After a few good hours of sleep Sara felt a lot better. She took a shower and went to grab something to eat. Or at least she planned to get something to eat, but when she opened her fridge she saw that it was almost empty. The only products she still had in her fridge were a couple of days over the expiration date. She threw everything out, and decided to just go to a diner before shift to get something to eat.
She sat down on the couch and put the TV on, after going through all the channels about ten times, she put on a "Friends" DVD. But after watching for a couple of minutes her mind started to wonder to the date she had that evening. What should she wear? Should she put on any make-up, or put on any jewelry? Maybe she should call Mark to ask if they were going to a fancy place or anything. Or she could call Riley, she would know what to do right? She has probably been on lots of dates. She grabbed her phone and dialed Riley's number.
"Hello?" she heard Riley answer with pretty loud music in the background.
"Hey, it's Sara."
"Sara, hi! What can I do for you? Are you bored? Cause if you are you should come to club28 it's a blast!"
"No I'm not bored. I just wanted to ask you something."
"Okay, shoot!"
"Well you know that guy I went on a date with a couple of days ago?"
"Yeah"
"Well I'm going to have dinner with him tonight, and I have no idea what to wear or anything. I mean I don't even know where we are going, how am I supposed to know what to wear? Should I just call and ask him where we are going?"
"All right, all right. Just calm down okay. You don't need to call him, just wear something a bit casual you know. Not too dressy, but also not your everyday clothing. Just something in between that can go with several occasions. Do you have something like that?"
"Uh… No I don't think so. I only have one dress and that was for some sort of gala, so that would be too dressy."
"Are you kidding me? You have only one dress? Do you have any skirts or something?"
"No, remember I don't really go out or anything, so why would I have the clothing for it."
"Yeah, well now that you hang out with me and the guys, you are going out so you're going to need some new clothes. All right your shift ends at four right? I'll come by your work, pick you up and we're gonna go shopping and buy some clothes for you to wear tonight. And we're also going to buy some skirts, shorts and tops that you can wear for when we go out."
"Okay but I should warn you, I am not a shopping kind of girl."
"Oh we'll see about that, after I'm done with you, you can't live without shopping!"
Sara laughed "Well then you got your wok cut out for ya! But thanks for trying, I really appreciate it! Mark's going to pick me up at seven, so we should be back by then."
"Hey no problem. I'll see you at four!" and then she hang up the phone.
At least she got the problem half solved. But she had the feeling that there was something Riley wasn't telling her cause she sounded a little to exciting.
She watched some more TV and then went to work. As usual she was the first to arrive and this time she knew for sure she wasn't paged or called, because she had them with her all day. She grabbed some coffee and waited for the rest of the team to arrive. After a couple of sips of her coffee she felt her stomach rumble. Right, she was supposed to pick something up before work. Sara knew she was forgetting something but she couldn't figure out what it was. Before she could ponder on that topic any further, Nick came in.
"Hey, you're awake this time!" he said to her jokingly.
"Very funny."
"You sleep alright?"
"Yes, I slept a few good hours and I feel a whole lot better now."
"Good, glad to hear that. So have you eaten properly?" he asked her suspiciously.
"Okay what's up with the 20questions?"
"I'll take that as a no. Didn't we talk about this yesterday?"
"Yeah I know. It wasn't on purpose I just didn't have anything to eat that wouldn't give me food poisoning, so I decided to go to a diner before shift to get something to eat but I forgot. It's no big deal okay."
"All right, just remember next time okay?" Nick decided to drop it for now, although he was going to keep an eye on her just in case.
Shift was again exhausting, it was of course still the same case as yesterday. They had a few breaks, but they all turned out to be dead ends. So they were still at square one. It was five minutes 'til the end of shift, and actually looked like it was going to be a double for all of them. Sara thought that maybe she could have a chat with Grissom to ask him if she could leave because she had other plans. She had never asked something like that, so it should be fine, right? She found Grissom in his office, going through the case file again.
"Hey Grissom, can I talk to you for a sec?"
"Sure Sara, come in." Sara walked in and took a seat in the chair that sat besides his desk. "Did you find something on the case?"
"Actually no. I came hear to ask you something. I know that everyone is pulling a double, but I kind of had plans after shift and I was wondering if I could maybe leave now?"
Grissom looked at her with concern "Is everything all right?" he asked her.
"Yes everything is fine really. I just have plans."
"Are you sure? Because you've been acting strange ever since the shift changed."
"I'm sure Griss. Can I go or do you need me to stay?"
"You can go, but if something is wrong you know you can talk to me right?"
"I know" Sara said, she stood up and walked out of the door. She went to the locker room to gather her stuff. Just when she was about to walk out she bumped into Warrick and Nick.
"Where you going Sar?" Warrick asked her "We're supposed to pull a double remember?"
"I know, but I've got plans so I asked Grissom if I could go early." Nick eyed her suspiciously when she said she had plans "Don't worry I'm not going to do anything stupid." 'I think' she added to herself.
"Okay, just wanted to make sure."
"All right, see you guys. And good luck with the rest of your shift!" With that she walked out of the locker room and headed toward the reception area, where she saw Riley waiting for her in one of the chairs.
"Wow, five past four. Not so bad for a workaholic! I would have expected you to come for at least another twenty minutes." Riley said to her.
