OoOoOoO

After eating their breakfast and were now just lounging around her apartment before heading to bed, there was a soft knock on Sara’s apartment door. Grissom stood up. “I’ll get it.”

He opened the door to the now-familiar faces of two teenaged girls. “Hello,” he greeted them warmly.

“Oh, hi,” said the shorter girl, obviously embarrassed. “Is uhh… is, is Sara there?”

Upon hearing her name, Sara got up tiredly from the couch. “Gil,” she said through a yawn, “who’s at the door?”

“It’s uhh, me, us, I guess,” piped up the taller girl, craning her head into the apartment.

All traces of sleep were now gone. “Cheryl? Alex? What are you doing here? Is everything alright?”

“Yeah, we’re okay, I guess,” Cheryl said, looking down at her feet, tears in her eyes.

Sara turned back to Grissom. “Gil? Do you mind? Could we have a little privacy? Girl talk, you know…”

“Oh, yeah, of course honey. I’ll go… take a… walk around the block.”

“Thanks.” She gave him a stunning smile, and he grabbed his keys from the counter and headed out the door.

After he’d turned the corner down the hall, Sara invited the girls in. “Hey, I’m surprised you stopped by. How did you even find out where I lived?”

“Well,” Alex said, “you gave Shane that guy Nick’s card, and when he talked to him, he told us where you lived. Shane said that he didn’t want to give it out, but he convinced him that we were good people, and that we just wanted to talk.”

“Oh, okay,” Sara said, reminding herself to give Nick a big hug next shift for thinking of her safety.

“So… Mr. and Mrs. Pine told us what happened, and… about Stephanie…” Cheryl said her tears still present.

“Yeah, I’m sorry about that. But she confessed to doing it, and the evidence told us that she did, and that’s what we have to go with,” Sara explained as gently as she could.

“What’s going to happen to her?” Alex asked.

“I’m not really at liberty to say,” Sara answered. “I’m sorry.”

They both nodded, looking upset. Cheryl looked up suddenly, and a small smile lit up her face. “I was right, you know.”

“Right about what?” Sara asked, confused.

“That you were close to that guy. Grissom…?”

Sara laughed. “I’m not at liberty to speak about that relationship, even if there was one there.”

“There is something between you two though,” Alex observed, her own smile growing.

Smiling and staying quiet, Sara could only nod her head briefly before standing. “Girls, I really am sorry about having to kick you out so fast, but we – I was just about to hop into bed when you knocked.”

“That’s okay,” Alex said. She had heard Sara’s slip of the tongue, and thought it was sweet. “Thanks again, I think, for finding Sandry’s killer,” she said. “Even if it did turn out to be one of our friends…”

“You’re welcome. And please, don’t be afraid to call me if you ever want to talk.”

“We won’t,” Cheryl said, standing as well.

The three made their way to the door, and Sara held it open for them. “Give the Pine’s condolences for me, will you?”

“Yep,” Alex said, and stepped out the door. “Bye.”

Cheryl quickly followed, but not before she’d given Sara a quick hug. “I’m sorry for calling you a bitch earlier,” she apologized.

“What? Oh… wow, I’d forgotten about that,” she confessed. “But I accept your apology. Thank you.”

“Thanks for everything, Sara,” Cheryl called, finally following Alex out. “Bye.”

“Bye,” Sara said, closing the door.

OoOoOoO

Cheryl and Alex headed down the hall, and ran into Grissom. “Thanks for everything,” Alex said in passing.

Grissom had stopped, and when the girls looked back when they’d arrived at the top of the stairs, he still hadn’t moved.

“Better get going, or your girlfriend’s going to wonder where you are!” Cheryl called, waving.

That comment got him moving, and he walked the rest of the hall and slipped back into the apartment.

Sara was already in bed, waiting for him. “Those were nice girls,” she said, laying her head onto his chest as he crawled in beside her.

“Yeah,” Grissom answered, fighting a yawn.

“Yeah. Night, Gil.”

“Goodnight, Sara.”

OoOoOoO

Cheryl and Alex made their way back home, each thinking about how amazing those two CSIs were. They’d worked through the mystery of solving their friend’s murder, and Alex felt that they deserved some happiness of their own, a stark contrast to dealing with death every night.

“They’re good people, aren’t they?” she asked Cheryl as they walked.

“Yeah, they are,” she answered.

“Well, I think that they deserve happiness. I mean, they gave us a sort of bittersweet happiness, didn’t they?”

Cheryl smiled as she turned onto her street. “They’ve got their happiness Alex, they’ve got it.”

A/N 3: I didn't add to the story or anything, for all of the people who came back to this, I just split it up into six chapters so it was easier to read, because I thought it was too long a story for it to all be one chapter. So it's all still the same, and I hope you still like it, if you've returned to it, or I hope you DID like it, if you've just found it now.