DISCLAIMER: I do not own any of the characters from 'CSI'. They're not my property.


Crouching down next to the body of an older female, Sara sighed and reached inside her kit. She pulled out a pair of tweezers to remove two red fibers that were caught in the victim's zipper. "No external injuries."

"None so far." Grissom took off his black sunglasses. He looked around. Trees, birds, and a lake. Next to the victim were a tent, an unlit fire, and other camping accessories. "Such a beautiful place. It's a shame to be killed here."

"I know… Ok, I'm done here," Sara said and stood up.

"You can take the body now, David," Grissom told the coroner.

As the young man went to attend to the body, Grissom and Sara with their kits in hand started walking away from the scene when a small growl of some unsatisfied little organs was heard. Grissom glanced at Sara. "Hungry?" he asked.

"No."

"Your stomach seems to be telling otherwise."

Sara pressed her lips as she pulled a wide grin. "Ok, maybe just a little."

"Wanna get something to eat?"

"Is it lunchtime already?"

"According to you it is," he said with an amusing smile.

Sara touched her belly. "Ahem. Yeah… ok." When they finally left the forest behind, she asked. "So, where should we go?"

"I didn't say I was going with you."

Sara twisted her neck, trying to look somewhere else as a changing smile danced across her face. Grissom and his little word games. "Right," she said and pulled out her keys. When she inserted the right key in the slot, Sara was feeling disappointed that Grissom's intention was not the one she hoped for.

Opening the door of his own car, Grissom chose to not enter the vehicle immediately but stand there and allow his eyes to wash themselves in the image of the woman not so far away from him. He couldn't remember the last time he'd actually shared a meal with Sara… probably because it never happened; not with only the two of them anyway. "But you know…Unless you haven't planned on having lunch with someone… I could tag along."

Sara was about to shut the door when Grissom's proposal reached her just in time. With her sunglasses on, the brown-eyed beauty turned around to look at her supervisor who by now was leaning just in front of the door of his car. His eyebrows lifted, so did his shoulders as the left line of his lips curled. Would he ever stop? Sara smiled. "Come along then, Spot," she said and finally shut the car door.


The restaurant that was chosen had a distinct fifties feel to it with the chairs, the music from the jukebox and the photographs on the wall of singers and actors from that era. Sara tapped her fingers on the wooden table as she looked around the half-filled area. "Tell me, why did we choose this place again?"

"Because your intestines screamed loud enough to wake up the dead."

"Thank you," she tilted her head slightly with that changing smile of hers.

"You asked."

"Remind me to never do that again." She glanced at the choices of meals and drinks displayed on the board.

"All we need are those kitsch red menus and I'm gonna get the feeling that we're at dinner rather than lunch."

"You know, for some people this is the closest thing that they could come to a date."

"Hmm, yeah. Aren't we so sad…" she glanced up at the menu on the small wooden board before stealing a quick glimpse from Grissom. She swallowed softly. She would simply comfort herself with the thought that Gil Grissom had actually meant him and her earlier for her response to be justified.

When their lunch was brought in and packed in the appropriate paper bags, Grissom and Sara walked out of the restaurant and sat on one of the tables that were outside. As he pulled out his sandwich, Grissom noticed how Sara looked at her watch for the fifth time. "We have ten more minutes. Relax."

"I'm just more used to having lunch in the lab rather than out of it."

"We'll get back in time. And stop looking at your watch. The more you do it, the slower the time will actually pass. You're missing your lunch."

Sara did not respond but unpacked her small vegetarian meal instead. "Sitting here with the boss must give me some advantage with that time I guess."

"Correct. Which is why you don't have to rush as much."

"I'm assured."

Grissom took a bite of his lunch. But Sara was just looking at hers as if the combination of bread, vegetables and fillings had hypnotized her. "Something wrong?"

Sara looked up at him. "No, no, everything's fine."

"Your lunch ok?"

"Aha," Sara said and nodded.

