How incredibly stupid of myself. I usually do all kinds of weird research for whatever story on which I'm currently working to make sure they're as accurate as possible. I actually checked up to see what exact exhibits were in the Smithsonian, but some how I missed the fact that the FBI Headquarters in Virginia is the number one lab in the country, not DC as I said, thanks to whomeverpointed that out to me. I think this chapter is a bit shorter than the others, but I thought that what I would have added on to the ending would make more sense in the next chapter.

"No way Greg!" She began upon seeing the frozen ice rink in front of the two of them. It was full of people and had faint music playing lightly in the background. "Ice skating…are you serious?" He just nodded. "No…I can't skate…if I can't dance, I can't ice skate either."

He grinned. "Well you'll be doing both whether you like it or not."

"Oh really?" she asked as he paid for both of their skates.

"Yes, tomorrow night, I will be dancing even if I have to ditch the spoil sport I came here with or not." He was kidding, there wasn't anyone else he would rather have by his side than her.

She sat down beside him on the bench just near by to lace up her skates. So far she was going along with the whole idea, but she wasn't so sure about it. "But I'm completely graceless…I'm clumsy…I--"

"You'll do just fine." He interrupted. "And it help you any…I'm not too great either." He said it like it was so amazing that he, Greg Sanders, was incapable of doing something.

"Yeah, I didn't think so.."

"Hey…" He stood up and helped her to her feet. Her ankles wobbled a bit as she made her way to the entrance to the ice. "Don't worry…if you feel like you're going to fall…I'll be right here to catch you." He leaned over to whisper into her ear. "You can't make a good team without trust…right?"

"Thank you."But for once, shesounded worried.

Actually, Sara took right to it once she went around the circle two or three times to get the feel of it. Greg, however, wasn't as great as he expected he could have been. He was more wobbly than Sara was, although she had actually been ice skating before, unlike Greg, though it many years back. Sara had just begun to warm up to skating backwards instead.

"Okay…you've got to tell me if I'm going to run into anyone…okay." She warned him with a laughing tone in the back of her voice. She didn't have eyes in the back of her head, and it was a literal pain in the neck to constantly look behind her.

"Coast is clear."

"Okay, take my hands." She offered them out straight in front of her." Good, now try to hold your balance and I'll just pull you along."

"Oh so now you're Olympic ready? You can do anything."

"Well, I wouldn't say anything."

"Should I be worried?"

"Of course not…you're supposed to be trusting me too. It goes both ways."

"Fine then…you're holding my life in your hands." He looked away from him his feet for a moment and smiled up to her. "No pressure…"

"Since you were so concerned with what I'll be wearing to this dinner…what do you have planned for yourself…crazy patterned shirts…a powder blue suit…what?"

"I would only do that for lab stuff, you know, people who know me. All the people who'll be at this one are stuffy older people or…well, not like me. I like to be different…not stick out like a sore thumb." It made sense, and frankly she had been a little bit concerned of what he might choose for his own formal attire. She was feeling a much better now. "As for the specifics…you'll just have to wait to find out."

Just then her blade got stuck in a chip in the ice and began to fall forward. Preparing to catch herself on instinct, she let go of his hands, her arms went flailing out in front of her and in the process threw Greg off balance and tumbling backwards.

"Are you okay?" Sara scrambled to move after she fell on him. All he did was laugh, he was lying flat on his back in the middle of the ice rink, a rather humorous sight within itself. It was much later than when they had arrived and by then many of the people who were there had already left so there wasn't as much of an urgency to get right up and going again. He felt if he did he'd be to dizzy and fall once again. "Greg answer me."

"Well…I didn't catch you, but my fluffiness softened your fall."

"Yes, we seem to be doing this quite often…" Sara helped him stand up and escorted him off the ice. It was getting late it was near nine thirty, maybe not so late, but they knew the ice skating rink would be closing soon anyway. It had already drawn dark an hour or so back. It would have been a picture perfect night had they not been in the middle of a city where the stars couldn't be seen. It had also gotten much colder in comparison to when they first came. Even though he had so graciously lent his scarf to Sara, her cheeks and nose had turned a bright pink. Who ever said he had completely forgotten about snow, it was Sara who hadn't come prepared. Though because of his hospitality, Greg could hardly feel his own face, but he didn't really care. They quickly returned their rented footwear and headed on for their much warmer home.

"Do you think I'm boring?" Sara asked looking for a honest answer.

"Why would you think that?" Once they returned from downtown, they had since changed into warm clothes and made a pot of coffee, not good coffee, but hot coffee.With a cup of coffee warming her hand, Sara had taken the down comforter off her bed and sat on the floor in front of the television on which Sara had found Raiders of the Lost Ark happened to be on. Although he wasn't so into having to sit through a movie where he knew she would be staring at the screen too much to realized he was there along with Mr. Ford himself, Greg decided to do the same thing because it looked comfortable and he was still freezing.

"It's just…the only time I ever have any fun is when you're around and make me do things I didn't think I wanted to do. And, it's times like these that I love just as much…nights at home in my pajamas watching a good movie, opposed to a fancy night out…usually I have ice cream too, but that doesn't sound warm enough right now."

"No Sara, you aren't boring. And believe it or not this here is exactly what I do at night after shift. So if you're boring, I am too."

