Grissom balanced a box on his hip and reached out an arm to press the doorbell. He felt a little nervous coming to her place like this, but she had asked him to…. His thought train derailed. The Sara who opened the door was a different creature than the one he knew. This Sara was wearing a pair of cutoff shorts that incited a raise in his blood pressure, paired with an old t-shirt with…a joke about electrons on it? His nostrils flared as he detected lemons and, he sniffed again, skunk?

"You know, I've heard of borrowing a cup of sugar from your neighbors, but I do believe that this a first for tomato juice."

"Haha, Grissom. If I didn't need what you've got so badly, you might be in trouble."

He raised an eyebrow and thought, I'm in trouble now. "So do you want me to just stand here holding this for all your neighbors to see, or are you going to let me in?"

She flashed him a grin and opened the door further. "Hey, it's your olfactory senses. C'mon in."

"So how did you wind up on the business end of a skunk?"

She sighed and rolled her eyes as she unpacked the cans from the box. "That DB you sent Greg and me to tonight had some unusual tastes in pets. We noticed one of the cages was empty, but what do you expect when the damn thing is labeled "Fluffy"?"

He opened his mouth to make his usual crack about assumptions but she forestalled him with one pointed finger and continued with her story.

"I went into the bedroom to check things out, when I heard a rustling under the bed and the next thing I know this skunk comes rushing out, sprays me, and bails. I heard Greg and the officer swearing in the next room but fortunately for us Fluffy just missed his cage. Of course, my aromatic fate had already been sealed by that point."

Grissom smirked.

"So I just finished up and had Greg drop me off here on the way back to the lab instead of lending this scent to my car. He's going to pick me up later tonight, assuming of course I'm not going to stink up his car like I did the Denali. I think we'll be getting a detailing bill for that. As for the tomato juice, when I was a kid we used to wash our dogs in tomato juice to get rid of the smell. I figure it can't hurt me any to try the same." Her half-smile was devastating.

Grissom thought for a minute, containing the laugh that wanted to come out. He didn't want her to think he was laughing at her, he liked standing in her doorway for a change. "You know, technically the tomato juice is only acting as a perfume to cover up the initial smell. If you really want to get rid of the smell, you're going to have to wash the effected parts of you in a mixture of 1 quart of 3 hydrogen peroxide, 1/4 cup of baking soda and a teaspoon of liquid detergent. You might wind up with some lightened hair but unless you do something you're going to be pungent for a while. The thiols cause the initial release of smell but there are thioacetate derivatives that will be converted by water hydrolysis…."

"…Causing a fresh release of the odor. Which is why I should use the baking soda and hydrogen peroxide, because the oxidation will cause the thioacetate molecules to change to sulfonic acids and lose their odor causing properties." She nodded. "Because the nose is denuded with the skunk odor, the tomato juice acts as a kind of palate cleanser." She laughed and Grissom joined in.

A silence fell briefly and Grissom looked around what he could see of her apartment. The last time he had only gotten a vague impression, not wanting to barge into her personal space. It was both what he expected and surprising.

It was quite clean but comfortably cluttered. It was comfortable space full of earth tones, set off by the purple walls of the living room and the cherry stained cupboards in the kitchen. An olive leather couch with a matching chair was the focus of the living room; a coffee table with textbooks and magazines scattered on top was between the set. The desk in the back corner had paperwork scattered across the top; the chair was drawn away, pushed up against the bookshelf that was next to the desk. He could see textbooks on physics and chemistry, remnants from Berkley and Harvard.

Across from the couch, next to the doorway that presumably led to her bedroom, was a small entertainment center. Her TV perched on her VCR and the DVD player next to it had an English dictionary as well as a biology textbook piled on top of it. Sara apparently noticed his lingering attention on the oddity of her DVD player because she interrupted his analysis of the room with an explanation.

"Ah, yes. I see you've noticed my quality entertainment unit. I got the DVD player on sale and didn't realize until too late that there was a reason it was so cheap. Sometimes it spins the disc too quickly so the mass on top of the player helps slow it down. Getting the disc in is tricky sometimes too." She trailed off.

"You could ride into work with me tonight you know. Why make Greg pick you up? I'm already here after all." He realized what he had just offered and how it might look to people in the office.

She cocked her head to the side thinking a moment before saying, "Thanks. I'd like that. I'll call Greg before I go hit the shower."

Well, it was clearly too late now for him to rescind the offer.

"Okay, I guess I'll let you enjoy your tomato juice, or baking soda, in peace." He paused at the door. "I like your shirt incidentally."

She gave him a blank look.

"What did one electron say to the other electron?"

She laughed and looked down at her chest, reading upside down. "Ohh, right. 'Don't get excited, you'll only get into a state!'" She looked sheepish as she caught his eye. "Well, I didn't know how much of this aromatherapy was going to rub off on my clothes and since I already had one outfit ruined, I pulled out some clothes from university that I didn't mind if they got trashed. This was the physics department shirt one year."

He nodded his understanding, a smile lighting his face. "Well, I'll come back at about 30 minutes before shift starts."

Just as he left he said over his shoulder, "I looked up the basic chemical background before I came." He winked. "I'm sneaky like that."

