Title: Where You Are
Author: msmaggs
Pairing: Nick/Greg & Gil/Sara
Rating: R
Summary: Working a brutal case left Greg and Sara shaken until Nick and Grissom intervened. A blend of drama and humor with character backstory and relationship details. G&S, N&G and some team stuff too. CSI w shades of When Harry Met Sally & The Odd Couple comedy. Please do NOT expect overnight character development. This is a 32 chapter story and the characters you meet in Chapter 1, will not be the same people at the end. They'll develop over time. I like to introduce a character and peel back their layers. I like to write people hiding behind bravado, jokes and brave faces, and as time goes by that's stripped away and replaced. I enjoy making a character unlikeable or misunderstood and then turning that completely around. There is always much more to my characters than what you see in the beginning).
***
PrologueGreg arrived at the crime scene with knots in his stomach.
"Dammit." It was a familiar feeling, this sickness building inside him. He was beginning to think it was permanent. He was beginning to think a lot of alarming things, like maybe it was time to quit his job, leave Vegas, and walk away from the small life he had been carving for himself for nearly a decade. But where does a guy go to flee the nightmares in his head?
Realizing it wasn't a matter of logistics, he tried escaping with drugs. First the legal ones the psychiatrist had prescribed after the beating, but when those pills left him flat, he made a switch. An abuser in college, he had no difficulty acquiring or using the right stuff on the sly. It was working too, but then a departmental memo reviewing LVPD's random drug testing policy reminded him that self-medication could cost him the career he loved. So, after tacking the memo on his fridge, he quit cold turkey, just like he had one morning at Stanford a lifetime ago.
Next up was booze, but even though it was legal, and a favored choice by many of LVPD's finest, it quickly lost its appeal.
Greg had never really enjoyed drinking himself into unconsciousness. Honestly, as wimpy as it sounded, he hated the vomiting that accompanied his binge drinking. He hated vomiting so much, that even as a teen he didn't mind his mother sitting with him in the bathroom when got sick. Afterwards, he could always count on her soothing him with a steady palm to his back, a sparkling glass of Ginger Ale, and a smile. He couldn't imagine the level of harassment he would get from the guys if they ever discovered that nugget of unparalleled patheticness, not that he ever had a reputation as a tough guy…and certainly not after the ass-kicking.
Every time he went into the field, the cops took great joy in laughing at the stupid CSI who couldn't escape a beating even though he had been sitting in a drivable truck with functioning locks. There were a few exceptions, a handful of cops who had praised him for what he had done, but not many. It was official, he was village idiot and life sucked.
When asked during his last PEAP session if he had contemplated suicide since the devastating event, Greg quickly gave the right answer, 'never', but in all honesty he had not only considered it, but tried it twice. Not recently, not over the current drama in his life, and they were meager attempts, if you could even call them attempts. If pressed for an exact description, the Stanford scholar would opt for a heady explanation, something like 'they were merely flirtations with the concept of dying brought on by severe moments of personal insecurity'. In short, there were a couple of times back in college when he just wasn't sure he could cope with the insurmountable bullshit in his life. Now that he thought about it, his present state of mind was starting to remind him of those dark slices of his past.
Not good! a little voice cried out. You should tell someone, particularly someone who gives a rat's ass. He immediately ruled out his psychiatrist, his PEAP counselor, and Grissom. All three, while well meaning, had been useless thus far. In all fairness, Greg recognized that therapy, counseling sessions, and one-on-ones with his boss would probably be of greater value if he didn't spend the time lying to the people who were conducting them.
Duh!
Just shut up and let me do my job, he silently snapped.
Isn't it hard to do your job when you're standing frozen in the living room and the dead bodies are upstairs? Give it up, Sanders. You're done.
Ignoring the shrew's unsolicited opinion, he took a few steps across the wood floor, which unfortunately proved to be enough distance to catch the stench of death wafting down the stairs. "Dammit."
