I have hereby reached the thirty review mark! I'd like to thank the Academy…uh, I mean, the reviewers…heh.
In this chapter, we will be meeting an OC who is NOT a Mary-Sue, and will NOT be competition for Sara. (We will find out why, exactly, in later chapters…oooh, a myyysteryyy…) In fact, she won't be much of an extreme feature at all. I tend to stray away from main character Ocs.
Ookay, for further reference, this story is third-person limited, sort of like the Harry Potter books (btw, the Half-Blood Prince RAWKED!) so the only thoughts we'll be getting are Sara's. I may zoom into other people's POV's for short amounts of time, but nothing drastic. What can I say? Sara just loves the limelight (and Greg, but that's a different-wait, no, it is the same story-different chapter, though-shoot, now I've confused myself). Oh, and note that I have no idea what kind of car Sara drives. I just made it up. Likewise, I haven't the foggiest notion of what Greg gets around in, either. I just pick what I like that's on the market today.
As much as I know you love to listen to me rant, however, I've a story to tell.
Disclaimer: DIDN'T I ALREADY DO THIS? Okay, for the last time. Carry this with you throughout the entire story. in the Budweiser frog style Bruck-heim-er.
Sara stumbled down the stairs of her apartment building, ponytail holder clenched between her teeth as she struggled to gather her hair up and walk at the same time. Her alarm had malfunctioned, meaning that she had woken up twenty minutes late. Also meaning that she would need a new alarm clock, as when she found out it had glitched on her, she'd thrown it out the window.
Nearly knocking over a man who was slowly making his way up the walkway to the building, rubbing his head as though some foreign, flying object had…excuse the pun…clocked him, Sara fairly flew to her car and fumbled to unlock the door. She was going to be late for work.
Or…not, as she usually got there two hours before shift began anyways, but she'd be breaking a personal record, and she'd still have to endure endless teasing at the lab. She revved up her little Honda Civic, only for it to produce a very…unrev-like sound. It was closer to her eighty year old Uncle Albert, who had emphysema and a dry, hacking cough. Staring at the ignition in horrified disbelief, Sara tried again, and it sputtered. Actually SPUTTERED. Then it died.
Letting her head fall forward in a gesture that was undoubtedly meant to be dramatic but leaned more toward stupid, Sara's forehead banged against the steering wheel.
"OW!" was the howl that resonated throughout the car. "Stupid-worthless-crappy-piece of shit!" she ranted, whacking the offending wheel for good measure. Now she was late with a headache and the imprint of a steering wheel on her forehead.
Now what was she going to do? Her car didn't work, and there wasn't any time to see what was wrong. She might be ACTUALLY tardy if she didn't come up with a solution fast.
'Think, Sara, think! You're a CSI! Thinking is basically your JOB! Well, along with fingerprinting, crime scene processing, DNA collecting-okay, getting off topic. How can I-oh DUH! Call someone and have them give you a ride! Now who to call? Grissom? Nah, he'd try to make small talk, and I'm not in the mood. Sophia?' Sara paused in her mental monologue to scoff. 'Not a snowball's chance in hell, even if I dared be caught dead with her phone number. GREG! THAT'S IT, I'LL CALL GREG! He won't mind-I hope-plus, he lives pretty close by anyways!' It was true. He lived, in fact, only a few streets away from Sara. 'Now why didn't I think of that before? I'll just blame it on the head injury.'
Pulling out her cell phone, Sara scrolled through the numbers to find Greg's. He picked up after two rings.
"Sanders," he answered. She grinned. He really sounded like a CSI, anymore.
"Hi Greg. It's Sara."
"Oh. Hey Sara, what's up?"
"I have a bit of a problem. My car won't start, and I need a ride to work. Could you…?" Sara held her breath, hoping he'd come through for her. She wasn't disappointed.
"Say no more. My Miata is at your service. Finally, for once I get to drive!" he said enthusiastically. Sara let that comment slide with an unseen roll of the eyes.
"Thanks, Greg," she said gratefully. "Let me give you the address."
Ten minutes later, a little silver Miata rolled up next to Sara. Greg rolled down the window.
"Behold," he called from the driver's side, "your knight in shining armor. Hop into my noble steed," he added a bit dryly. Sara suppressed a smile at his antics, mood lifting already. Stowing her field kit on the floor of the passenger side, Sara slid in next to him.
"I wouldn't so much call it noble…" Sara smirked as he resumed driving. Greg feigned deep hurt.
