subject. She kept looping everything in their conversation back to sex it seemed.
"Mmm, the Scrabble board is dead sexy. What's a good Scrabble board pickup line?"
"I want to finger your tiles?"
"Right. Scrabble board; I want to finger your tiles."
"Ahh, where would your sexual relationships with Scrabble boards be without me?"
"Nowhere. I'm not entirely sure that's a bad thing though…"
Sara nodded her reply and began to clear away the Scrabble stuff, "You know, I think we should play something safer. Have you ever played 'Guess Who?', it's a stupid little kid's game, but I swear there's no secret messages in it. Nothing dangerous or threatening about it at all."
Sara briefly explained the rules and then Grissom agreed. They sat up for that game, and then Grissom found that it was his turn to squirm, finding there supposedly non-threatening game, suddenly more threatening.
"Oh God, are the people talking to you?" Sara asked, a tone of mild amusement slipping into her question.
"No. It's just that my person, whom you're supposed to be guessing, kind of looks like me."
Sara gazed across the pictures of people on her board and spotted someone eerily similar looking to Grissom in the batch.
"Are you Graham?"
"Yes. You see, he DOES look like me."
"You're right. It's creepy. He's got a fuzzy little beard, and cute little glasses, and I swear that he has this dashing entomologist look about him."
"You're patronizing me," Grissom growled.
"Actually, a little. But he does look like you. He's even got the same color eyes. It's exceptionally disconcerting."
Grissom nodded, "He's grinning at me, like he's going to try to kill me and take my place in life."
"No one would ever know the difference," Sara deadpanned, "In fact, I think I might like Graham much better than Grissom."
Slightly hurt, Grissom asked, "What makes you say that?"
"He just looks friendly, doesn't he?"
"And I'm not friendly?"
"No, you're friendly. I just meant that Graham looked jovial, whereas you have a funereal manner about you."
"I can be jovial."
Sara actually snorted at this. She had this picture of Grissom doing an Irish Jig, clicking his heels, and giggling. This mental dervish was exacerbated by the fact that he was still wearing that ridiculously stupid Santa Hat which he had brought with him the previous night.
"Show me jovial Grissom. I would like to meet him. Otherwise I think I'll run off with Graham."
Grissom actually sneered at Graham, in a very peculiar and clearly jealous way and then, upon realizing that he had just been jealous of a two-dimensional picture, he stared blankly at Sara.
"You're not being very jovial," Sara informed him.
"I'm preparing. I'm conjuring jovial thoughts."
Sara had to bite her lip to keep from laughing at him in a patronizing manner. He actually had a look of intense concentration on his face, and Sara could tell he was really trying to give this 'jovial' thing all he had. He looked so adorable when he was thinking, and Sara found she had to fight the sudden urge to kiss him.
Then Grissom giggled. An actual giggle. Sara knew she could die happy with the image of Grissom giggling firmly implanted in her head. In fact, she also knew that if anyone else had heard that, it would ruin Grissom's gruesome reputation. She decided to make light of it though, not wanting to give him the pleasure of knowing that he had been satisfactorily jovial.
"That was what you came up with? For jovialness? A giggle. I can hear you giggle anytime, all I have to do is tickle you."
"It was jovial. It came from the jovial parts of myself."
"What jovial parts?"
"I have an entire big toe devoted to jovialness."
"Is that ticklish too?"
"You stay away from me. I'm afraid of you. With your manic tickling bonanzas."
Sara gave him an evil grin and wiggled her fingers at him diabolically. He actually scooted away from her a full foot, and shrunk back into her couch.
"Stop! Anyway, are you ticklish?"
"Oh no. I'm never telling you."
Grissom grinned, knowing that he for once might have an advantage, he moved to pounce on Sara, to attempt to tickle her, but Sara was too quick. Sara put up her leg, and her foot collided with his stomach, and he was knocked off balance, and slid off the couch. He landed on Sara's floor with a small "oof" and a crack. For a moment he unreasonably assumed that he was really much older than he thought and that crack was his hips snapping into tiny miniscule pieces. Then he realized that something was under him, and found that his glasses had fallen out of his pocket in the struggle, and he had sat on them.
"Shit."
