Thank you all so much for the wonderful reviews! There is nothing like getting positive feedback on a story. :-)
So, here is the last part. I could have done more chapters, but I think I would have gotten repetitive with everything, and I didn't want that. Hence, enjoy – as always – and tell me what you think.
*a.l.
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"Catherine, you have to get me out of here." Sara pleaded with her for the forth time during the short commercial break.
"Sorry Sara, no can do." Catherine replied, flipping her hair.
"WHY?" Sara asked. She was seriously debating taking Catherine hostage just so she could get out of here. Warrick would certainly let her free knowing that Catherine was in danger.
Catherine opened her mouth to say something, and then shut it. She shrugged her shoulders instead. "I just can't Sara. Why do you refuse to play along?"
Sara stood there, trying to form sentences in her head, but they just didn't come. She opened her mouth just like Catherine, but then shut it. She then opened it again, and shut it once more. She opened it for a third time, and as she went to close it, she bit her tongue. "Because." Sara mumbled, but now her tongue hurt and it came out mumbled like "Bea-couse."
"There has to be a reason Sara." Catherine stated, turning away from her too look in the mirror. Sara was trying desperately to figure out why Catherine was primping her self so much. She had been on stage once, and it was for a split second. But this is Catherine we are talking about again, and she probably just wanted to get all dolled up and prance around in ten layers of makeup and wear a long Vana White type gown.
"FINE. You want to know the reason Catherine? Well, there is more than one, so you better get ready for this. ONE: I do not like being in front of people. I do not work well with living and breathing things, whether it is kids, or pets, or adults."
"You mean you like dead people better?" Catherine quipped, turning away from the mirror to look at her. Sara just cocked her jaw, and continued.
"TWO: Brass is trying to set me up with Nick or Grissom or Greg. Just that alone will give me some good nightmares for the next few months.
"TWO A: Nick. NICK? No. Not in a million and one years and over my dead body.
"TWO B: Grissom? Catherine, the man is married to the job. I realized that first hand, remember? He is all bottled up inside and doesn't have a way out and some day he is just going to self combust and I really don't want to be around when that happens.
"TWO C: Greg. Okay, I'll go easier on Greg because he's a nice, funny guy. But he's Greg. The same person who blares rock music as all hours of the night and dances around the hall when he has nothing else to do, and has tried to get me to go out with him for the last four years. But out of all of them, he has the best shot because he will take me to Disney World."
A perplexed look came over Catherine's face. "Sara, you just eliminated all of your possible choices. Unless you want Brass…"
Sara held up her hand. "I'm not done." She protested.
"THREE," Sara sighed, looking down at the floor. Oh, she liked Catherine's shoes…but not now, she told her self. "THREE," Sara began again, "I think I've giving up on this while 'dating' thing. Even Warrick said it. Work is my life. I do that for fun. I don't go to the movies…"
"But you did." Catherine cut in. Sara shot her a really mean look.
"As I was saying…without work I don't have anything to do. I think having a 'boyfriend' would just interfere and mess my life up." Sara looked back up at Catherine's face. Catherine narrowed her eyes.
"You really don't want to be here, do you?" she asked.
"Catherine, I will baby-sit Lindsey every Saturday for the next four years, rain or shine, sickness or health, whatever. I need to get out of here."
Catherine contemplated her plea for a second. "Okay…"Catherine began, but it was at that second that Warrick walked over and grabbed Sara's shoulders.
"Were on in thirty seconds." He stated, and dragged Sara in the other direction. Sara let out a pathetic moan as Catherine waved bye.
"Warrick," Sara purred, as an idea came to her head. "How would you like a new DVD player?"
"What?" He asked as he led her around backstage.
"That's right, a new DVD player, and a stereo system."
"Sara, you can't bribe me into letting you go." Warrick stated as he brought her over to the side of the stage. Sara peeked through the curtain to see the audience beginning to take their seats again. She was still trying to figure out how all of this fit into the crime lab, and where the grant for this little expense had come from.
"And why not?" Sara asked, turning to look back at Warrick.