"Keep walkin', tough guy." Poised at the top of the stairs, Nick had heard a creak in the floorboards below.
It was hard to wuss out around a guy who had been buried alive with a loaded gun and lived to tell the tale. "Coming."
Nick measured the bloody footprint. "Looks like he was about a size eleven."
After three steps, Greg froze again. "You been up there yet?" He lifted his gaze, hoping a look of confidence from the invincible Texan would propel him the rest of the way.
Sensing his buddy needed a little extra prodding, Nick stopped processing and peered around the staircase's rails. He nodded, because he couldn't think of any words that were going to make it better and unlike Greg, he wasn't much of a talker in these situations.
Greg saw two choices. He could firmly plant his tail between his legs and run screaming from the house of horrors like the wimp everyone believed he was, or he could get his ass up the stairs.
"Good choice," Nick said with a dash of pride when his buddy took a step in the right direction.
"Yeah."
"Hey." Nick glanced up from the bloody print. "Head to the last bedroom on the left, it's the lesser of two evils…but not by much."
"I'll keep it together."
Nick returned to his task. "I know you will."
Greg took a steadying breath and headed down the hall, but not before telling the little voice inside his head to back off, because he wouldn't be throwing in the towel…at least not today.
The crisp night air was exactly what Sara needed.
"Dammit." It was a familiar feeling, this sickness building inside her. She was beginning to think it was permanent. She was beginning to think a lot of alarming things, like maybe it was time to quit her job, take up a hobby, and try cohabitation. But how does an independent woman who spent the majority of her life proving she didn't need anyone, admit she wanted someone to come home to every night?
She doesn't, at least not without a fight.
Grissom presented the key without romantic trappings. He simply placed it on his kitchen counter one evening in between stirs of the vegetarian tortilla soup he was making for dinner, and said 'I thought you might want to move in with me, so I made you this'. As he returned to stirring the pot, Sara stared at the life-altering object before her. "Oh." Eventually, she inarticulately declined, overtalking the issue all the way from soup to dessert. At the end of her barely coherent ramblings, he said 'The lady doth protest too much. 'You could have just said "no, thanks"'. That's when she realized he had misunderstood her two hour explanation.
While the relationship had been everything she had dreamed and more, she wasn't ready to lose her address or identity. As a girl who had been displaced from her home as a child, the proposition was a big deal. Moving into someone else's home meant giving someone power over her future. She saw it as a matter of control, he saw it as a matter of trust. Long story short, they argued, and he went on sabbatical. It was right about then that Sara began hating her apartment…her big, lonely apartment full of stuff and not Grissom.
Much to her surprise, while Grissom was away, Sara discovered that she had already given someone the power over her future. She had given it to him, even though she had never verbalized it or put it in writing. Her heart belonged to him. She didn't know when it happened, but if pressed, she'd say it was the first time Grissom held her in his arms as she cried. After decades of shedding tears on the sly, having a partner in sorrow felt unbelievably right. She missed him terribly.
Then he sent her a cocoon.
A cocoon and no note. Who sends a woman a cocoon without a note she grumbled in the empty locker room. Grissom. She planned on being mad at him when he returned two weeks later, but never mustered the strength. Instead they picked up right where they left off, and once again began stealing moments of happiness on the nights they weren't doing their emotionally draining jobs.
They were supposed to be having a relaxing night right now, but instead they were processing six dead bodies, all women killed far before their prime. One girl died holding her hand. All six had their throats slashed just like her father. To say it was a rough night was an understatement.
"Shit!" Bending over, Sara vomited next to a bush. Normally she would have run off property, but the place was huge and the spasm too powerful to delay. By the third round she was certain every ounce of the Black Bean Burrito she had shoved down her throat earlier was purged and she breathed in a fresh batch of air.
"They had Sprite in the fridge." Grissom popped the tab. "I'll replace the can," he said out of habit. It was department policy, but he really doubted the family members of the six dead girls would hassle the County over a missing can of Sprite.
