Disclaimer: I don't own CSI, etc.

A/N: Fair warning, this story is incomplete and I will not be updating regularly... there's some smut, so it's worth a read, but it'll be some time before the story actually develops...

Also, I did very minimal proof-reading, and did not use a beta, so I apologize for typos, they're all my fault. :)

It's set post-Nesting Dolls, but other than that no where specific...

Anyway, enjoy! If you do read, please review, it makes me happy!

Grissom looked up from his desk—Sara Sidle stood in the doorway to his office, leaning against the door jamb, as she had so many times before. "You look nice." She smiled, no doubt remembering the last time he'd spoken these words—she'd been about to go to court, and certainly looked a different kind of 'nice' today.

"I was at a wedding today. It was early and they did a mid-day reception, so I apparently took the night off for nothing. I just stopped to grab some things out of my locker."

Grissom nodded, wondering at the abundance of information, and about why she'd stopped to see him, and about the exact feel of the dress she was wearing now. Had he ever seen her in a dress before? Skirts, sure, but a dress?

She sighed when he didn't respond, and stood up straight. "Well, I just saw that you were here during the day, and I knew it was your night off too…" She didn't explain how she knew such a thing, and Grissom didn't ask. "I was just… wondering why you were here."

He smiled softly, taking in the slight red in her cheeks—when had he last seen her with her hair up? "Feeding my plants and my pets… double-checking evidence, you know…"

She nodded, looking at her feet. Grissom looked too. Black strappy high heels. He looked back up to her face.

"Well, I guess I'll see you tomorrow night." Grissom had the distinct feeling that there had been more she wanted to say, but, also guessing what it was, he understood: she didn't want to be rejected again. He'd called her honey, after their lab had exploded—one of the worst days of his life—and though at the time she hadn't noticed, she later asked him to get dinner. He deliberately pushed the memory from his mind—the brief conversation had distressed him deeply.

She exhaled loudly when he didn't respond immediately, and turned to leave, disappointed again. Something in the… quiet desperation of that sound struck a chord. He'd called her back before he knew what to say.

"Sara?"

She had turned back to him, arms crossed self-consciously across her chest, framed in the light of the hallway which was brighter than that in his lamp-lit office. He suddenly felt very sorry for her… she was dressed up for a night of dancing which hadn't happened, and she looked so… beautiful and so sad… He sighed.

"Look, maybe we can catch dinner later… since your reception plans fell through."

Her chin rose defensively at the invitation and her chocolate eyes surveyed him like a confusing piece of evidence. She ignored how the words had made her heart pound in her chest.

"Alright… did you want me to wait here or… were you gonna pick me up later?"

To Gil Grissom this was a straight-forward question—what time would they have dinner and therefore did it make sense for her to stay? To Sara Sidle, and the women of the world, there was another slight distinction: if they left here together, they would drive separately or he would return her to her car at the end of the night; if he picked her up, it was more date-like… he would be in her apartment.

"I have some things to finish up and, at this late notice, we'll need to wait out the dinner rush. I'll swing by around…seven thirty?"

She glanced at the clock on the wall behind his head, partially obscured by a large spiny plant on one side, and a fetal pig in a jar on the other. It made her smile.

"Yeah, sounds great. You remember where I live?"

He tapped his temple knowingly. "Of course." She nodded and turned to leave, arms still crossed before her. "Bye Sara."

She half-smiled, and her arms fell feebly to her sides. "Bye Grissom."

She made her way out to her car in silence, carefully putting on her seatbelt and backing out before she allowed herself the distraction of considering their conversation. Las Vegas traffic might not be the ideal place for distraction, but she'd gotten so used to the commute that it seemed second nature to get lost in her thoughts now.

It was certainly strange—he had made a concerted effort not to be alone with her for some time. He wouldn't pair them on cases without a third member, he wouldn't catch breakfast after a shift unless most of the group was going. The only time he had shown the slightest interest in proximity had been when Greg was flirting with Sara—he was usually so intimidated by Grissom's presence that he found something else to do, and then so would Grissom. She knew that he was attracted to her—they'd had too many moments and almosts.

They had never really discussed them as almosts… Grissom denied that there was heat between them, even when it was she who looked away first and he who continued the stare. She had asked him to dinner once, and he hadn't known what to do about this. She scoffed as she mentally put quotation marks around her "this". Maybe he'd figured out what to do about the pair of them? He certainly hadn't been able to keep his eyes on her face. She smiled softly, reminding herself not to change before dinner; he liked this dress.

