A chapter full of Sandle fluffiness, I hope you like it. This Chapter's pretty long compared to the others, but I don't think I'll be updating for a few more days, so it'll make up for it...hopefully.
Chapter Two- The Lost Art of Keeping a Secret
"Do you realize we've been together for about a month, and we've never gone anywhere?" Sara slid out from underneath the car warranted from the latest case's suspect parked in the lab's garage after hearing Greg's voice. "And do you realize you have a huge black grease smudge on your face? I mean, not that I consider that in the least bit a turnoff." He stood above her, his blue jumpsuit incredibly spotless.
"I've got red trace fibers matching the vic's coat and blood on the undercarriage. Anything inside the car?" She dodged the question.
"Bloodstains in the backseat."
"You want to call it?"
"Okay, so the Mrs. comes home late at night and finds Mr. Harper with another woman. The other woman hightails it out of there. The two start fighting, yelling, then she threatens to leave him. She goes to pull the car out of the garage, but he follows her wanting to apologize. But she's pretty ticked off. She backs out of the garage and hits something and keeps going, whether she meant to out not, I don't know. She stops to see what it was. She picks him up, puts him in the backseat, and drives out to the desert to dump him."
"Sounds right, now we just have to get this stuff to the lab to prove it." She said heading towards the door.
"Why won't you talk about us at work?"
"Because if Ecklie gets word of what's going on with us, things could really change around here." She stopped in the doorway andmoved back over to him.
"You sound like we're dealing with CIA operations here."
"Well, what do you mean by never gone anywhere? What happened to taking things slow?"
"I mean, going out on dates, to dinner, anything but stay home for take out and a rented movie. It's almost as if you don't want to be seen with me." To Sara, he started to sound angry, uncharacteristically angry for a guy like Greg.
"No, no it's nothing like that, Greg."
"Yes it is. You don't want Gil to know about this."
"I've gotten over all of that, given him his chances. I'm done okay?" Her tone became suddenly softer. "Let's see...tomorrow I have court, so dinner the night after that at a nice restaurant full of people. How does that sound?"
"And dancing?"
"Dancing? No, no I don't dance. Never. You should know that!"
"Come on." He leaned closer andwiped the dirt from her cheek. "Don't worry...there'll be no public humiliation involved."
"We'll see."
Defense lawyers, pantyhose, and heels, three reasons Sara hated the other side of her profession. She hated to look 'professional' and trials were always during the day when she'd normally be sleeping, but not that she ever gotthat much sleep anyway. Even worse was the fact that it was the Robinson case that had brought her there.
She didn't know what was going to happen in the end. How can you affectively convince a jury to give the death penalty to a housewife who murdered her abusive husband and the plumber accomplice who killed her ten year old daughter? Even she didn't know what the verdict should be. Usually she was desperate to get the 'bad guy' put away after seeing all that he or she did, but this time it was different. She was more emotionally involved with the murderer not the victim. What was the world coming to? That wasnot how it was supposed to work.
So she did like she would any night, dish up herself a big bowl of ice cream and plan to watch hour after hour of Court Tv until her eyelids felt so heavy that she can't even walk to her room and end up waking on the couch the next morning. She was just heading to the freezer when she was startled by a ring of the doorbell.
"Just a second!" She yelled setting the barely touched mint chocolate chip down on the counter.
She ran over to open the door, but when she did there was no one there, not at the door nor anywhere down the hallway, only a white box lying in the doorway. She bent down to pick it up seeing therewas folded note lying on top.
Surprise Sara! First, open this box. (Do this now. If I go on it'll spoil the surprise of what's inside.) Then refer to the next note you'll find inside.
She lifted the top off the box to find a beautiful deep red silk dress that must have cost him a fortune. There was yet another note under the dress.
I hope it's your size...and that you actually like it. You know I'm not good with these kinds of things. Anyway, put this on and I'll be upstairs in an hour to pick you up. You'll find out where we're going later.
Now it was a good thing she wasn't like a lot of women or he'd be waiting for a while because of his hour allowance for to get herself made up. After taking a quick shower, she stood in front of the mirror contemplating what to do. Times like this came up so rarely. She brushed through her hair and twisted it up with a one of the unused wooden chopsticks from the last time she and Greg had ordered takeout. Next was make up…and oh how she hated the stuff. But this was her first official public date with Greg, she wanted to do this right. So she smudged on some eye shadow and a bit of lipstick.
On to the dress now. She had to admit, despite Greg's personal taste in clothing, she loved the dress he bought. Red, the color was a bit daring for her. She might have picked the same dress in black, a bit more understated. It didn't seem like something a guy would choose. It wasn't skin tight and thigh high like she would have pictured, but he knew very well a dress like that would be well out of her comfort zone. She guessed he had some help choosing, but it was even the right size, something men always failed to understand.