"Hush, you'll hurt its feelings," he said in an exaggerated whisper, patting the dashboard protectively.
The rest of the ride passed with comfortable chit-chat and banter (mostly the latter), and as they entered the crime lab's parking lot, Sara realized that her previous bad mood had almost completely disappeared.
Entering the building, they were almost immediately overtaken by Grissom, who was parting company with Sophia, and appeared to be in good spirits.
"Sara, Greg," he nodded at them by way of greeting. "You're a little late." Mostly his surprise was directed at Sara, who had almost never in all of her years as CSI for the LVPD been tardy.
"Car troubles," she replied. "Greg gave me a ride."
"Oh." Grissom accepted this excuse implicitly."It's been slow so far, so I want you two to stick with the B&E you were on last night. Sophia and I will be off on a homicide in the suburbs."
Sara waited for the customary flash of jealousy that occurred whenever she heard Grissom and Sophia were going to be alone together, but surprisingly, it never came. All she felt was a little disappointment at the fact that she would be stuck on the boring case while Grissom got to investigate a DB. As Grissom disappeared down the hall, Greg turned to her.
"I think he loves being supervisor if only because he can take the interesting cases while leaving us with the drudge work," he sighed good-naturedly.
"I don't doubt it," Sara replied.
Three hours later, the older CSI wanted to rip her hair out, if only for something to DO. They'd solved the burglary case forty-five minutes into shift, and when they brought the suspect in for questioning, he'd cracked in under fifteen. Half-an-hour had been whiled away by paperwork, and now all there was for her to do was stare at the break room ceiling. Grissom was still out at his scene, and across from her, Greg was amusing himself by creating various origami shapes with that day's newspaper.
"Make sure to stay away from the crossword, or Grissom will have your head," Sara warned. Greg stared abashed at the puzzle he had been about to fold into a crane, and set it carefully aside. Grabbing another, he quickly turned it into a flower and held it across the table to Sara.
"For you, as a token of my thanks." Sara raised an eyebrow and plucked it from his grasp. Unfortunately, that had been the last of the paper, and now Greg was left with nothing to do. He stretched and rocked backwards in his chair.
"Man, I'm actually wishing I was in the DNA lab with backlog right now. That is a sick, demented thing." Almost on cue, Jacqui poked her head into the room. She brightened when her eyes landed on Greg.
"Ah, there you are. Hey, Mia had an emergency and had to cut out early, so she was wondering if you could cover for her the rest of shift." Her gaze bounced from him to the abundance of origami littering the break room. "Since it looks like you're so busy." Greg stood, raising his arms in mock adulation.
"There is a God," he said as he exited. "See you later, Sara."
"Yeah, later," she echoed, now bored AND lonely. 'Maybe I'll just look over some cold case files. That'll show them, when I solve some fifty year old murder case that even Grissom wouldn't be able to figure out,' she thought vengefully. 'Yeah. And then maybe Greg Sanders will start listening to country music of his own volition,' the other side of her subconscious said sarcastically.
The sad thing is, Sara DID end up sifting through cold case files, albeit a bit disinterestedly, as her heart wasn't in it. She was finding her heart wasn't in a lot of things lately, work being one of them. Maybe she needed a vacation.
She snorted out loud. Oh, she could definitely see Grissom's facial expression if she asked for time off. He would looked shocked, then concerned. THEN he'd try and take interest, asking what her problems were and if he could help. That's the only time he took interest, when something was wrong.
Sara was driven from her forlorn and slightly bitter thoughts by something she hadn't heard in a while-music. Loud, floor-rattling, head banging crashing drums and screeching guitars. Even though the noise was enough to give someone and instantateous headache, Sara couldn't help the amused smile that crossed her lips. She had almost missed the ear-shattering but familiar death metal that accompanied Greg being in the DNA lab. Almost. High regard for her hearing kept her a few paces away from real longing.
Without knocking (who would've heard it, anyways?) Sara stepped inside the lab. Greg took no notice of her as he checked some results from CODIS, mouth moving in perfect synch with a song Sara couldn't even begin to discern the words to. Surmising that words would be pretty much worthless at this volume, she tapped him on the shoulder.
Startled, he whipped his head around to face the intruder, but relaxed when he saw it was only Sara.
"Oh," he said, relieved. "It's only you." His words were lost in the din, however. Shaking her head, Sara reached over and turned the music down, wincing at the ringing it left in her ears.
