Author's Notes: To follow.
Alpha Omega Sara
by Kristen Elizabeth
When it comes to love, it's all Greek to me.
- Paloalto
October 2000
When Nick returned from PD, after nailing the final lid in Kyle Travis's coffin, Sara was waiting for him in the break room. She was tapping her fingernail on the table and anxiously chomping on a piece of Nicorette.
She jumped to her feet when he came in, reminding him just how tall she was. That was going to take some getting used to after several years of working with petite Catherine. "How'd it go with the frat brat?"
Nick wandered over to the coffee pot and poured a cup. "Daddy won't have an easy time getting him out of this one. We got him, Sara."
"Good. The more I think about him actually killing because his girlfriend signed another guy's penis…as part of his stupid 'initiation', no less…the madder I get." She folded her arms tightly across her chest. "No one should have to die for that crap."
"You do remember that I'm a Greek, don't you?"
Sara frowned. "What does that mean?"
He shook his head as he drank. "Never mind."
"If there's something on your mind, partner, now's the time to get it out on the table." She sat back down and crossed one long leg over the other. "I'm all ears."
"Fine. But only in the interest of keeping peace, since you're obviously here to stay." Setting down his cup, Nick went on. "I don't know much about you, so maybe this is just your style, but you have been nothing but negative about the entire Greek system ever since we started this case."
Her defenses kicked in. "That is not true!"
"Sara, you called us freaks," Nick reminded her. "But here's the interesting thing. And it took me awhile to notice it." He paused for effect. "You know more than you're letting on."
"What are you babbling about?"
He pulled up a chair next to her and sat backwards in it. "You're Grissom's protégé, so you know all about the evidence never lying." Nick started counting down on his fingers. "When we were interviewing the guys, you called the brothers 'actives'. And later, you referred to the house going 'dark'. Those are not terms a non-Greek would be all that familiar with."
"I watched Animal House a lot, that's all."
Nick gave her a look. "I think you protest too much, Sidle."
"I didn't even know what the triangles on his penis stood for!" Her words were adamant, but there was a slight hitch in her voice that had him even more convinced.
"Yeah, I think you did know. Just for some reason, you didn't want me to think you knew. So…" He leaned forward, resting his elbows on the back of the chair. "Let's hear it."
"Hear what? There's nothing to hear!"
"If we're going to be working together, we need to know more about each other. I'm not asking for your life story, Sara. I just want to know how you know so much about something you seem to hate."
Sara chewed away at her gum. "What are the odds of you dropping this subject?"
"About as good as Greg's chances of getting in your pants."
"Greg? The kid in DNA?"
Nick crooked his fingers at her. "C'mon, Sara. It's share time."
"I'm not sure that I like you very much," she scowled.
"I'm still on the fence about you, too."
A moment passed before Sara blew out a minty breath and reluctantly started to talk.
August 1996
"Sara, oh my god! You came!"
Before she had time to prepare herself, Sara found herself swarmed by two of her sorority sisters. A cloud of Calvin Klein perfume enveloped her, chased by the distinct odor of alcohol. So much for having a dry mixer as mandated by the university.
"Of course she came, Cissy!" Amanda pinched the other girl's tanned arm. "She graduated; she didn't disappear."
In turn, Cissy pulled on one of Amanda's carefully constructed braids. "Duh! I'm just saying I'm happy to see her." She flashed Sara her bleached-white grin. "How's the whole grad degree thing? Do you have, like, crazy amounts of work? Is that why you didn't make it to Disco Daze? Zach in Beta Psi was asking about you."
Sara gave each of the younger girls a patient smile. "At least I made it to Vegas Night. What are we drinking?"
Amanda used air quotes. "Punch."
"Tiffani's special?"
"I hear the stuff she used is, like, 190 proof," Cissy exclaimed.
"It's gotta be something like that," Amanda said. "Taylor and Jessica were actually doing the Macarena in front of the guys from Theta Lam. I would die!"
"You were totally doing the Macarena last night, Mandy."
Cissy received a withering look. "In the privacy of the house, thank you very much."