"Ok…" Grissom was about to take another bite of the sandwich when the barks of what sounded like seven dogs not very far away caught his attention.

Meanwhile, Sara used this opportunity to suddenly dig into her meal as if it had been the last eatable piece in this city.

When the dogs and their owners left, and with them Grissom's attention, he looked back at his subordinate to find her ballooned cheeks and a piece of lettuce sticking out from her closed lips. "Didn't know you were that hungry," Grissom said.

Sara's eyes almost froze on his as she felt quite embarrassed by this. She had hoped to eat at least half of her meal by the time he'd look back at her again but obviously he'd done that sooner than planned. She tried to speak for a reasonable explanation to emerge, but the noise coming out of her was made way too unclear by the grinding food inside for words to be formed and understood.

"I get it, Sara. No need to strain yourself," he said, while holding himself from bursting into laughter. Not only was this an adorable site for such a grown woman but it was unusual enough to steal a few chuckles out of a grown man like him.

Sara squeezed her eyes and tried to give him a bitter smile, showing her fragile displeasure of his continues humor on her cost. Grissom could barely restrain himself when few chuckles managed to break through that tiny space between his lips.

"And what is so funny?"

Forming a fist in front of his lips, Grissom tried to push the urge to laugh out loud back but it was growing difficult. "Nothing. Enjoy your lunch."

"It's not a good idea to laugh with food in your mouth, Grissom."

"Fortunately for me, my mouth is empty at the moment."

"Pity," Sara said and took another bite. She blamed her stomach not being able to keep its mouth shut and allowing Grissom to once again to make fun of her.

As for Grissom, he was grateful to Sara's stomach as it gave him an excuse to share these few moments with her. It felt good; making him wonder what benefits there would be if the number of such "breaks" with her increased. Probably very enjoyable. Sara was certainly an enjoyable person to be around.


"Got the results back. Clostridium botulinum - caused toxin was found in our vic," Sara said and handed the paper to Grissom.

"She had Botulism?"

"Foodborne botulism to be exact."

"Food poisoning… interesting. Makes you think what we were actually eating today."

"Grim, but I'll know who to blame if that does happen."

"Yeah, you."

"Why me?"

"Blaming you for not eating when you should have would be a good start."

"I was in a rush. And anyway, let's not get into that, ok?"

Grissom smiled to himself. "Back to our poisoned victim. Assuming that this came from some sort of canned food… "

"We did find a few in her trash can. I'll go check it out."

"Thank you."


Seeing as there was nothing unusual about the three opened cans, Sara decided to try for prints when Nick's sudden appearance interrupted her. "Hey, Sara."

"Hey, Nick. What's up?"

"I need your opinion on something."

"Sure. What about?"

"I'm taking this girl to dinner tomorrow night and she's a vegetarian. Seeing as you're familiar in that field… which place would you prefer to… go?"

"Wouldn't it be simpler if you just asked your date what she wanted?"

"It's more of a surprise."

"Oh, leave a good impression, um?"

"Exactly."

"Well…" Sara pondered for a moment. "There was this nice little restaurant two blocks from here that Grissom and I went to yesterday. It had an excellent vegetarian-choice menu."

"You and Grissom went to a restaurant?"

"Yeah…" Sara paused. From the slightly odd look on Nick's face, he was getting the wrong idea. "We went to lunch."

"Oh, I see. Didn't know you t-…"

"It was only lunch, Nick, not a date."

"Right, right. What's the name of the place?"

"Um, Richard's… something. It's like a fifties style spot, you can't miss it."

"Ok… so, you say that it's good?"

"I'm sure she'll love it."

"Thanks, Sara." Nick smiled at her before leaving her by herself.

Sara exhaled deeply. What a way to misunderstand a sentence. She was only glad that no one else overheard this conversation. However, it appeared as if her relief was short-lived when she noticed Chelsea speed away from the room's entrance. Sara leaned her forehead against her fingers as this was not a site she wanted to see. "Great," she thought. "Just what I need… More gossip about us."