"Thanks." She took the soda and wondered how he had known where to find her and how to help. He just knew. He was Grissom. "I want the key," she whispered with all the vulnerability that she had taken such care to mask when he had offered it. "That is…if you still want me to have it." She sipped the Sprite to avoid the usual overtalking.
Without a word, Grissom reached into his pocket to retrieve the key, took Sara's hand, and pressed the life-altering object into her palm. "David's waiting, I have to get back inside. We'll work out the logistics later."
Sara wrapped her hand around the key to her future and watched Grissom slip inside the house. "Okay." Lost in thought, the hoot of a barn owl startled her, and when she tracked it, she saw Greg standing in one of the bedroom windows. Had he seen? Did he know? Was he jealous?
Waving to her friend, she spoke as if he could hear her. "I'll be right there."
Chapter 1
"Griss!" Nick hustled out of the building to catch his boss.
"I have an appointment." The movers were scheduled to arrive at Sara's apartment in twenty. "I can give you two minutes."
"It's about Greg." Nick lowered his voice when he saw a group of officers congregating two cars away. "He's called out sick every day since you told him about the settlement. I talked to him last night. I know he's not sick, he's hiding."
"I can't force him to work."
"I was thinkin' if you went and saw him, gave him some encouragement... It would mean a lot comin' from you if you actually went…."
"I already told him that politics are a part of the job and advised him to let it go. Beyond that…" Grissom shrugged, "I can't help him get over it, Nicky. Only he can. You know that from personal experience, don't you?"
"I just think if you made the effort to…"
"I'm sorry, I really have to go."
"Yeah, okay." Nick rolled his eyes as Grissom unlocked his car. "Have a good day off, man." Walking away he muttered, "Sofia threatens to quit and you wine and dine her 'til she agrees to stay. Lady Heather gets in trouble with the law and you run all over town tryin' to help her. Sara gets suspended and you run to her apartment, she sheds a few tears in the breakroom and you give her a ride home. And people say I'm a ladies man. Pfft."
Fishing out his keys, he headed for his truck.
Watching for the moving truck from the window of her soon-to-be ex-apartment, Sara felt a steady blend of excitement and anxiety. It had only been three days since she accepted Grissom's key, but it felt like she had been planning and packing for months.
Glancing around the room, she couldn't believe she got the whole place boxed in such a short amount of time. It helped that she hadn't been sleeping. Still haunted by the memories of holding Cami's and the killer's hands, Sara's attempts at peaceful slumber kept morphing into nightmares. It didn't help that she already had a plethora of long-existing nightmares to cope with when the new ones arrived that week. She hoped having someone consistently sleeping next to her would alleviate the problem, but common sense told her it would be a little more complicated than that.
But what if it doesn't work out? The question came just as Grissom's car pulled into the parking lot. It was a good question, and staring at the sea of boxes, she panicked. For the first time in her life, she was jumping without a parachute. What the hell was I thinking?
Grissom's knock at the door sent her heart racing, but not in a gushy romantic way, in more of a 'full-blown panic-attack, does anyone have a brown paper bag that I can use so I don't hyperventilate' way.
It was a defining moment. Clearly, she was about to make either the best or the worst move of her life.
"Sara!" Grissom knocked harder the second time. "Open up, I have food."
"Hey." Standing in the open doorway, she hoped she didn't look panicked.
"Honey, are you okay? You look like you're going to vomit."
"Greggo!" Nick knocked harder the second time. "Open up, I have food."
"Hey." Standing in the doorway in boxers and a rumpled t-shirt, Greg coughed into his fist and sniffled twice, hoping he looked sick enough.
"When I hated fourth grade, I came up with this great cough and sniffle combo, much better than that bullshit you just laid on me. Mom fell for it every time. You don't have nearly enough phlegm to make yours believable." He dangled the bag of breakfast burritos. "I sure hope you don't have a fake tummy ache too, because I bought your favorite breakfast." He pushed his buddy aside and entered the apartment he had only visited a half dozen times over the years.
