Nick felt like his heart had stopped for a moment inside of his chest and his mouth went dry. On the outside though, he appeared the picture of calm, at least until he tried to speak. "Uh, I." He swallowed hard. He had hoped that this conversation could be delayed until they'd finished up working this case and he could think of something witty that he could find a way out of if she didn't react favorably. It seemed however, that fate and Sara had moved his timing up considerably.

Sara watched him nervously, wondering if she had misread what she thought had been building between them.

Nick swallowed again as he looked over at her, and then he just cut to the chase, avoiding her question altogether. "Do you want to go on a date sometime?" He had a brief thought run through his mind that he wondered just how long a person could live if their heart did indeed stop in their chest.

Sara wasn't sure she heard him correctly even though she was looking right at him. All she was sure of was the sound of her heart pounding in her ears. "Hmm?" Her throat felt exceptionally dry as she tried to focus on his lips so she could see what he was saying.

Nick could see uncertainty on Sara's face, but he had gone this far, he plunged in with both feet. "I was hoping you might want to go out with me on a date sometime." Silence descended on his Denali for what seemed like an eternity as he waited for Sara to answer his question.

In reality, it was just a brief moment, long enough for Sara to register the words in her mind and force her lips to move. "Yes." She felt a smile pulling the corners of her mouth upwards as she realized that he'd been feeling the same thing she had.

Nick looked at her blankly for a good long minute before her answer began to sink into his consciousness. He arched both brows. "Did you say yes?" He wanted to absolutely certain that he hadn't imagined asking her out.

Sara nodded. "Yes." She found herself staring at him as a smile spread across his face.

"Ok." Nick's grin lit up his entire face. "Good." He just stared at her wanting to be reassured this was real.

Sara furrowed her brow and fidgeted nervously. "Uh, when?" She was trying to act as calm, cool, and collected as possible, but inside her stomach was doing a triple toe flip.

"When?" Nick hadn't really considered that, he had just been so nervous about asking her out that he didn't have it planned out that far. "After shift?"

"Sure." Sara reasoned that after shift was good, it was soon, and then she wouldn't have much time to worry about it, especially since there were already almost through their second shift of the day.

"Ok." Nick grinned at her for a moment and then realized that they still had a crime scene to get to.

Sara's thoughts were running along the same lines. "We should go to the mall." The sooner they wrapped this case up, the sooner they could go on that date. She'd had a nap and she was running on a rush of adrenaline, a date sounded good.

"Yeah." Nick turned the ignition on and quickly threaded the Denali out into traffic.

Neither one of them spoke much on the way, but every time they caught themselves glancing at each other, they couldn't help but smile and let out a chuckle.

As Nick pulled the Denali into the parking lot near the area they'd found the victim, he glanced over at Sara again. "You're really gonna go on a date with me." He just wanted to hear it one more time to be sure he wasn't dreaming.

Sara felt her cheeks turning a bit red. "Uh, yeah." She suddenly felt a wave of nervousness at the prospect of changing the nature of their relationship, but as he grinned at her, she knew that it was what she wanted.

"Ok then." He quickly shifted into professional mode. "Let's drive around the perimeter and see if we can figure out where that enclosure is." He had a plan forming in his mind and the sooner they took care of this case and found out exactly who their victim was and how she had died; he was going to put it into motion.

He began to slowly drive around the mall and it was less than 100 yards from where they'd found their victim that they saw a dumpster enclosure. He pulled the vehicle over and they wordlessly descended from it.

Almost as soon as they walked to the gate to the enclosure, Sara glanced over at Nick. "I think we've got blood."

He nodded in agreement. "I'll get the kits." He walked back to the Denali and grabbed both of their kits, hoping that this indeed was their crime scene.

Sara was trying to scan the area without touching the gate until they'd collected evidence from it, but so far, there was nothing that would indicate that there was any sort of weapon lying on the ground, and that meant that they would most likely have to look through the dumpster itself, something that was never fun.

Nick set their kits down on the ground and looked inside the enclosure. "Sara, how tall would you say our vic was?"

She had a thoughtful look on her face as she considered that they hadn't even had the prelim on the body yet, but from what she remembered, the victim was a few inches shorter than she was. "I'd say about five four."

Nick took in the scene and tried to work through what he thought might have happened on the portion of the enclosure that had been obstructed on the surveillance tape. "There wasn't anyone else in here on that tape." It would have been far easier to figure out what had happened if they had seen an assailant.

"She definitely looked like she was fine before she came in here, so whatever happened to her, happened in here." Sara was thinking out loud.

"You know the thing I don't understand is what she was doing in here in the first place. When she came out of the building, she wasn't carrying any trash bags out. What reason would she have to go in there?" Nick seemed to be a bit perplexed.

Sara didn't answer; she just stood there, her brow furrowed as she considered a few possibilities. Finally, an idea occurred to her and she turned towards Nick. "What if she noticed something out of place on the way in and decided to go back outside and check it out?"

"Isn't that the job of security?" Nick thought it was possible, but not probable that this woman would go back outside to check on something in the dark alone.

Sara ran her flashlight along the areas of the enclosure darkened by the shadows from the enclosure wall and the dumpster itself. As it glinted on something just to the side of the dumpster she paused. "Nick, keys."

"Let's take a look." He pulled on a pair of latex gloves and reached to open the gate to the enclosure, giving it a good yank as it seemed unwilling to yield.

Sara exchanged a look with Nick that this was an interesting development.

As Nick finally won the battle with the gate, something became very clear to both of them.