"What did you say?" she asked.
"I said 'Oh, it's only you'," Greg repeated.
"If I were a lesser person, I'd be offended," Sara harrumphed. "But you can make up for that careless remark by driving me home." He appeared mildly surprised.
"Shift is already over?"
"Well yeah," replied Sara edgily. "Some of us weren't saved by an early-leaving DNA tech. I was stuck looking through cold case files all night."
"Yeah, but think: Wouldn't it have been cool if you'd have solved some fifty year old case that even Grissom wouldn't have been able to crack?" Greg asked rhetorically, trying to put things into perspective. Sara declined to mention that she'd had that very same thought.
When they reached Greg's car, he paused, as if seemingly just remembering something. Then he turned to Sara apologetically.
"I'm sorry, Sara, but I just remembered: You know my friend Fiorenza, the dancer?"
"Yes," Sara said suspiciously.
"Well, she's leaving town tonight, and I said I'd stop by her studio and pick up the keys so we can use it whenever we want for practice. I would do it after I dropped you off, but it's right on the way. Do you mind if we stop in?"
Eurgh. Somehow Sara had managed to get through a whole shift without thinking of her impending doom, and here it was, thrown into sharp prose. So she decided to be a masochist and add fat to the fire.
"I don't mind. I mean, since we'd already be there, you could start showing me some of the steps to our routine, even," she offered, resisting the urge to grit her teeth. Greg appeared fairly stunned.
"Um, sure, if you want. But are you sure you don't want to go home and catch some sleep or something?" he said uncertainly.
"Nah," Sara said nonchalantly. "I grabbed a nap while I was flipping through the unsolved cases." It was true, she had ended up falling asleep at some point during shift. She thanked the heavens no one had seen her, because she'd awoken with paper stuck to her cheek.
"Oh, well, okay."
The studio was a surprisingly short distance from the crime lab. It was in a well-kept, medium sized building of adobe that shared space with a coffee-house and a pizza place. The space itself was in what Sara supposed was the basement of the building, as they traveled down a flight of stairs to reach it. It was not at all basement-like, however, with clean blue carpeting in the halls and waiting rooms and white walls that were decorated with posters declaring encouraging phrases and portraying famous dancers. There were one or two Degas' as well.
"What does she teach?" Sara whispered the inquiry to Greg.
"Everything," he replied softly back. "Jazz, ballet, tap, salsa, mambo-you name it, she knows it."
"All by herself?"
"No, she has other teachers, and she's got another, smaller studio out in the suburbs. But she's the best."
The person that they spoke of chose that moment to appear behind a counter that ran along the length of the wall, and Sara had a horrible, sinking feeling that had absolutely NOTHING to do with the fact that the woman in question was petite and exquisite looking with shiny black hair and olive skin and perfect, pearly white teeth that made Sara tongue the gap between her own two front teeth self-consciously. And it was a particularly hard feature to ignore, because this woman was smiling brilliantly at the moment. At Greg. And he was grinning back.
'Well fine,' Sara thought peevishly. 'They can just get married and live in wonderful straight-toothed bliss and have dozens of children with that exact same asset and they'll never have to worry about dental insurance.' She watched, stewing, as the woman hopped over the counter excitedly and kissed Greg on both cheeks.
"Greg!" she said with a heavily Italian accent. "I was wondering when you'd come! How long has it been?" she asked him disapprovingly, waggling her finger in his direction. Sara very much wanted to break the digit for reasons yet unknown to her. Greg looked appropriately sheepish.
"I'm sorry Tori, it's just that work has been hectic lately." Sara shot him a look. "Well, excepting tonight," he amended. "Tori, this is the friend I was telling you about, Sara Sidle." When the Italian's gaze swung to the other CSI, she smiled again. Sara reciprocated the action (albeit close-lipped) reluctantly.
"So this is Sara," she said as though she'd been waiting to meet Sara her entire life. "I've heard a lot about you." She winked conspiratorially as she spoke, and Sara's eyes widened. "Ooh, Greg, you didn't tell me she was so bella." Sara felt her cheeks flame, and she felt a little bit warmer towards the other woman.
"Thanks, but-hold on a minute, I thought your name was Fiorenza!" Sara exclaimed as the thought occurred to her.
