Sorry for not uploading this chapter earlier, but school's been pretty hard. Thanks to smuffly and tlh45 for reviewing.

Chapter 3

Stella was pretty late for work. She had spent half of the night working on a very complicated case. They had found a body with very strange evidence. Just pieces of broken glass, no DNA, no finger prints yet. Mac had told her to take a few hours off and now she was late. When the elevator stopped she saw Mac standing there waiting for her and she cursed quietly. Surprisingly there was a girl standing next to him. She was pretty tall, about Mac's height, maybe an inch smaller. She looked like a girl in her late teenage years.

"Good morning, Stella. We were waiting for you."

"I'm sorry Mac. It was a very late night."

"You needed some sleep. It's ok," he said and lay his hand on the girls shoulder, "Stella, this is Sandra. She came here yesterday."

"Hi Sandra, nice to meet you," Stella and shook her hand.

"Nice to meet you, too, Detective."

"Please don't call me Detective. You're not a suspect. Just Stella."

"Ok, Stella, nice to meet you." Stella smirked at her.

"I'll leave you two girls alone then. Stella, Lindsay's taking the case. Adam and Hawkes help her. You can do me a favor and look after Sandra for a while. I gotta go to Sinclair." Stella's face was a bit disappointed, but she still smiled.

"Well Sandra, do you like coffee?" she said and turned back to the elevator.

"I love coffee. That's a good idea."

The coffee shop wasn't very full, because it was a bit too warm for drinking coffee. The sun had made all the New Yorker's a big favor and had appeared. Stella opened the door and a small bell rang.

"Good morning. A table for two please." A young woman guided them to a table at the window. From there they could see the street and the people on there.

"Take a seat, Sandra. What do you want to drink?" The waitress came and asked the same question.

"I would like to have a black coffee, very strong please."

"Ok, and for you, ma'am?"

"Just a coffee with milk please," she said to the young woman, and then she turned to Sandra, "Do you normally drink your coffee very strong?" She smirked.

"No, I don't. I'm just very tired from yesterday. The coffee will help, I hope."

"You're still tired. Do you have jet lag? From Europe is must be quite a few hours." Sandra looked at her watch.

"In Germany it's afternoon. Almost four o clock, but I'm getting used to it. It's not that hard."

"That's good to hear." Their coffee came and Sandra immediately wrapped her hands around the cup.

"Have you been to New York before?" Stella asked. Sandra shook her head.

"It's my first time here, but there is an orientation camp tomorrow where we go sightseeing. I'm really looking forward to it."

"Awesome. Do you know where you're going?"

"I read the information booklet. We're going to the Statue of Liberty, Ellis Island, MoMA, Museum of Natural History, Madam Tussauds, WTC and Empire State Building," she counted on her fingers, "in three days. That's gonna be exhausting."

"You're right, that's a lot for three days, but I think it's better to go sightseeing in Manhattan then in Europe."

"Depends where you go. Have you ever been to Europe?"

"I was born in Greece," she said and saw Sandra's face lightening up.

"I always wanted to go to Greece, but my parents wouldn't take me there."

"Greece is very nice. It's really worth to go there." Sandra silently sipped her coffee.

"Sandra, do you have any hobbies? I think Mac will make me looking after you quite a few times."

"I love ballet. I really love ballet. I already looked for classed and my school is actually offering them. I also like reading and movies. Do you know any movie theaters?"

"In Manhattan there are hundreds of cinemas. It's your choice. You love ballet? I used to do it, too, when I was your age."

"Have you ever tried to dance with pointe shoes?"

"I've never done that, I'm afraid. I heard it's very painful. Do you have pointe shoes?" Sandra laughed a little.

"I do have and you're right. Pointe shoes hurt a lot, but they're so beautiful."

"I've seen the older ones dancing with it. It does look beautiful..." Stella was interrupted by her phone ringing.

"I'm sorry. Hang on." She opened it and her face instantly changed. Not again, please not again. Not another body. "I'm sorry Sandra. Work want's me. I gotta bring you back, free time's over," she said with a fake smile, stood up and left a few dollar bills on the table. Sandra took out her wallet to leave a few bills, too, but Stella shook her head.

"I'll pay it. It's ok." Sandra smiled at her and thanked.

Just a few minutes later they had passed the security guard and Stella had sent her upstairs while she went back to her car. Up in the 35th floor Sandra saw Mac rushing around in his office. She gently knocked at his door. He looked up and when he saw her he waved her in.

"Hi Mac, Stella was called into work. She told me to come back." Mac grabbed his jacket.

"Oh yeah, I got a call, too. Do you have a book or something to entertain yourself? I might leave you alone for a couple of hours."

"I have some school work to do and I have a book. I won't get bored." Mac gave her a confused gaze.

"You have school work to do? I thought school starts next week."

"It does, but I want to keep on track with German school so I don't fall behind."

