Sara looked at the clock next to the bed for the thousandth time. Growling at the offending time piece she stalked to her kitchen. She knew she was being irrational but she picked up her cell phone. The battery was still charged, the signal strength was fine and she still didn’t have any messages. Basically, Sara thought disgustedly, it’s the same as thirty minutes ago!

            Flipping the phone open her thumb hopped across the keys to call the number at the top of her phone list. Even though it was mere seconds it seemed much longer. Sara hoped this time would be different than the last four times and she would get Grissom not his voicemail.

            “This is Grissom, leave…”

Sara snapped the cell phone shut convinced the cell gods were out to drive her insane. He had been gone for three weeks, three long weeks! First he had gone to visit his mother for a week, his usual summer visit and then he had headed for Quantico, Virginia to guest lecture as a favor to an old colleague. Sara had encouraged him to do more academics of late seeing how it made him so happy but she couldn’t help hating when he was gone.

            Work had been hell this week and she and Grissom had played an exasperating game of phone tag. But getting his voicemail for the fifth time this afternoon was really starting to get to her. He had been scheduled to return to Vegas this morning but had gotten caught up in an experiment with the students and had missed his plane.

            “Gil!” she had exclaimed in a hushed voice as she tried to put a little distance between her and Warrick. Catherine had assigned them to a drive by shooting that had all the earmarks of gang activity and an extra long shift. “You promised,” she accused.

            She could hear the sounds of the airport and Grissom trying to hold a conversation with her and someone else. “Sara, I know what I promised and I will… just a second,” she could hear the muffled sound of his hand covering the phone “I’m on the 2:45,” he had told her in a triumphant voice.

            “Do you have any layovers?” she had asked glancing at Warrick as he spoke with Detective Vega.

            “Yes, St. Louis, but my plane is scheduled there at 6:15 your time,” he had informed her.

            Grudgingly Sara conceded it looked like he was going to make it as promised. Not that she didn’t want him to make it, it just seemed like things like this always happened to them. “Alright,” she said looking to make sure she was still out of earshot “I love you.”

            “Love you, too,” Grissom had replied. Sara could almost see the sparkle in his blue eyes as he did.

            Sara headed back into the master bathroom, her eyes falling on the clock once again as she passed through the bedroom. Picking her robe up from the foot of the bed, Sara threw it at the clock. “Stupid clock,” she muttered as she prepared to go to war with her hair.