"Because I set this little thing up for you, and I am not about to let you go home." He said, as he waked over to go get his microphone.
"What? You set this up for me?" Sara was shocked. Why would Warrick put her through this torture?
"You need something other than work Sara. You're going to burn out quick and end up living along in an apartment with fifteen cats all named after TV show sidekicks."
"I think I'm allergic to cats anyway Warrick." Sara mumbled. "And I see a little flaw in your plan. You seem to have gotten 'bachelors' from work. How am I supposed to find something outside of work, when they are all work? Couldn't you have gone to Barns and Nobles and hung out in the Crime section and pulled three random guys from there?"
Warrick just stared at her. "We're on in five." He said, giving her a gentle push in the direction of the stage. "Four."
"Warrick!! This isn't fair!" Sara cried.
"Three."
"I will make your life miserable after this, mark my words."
"Two."
Brass came over and grabbed Sara, pulling her onstage. She thrashed at him, but then gave up. It was no use. She was going to be forced to go back onstage one-way or another.
Sara hung her head in defeat as she shuffled her feet back onto the stage. The audience roared with applause and Sara considered yelling at them to stop and go home. Why were they so happy to see her anyway? Sara prayed that they weren't close friends and family who had come all the way just to see her be humiliated. But then, Sara only has about six relatives and a dozen close friends, so who were the rest of the people? Bet ya they are all people I've put away who are now on parole, Sara thought as she sat back down on the stool.
"Welcome back ladies and gentlemen." Brass said into the microphone. "Now, our lucky lady has had some time to think about who she wants to go out on a date with…and her choice is?"
"What?" Sara said snapping her head up. "You never told me I had to choose NOW."
"I'm just joshing with you Sara. We've still got one more round to play!"
"But this is the second round." Sara pointed out.
"The second and final round."
"You never told me that there were only two rounds!"
"From what I'm guessing, I haven't told you a lot of things, Sara." Brass commented as he looked over at her. He smiled, and Sara stuck out her tongue at him.
"Warrick, please tell us what this round is all about?"
"For this round, we gave all of our bachelors five hundred dollars-." Warrick began, but was cut off by Sara. "I didn't get any money!" she wined, and Warrick continued ignoring her.
"-and told them to spend the money on what they would consider Sara's fantasy."
"First of all," Sara began, getting up off the stool. "They did that in a commercial break? And secondly, do you want to rephrase that last line? Sara's fantasy? I think not Warrick."
"Fine. We gave them 'pretend' money to spend on a 'pretend' shopping trip during the commercial break and they are going to use the 'pretend' money to give you whatever you want."
"Want to rephrase that again?" Sara asked, turning to look at him standing offstage.
"Sara, just go with this okay? Let's pretend that we gave all of the bachelors money, and now they are going to tell you what they would do with it to make you happy. Okay?" Brass said placing an arm around her shoulder.
"There seems to be a lot of pretending in this round, Brass." Sara muttered.
"Bachelor number one, please tell us what you would spend the money on!" Brass yelled, ignoring Sara's comment.
"Well, first I'd take her out to dinner at a real fancy place." Nick began. "Then, we'd go to a show over at one of the casinos and then back to my place for drinks."
"But Bachelor number one, that's not a total of five hundred dollars." Brass pointed out.
"Right. I would have bought Sara a new dress and shoes, and my self a new suit." Nick said proudly.
"What do you think of that?" Brass asked Sara, shoving the microphone into her face.
"I think I would want to pick out the dress, not have Nicky - (an "AHEM." From Brass.) - Sorry, Bachelor number one do it for me. And we, under no circumstance, would be going to see those lions."
"But you like this idea?" Brass asked, pushing the microphone closer to her face.
"It's okay. Let's see what the others will do."
"Bachelor number two! What would you do with the money?" Brass called out.
"I'd make sure that the body farm has some new bodies, and I'd take Sara there. I'd buy her some new equipment for her kit, make up a batch of red-creeper and we'd have the time of our lives." Grissom replied.