"Tori's just a nickname, for her middle name, Vittoria," Greg supplied from where he was looking at his feet in utter mortification (he'd been like that since Fiorenza had mentioned the former lab-tech talked about his frequent partner). Two realizations came to Sara at once: one, she had never met anyone so thoroughly Italian in her life; two, Greg had a NICKNAME for this woman. Meaning she was special. Meaning…well, Sara wasn't sure what else it meant, but she wasn't sure she'd like it.
"Actually, it's just Greg here who calls me that," Tori/Fiorenza/Whatever said, shooting Greg a fond look. "Everyone else calls me Enza." So Greg had a SPECIAL nickname for the woman (and to think Sara had prided herself on not being a jealous person). Enza's focus returned to Sara. "So will you be dancing today?" Sara shrugged.
"I guess." Enza's eyes ran calculatingly up and down Sara.
"In that?" she asked, referring to Sara's black slacks, purple blouse and boots.
"What's wrong with this?" the CSI asked, baffled. Greg winced at Sara's ignorance, and Enza looked as though she might have an aneurysim.
Sara had never seen anyone move so fast (although there had been that one time when Mia had found out that Hodges wanted to ask her out after shift…THAT had been some pretty quick footwork). Within fifteen minutes the CSI was outfitted in a leotard that showcased more than she was comfortable with. The fact that there were tights under it did nothing to assuage her unease, nor did Enza's reassurances that it looked fine and that all dancers wore them.
"It's just like a swimsuit," she soothed.
"Well, I don't like bathing suits," Sara retorted. "Not even one pieces. I stay away from the beach and the pool." The only response she received was a pair of ballet slippers thrown in her face.
Though Sara still had her doubts about the ensemble, the look on Greg's face when she finally appeared almost compensated for them.
"Wow! You look…"
"Stupid?" Sara projected. He cleared his throat, and eyed her strangely.
"Not what I was gonna say. More like…great."
"I feel overexposed," she admitted, flattered by his remark but determined not to show it. "How can anyone possibly be comfortable dancing in this? And these mirrors aren't doing anything to help." It was true; the floor to ceiling mirrors that covered three of the walls in the room were making her a little nervous.
"Oh, you get used to them," Greg remarked offhandedly. "The outfit and the mirrors." Sara assumed he was speaking from experience, as he had his own Spandex heavy clothing (only his was short-sleeved and he had sweatpants over it).
"Okay, so where do we begin?" Sara asked after several silent moments. Greg grinned, and bowed deeply.
"Welcome to the Greg Sanders School of Mambo. For the next three weeks, I shall be your instructor in all the ways of this most complicated and famous dance. Fortunately for you, no matter how horrendous you may start out as, I have skills that far surpass that of any ordinary person, and my talent will more than make up for whatever you may be lacking. And yes, you may call me Master if you see fit. Any questions?" Sara raised her hand in exasperation.
"Yes, will you be doing any teaching in the near future?" she asked without waiting to be called on.
"So impatient," he sighed. "Very well. Now, to begin, you are required to move closer." Sara inched forward a bit, arms folded across her chest. Greg rolled his eyes and took several steps forward, so they were about half a foot apart.
"First take this hand-" he raised his left arm, and tentatively she took the proferred hand. "I'll put my other hand on your waist like this," he did so, and Sara ignored the sharp tingle that ran up her spine at the contact, "and you put your hand on my right arm."
Feeling uncharacteristically shy, she chanced a gaze up and almost immediately regretted it. Never before had she thought anyone's eyes fathomless or any of that other Harlequin-spouting trash, but that was the only word that came to mind when her gaze met his brown one. The intensity of the feeling was such that Sara almost immediately looked down again, shaken by it.
"Sh-shouldn't there be music?" she inquired, mostly to erase the awkwardness she was experiencing.
"Not before you familiarize yourself with the steps," he replied.
"Right. And those would be?"
Okay, okay, not a brilliant way to end the chapter, but I figured I needed to get this one done before it became longer than the first three chapters combined. The electricity is starting to really flow between them now, and if the last bits of this segment seem a little contrived or stupid, it's only because I didn't give them as much thought as the others.
The dance studio I described is actually what my old one was like, back in my days of jazz, ballet and tap. So I do know a little of what I'm talking about. And the discomfort Sara was feeling? It's true, those things make you feel VERY self-conscious.
Degas, in case you didn't know, was a famous artist known widely for his paintings of ballet dancers-they're really beautiful. And when Fiorenza says 'bella' that means beautiful in Italian. Which is about the extent of my vocabulary in that language, besides pizza and 'ciao'.