It was at times like this that Sara was almost glad she had graduated and was no longer required to attend these things. She loved all the girls in Alpha Omega; she hadn't gone through rush, pledging and initiation for nothing, after all. The girls were like family to her. A family who had never hurt or abandoned her.
But even family could annoy the crap out of you every now and then.
She kissed Cissy and Amanda's cheeks. "If you see Leah, tell her I'm looking for her."
"She was gambling awhile ago." Cissy looked around the crowded San Francisco club, done up to look like a casino. "Maybe she went down to the water. That's why she didn't have this thing back in Berkeley, you know. She's been totally trying to hook up with Brad. She's gotta check 'beach' off her list of kinky places to do it."
"Do you have that check, Sara?" Amanda asked. "I got 'boyfriend's childhood bedroom' over the summer when John took me to meet his parents."
"You know me, girls. I stopped playing the game after 'airplane'." Sara started backing away. "Have fun."
Weaving her way through the crowd, Sara searched for the current president, one very elusive blonde senior. When it became clear that the only thing she was going to find inside the club was that Theta O guys couldn't keep their hands to themselves, she gave up and headed for the exit.
August evenings in San Francisco, especially on the water, were downright chilly, but Sara's sense of cold had been seriously warped by her time at Harvard. All she needed was a light black sweater to keep her warm as she descended an ancient-looking set of wooden stairs that lead from the club down to the rocky coast. She wished Leah luck finding enough beach to actually have sex upon.
Sara removed her heels on the last sandy step and left them there while she fumbled in her handbag for a cigarette. After managing to light up, despite the strong wind, she took a drag, letting the nicotine settle her nerves.
She always found herself on edge at these mixers. She'd always had the distinct impression that her invitation into Alpha Omega had had more to do with the grade point average boost she could give it, rather than her irresistible personality and sizzling social skills. Even though she had friends and a reputation for being a fun drunk, large parties still bothered her. She'd take a walk by the water and give herself a moment of recovery before she went back. It always worked.
Of course, that was only when you didn't find a bloated corpse.
The officers on the scene kept asking if she felt all right, as though they expected her to faint at any moment because she'd seen a dead body. Not only wouldn't they let her go until she spoke to someone named Grissom, she had just finished her last cigarette and was now being treated like a damsel in distress.
Sara was pissed off.
"Miss…um…Sidle?"
She turned around, prepared to go off on the next person who dared to ask her if she needed to sit down. What she came face to face with was a pair of blue eyes.
"I'm Gil Grissom. I'm a crime scene investigator and I need to ask you a few…"
"Are you with them?" she asked, pointing to the police officers. When he frowned, Sara went on. "Your jacket is different from everyone else's."
He raised an eyebrow. "You're right. I'm not. I'm in town for a conference. But the SFPD asked me help out here."
"Why?"
"My specialty is entomology and the body you found has evidence of insect activity."
The wind whipped strands of hair into her mouth. Sara pushed them away. "It also has evidence of human activity." She shrugged at his questioning stare. "I noticed rope burns around his wrists. You know, like he'd been tied up."
"You examined the body?"
Sara sighed. "Yeah, and I didn't even faint. Give me a gold sticker for my fortitude."
Gil Grissom stared at her for another second before looking down intently at his notes. "It says here that you're a student at UC Berkeley. What are you doing in San Francisco?"
"Vegas Night."
"Excuse me?"
"Sorority mixer," she clarified. "Up at the club. I came down here for some air."
Noticing something on the ground, the man pulled a pair of tweezers out his pocket and picked up one of her discarded butts. "Air…and a smoke?"
"Are you going to lecture me about lung cancer?"
"No." He pocketed the butt and reached into the kit he had brought with him. "But I would like to get a sample of your DNA."
Sara frowned. "Now I get to say 'excuse me'."
"If we find more butts around the body, I'd like to be able to use your DNA profile to make sure they're not yours. Your DNA is your unique…"
"Just because I'm in a sorority, please don't assume that I'm not up-to-date on this stuff, Mr. Grissom. I have a degree in Theoretical Physics and I watched the entire OJ Simpson trial."