"Did I hurt you?" Sara queried, failing to hide the concern in her voice.
"No, but you broke my glasses."
"I did not. You sat on them."
"I wouldn't have been in a position to sit on them, if you hadn't karate kicked me in the stomach."
"You barreled into my foot. My leg was merely out-stretched, minding its own business, when it was attacked."
Grissom mumbled something about showing her what an 'attack' really was. Sara tried not to laugh as she maintained a look of pure innocence.
"I liked these glasses."
"They're reading glasses. They're cheap, you can get another pair."
"Yes, but these were so nice. It's hard to find a pair I like."
"Deal."
"You're evil."
"I try," Sara replied with a grin, helping Grissom back onto the couch, and holding onto his hand even when he was there. Grissom found himself staring stupidly at there interlocked fingers. He reached out slowly with his free hand to caress her cheek…and then his cell phone rang.
"Why'd you even bring that stupid thing with you?" Sara grumbled as Grissom shrugged and deftly flipped open the phone.
"Grissom."
"Are you coming in to work today?" Catherine's sarcastic voice questioned mildly from the other end of the phone.
Grissom let out a little sigh, "I dunno, Catherine. I still feel a little worn out."
Catherine huffed, "Liar, I'm in front of your townhouse, and you're not in it. Where the hell are you?"
Grissom shot a look at Sara, whom he could tell was listening intently to the conversation, and gave her a meaningful expression. They both knew that they had to think quickly, for some sort of cover story to feed Catherine, lest she get suspicious.
"Grocery store," Sara mouthed silently, prompting Grissom on the phone.
"I'm at the grocery store, Catherine. Buying some antacids."
"You shop at a very quiet grocery store."
Sara fought the urge to say, "Price check on aisle 3."
"You're right. It doesn't get much foot traffic. I like it though."
Catherine still had a dubious edge to her voice. "So, have you talked to Sara?"
"Maybe," Grissom replied cryptically. Sara bit her tongue to stop a burst of laughter.
"Talk to Sara, and be in for work today," Catherine growled, and then she hung up on him, returning his favor from there previous conversation.
"She really is very…nosy isn't she?" Sara added when Grissom had slipped his cell phone back into his pocket.
Grissom nodded, "You have no idea."
"I guess you better leave so you can get ready for work. I need to get ready too."
Grissom nodded silently, but didn't move from the couch. He felt really silly, but he really just had to be near Sara, and he noticed for the first time since his phone call, that they were still holding hands.
"Um," Grissom started stupidly.
"Profound," Sara teased softly in reply.
"Whenever I'm around you I feel so stupid."
"That's rare, I'm sure."
Grissom nodded, and then immediately wished that he could take the nod back. He found that he did a remarkable amount of nodding when it came to Sara, rather than actually responding to anything she said with something more substantial. It was a sort of head-bobbing defense mechanism. In fact he had to remind himself that it was often necessary for people to communicate via words. He then decided that this would be a good time to do this 'talking' thing.
"So…what do you usually do after shift?"
"Um, have some unhealthy, non-meal that will probably go straight to my arteries to form lots of bad plaque and then I'll probably do a truth table."
"Truth table?"
"Yeah, you know those things that go through the logical reasoning process."
"I know what they are, Sara. I just don't understand your motivation to do them."
"All the world's problems can be solved with a truth table. I do them all the time, for everything, under any circumstance. I've been doing them since I was a teenager. You must think it's…dysfunctional."
"Actually no," Grissom replied thoughtfully, "What a good idea. Wait…you don't have any truth tables involving me do you?"
"Don't be silly," Sara replied, making Grissom relax for a second, "Of course I do. I have twenty-three in fact, each varying on previous significant interactions. In fact, when you called me, I was in the middle of a giant truth table about your drunken escapades, and what they might mean."
"That's sort of disconcerting, but I think I'm getting sidetracked. I was going to ask you out on a date."
"I thought this was a date."
"No, I don't think it is. I think you have to go places and do things for it to be a date…this was just a weird slumber party."
Sara couldn't prevent herself from thinking about Grissom in pink bunny slippers, having a pillow fight with her, so she shook her head a little to clear the fluff from it.