"I really…" Greg lowered his head as Nick breezed into the apartment. "Sure, come on in, I'd love some company."
"What the hell, man?" Nick walked through the rows of boxes shaking his head. "You weren't gonna say anything?"
"Yeah, I was going to say something. I planned on stopping by and telling everyone in person tomorrow. I need to clear out my locker and stuff too." Figuring his uninvited guest wouldn't be leaving any time soon, he shut the door.
"So that's it." Nick tossed the brown bag on the kitchen counter. "You're just gonna give up. All because some talking heads were too lazy to go to trial and decided to write a check?"
"A 2.5 million dollar check to the family of a guy who was beating an innocent man to death. They didn't support me. After all the blood, sweat and tears I've given the County, they threw me under the bus. After I risked my life to save an innocent bystander. Do you have any idea how insulting that is?"
"Yeah, I'd say it's right up there with the County not payin' a dime in ransom money to save my ass when I got abducted on the job." Nick flashed a cocky smile. "But I didn't come home from the hospital and pack any boxes now did I?"
"No, you didn't, Mr. Incredible, but you didn't kill a guy either, now did you? And you didn't have a dead guy's mother screaming in your face and going on every TV station calling you a murderer!" Greg flashed to rage, "And you didn't have a certain portion of the community calling for your fucking head on a platter! See, it's not quite apples to oranges, so how about stopping the bullshit comparisons!" Shaking, he opened the door. "Take your burritos and your superhero bravado and get the hell out of my apartment! Now, please!"
"I'm sorry. You're right." Sincerity flooded Nick's voice, "You're absolutely right. There's a world of difference."
"Thank you!" Greg pointed to the open door. "Buh bye."
Instead of leaving, Nick took a seat at the kitchen counter. "Hey, it's a good thing I brought burritos instead of omelets, huh, 'cause you probably packed your forks."
After releasing a guttural scream, Greg gave up and shut the front door.
"You got any Cholula in your fridge by any chance? This place never makes 'em spicy enough for me."
"Let me check." Greg huffed over to the fridge and whipped open the door. "Will Tabasco do?"
"Sure, if that's all you got." When his reluctant host slammed the bottle on the counter he laughed. "I really liked how you remembered to say 'please' when you were throwin' my ass out. I'm not used to gettin' kicked out with manners. The chicks I piss off cuss like sailors and throw shoes at my head."
"I find that incredibly easy to believe." Greg relented to his hunger and grabbed a burrito from the bag. "If you can't evict him, join him." He dropped onto the unoccupied bar stool across from Nick.
"Hey, for givin' you shit, I'll help you unpack your boxes."
"No need." Greg peeled back the foil to reveal the burrito. "I'm still moving."
"You're seriously gonna walk away from eight years at the lab and all that work you did to get into the field, just because you're feelin' some heat at the moment? As soon as the next scandal breaks in this town, you'll be yesterday's news. We just need another supersized diaper-wearin' millionaire freak to take a nose dive off a balcony or some shit like that and everyone will be goin' 'Greg Sanders who?' Think about it, look how everyone was wrapped up in Mickey Dunn's reappearance or Sam Braun's death. Scandals come and go, but careers don't." When he heard nothing, he pushed, "Come on, Greg…you have somethin' good goin' on here, are you sure you want to walk away from it?"
After staring at Nick for a moment, he quietly replied, "I don't want to leave."
"Good." Nick dove into the paper sack for a second burrito. "I knew I was right."
"I said I don't want to, but I still am. I gave up the place, the landlord already rented it, and…" Greg set down his burrito. "I'm gonna get serious here for a second, so don't razz me, okay?"
"Okay." Nick gave a reassuring nod. "I won't."