--

Sara sighed as she towel dried her hair. It had been a risk to wash it with the same solution as the rest of her, but the thought of the tomato juice wearing off and being enveloped in skunk again was a greater risk. Sadly that left her where she was now – standing in front of the mirror, considering what to do with her newly streaked hair. It wouldn't have been all that bad if the results had been more consistent. And less brassy. Well, I could always go get some Kool-Aid like when I was fifteen. That would trump Greg's current do. There was no way to get out of this situation gracefully.

Well, not until one o'clock next Tuesday when she had a hair appointment with Catherine's hair stylist. With all the styles Catherine went through, surely the man would be able to help her. She sighed. In the meantime there wasn't much she could do but wear a hat and brace herself for her coworker's comments. She glanced at the bedside clock, it was almost quarter past; Grissom would be there soon. She hung the towel over the shower bar, twitching the fabric so that there weren't any bunches. She started brushing her hair as she walked into her bedroom.

She tossed her brush on the bed and grabbed a pair of khaki's from the closet. A little touch up with the iron and they'd be fine. She plugged in the iron and lay the pants down on the board. She turned back to the closet and flipped through the hangers. She settled on a maroon sleeveless shirt with a high scoop neck. Pulling the shirt on she went back to the board and started ironing with long, smooth strokes. She unplugged the iron and pulled on the pants. She loved the feeling of just warmed fabric on her skin, no matter that it was already so warm in Las Vegas. Sara glanced at the clock again. Almost time for Grissom to be here. She pulled her hair back into a ponytail and grimaced; the garish highlights showed even more. Thank goodness for hats, she thought as she pulled the LVPD cap over the ponytail. She was tying her laces when the doorbell rang.

"Hey," she said as she opened the door. "Right on time!"

"Well, I'm not one to leave a lady stranded. As long as you don't stink up my car like the Denali." Said Greg.

Oh shit. I forgot to call Greg.

He grinned at her. "But you're not smelling too bad anymore, maybe we'll only have to leave one window open." He cracked.

Okay Sara, how are you going to avoid embarrassing everyone or hurting people's feelings? "C'mon in Greg. I've just got to make a phone call real quick."

She walked into her bedroom and picked up her house line, dialing Grissom's number from memory. Which is a bad sign in itself when the only numbers you have memorized are the lab, the take-out places', and your boss's cell number.

"Grissom."

"Hey, it's Sara."

"Oh, hey. I was just about to come over. Did you need more time?"

"Uh, no. The thing is I got distracted making that baking soda mixture and –"

"Sara, can I have one of your V8s?" Greg called.

"Yah sure," she said and brought the receiver to her ear again. "And I –"

"Forgot to call Greg?"

She sighed. "Yah. Sorry, I really appreciate your offer though."

"It's fine. I just thought it would make life easier for everyone. I'll see you at the lab."

"Okay, I'll see you there."

"Bye."

Sara hung up the phone. She hoped that he wouldn't think she was blowing him off. She'd been so shocked at his offer that it had taken her a minute to accept. Of course, it wasn't like other people didn't carpool. Especially since her car was still at the lab. It all made perfect sense. It was the look in his eyes when he offered – a buried hopeful look shortly overwhelmed with fear after the words left his mouth. She hadn't wanted to give him a chance to retract the offer. Of course, then she went and negated the whole effort by forgetting to call Greg. It figured. She walked back into the living room.

"So what inspired the health kick, Sara? Or is it more of a beauty kick?" He tweaked her ponytail to smell it before crinkling his nose. "Phew. That sure doesn't smell like tomato juice." He looked closer at her hair. "You do something to your hair Sara?"

She ducked as his hand grabbed at the hat. She backed towards the door, laughing. "Oh no you don't Greggo! I will defend my honor to the death. Now move so I can lock the door!"

He moved out into the hallway whining, "Awww, c'mon now Sara! It's just hair! Lemme see…we don't judge here!"

"Well, let's just leave it at the mixture I used to remove the skunk smell also removed some color. Resulting in something I'm not too proud to cover with a hat, okay?"

Greg just eyed her hat for a moment before shrugging and saying, "Okay, but you never know. The Gregmeister might be able to help. I've had some troublesome hair in my day."

Sara snorted and rolled her eyes. "Yah, and I think I was there." She elbowed him. "Thanks anyway. I've got an appointment with Catherine's hair stylist next week."

A look of awe, or was that fear, passed over Greg's face. "Next week? How did you manage that? Offer him your firstborn's virgin hair?"

"Haha, Greg. All I know is that Catherine set it up for me."

"No, seriously. It can take months to get an appointment with her guy. I'm amazed."

Sara thought about it for a minute, then shrugged. "Well, then I guess I'd better thank Catherine later."

They'd reached Greg's car by that point and he gallantly opened the door for her. "Your chariot, m'lady."

Sara raised an eyebrow. "I can open the door myself."

Greg looked sheepish. "Actually, you can't. Door handle's busted; I have to jimmy it each time."

She looked at the car apprehensively.

"Oh, you can get out fine. It's just getting in that's the problem." He hastened to explain.

"Well," she said as she got in, "if I die, you get to explain to Grissom why he's down one CSI."

--