"Anyway, date," Grissom spoke, finding that he was incapable of stringing together coherent sentences, and fleetingly wishing he was drunk again. At least then he was funny while being blisteringly stupid.
"Right, yeah. Well, how about we see how things go at work first?"
"Oh, that's simple. I simply must never work cases with you again, because you make me stupid."
"Right. Don't want the serial killers to find out about that one, they might kidnap me and then handcuff me to you."
"Not a bad suggestion, per se…" Grissom thought aloud.
Sara snickered at that, "I hope you were kidding though, about us never working together again."
Grissom just remained silent and Sara wanted to kick some sense into him, but as she'd experienced earlier, kicking rarely ever solved things, and in fact it often broke eyewear. It did make men you think are attractive land on the floor and make cute grunting noises. She would have to do a truth table later on kicking…
"Grissom?" Sara questioned as his silence approached epic proportions.
"I'm thinking. I do that a lot, it's just hard. Requires my full attention, and means I have to sit perfectly still and scrunch up my face."
"Don't hurt yourself," Sara warned playfully.
Grissom glared at her and Sara smiled beautifully. He shook his head, finding that he couldn't be angry at her anymore.
"I'm sure no one will even notice anything Sara. And if they do…I'll crawl into a little hole or something."
"Brilliant plan Grissom. 'Pretend like nothing happened, and then freeze if something bad happens.' Where do you get this stuff, Grissom? The Wounded Animal Survival Guide?"
"Actually, it's How to be a Middle-Aged Idiot, but they're in the same section of the bookstore, so I can see how you'd be confused."
"Right, well next time I go to Barnes and Noble, I'll check it out between ritualistic urinations."
Grissom sighed and then grinned at her, "Nothing bad will happen Sara."
Sara stared at him blankly, as he stood there, being optimistic. Grissom was quite an optimistic person, despite the fatalistic nature of most of his hobbies. However, it had never happened that Grissom would ever be optimistic about anything involving Sara. This marked change, this marked evolution, and this marked the fact that old dogs could learn new tricks. Now if only he would shave that damn beard, that would be real progress.
"We're good for each other," Sara said in reply, and Grissom found himself drawn to Sara.
They kissed.
Grissom eyed her warily; afraid of what was to come. This was bad, she'd called him 'Gil', this usually meant a handful of things; children were dying, Sara was pissed, or someone high-up was pissed at him. Of course it had also meant, 'My father is Sam Braun' and 'I blew up the lab', but seeing the remarkable lack of smoke or DNA results, he felt reasonably sure he could dismiss these assumptions.
Considering the topics of prior discussions, Grissom could only assume that Sara was pissed. Of course, he knew Sara wasn't actually pissed, in fact Sara was quiet happily eating a cheese sandwich in the break room, or at least she had been when he had walked by and smiled at her a minute ago. Grissom felt it reasonable to conclude that Catherine had been nowhere near the break room.
For once, it felt good to be more knowledgeable about the daily lives of his fellow CSIs than Catherine. It was a small victory for recluse entomologists everywhere.
"Catherine? I don't really feel like talking."
"Shut-up," Catherine said, closing the door behind her, with considerable more force than necessary. Grissom suddenly felt remarkably trapped. It was remarkable how predatory such a beautiful blonde women could seem.
"Good Evening to you too, Catherine."
"You little rat bastard."
"Rat bastard who signs your paychecks," Grissom calmly reminded. He knew he was in for the verbal reaming of his life. Of course considering he was the happiest he'd ever been in his life, and he was using his full supply of jovialness from his big toe, he felt more than capable of handling it.
"I wish you'd just get your head out of your ass for five seconds! Everyone knows you're attracted to Sara, and if they didn't they would've found out at the Christmas Party. How the hell much did you drink, Gil? I've never seen you that drunk…hell, I've never seen you drunk! This whole little 'push-then-pull' game you play with her is self-destructive. You're killing her!"
Grissom blinked a few times, trying to find the perfect words, "I don't mean to. I'm not anymore anyway."
"BULL SHIT!" Catherine fairly yelled, and Grissom was sure that her voice was echoing outside his office, "You just did the other night! You have this drunken grope-fest with her, and then you don't even CALL?"
