Title: Flowers for March
By: Caster
Pairing: gen
Rating: PG
A/T: I sat down, revved up for the Geekery challenge. I mean, come on: geekery. It's brilliant. I couldn't wait to write something quirky and fun and silly.
Disclaimer: Not mine.
Summary: They're geeks. That's a well known fact. The question is what the crime lab doesn't know about them.

***

They're geeks.

Everyone knows this.

Last year, Jacqui baked Greg a cake shaped like a swami hat. (It was less than desirable; they all ended up going to the bakery down the street.) Archie goes to one Star Trek convention at least once a year, if not two or three, often dragging unwilling friends along with him. David? He knows Dukes of Hazzard by heart, which is probably the worst of them all. Greg's coin collecting is one thing, but bad 70's TV shows are quite another.

Despite these quirks, they're still the butt of jokes; some friendly, some not so much. On one hand, the graveyard shift gently ribs them from time to time. Warrick teases Archie about his 1985 convention t-shirt he still wears and Sofia likes offering Jacqui dating advice. They always take it lightly, carrying their geeky reputations with pride. Along with their geekiness are their boisterous personalities that mesh together (except for David, who's rarely boisterous) and they can often be heard laughing in the break room, dreading Sara's coffee and searching for Greg's stash, because they can't survive without it.

The flip side is darker. David's usually the victim of more vicious rumors –confirmed when the word 'fag' was written on his locker door- and even though Jacqui washes it off, it's always replaced within the week, probably by someone on day shift.

The perp never leaves fingerprints, which drives Jacqui mad.

David doesn't care.

He's gay. So what? Let it stay there; it never bothers him.

But worse than the coffee and advice and slurs are when people tell them You don't understand.

It's implied that they can't comprehend the killing, the misery that CSIs face every waking moment. On bad days, Warrick snaps at David, Nick at Archie, Ecklie at Jacqui. They never mention this, because harsh words are always followed by an apology, an excuse that they can't help but believe.

It's been a tough shift, the CSIs say. How could the techs not believe these words?

Don't worry about it, comes the response, except for David, who's too proud to say anything. He hates being walked on, but he still understands that the investigators see things he'll never see.

Geeks have sweet hearts.

That's the rumor, at least.

So far… the quintet has proven it to be true. Even David, who hates when Jacqui points this out. They bring a light to the graveyard shift, filling the place with coins and board games and swami hats. Decorations at Christmas (except for David, who loathes the mistletoe). Their habits and quirks liven up the place and when Brass isn't busy calling the CSIs the 'geek squad', he's calling them the 'geek shift'.

Lightly, of course.

They take this as a compliment.

But there's always one day every year, always in March, always. They each wear black. Nick began noticing this tradition four years ago when he saw Greg wear a black button up, plain and without obscure band logos. It's odd, because Greg doesn't usually wear such a drab color if he has the chance to wear something more lively. For example, a lime green checkered t-shirt. (It screams both 'geek' and 'bad taste', which is Greg's favorite combination.)

The lab rats are always sullen on the twentieth of March.

No swami cakes.

No Star Trek.

No bad TV shows.

They leave together and take Ronnie's car because it's the biggest.

Every year, the twentieth of March.

…

Nick notices on the second year and on the third year, too. He memorizes this pattern. March twentieth, he expects the black shirts, their unusually quiet behavior. Jacqui doesn't bother to wash off David's locker on that day because they leave right after shift.

(One day, Nick's going to find out who leaves that message. It bothers him as much as it bothers Jacqui and he wonders why it doesn't irk David.)

The fifth year, Nick finally asks What's the deal with the clothes? Archie looks scandalized at the casual question. Bobby says You should only ask if you really care.

Nick arches an eyebrow and nods. Of course I care.

Jacqui bites her lip, looks at her fellow geeks, and asks Who wants to take him?

There's a silence that extends, suspended by an uncertain tension before David says, I will.

She nods.

…

Nick isn't sure what to expect when David meets him at the front door after shift and asks, "Do you still want to know?"

Nick's confused. He doesn't understand why there's so much secrecy and he wants to crack a joke, but it doesn't feel like a good time, so he just gestures towards the door.

"I'll drive you," David offers, turning and accepting Nick's answer.

The ride is quiet but not uncomfortable; that doesn't stop Nick's confusion. David, sensing this sentiment, throws him a sidelong glance and says, "I know you think we're a bunch of losers-''

"Geeks," Nick corrects.

"Geeks," David amends. "But this is different."

"And how's that?"

Instead of replying, David takes a right and drives a few blocks until they stop at a small –very small- lot. Part of a brick wall stands and Nick guesses it was once some sort of storage facility, maybe an old shed.