"Yeah right." She laughed before bringing the coffee cup up to her lips.

"Yep…it isn't fun to do things alone…and I talk to my cat sometimes too…if that says anything."

"No way…you have a cat?" She had no idea, she always knew stuff like that, but for some reason she missed this one.

"Well actually I just got him a month ago. I just thought with work and all, I just needed somebody to come home to. Otherwise, it's just lonely." She knew exactly what he was talking about, the point when things get so bad with cases you can't take it anymore, except she didn't have anyone there for her…or so she thought. "His name is Charlie, but he looks a bit like Garfield; orange and kind of fat. You could use a furry friend, you know."

"Yeah…actually I could, but I not to good with animals. I think I went through a dozen goldfish after I lived with my foster parents."

"You broke my record."

"Well, I could have had a higher number, but my parents wouldn't let me have a pet…you know, things were…complicated." She explained vaguely. She thought she had told him plenty enough during their airport stay. She wasn't really up to discussing it in depth with him. Even after all those years, it still was a soft spot to her, pretty much Sara's only weakness when it came to work and other aspects of her life.

"Greg…" She set her cup off to the side and pulled the blanket closer to her. "Um…do you know that you talk in your sleep?" She wearily asked him. She didn't really want to bring the subject up once again, but she felt she had to let him know.

"No…why? Have I been?" He looked nervous.

"Yeah…actually you have." His face dropped as soon as she answered. "You were talking about Grissom…and me."

"Oh…" She knew now. She knew everything or almost everything.

"Thank you…"

"What!" That was the last thing he expected to hear from her. She had heard all the ways and all the reasons he couldn't stand Grissom. She had heard all about how he thought that she and the one person she loved should never be together.

"I'm just tired of waiting for Grissom to make up his mind…do something, anything…tell me exactly how he feels about me…emotions…when I know very well that he'll never get to it…He can't. That's just not who he is. You're right. I'm done and I need to get over it for my own good. I mean, if I don't, I might just go crazy." She spewed ot all out rather quickly, though without stumbling over any words. She had thought an awful lot about the subject.

"You mean you haven't already?" He asked with a grin.

"Sanders!" She sat with her jaw dropped before she thought to grab her pillow and chuck it at him. But when she went for retaliation she completely missed. She tried quickly to get to the pillow before he could, but she failed. He held it up in his right hand preparing to throw it back in her direction when Sara raised her hands. "No don't…" She squealed. "I surrender!"

"Oh, you surrender?" He tossed the pillow aside and moved closer to her. "You said I didn't know you all too well…" He laced his fingers with her, just as she was about to drop them down to her sides. "…but I do know that Sara Sidle isn't one to just surrender…ever." As Greg loosened the hold on one of her hands, she grasped the front of his sweatshirt and pressed her lips against his on an impulse. Although, as soon as it registered to her what she had just done, she backed away, picked up her blanket, and left to go to bed, all without a word.

By all means, Greg wasn't completely against it, but he was a bit shocked and extremely confused. It was Sara after all. It was very much unlikeher to do anything of the sort. She was the kind of person to think through things before actually going through with them. She would determine all the possible outcomes, weight the positives and negatives and then take the rational way out. The scientific approach, she had always been that way, which was why it seemed so random, out of the blue.

He just couldn't figure why she did it. Was it just a device to force herself to get over Grissom and finally move on with her life or was it an attempt to not be that sensible person he expected her to be. She was worried about being boring or just too predictable, doing nearly the same things every day. Maybe it was something else, but he doubted that. It was Sara he was talking about, the person he was just friends with and as he pictured it, until now, with whom he would always be just friends.

He picked up his coffee cup that had been tipped over in the process, luckily he had already finished the last drop left before hand. "Sara…" He needed to talk to her, but he wasn't sure if she would. He left his warm blanket where it laid on the floor and went over to her. Her head was buried beneath the covers into her pillow, when she felt his weight added beside her she only hid more from him. "Sara?" She didn't respond. He carefully pulled the covers down from covering her face. As he ran his hands through her hair he could almost hear her crying. "What's wrong?"

She slowly lifted her head off the pillow, underneath Greg could see small patches of blue that stood out from the rest of the much lighter shade of the pillow. It confirmed that she really had been crying, that and the red puffiness of her eyes.

"I'm not too late…am I?" It was strange to hear such and unsureness, such a vulnerablity in anything thing Sara ever questioned.

"Too late…of course not." She fell into him and hid her face in the crook of his neck. She had always hated for people to see her cry, she had always viewed tears as a sign of weakness. Of course that didn't mean she never let herself cry, because by all means she would herself doing that often, but only when she knew she was alone.

It had been five years, five years that she hadspent turning him down time after time, five years he had to watch from the sidelines as she fell for another man. For five years he taken the title of "friend" over anything else, as he was sure that was as close to her as he would ever get. She had figured he just moved on, as she needed to do so badly. She thought he would have given up much earlier, completely forgot about her, and found himself someone who knew exactly how they felt for him, not one who had been confused about everything up until the last few days, just like herself.

"It's okay Sara." As he gently wiped away a stray tear trailing down the side of her nose, she finally showed a small smile. "Go on, go to sleep. We can talk tomorrow." He bent down beside her and tenderly placed a kiss upon her forehead. "Good night, Sara."