"I did though."
"You son-of-a…wait…you called Sara?"
"Yes."
"And?" Catherine asked expectantly.
"And, I don't think it's any of your business frankly."
"Gil!" Catherine growled with such ferocity he feared for his life for a moment.
"Oh, fine. Well I went over to her place, and I told her I don't care for her, and I hope she eats shit and dies. Then I promptly removed her heart with a blunt spoon, and did an intricate two-step on it. It was really quite beautiful."
Catherine Willows, in all her life, had only been rendered speechless three times. This was the fourth. She blinked stupidly, and glared at Grissom, trying to get some sort of read off of his naturally impassive features. Failing at this, she resorted to physical violence and punched him in the sternum.
"Ouch!" Grissom yelled, "Don't do that! You had that case a few years back where a guy defibrillated after being punched in the heart! Are you trying to kill me?"
"You're being flippant with Sara's feelings, and I'm sure this is what she would do."
Grissom nodded, remembering Sara's foot in his stomach, "You're right, but I have feelings too you know."
Catherine snorted, "You're a heartless bastard."
"No, I'm just a man in love, sometimes there's a fine line though…"
Catherine Willows, in all her life, had never been rendered speechless twice in one day. She now had a new found respect for Grissom's verbal abilities.
Grissom furthered her silence with a deliberately mischievous wink, as he went off to pass out assignments for the day.
"What are you doing, Grissom?" she had asked.
"What do you mean?"
"Do you just let your hands wander of there own accord?"
"I still don't know what you're talking about."
"Do a quick mental hand-check Grissom. Where are your hands?"
Grissom had given this a thought. His right hand was planted firmly on the table to keep him from losing his balance as he leaned over Sara. His left hand was gently touching Sara.
"Oh!" Grissom said thickly, removing his left hand quickly, "Sorry, I used to do things like this before too."
"Yeah, and it drove me crazy then too, on so many levels."
Grissom was going to complain to her about her own unique selection of personal space violations, including the one time he was convinced she had purposely brushed her chest up against his arm, but he decided that he had better things to do with his time.
Other than this little incident, the whole thing had gone amazingly well. He knew he hadn't given definitive answer to Catherine, and that eventually she would figure out what was going on between him and Sara, but he also felt reasonably secure that she wouldn't have a problem with this. Of course, the danger existed that someone more important might find out about the relationship, but Grissom found that he couldn't be bothered with this thought. That was for the future, and for once in his life, he felt secure in throwing out his logic, and just live in the moment.
Suddenly, he snapped out of his own personal reverie, refocusing on the room, only to find Sara leaning against his door jamb.
"I swear, you're my own personal door stop," Grissom said, recalling just how many times this situation had been recreated before.
"I used to think I was your own personal door mat, actually," Sara replied, and though her voice was unassuming, there was a ring of truth about her words that made Grissom give her a sad apologetic smile.
"That's all over now."
Sara nodded and returned his smile.
"Thoughts on dinner?" Grissom asked.
Sara nodded, "I made a truth table during lunch."
Grissom couldn't tell if she was joking or not, "I guess that's 24 Grissom-related truth tables. You could start a file."
"I did," Sara replied with a small smile, "I call it 'The G-Files'."
"The truth is out there?"
"God, I hope so."
Grissom chuckled at his own joke and allowed himself to just gaze at her longingly. After all, they were officially off-shift. Sara returned his look, and subconsciously licked her lips.
"Any ideas on were this dinner might take place?" Sara asked, breaking the silence.
"A few," Grissom admitted.
"Really?" Sara asked, not bothering to hide her curiosity, "Do tell…Gil" The mere word made Grissom wonder if he was going to need more than just a big toe of joviality for this relationship to work, but he decided to press on bravely anyway.
"Yes," Grissom replied, and then, "I was wondering…Do you ever dance?"
The memory of these words made Sara reward him with a small smile.
"You know, I never used to, but the times, they are a-changing. I foresee in my future a few instances where I might just dance, or do other uncharacteristic things. "
"Good. I can see a few instances myself," Grissom said as he got his coat from his chair, and they walked out of his office, arm-in-arm.
Fin