Sara thought for a moment, that idea didn't sound too bad. As long as Grissom stayed home.
"That sounds like a very fun time." Brass said sarcastically. "What do you think Sara?"
"Throw in a trip to Murder Central, and it sounds like barrels." Sara said rolling her eyes a little.
"And finally, bachelor number three, what would you do with the money?"
"I'd take Sara for a burger." Greg replied.
"And that's it?" Brass asked.
"Are you kidding? If I'm going to take a pay cut, I need all the money I can get. The burger will cost about twenty bucks for us both, and I'll pocket the rest. That's a net gain for me of four hundred and eighty dollars."
Brass narrowed his eyes. "Bachelor number three, that's not the purpose of the money. It's pretend anyway. So what would you do now?"
"Still take her out for burgers."
"You ding-dong. Sara doesn't eat meat." Sara heard Grissom say, and then something that sounded like Grissom slapping the back of Greg's head. "I had to learn that the hard way, so I might as well give everyone else the heads up."
"Bachelors, lets not get curt now." Brass scolded, and then turned to Sara. "So, Sara, the moment of truth has come. Which bachelor are you going to pick. You have seven seconds."
"What?" Sara cried. "Sevens seconds to pick one of these dim-wits? This is a very tough decision, Brass, and this is going to take time and consideration and then a pro and con chart…"
"TIMES UP!" Warrick yelled, causing Sara to jump.
"So Sara, is it going to be bachelor number one, number two, or number three?" At this the audience began to yell out numbers, "ONE!" "THREE!" "TWO!!" They all screamed together.
"I…I…I can't decided now!" Sara stammered. "This is like asking what Stooge I want to go out on a date with!"
"Well, you better pick the right one, Sara, because we're drawing close to our allotted syndicated time slot, and other people need to use the stage. So Please pick…"
"I can't!" Sara moaned. "It is not something I can decide on a whim!"
"Well, you have to. We're giving you ten more seconds to decide, and then we are just going to give you who is behind door number two." Brass said, walking over to the side of the stage where a very large door was located. Sara didn't remember seeing that door when she came in.
"And what's behind that door?" Sara questioned.
"Five seconds to decide before we give you this door."
"Wait, where is door number one? You can't have door number two before you have door number one!" Sara cried, but it was at that second that a giant buzzer went off and all of the lights on the stage started flashing.
"I'm sorry Sara, but you're out of time. This is what you get for not picking any of the other bachelors…" Brass started, and then opened the door.
It was Hank.
Sara screamed and sat upright on the couch, panting hard. She could feel little beads of sweat on her forehead, and she wiped them off. She looked around the break room, trying to recollect what had just happened. She knew it was a dream all along, but it felt so real to her.
Catherine came running down the hall and into the break room. "Sara, are you okay?" she asked coming over.
"Yeah, yeah, I'm fine." Sara said shaking her had and getting to her feet. "I just had the weirdest dream though."
"Oh, care to tell?" Catherine asked as she walked over and got Sara a cup of coffee.
"I was on the Dating Game, and Nicky, Grissom and Greg were the bachelors. You were there too, and Warrick…and Brass was the host…and Hank. God, Hank was there. It was awful. Just awful." Sara said rubbing her face and took the cup from Catherine.
Catherine made her way towards the door, "Well, at least you got a little sleep in. Come on, Grissom wants us to work a homicide across town."
"I'm coming." Sara replied, and took the last sip of her coffee. She tossed it and followed Catherine out the door. The two of them continued down the hall, until Sara passed a familiar looking door. She stopped dead in her tracks.
"Catherine, what's behind this door?" Sara asked staring at it intensely.
"What?" Catherine asked walking over. "It's just a door…"
"No! Don't open it!" Sara shrieked as Catherine reached out and placed her hand on the doorknob. Instead of waiting to see what was behind it, Sara tore off in the other direction, running like mad.
Catherine opened the door anyway.
Grissom stuck his head out. "What was that?" he asked, looking off down the hall to where Sara had just run screaming bloody murder.
"Bad dream." Catherine replied, and shut the door on Grissom.
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