"It was originally Jacqui's idea," David begins as they emerge from the car. "But we all pitched in to buy it."

Buy the land? Just so they could have the wall? The wall is crumbling, but there aren't any weeds. It's well groomed. The brick is painted in colorful hues, covered in words, numbers, images, but…

"Every year, I go leave flowers of my grandparent's graves. I didn't even know them, but they died in Auschwitz. When Jacqui found out… she wanted to do something too. For everyone. So we bought this lot and painted the wall. People leave flowers all the time."

"For…?" Nick asks, although he isn't surprised what Jacqui did. If it's important to one of them, then it's important to all of them.

"For their own grandparents, for the event itself. We come here on March twentieth. That's the day the first concentration camp was opened. I come out here by myself in May, when my grandparents died."

The event. The Holocaust.

"I had no idea."

"Of course you didn't. That's the point, but I congratulate you on your CSI skills. You caught onto us when no one else did."

Nick observes the wall and David patiently waits. Nick's eyes catch onto a poem that's been written on the top right corner.

…We move now to outside a German wood.
Three men are there commanded to dig a hole
In which the two Jews are ordered to lie down
And be buried alive by the third, who is a Pole.

Not light from the shrine at Weimar beyond the hill
Nor light from heaven appeared. But he did refuse.
A Luger settled back deeply in its glove.
He was ordered to change places with the Jews.

Much casual death had drained away their souls.
The thick dirt mounted towards the quivering chin.
When only the head was exposed the order came
To dig him out again and get back in.

No light, no light in the blue Polish eye.
When he finished a riding boot packed down the earth.
The Luger hovered lightly in its glove.
He was shot in the belly and in three hours bled to death.

No prayers or incense rose up in those hours
Which grew to be years, and every day came mute
Ghosts from the ovens, sifting through crisp air,
And settled upon his eyes in a black soot.-

Nick doesn't know what to say, but he feels bile rise in his throat because he's known that fear before. There's a silence, stretched into eternity, before he turns to David and asks, "Do you think I could leave flowers with you next year?"

David can't help it.

He smiles and nods.

…

So Nick does; every year in March they all go. Nick helps weed around the base to keep it tidy and he thinks the geeks that the lab loves are much more multi-dimensional than they let on. He's proud to know them.

They remember what people so often forget.

On the seventh year, Jacqui's upset to see that no one has left any flowers in almost a week. David tells Nick this in confidence, solitary. It's March nineteenth.

Nick wears a black shirt the next day.

Warrick asks why (he, too, has noticed the pattern), and Nick tells him, but warns You should only ask if you really care. Nick, like his geek friends, wants to protect the custom.

Ronnie drives them out to the lot that day and they make easy conversation, but Jacqui's quiet, because she can't stand that people might forget, might stop leaving flowers, letters.

People, she says, should not be allowed to forget it.

As they emerge from the vehicle, Archie starts picking at the incessant weeds that insist on growing. Ronnie starts washing off the dirt and grime that's built up and David and Greg begin repainting some faded parts of their mural. Surprisingly, no one has ever left graffiti on the wall before. David remembers last year in May; he was actually sitting in his car, having just visited, and caught sight of three teenagers as they ran down the sidewalk with spray cans.

He remembers holding his breath then, ready to chase them away.

They readied their cans, laughing, talking. But then they stopped and looked at the mural, the flowers.

A moment passed.

They didn't touch it.

They painted the fence and road and abused all but the wall.

They understood.

But there's still a lack of flowers and Jacqui sits there, frowning, and Nick wants to say something helpful.

He opens his mouth but stops when a car pulls up. Specifically, a Tahoe. Jacqui jumps, ready to meet a fellow mourner.

She freezes when Grissom gets out of the driver's seat.

Ronnie stops when Catherine slides out of the passenger's.

Archie pauses when Sara and Warrick emerge from the back.

They all have flowers.

The techs and CSIs are silent for a moment, staring at each other like tiny armies; the geeks are in a small state of shock and the investigators are quiet. Warrick says, "I asked because I care. Isn't that your condition?"

Nick nods. That is, in fact, their one rule.

You can only come here if you really care.

So they lay down their flowers at the base of the wall and Warrick helps weed and Sara starts scrubbing and Grissom begins painting. Catherine and Jacqui arrange the bouquets.

Every year.

The twentieth of March.

FIN.

It was like an oven,
The sidewalks were unbearable,
Asphalt popped in the street.

Unable to make it with both children,
She had to choose between them.

Afterwards, her feet were amputated.

-A section of Remembering Dresden (after the bombs were dropped), Van K. Brock

-A section of More Light! More Light!, by Anthony Hecht.

People should not be allowed to forget.