At her door, she rifles through her pockets searching for her key, but can't seem to find it anywhere. "Looking for this Miss Sidle?" She turns around to see her land lady jingling her stash of keys, one for each room in the building. "You know, I just had to use this key a few minutes ago to turn off the water after it started to leak in to the apartment below, which just happens to be mine." The old woman speaks with a forced smile.
"I am so sorry and I'll pay for the damages. It's just that I got called in to work and my boss only gave me fifteen minutes to get over here and back…" She rambles all in one breath, but is cut off short.
"Enough with the sob story, Sara. I want you packing when you get home from work."
Once she gets back to the scene, she rushes up the front steps and into the house, hoping to avoid an interrogation from Grissom. She sneaks across the foyer to the base of a circular staircase like a teen-aged girl trying to get into the house an hour later than she had told her parents.
"Sara?" It didn't work, he had seen her. Then again, she never really got much practice when she was in high school. She always stayed at home studying while everybody else was out at parties. "How'd it go?" Grissom asks, coming in from the living room.
"I've got to get to work!" She says, purposely leaving his question unanswered and starts up the stairs. Grissom, knowing her workaholic ways, just lets it slide and returns to his own work.
"Hey, Greg?" Sara calls carefully walking up the white carpeted stairs now back at the crime scene.
"How bad was it?" He says lifting print partials off the towel rack.
"Don't ask." She sets her kit down and moves toward him to see what he had found while she was gone.
"Well, I did. So...spill it?"
"The worst. She evicted me, and wants me packing my things as soon as I get home from work."
"Isn't there some kind of law against that? All you did was overfill the tub and make your landlady carry an umbrella in her own home, kind of like that DB you found in the bathtub...minus the smell." He tries to cheer her up, though Sara doesn't feel it's the right time for humor. "Okay, so it's pretty bad, funny for me, but bad, really bad." He emphasizes attempting to keep the laugh inside of him from becoming audible. "Where are you going to stay?"
"I don't know?" She hesitates a moment before asking. "Can I stay at your place?"
"You say no to my dinner offers, and now you think we should move in together. It usually doesn't work that way." He laughs. "Why are you asking me?"
"Catherine and the guys work swing shift, plus Cath's got Lindsey. You know very well I'm not good around kids... and I'm not about to ask Grissom."
"Why not?" He asks with an eyebrow raised knowing very well the answer he doubted she would admit.
"Greg, come on. I'm desperate, and it will only be for a couple days." She looks at him with the same face he usually wears to try to convince her that going out for coffee with him after shift would actually be a good idea. Too bad it never worked. "Please?"
"You know, I think I could get used to you doing the begging instead of me." He says, slinging an arm around her shoulders.
"Is that a yes?" She pushes his arm way.
"You know me, Sara. Anything for a friend."
-------------------------------------------
"Excuse me ma'am." Grissom apologizes, after the next door neighbor answers her doorbell donning an apron with flour on her face and a rolling pin in her hand. "Do you remember seeing anything out of the ordinary at the Robinson's home lately?"
"Well there was a plumber's truck in the driveway, though I wouldn't say that was out of the ordinary. He has been there a half a dozen times in the past two weeks, and it was always when Mr. Robinson was at the office. He leaves at about eight, the bus comes at seven, then at three the girl comes home and five the husband…depending on how busy he is. Sounds a bit fishy to me."
"About today?" He rephrases, a bit more aggravated this time.
"Today, let's see…between three and five, but he wasn't driving the truck. He was driving an SUV, blue Trailblazer, license plate number 936MTB, I believe." He gives her an odd look. "What? I have a photographic memory and my day consists of cooking and washing dishes three times a day. My kitchen window gives me a clear view of their house. Is that a crime?"
All of my hard work has finally paid off. All the buttering up, the flattery, and putting her cases first when worked in the lab, well, first after Grissom's, she wasn't just going on some date with me, she was going to be living in my apartment, sleeping in my apartment, eating her breakfast in my apartment. Finally all the candles I've been blowing out for the past five years actually did some good.
But wait...Sara is going to be living in my apartment, me living with a woman. Though it's sad to say, I've never really lived with a woman before, for a day at a time maybe. If I am living with a woman that would mean I'll have to clean up, cook more...share a bathroom in the morning! I'll have to get up at least a half an hour earlier if I want to get to work on time. What have I gotten myself into? I'll have to change everything, my manners and what I wear around the house. I doubt she would appreciate me sitting on the couch in my shorts with my bare feet propped up on the coffee table while shoveling Chinese take-out in to my mouth. Even if I did cook, what would I make, I don't know how to fix much, let alone stuff that's good enough for Sara.
All this he thought over in his car while driving himself over to Sara's apartment, or previous apartment, depending on how you look at it, to get her things ready for the big move. It seemed like woman always brought twice as much as they really needed, he had noticed. He didn't know how much she would be bringing with her; he just hoped he'd have enough room both in his car and at his place for what ever it would be.