A/N: It's official. Leslie hates me. I asked her for a challenge the other day—just to get the creative juices flowing, you know? And she gives me this: a pumpkin, a coat hanger, a gopher, the pole vault, and the line, "Touch my bologna." I mean, really, what the hell are you gonna do with that, right? So I'll be the first to step up to the plate and admit that this sucks. I mean, really sucks. But nonetheless, here it is. And it's seven months too early for Halloween, but I had to make this a Halloween story in order to work everything in. Sorry.

Nothin' but love for you, Passion Flower.

Sara rolled her eyes at herself and looked down self-consciously for the millionth time before ringing Catherine's doorbell with a resigned air. 'I can't even believe this damn thing still fits after all these years,' she thought with some wonder.

From the looks of the cars already in the driveway, she was the last to arrive for the Halloween party—most likely because of the extra half-hour she'd spent in front of the mirror, scrutinizing her physique.

She sucked in a breath as the door swung inward, revealing Catherine dressed as ('Oh, now that's original…') a stripper. She appeared to raise an eyebrow at Sara's attire, but said nothing about it, waving her in with a grin. Sara stepped inside, grateful to be out of the chilly night air. When she reached the family room, she had to stifle a laugh at what she saw. It was obvious she needn't have worried about her appearance—not compared to the room full of dorks she was keeping company with. Doc Robbins was dressed as an enormous pumpkin, Nick had come as a gopher, Warrick was doing his best Ray Charles, complete with sunglasses, Grissom was a gory-looking vampire (though quite sexy in his long, black cape, Sara mused), Brass was dressed as a pimp, and Greg…ah, dear, sweet Greg. Ever the original, Greg had come dressed as an Oscar Mayer wiener. Sara felt a deep laugh bubbling up inside, and was unable to hold it back.

As her throaty laugh escaped her, all the eyes in the room turned to her. Nick, Brass, and Doc Robbins simply said their hellos, but Warrick, Greg, and Grissom stopped cold. Greg broke the ice with a typical, "Wow," as he bugged his beady little hotdog eyes out, but Warrick was the first to say something halfway sensible.

"Tell me that's not an authentic uniform," he said.

"Yeah, it is," Sara said, wondering why he seemed so surprised.

"You were on Harvard's track and field team," he said. It was a statement, rather than a question.

"Warrick," she said with a serene smile, "How else do you think I paid for a Harvard education? I certainly wasn't rich."

He pursed his lips. "Never thought about it. What'd you run? And why are you carrying a cue stick?"

Sara laughed again. "The 400 was the only thing I actually ran. My other two events were high jump and pole vault, but," she said, patting her cue stick, "the pole vault was my specialty. And I'm carrying a cue stick because I figured that dragging a 16-foot vaulting pole in here would be a good way to see someone lose an eye."

Warrick smiled and nodded. Sara glanced around, noting that everyone else had resumed their conversations—everyone but Grissom, that is. He was standing against Catherine's breakfast bar, still staring at her. Well…he wasn't exactly staring at her; he was staring at the long, shapely legs emanating from her nothing-left-to-the-imagination shorts. Before she could quite comprehend what she was doing, she found herself sauntering—yes, sauntering—right up to him. She was going to enjoy this. Snapping her fingers in front of his face, she whispered, "Everything okay, Griss?" in her sultriest voice.

"Uh, er, what? Yes, everything's fine. Why wouldn't it be?" Grissom forced a smile as he answered.

Sara leaned in a little bit closer, causing Grissom to lean back against the breakfast bar. Anyone watching him would have thought he was being threatened by a man with a gun—not having his personal space invaded by a beautiful woman. "You just seem a little…distracted, that's all," Sara answered with a coy smile before turning on her heel and heading toward Greg.

As she walked, she could feel Grissom's eyes on her back and it was all she could do to stifle the uncharacteristic giggle that was threatening to break free. She wasn't sure what had gotten into her, but that had been…fun! Recent events had finally made clear that without a doubt Grissom was, if nothing else, attracted to her; there was no reason she couldn't make him suffer a little for his inability to do anything about it.

She approached the hotdog, who was, at the moment, nursing a Bud Light. "Nice outfit, Greggo," she laughed.

Sara gauged that the beer in his hand was not his first when he leered at her and said, "Thanks, Sara. Hey, wanna touch my bologna?"

Sara skillfully merged a muted snort with a withering stare and shot back, "Greg, how drunk are you? You're a hotdog. I see no bologna. The proper question for a drunken lecher such as yourself would have been, 'Hey, Sara, wanna touch my wiener?'"

Greg's face fell, then brightened. "Hey, Sara, wanna touch my wiener?"

Sara rolled her eyes and walked away.

-

An hour before the end of the party, Catherine started confiscating alcohol, and by the time everyone was ready to leave, Greg had sobered up sufficiently to drive home. Sara found herself walking out to car at the same time as Greg. This was fine with her, as she was quite interested to see how the hotdog was going to manage to cram himself in his car.

Sara, who had to walk past Greg's car to get to her own, stopped to watch the show. Greg looked up at her and gave her a sheepish grin before holding out his keyless entry remote and pressing the "unlock" button. The grin was replaced with a slight frown as he pressed the button again. And again. "Aww, man," he whined. "The battery in the remote is dead. I'm locked out!" Then his face lit up. "I'll go in and get a coat-hanger from Catherine."

Sara was having a bitch of a time keeping a straight face as she stepped up to him and said, "Hey, Greg, I'll bet you twenty bucks I can get into your car without a coat hanger or any other sophisticated device used for breaking and entering."

Greg narrowed his eyes at her. He couldn't resist a good challenge. "You're on."

Sara nodded. "Hand me the remote." Greg dutifully handed over the keychain containing the keyless entry remote. As Sara rummaged through the keys, found the car key, placed it in the lock and unlocked his car, he suddenly felt the urge to crawl in a hole. Sara triumphantly turned to him and handed him his keys.

"All better," she cooed as if she were speaking to a three year-old.

Greg winced. "Ok…I'm going to go home now, and we shall never speak of this again, ok?"

"What about my twenty bucks?"

Greg rolled his eyes, retrieved his wallet, and handed her a twenty.

-

The next night at the lab, Greg found an envelope labeled with his name on the break room table. He opened it, and out fell a twenty dollar bill, along with a note.

Greggo,

Here's your twenty back. Seeing the look on your face was payment enough.

And no, I still don't want to touch your bologna.

-SS

Additional A/N: The keyless entry story is, sadly, true. Seven or eight years ago, I was home from college one summer, and my mom and I went to the grocery store. When we got back to her car, her keyless entry remote had died. She stood there for two or three minutes, freaking out about how to get into the car, before I finally couldn't take it anymore. "Mom," I said, "Why don't you just use the key?" I thought she was going to kill me. To add insult to injury, I added that she could have just entered the proper code into the keypad on the door. She was not amused. She laughs about it now, though. Actually, we ALL laugh about it now.