She had just spent the whole day yesterday in heels and now she found herself slipping her feet into another pair of black spiked things. But she didn't think it was fitting to wear her chunky black shoes for work with such a sophisticated dress.
Stumbling across her bedroom carpet, she tried to regain her land legs over to her jewelry box, one very empty jewelry box. She seldom wore the kind of stuff nice enough to be put in a jewelry box. She was always afraid of breaking expensive things at work digging through garbage or what not on a daily basis. She pulled out a small string of pearls and fastened them around her neck. The only reason she owned them was because they were a gift from her foster mother when she got her acceptance letter from Harvard.
Now all she had to do was sit and wait for Greg to come to the door and she had twenty minutes to wait until then. Fifteen really, but he was naturally five minutes behind schedule anyway and she had just gotten used to it. She sat down on the couch, propped her already aching feet on the coffee table, and grabbed the latest Journal of Forensic Science that had just come in the mail the day before.
It was pretty pathetic, but this was her first night out in months, more like years. Ever since she left Hank she hadn't found anyone else, until that bathtub overflowed. She couldn't have been so happy for that one stupid mistake. If it hadn't been for that, she doubted anything would have really happened between Greg and herself.
Then there was a knock at the door. She knew very well that it had to be Greg. For some odd reason he never used the doorbell,except for earlier today. She bounded off the couch and ran to the door, well as fast as one wearing heels could run. She made it to the door in record time, minus a few minutes for a few 'ow's to slip out of her mouth. She paused for one second more to pull herself together before opening the door.
"You're early!" She said welcoming him in.
He turned his arm quickly to check his watch as he stepped through the doorway into the kitchen. "I'm right on time."
"Yes and you're usually late, so you're earlier than I expected." She noticed she still couldn't help but say the most stupid comments when she was around him. He was the only person who could manage to make a woman like Sara do that."Thank you so much."
"So, I take that you like it. I wasn't so sure, you know, I'm not as great when it comes to women as I let on to Nick and Warrick." He let out a laugh. He didn't have to tell that. She had already figured that out for herself, but she didn't care either way.
"Well, you're looking pretty good yourself." She stepped back to take a look. He wasn't dressed in his ridiculously loud print shirts that he was once known for throughout the lab. He had retired them after he started doing fieldwork, but it still appeared as if he raided Nick's closet. He was wearing a nice blue striped shirt; the sleeves rolled up to his elbows and a pair of dark trousers. He was even wearing a tie, a red one the same color as her dress. The only thing that didn't look like Nick was the old tweed cap perched upon his head of, believe it or not, not so purposely messy hair, much like when she first met him five years ago.
"You finally decided to only leave that big tub of stuff on the bathroom sink for good, not evil."
"It's dangerous; you could poke an eye out." He mocked Sara at what she had said about it a while back.
"No wonder you're on time."
"Well, we won't be for our reservations if we don't get going." He smiled, trying not to make her feel rushed. She grabbed a light jacket and her handbag, and the two disappeared down the hallway.
"Sorry I have no nice car to pick you up in..." He apologized opening her door.
"No, by all means, I love your Jetta. My Denali's just big, black, and boring, but the department pays so I shouldn't complain."
"Well, my driver for the Mercedes was busy, you know." He said jokingly of course. "Why do you look so nervous? It's just me…Greg. The same guy you stayed with for a week until you found your place upstairs. Remember?"
"Yes, I'm plenty aware of that. It's just...I didn't mean to sound like I didn't want to be seen with you. I didn't want people to think we can't keep working together. And you know very well that Ecklie isn't a big fan of mine."
"Sara, don't worry. What he doesn't know won't hurt us. And you know Cath and the guys wouldn't say anything if they found out." He reassuringly patted her shoulder with his free hand. "Now, no more talking about work."
"You still haven't told me where we're going."
"We're almost there.""Oh, Greg! This place is really expensive. Are you sure you can afford this?...I can pay for my half."
Greg laughed. "No, I've been waiting five years to take you here; I'm going to do things right."
The two followed their waiter to their special reserved table for two. Greg moved over to pull out Sara's chair, but she did it herself before he had a chance.
"You don't need to go all gentlemanly on me...Hello, since when do you wear a tie?" She leaned over across the table to pull off his tie assuming it was only a clip on. Greg's body moved with it knocking over a glass of water and just missing the candle in the center of the table. She scrambled to get her napkin from her lap to soak it up.
"Ow...what are you doing, trying to hang me and give Ecklie a crime scene to prove this date almost happened? Then it wouldn't matter if he knew, we'd both be out of a job anyway."