He couldn't quite hide a smile as he took out a long Q-tip. "My apologies. Just a simple swab inside your cheek and we'll be done."
It was right then that she realized how cute he was. For an older guy.
"How is that you're so sure I should be eliminated from suspicion?" she asked, turning up the charm just a bit.
"Did you kill that guy?"
"Of course not."
Gil Grissom nodded. "Good. Open up."
Sara wondered if her sisters would believe that having your DNA collected could be more erotic than joining the Mile-High Club.
"Tell me something." He sealed up the swab. "Did you notice anything else about the crime scene before the police got here and trampled it?"
She closed her eyes, taking herself back to the moment she'd first noticed the body lapping up and down the shore with the ebb and flow of the waves. "There were no footprints. Anywhere. The beach was clear, except for the prints I made." She opened them. "He washed ashore."
He was smiling again. The lower row of his teeth was slightly crooked. It was intriguing, rather than off-putting. "You have a good eye, Miss Sidle."
When he turned around and started walking off, Sara called him back. "Hey! Is that it?"
"Yes." He seemed confused. "You can go back to your party now."
"Because surely that's more important to me, right?" She shook her head in disbelief. "Look, I found this guy. I feel…I don't know…responsible for him."
"Well, you're not. I am. It's my job to look out for him now." Gil Grissom nodded at her. "Thank you for you help."
Sara watched him move down the shore, towards the artificially lit crime scene. It was strange. She had the weirdest sense that her life was about to change forever, making her decision to leave the sorority even more concrete.
October 2000
"I don't get it." Nick scratched his jaw. "Why're you so pissed off at Greeks if you liked being one?"
Sara bit into a fresh piece of gum. "Remember when you said you joined your frat to belong to something?"
"Sure. Did you do the same?"
She nodded. "Now that I'm not so…needy, I guess I look back on it and remember who I was then. And I don't like her."
"But if you hadn't been in a sorority, you wouldn't have been at a sorority mixer. And if you hadn't been at that mixer, you wouldn't have found a DB."
Her voice took on a warning tone. "Nick…"
He ignored her. "And if you hadn't found a DB, you wouldn't have met…"
"Grissom." Sara cleared her throat as the man in question entered. "Hey!"
"Sara…Nick." Grissom pointed at both of them. "Is your frat case finished?"
"Suspect behind bars," Sara hurriedly replied before Nick could. "Do you want some coffee?"
"I'm fine. Just heading out to the lake with Catherine." He pulled two bottles of water from the mini-fridge. "You know, I put the two of you on that case specifically. You might be the only CSI's in this entire building who were in social Greek organizations."
"We figured that." His beeper went off just then. "I've gotta go," he said, after checking it. "Sara's gonna finish the paperwork on the case and have it on your deks by the end of the shift." Before she could protest, he smirked. "Unless she wants someone to give Greg an anonymous tip that she thinks he's hot and the best way to win her heart would be to pin her."
As he left, Sara called out. "I've made up my mind! I don't like you!"
Grissom took a sip from his bottle. "Speaking of, when I filed your résumé awhile back, I noticed that you're not listing your sorority affiliation on it."
"Yeah. Um…I got tired of having to prove to my employers that I'm not a bimbo. It's not like I'm active, anyways."
He shrugged. "It's your prerogative. But you shouldn't be ashamed of your past, Sara. Change anything that happened back then, and you might not be where you are now." Grissom headed for the door. "And in case I haven't told you yet, I'm glad you're here."
The corners of Sara's lips turned up. If she'd had any doubts that he'd asked her to come to Las Vegas with the ulterior motive of advancing the relationship that had started on the cold beach and picked up again when she happened to attend one of his lectures after changing her graduate degree to forensic science, they evaporated right then.
She gave it a year before he stopped fighting their attraction. Tops.
Fin
Author's Notes: "Pledging Mr. Johnson" was on Spike last night, and even though I'd seen it ten or so times before, this was the first time I noticed Sara's dialogue. This fic followed when I also realized I'd never done a "Grissom and Sara meet" story. I hope you enjoyed my take on it. Thanks for reading! Until next time:)