She turned the air conditioning up as she took her exit and moved onto single-lane streets—even though it was past six in the evening, it was very hot out. She pulled into the parking lot of her apartment complex about a minute later, and decided that she wouldn't get her hopes up. Even if he'd meant it as a date in his office, by the time he got around to picking her up he would have talked himself out of it for one sensible reason or another.

She parked in the garage, not expecting to use her car again that night, and closed and locked it carefully. She let herself in a side entrance to the small building and stopped, as she did every day, to check her mail. Then it was around the corner to the elevator and up to the third floor. She unlocked two deadbolts to let herself in, each with a separate key, and closed the door behind her, relocking both and drawing the chain. She slipped off her shoes then and lined them neatly by the wall, next to the coat closet. Then her purse and keys were set on the breakfast bar top of her little kitchen, neatly, and she took the mail and sat on a bar stool, not allowing herself a moment to think back on their conversation nor forward to their date. She would only overanalyze, and she didn't need that.

She sorted the envelopes methodically—junk mail, bill, junk, junk, junk, bill. She took both piles to her little desk, setting the bills in the drawer to be paid and shredding the junk mail. She tapped her foot for a moment, and decided that dinner was far enough off that she could eat a little, so she moved to her fridge. Though she'd long since stopped ordering take out, it smelled faintly of sweet and sour sauce. She snagged an apple and then, after a moment, tore off a small stem from a large bunch of grapes, and took them to her couch, sitting down. The apple was good, the grapes were better, and though she now felt that she wouldn't be hungry at least until they got to the restaurant, it had taken too little time to eat.

She went to her bedroom, still restless, and glanced through the contents of her closet briefly, wondering if she ought to change. She didn't have many dresses—her standard date outfit was one of a few nicer blouses with the pants to a black suit she owned. She looked down at the black silk, punctuated by white flowers. It was a wrap around dress that made her look like she had more of a figure than she did, with a delicate white lacing at the bodice, in between the diving v-neck of the black silk. It was probably the best dress she had, and he had liked it… she just would have liked him to see her in something he'd never seen when she opened the door on their first date.

She considered this, and moved to her master bathroom, speculating. She had shaved her legs this morning, before the wedding, so she ought to be fine in that regard. She glanced at her hair and thought about curling it, but decided she didn't have enough time. She was no whiz with a curling iron, and it would take her longer than she had to get it right. So she made sure it was still smooth and up—a small bun at the back of her head, with the ends of a few hairs trailing out elegantly. She sighed and resigned herself to simply redo the basics of her morning routine. She applied deodorant, blowing under her arms to make sure it dried before she put them down and got a mark on the dress, and brushed her teeth for a good five minutes, so she was sure they'd be white and her breath would be fresh. She added a spritz of perfume, which, smiling, she thought added a nice touch. She never wore perfume to work, and it had surely worn off by the time she'd been in his office.

She looked over herself in her mirror again, and pulled out her rarely used bag of makeup. She added a light foundation, just enough to replace what had worn off in the space of the day, and a very light shadow and lipstick, which she covered over with chap stick, because she thought it was too bright on its own. She blotted her lips, smiled at her reflection to check her teeth, and then put everything back away and made her way back out into the living room, smoothing her bed covers and turning out lights as she went. She glanced at the clock—7:10.

Good. She had taken up a good deal of her waiting time. She looked around her apartment—the last time Grissom had been here, she'd ended up curled up on her chair crying. She had been drinking at the time, on suspension, and pretty sure she was going to lose her job and the only reason she had moved to the god-forsaken desert in the first place, so it hadn't been a big concern how tidy it was.

She moved to her desk, putting away books on her book shelf and piling spare forensics journals into a file box that she slid, out of sight, under the desk. All papers went into a drawer, on top of the unpaid bills, and she shut down her lap top, closing it once it had finished. Then it occurred to her that she had shredded mail, and that there was now garbage in her apartment. She never left the apartment without emptying her garbage and making her bed, just in case she didn't come back to it. She hadn't confided this in anyone—Grissom least of all. He already had concerns about her lack of ability to cope with abuse cases, though he had eased up a bit once she'd told him about her own history. She glanced at the clock—7:22.

She took the garbage out of the can by hand, since it was only a few shredded papers and the stem and core of her grapes and apple, and stepped outside into her hallway, dropping them quickly down the trash shoot and going back inside to wash her hands. After drying them, she replaced the towel in its place, tucked in the handle of the refrigerator, and thought maybe she'd just check her appearance in the mirror once more before—