"I'm so sorry. I thought you didn't know how to tie a tie. I've only seen you wear one once."
Greg rubbed his neck and loosened the knot before Sara starts cracking up.
"What is so funny?"
"Didn't we talk about this before? You know, being ourselves. Who do we have to impress, not each other! We've seen each other at our very worst, so what's the point anymore? You in a tie and me wearing the most painful pair of heels two days in a row, come on. Who are we kidding?"
Greg nodded in agreement and stopped loosening his tie, taking it off all together. "Oh god, that feels so much better. I was starting to feel too much like my grandfather." He folded it and hid it away in his jacket pocket. "Okay, off with the shoes." He grinned.
"No...You're kidding. Not in this place."
"Why not? You're sitting at a table, you won't be getting up. Why would it matter, no one is going to look under the table and stare at your bare feet. Plus, working on blistered toes is not fun."
"No mentioning work...or your feet for that matter." She hesitated for a moment. "Okay, I will be barefoot in 4...3...2...1. You happy?"
"Come to think of it, in some countries it's inappropriate to show your feet unless you're married or something."
"Oh that makes things so much better."
"Hey, I read it somewhere."
"State your source...one of those magazines you hid from Grissom in big books in the lab."
"I don't have anything like that. You might want to check with Nick, that stuff is so…Can we just drop this now?" There was no way he could get out of this. She just loved to get him verbally backed into a corner. Maybe it was mean to watch him stammer and trip over his own words, but it always seemed so easy to do.
Looking back on things, Greg was the only man she was really friends with before considering their relationship as more than that. Greg was a nice guy; he said all the right things to make her feel like everything was going to be okay. But that was how every guy she was with before was like to begin with, even Hank. Though she knew Greg would never become like one of them. He was just different.
He waved his hands in front of her face. "Earth to space cadet Sidle." She jumped from her thoughts and back to reality. "You okay?" She nodded and smiled back to him. She was more okay than ever. For once she could actually say she was happy.
A few more minutes of small conversation and their dinner arrived at their table. Italian restaurant, the best Italian restaurant in all of Vegas, so they both had ordered pasta dishes, Sara's, the vegetarian special.
"This explains my first dinner at your place."
"Yeah, but our waiter can actually light candles."
"I still liked the guy at Chef Greger's. But then again, I don't hear anyone singing old Sinatra songs in here."
Sara started to eat her spaghetti, but then stopped. "How did you learn to cook?"
"Nana Pernilla, but that wasn't her secret sauce. That takes four hours to make and I didn't want to make her mad…See it wouldn't be the same without meat and Nana would be disappointed if I changed her recipe."
"Well Prego's better than what I could do."
"Could I get you a take out box, Sir?" The waiter asked a very stuffed Greg. He wanted to do as Papa Olaf was known to do after Christmas dinner, undo his top button and burp loudly, but this wasn't the right occasion for that.
"Yes." He answered looking down at his plate, only a bit more than half missing. Sara, on the other hand, had eaten every last bit. "How can you eat more that me? Where does it all go?"
He snatched the bill off the table before Sara's fingers could reach. He pulled out his wallet and left the money on the table.
"Got your shoes on? Then let's go."
"You don't feel like going home yet, do you?" He asked walking to theVolkswagen in the middle of the parking lot.
She shook her head. "What do you have in mind?"
Instead of answering her question, he scooped her up in his arms off her feet and carries her the last few yards to the car.
"What the hell are you doing? Put me down!" She shrieked with an agitated tone in her voice. Greg had to admit, Sara was not a woman to make angry, so he quickly planted her feet down on the pavement in front of her door.
"Take your shoes off and keep them off. Where we're going it won't matter."
"What are we doing at Lake Mead?" She demanded to know as Greg lead her blindly with a hand over her eyes away from where the car was parked.
"How do you know where we are?"
"I'm not deaf, and where else would you hear frogs in Las Vegas? It's not like there's an over abundance of water anywhere else around here."
"Now you ruined it."
"Ruined what?"
He sighed and took his hand away from her eyes. "My favorite place in all of Las Vegas. Well, it looks better at sunrise." It looked a lot different late at night after everyone and their jet skis that disturbed it all had left. She had seen it before, but of course she was here for work, so she couldn't stop and take it all in.
"It's so peaceful...so not you. I would've thought the French Palace would be your favorite." Greg never seemed to her as a nature kind of guy, unless it had to do with the beach. His hair was enough to prove that. They had both grown up in California, but so far apart that they were completely different.
"I haven't been there in years. I come here after shift a lot, it takes the edge off things. I just sit down on the bank or put my feet in the water and everything goes away. I mean, after being around dead bodies all day I need some way to get away from it and you of all people should try it."
"What are we supposed to do here at eleven o'clock at night? The sun's gone down and we've got hours until sunrise."