"That's weird. Come with me. I'll show you the break room. You can stay there for a while." She nodded and followed him.

She sat on the sofa and pulled her knees to her chest. She really wanted to go to sleep, but she knew she mustn't. Fortunately her book was very exciting. Harry Potter was always one of her favorites. The last book would be published in a few months in Germany, but here in America she's already seen it in a bookstore. She had been sitting there for almost half an hour when someone stopped right beside her.

"Hey kiddo, I haven't seen you around here?" he said.

"Of course you haven't. I arrived here last night. I'm Mac's homestay," she said and stood up.

"You must be Sandra; Stella had told me that Mac's having a homestay. I'm Danny, nice to meet you."

"Nice to meet you, too, Danny."

"You're from Germany, right?" She nodded.

"From which part of Germany are you?" he added.

"I'm from Bavaria. It's near Germany. Do you know Munich?"

"I think I heard it somewhere."

"Do you know the Oktoberfest?"

"Sure I do, isn't that the event where every year thousands of Italian's go to get drunk?" Sandra busted out laughing.

"The Oktoberfest is actually in Munich and, yes, there is thousands of Italian's coming every year. Maybe it's some kind of revenge for all the Germans who go to Italy for summer vacation. Are you from Italy?"

"My family comes from there," he said and his smile got a bit weaker, "But I was raised in New York."

"Non parlo Italiano, sons tedesca."

"Pardon me, I don't speak Italian."

"Me, too," she said leaving a confused expression on Danny's face, "This is the only sentence I know in Italian and in English it says that 'I don't speak Italian, but German'"

"Fair enough. By the way, did Mac tell you anything to do?" She shook her head.

"Apart from reading and somehow entertaining myself, no."

"I gotta piece together some kind of of glass thing. Do you wanna watch?" Her face was lightening up the second time that day.

"Sure I want to," she said without hesitation and followed him to a room with transparent walls.

"You can stand over there and for your own safety, touch nothing. Just pretend to be a ghost," he said smirking.

"Ok, I will be a ghost." While she was pretending to be a ghost, she watched Danny scanning all the pieces of broken glass in front of him and gluing them together. The whole time she was staring at him in astonishment and by the time he had finished puzzling her eyes had almost grown to the size of saucers.

"To me it looks like some kind of glass bucket," he said turning his head to get another perspective.

"No, Danny, it's not a bucket. It's a stein; in Germany we would call it a 'Maßkrug'. You drink beer of it."

"Beer?! That's almost a fourth of a gallon."

"A 'Maß' is actually one liter. I don't know how many gallons that equals."

"Who's drinking one liter of beer at once?"

"A lot of people do, even the person in front of you," she said waving at him and smiling. After a half shocked, half confused gaze of Danny she added: "The legal drinking age in Germany is 16, for beer. For hard liquor it's 18."

"Ok, I understand. How did you feel after such a bucket?"

"Don't call it a bucket and I felt something between tipsy and drunk." She just heard something like 'crazy German's' from him, but she was too restrained by his doing that she didn't really listen. He started covering almost the entire surface of the stein with some kind of black powder.

"I'm looking for fingerprints. Maybe Stella missed something when she said that there's nothing." After he was done, he started taking pictures of the stein in every perspective. It took him just a few minutes then...

"Boom," he exclaimed, "I was right. There's a fingerprint." Somehow the print appeared just seconds after it was found on the screen.

"Ok, this will take a while. I suggest you go back to the break room." Knowing that she wasn't supposed to stay any longer she went back. Her book wasn't that interesting as she hoped, but it kept her busy until the afternoon. Finally she stopped reading when her stomach started growling. She walked to the room where Danny was still working and she gently knocked on the door. He looked up from the computer and smiled at her.

"What's up, Sandra?"

"I'm starving and I've seen a hotdog stand just two blocks away. Could tell Mac that I'll be back in half an hour if he asks you?"

"I'm sure he won't be back in half an hour, but in the unlikely case he leaves a crime scene just after three hours I will tell him."

"Thank you very much. See you later then. Oh, I forgot, should I bring you something?"

"Thanks, I'm fine. Your 30 minutes are running. See you!"

Outside of the crime lab she felt like in one of these American reality shows. Busy people rushing past her and cars stuck in a traffic jam. The hotdog stand was further away than she thought, actually five blocks', not two, but she didn't care. She's nothing to eat since a slice of toast she'd found somewhere in Mac's kitchen and the coffee with Stella and therefore she was pretty happy when she saw the hotdog stand with only a few people waiting. She entered the line and a few minutes later she was holding an American hotdog in her hand. The taste was very different to what she used to eat, but she quite liked it. According to her watch she still had 15 minutes left and so she decided to walk back to the lab eating her hotdog.

Do you have any expectations or wishes how I should go on? If yes, leave a review. I try to upload the next chapter earlier.