"Well thank you I guess. Now let's go cause we don't have that much time."
"I know, that's why I brought reinforcement." Riley said while walking out of the lab.
"You brought reinforcement? Who the hell did you bring?" Sara while following her.
"I brought Chris and Daniel, there're great at shopping. And the best part is they're also straight!"
"Why is that the best part?"
"Most guys who are good at shopping and who like to shop, are gay. So then we can't get a good reaction out of them when we're trying something on. Chris and Dani are definitely not gay, so we can judge by their reaction if we should buy something or not. Now come on there're waiting!" she pushed Sara into the car and drove to the mall.
Chris and Daniel were waiting for them by the fountain. "Finally you girls made it." Chris said to them. "We only gotta hurry we only got a couple hours left!"
"We already went to a couple of stores to look at some clothes. We asked them to keep them behind the counter for awhile. So we're gonna go to that store first." Daniel said while pointing to a store that seemingly sells dresses. "We're going to get the dress first because that is our priority, they sell shoes to so we already picked some shoes out for you too. So let's go!" he dragged Sara to the store. Once they got into the store, the cashier came to them immediately and handed them a couple of dresses. Sara got rushed into the fitting room, and tried on the first dress. It was red and came a little below her knees, was spaghetti strapped and was a bit loose. It was obviously not the dress to go with, and after the confirmation of the guys and Riley she went to try the next dress. Two dresses later, she tried on a black one, the dress went 'til her knees, it was pretty tight and showed of her curves perfect, and it was strapped behind her neck leaving her back partly uncovered. When she went out of the fitting room it was obvious from the faces of Chris and Daniel that this was the dress to go with. Their mouths practically dropped to the floor.
"That dress is perfect Sara!" Riley said.
"Yeah its uh… I mean it's looks really great." Daniel said. While Chris was still just staring at her, making Sara blush a bit.
"See this is what I meant with the reaction we can get from them." Riley told her. Sara laughed at her and went back into the fitting room to change into her clothes. When she had changed she tried on the shoes that Daniel and Chris had picked for her, and eventually found a good pair. They were black strapped sandals, with two inch heels. Then they went for jewelry. Sara insisted that she had something at home, but they convinced her to buy it anyway. "A girl can't have enough jewelry" is what Riley told her. When they were done with her outfit for the evening they went shopping for other clothing. When it was five thirty, Sara had loads of new outfits. It was actually pretty useful that Chris and Daniel had already picked some clothes out in each store, it went a lot faster like this and they did have a time limit. She was having a great time too. Normally she wasn't the shopping kind of girl, but she had a lot of fun shopping with them, and she thought shopping with them again sometime would be pretty great. Her bank account wouldn't agree with her but what the hell, she had so much saved up from not doing anything in the last six years that she could afford it.
"All right, now the only thing we have to do, is get you a new haircut and a mani/pedi and get your make-up done and then we go home so we can get you dressed!" Riley told her.
"Why do I need a new haircut?" Sara asked her.
"Well you're going into a new direction right? So a new haircut is necessary!" Chris said.
"Don't worry it's not going to be a drastic change, just maybe some highlights and a new model. We've already made you an appointment so we've got to hurry."
When they got to the hair dresser, Sara was put into a chair immediately. And before she knew it someone was cutting pieces of of her hair. When the woman was done with the cutting, she got the hair dye, it was a little lighter brown then her own hair. When the dye was in her hair, the woman said that she had to wait for half an hour before she could wash in out. So she started to her fingernails and toenails. After half an hour she washed Sara's hair blow dried it and let Sara see the result. It actually looked pretty nice. It was a bit shorter and in layers, and dyed light brown with highlights in it.
"Now all we have to do is do you're make-up and then you're all done." The woman said to her. When she was done she headed towards the fountain were Riley, Chris and Daniel were waiting for her. When they turned around they looked at her approvingly.
"You look really great Sar." Chris said to her.
"See I told you it would look great!" Riley said while giving her a hug. "You do like it right?"
"Yeah, I really do."
"Good! Now let's get to your house, so you can change and get ready for your big date!"
They drove to her apartment, and Sara putt her dress, shoes and jewelry on. She showed her total outfit to the three people in her apartment, and was glad that they liked it. Just when she was all set, the door bell rang.
"Be there in a minute!" she shouted. "Guys I really want to thank you for what you did for me today, I really appreciate it. Couldn't have done it by myself."
"Don't worry about it. We had a great time!" Daniel told her.
"Yeah we did. Promise us one thing though." Chris said.
"What?"
"When your date is over, come over to the club and tell us all about it!"
"All right I will. Now I gotta go, see you guys later tonight. And thanks again!"
She opened the door, and saw Mark standing in front of her door with a bunch of roses, which he handed to her.
"For you." He told her. "I hope you like them, I didn't know what your favorite flowers are, so I picked roses."
"Of course I like them, they're beautiful. Thank you so much."
"Good" he seemed relieved "Shall we then?" he said while offering his arm. Sara excepted his arm closed the door behind her, and let Mark lead her to his car.
Authors note: I know, I know, it's been awhile since I've updated. But I've been a bit busy working and of course celebrating that my exams are over. Now all I've got to do is hope that I've actually passed and that I didn't 'study' for nothing! I'll try to update more regularly from now on. Hope you liked this chapter!
xxx lois