He left her standing perched on the slight bank to walk back to the car and bring back a small radio. "If you remember correctly, I wanted to go dancing, but you don't like to dance in front of people." He guided her by the hand along the edge of the bank to an old dock platform, which by the looks of things, hasn't been used for some time. He turned on the radio to what happens to be the beginning of a Frank Sinatra song. "Now I don't think Kermit and his family over there will mind."
"You want me to dance with you? I don't know how."
"Oh, this is no waltz, it's pretty easy." He took his hat off and placed it carefully over her hair, pieces then falling around her face after the parking lot incident. "I'm the one leading. I'll show you."
He motioned her closer and captured her hand in his and brought it out straight at shoulder level. He then lifted her arm up to rest on his shoulder before snaking his arm around her side to rest at the middle of her back.
"Just like this." He began to move one foot after the other swaying both of them from side to side with the music. Sara's bare toes followed not far behind.
"Lovely ... never, ever change...keep that breathless charm."Greg started to sing along with the words to the song he knew so well. "Won't you please arrange it... 'cause I love you ... just the way you look tonight." Sara smiled, she always loved when he'd randomly start singing. She now knew why he always chose the oddest songs to sing, he as a Marilyn Manson fan, which she never could understand in the first place.
"Did Pernilla get you into dancing too?"
"She was a ballroom teacher actually, but it's been a while. I could teach you sometime, basic stuff, but not now. It's dark and you're not wearing shoes. It might be painful."
"This is just fine for now." She rested her head, still wearing his old hat, on his shoulder. It seemed unreal to her, too good to be true kind of stuff for a woman like Sara. She finally found someone who could make her happy, make her feel safe, could literally sweep her off her feet, and he had always been there, but she hadn't bothered to notice. What was wrong with her? She had never been into all this mushy romantic stuff, dressing up, dancing, compliments; she never dealt with it well. It wasn't her, but at the time it just seemed right.
"We should do this more often." She suggested lifting her head.
"What? Go out in public, spill our drinks and nearly catch the table on fire, make Italian's cringe with the way we eat their food, take off our shoes in fancy restaurants…or all of the above?"
"Dancing…just us. If I get better then maybe we'll talk about going public with it."
"You ready for me to take you home?" He lifted her chin for her eyes to meet his. "...Or my place?"
"What are you implying?"
"Well…I…" He tried to speak but the look upon Sara's face stopped him. He followed her gaze to where she was staring over his shoulder toward a flattened patch of high grass. "Sara?" His feet ceased to guide hers as he took a step back. "What is it?"
Without saying anything, she walked over towards the same spot followed a few paces behind by Greg. "Do you have your phone on you?"
"Yeah, why?" He asked stopping beside her. "Oh, God!" He glanced down to find a young twenty-something brunette wearing a light blue button-down waitress dress.
"He's back again." She said angrily.
"Who?" He asked, thoroughly confused.
"In the last two years we've had three other cases just like this one." He handed her the phone and she quickly dialed up Grissom's number.
"Did you get all dressed up just for me?" Grissom smirked, arriving on scene to see Sara in a dress and heels and Greg wearing a shirt you didn't need to adjust your eyes to see.
"Well, we were…you see she…and I…" He tripped over his own words. How was he ever going to explain this one. Sara wanted to keep things secret. "Sara, she stopped here after going to dinner, found the body, then called me here in the middle of my date." He quickly struggled to make up something believable.
"She called you during your date using your phone, because when I got the call it was your number, not hers that showed up on my phone." Grissom looked down along the one side of the lake to see Greg's car. "And did Sara walk here from dinner because her car isn't here?" Greg should have known that no one could fool Gil Grissom.
"Well…"
"It's okay. Both of you had tonight off, so why stay at home by yourselves." Sara didn't know if he meant it, but Sara caught a disappointed tone flowing through his speech."But…it looks like you'll have spend your night off with me as well. Sophia's on her own case. I need you two."
Greg, after his talk with Warrick, always had an extra field kit in his trunk, fully stocked and sterilized. He didn't have an extra vest or different shoes for that matter, but he claimed they wouldn't go well with her red dress. She'd never processed a scene dressed to the nines, but she didn't really have a choice. It was a hot case.
"Now let's see…sexual assault, positional asphyxiation, then he left her and took her roller skates as a souvenir." Sara stated, snapping the glove on to her left hand. She had seen it three times before. "And they'll be no fingerprints and no DNA just like the others."
"Not necessarily…" Grissom crouched down to the body's level. He gestured to the second and third buttons. They were buttoned crooked. "He got sloppy once…Maybe he left us something else."
Thanks to all of those who have reviewed. I really appreciate hearing from you all.