"I'm not doing well. I'm not sleeping. Before this breakfast, I don't remember the last thing I ate. I've been drinking too." He decided to omit confessions of drug use and clinical depression. "I don't want to leave. I want to suck it up and show up for work like you did, covered in ant bites and saying it was no big deal, but I'm not you. I'm not…" He dropped his gaze to the floor. "I'm having nightmares, I'm hearing noises and imagining thugs are following me. I'm messed up. I don't know how you shook off your drama. I give you credit I can't."
"You fake it 'til you make it, buddy. That's the trick. I wasn't okay, not by a long shot. You see thugs, I saw bugs, bugs everywhere, man." He shuddered thinking about it. "I felt them crawlin' on my skin. If I saw one for real, I jumped. I kept thinkin' people were watchin' me, sneakin' up behind me. And let's not even talk about confined spaces or goin' underground. You know that day we were processin' that cult mass suicide? I just about peed my pants going down in that tunnel. It's all part of the deal, the PTSD. I'm not better than you, Greg, I'm just better at fakin' it. Like the cough/sneeze thing. You suck at it, I'm good." He demonstrated his fake flu symptoms. "See what I mean?"
Breaking into a smile, Greg said, "That was really convincing actually."
"I told ya. Between growin' up in my hyper-perfectionist family, the abuse thing when I was a kid, playin' football, bein' a cop, and surviving in this town, I started fakin' shit and coverin' my thoughts at the ripe age of two and kept on goin'." He grabbed his burrito. "I've got mad skills. Sometimes I don't even know when I'm fakin'."
"Yeah, okay, but how does faking it in public prevent you from having a nervous breakdown when you get home?"
"Who says I don't have a nervous breakdown when I get home?" Nick laughed. "That's where booze, babes, and basketball come in. I release some aggression, let it build, then release it again. Your problem is you don't play sports or date."
"I date. Just not often. It's the genius thing, it intimidates women."
"Is that it? Here I was thinkin' it was your fucked up hair."
"Well, not everyone can get away with a porn stache phase."
"Oh yeah! Greg's back!" Happy to see his buddy laughing again, Nick headed for the fridge. "What kind of beer do you have?"
"It's nine am."
"I work nights! This is my happy hour, yours too." The disappointed guest grabbed a Corona Light. "Queer beer it is." He grabbed two.
"I think there's a lime left."
Nick returned to his stool rolling his eyes. "Tough guy lesson number one…real men don't put a lime in their queer beer."
"Too bad I packed my pens, now I can't write down that gem."
"I have an idea." Nick wiped his mouth before grabbing his beer. "I'm light on funds and you're in need of a place to live. My townhouse has two master suites. You can rent the empty one from me and I'll use the cash to pay my mortgage. I had a top notch security system installed after the kidnapping, I have video surveillance, the works. That should help you feel safer too, doncha think?"
"For real?"
Nick dove into his pocket for his keys. "Here." He pulled a spare off the ring. "Eight hundred a month, split the utilities, sound fair?"
"More than fair," Greg replied, as his smile filled the room.
"Okay then." Nick slapped the key in Greg's palm. "There's a U-Haul place just around the corner, I'll go see if they have a truck for rent."
"Rent?" Grissom stared blankly.
"Right, you own the place. What's your mortgage payment?" Sara asked ask her new roommate as they sat in the townhouse waiting for the movers. "We'll calculate half."
"I don't have a mortgage payment either, I own it free and clear."
"Wow." Glancing around she joked, "Are you taking payouts or something? Because the last time I checked the County payscale, a supervisor's salary wasn't that good."
"With age comes wisdom," he boasted. "I've made a few good investments over the years."
"Ah." Taking a seat on the couch where Grissom had made his first bold move months earlier, she said, "We'll split the utilities and the groceries."
He laughed without thinking, "I'm not your college dorm mate, Sara. I'm…"
"Yeah, that brings up a good point. What are you…exactly?"
"I'm your…" Come to think of it, they never had labeled it. "I'm your significant other, right? Assuming you feel a certain level of significance between us."
"I did between the sheets last night." She would never get tired of the way her sex jokes ruffled him. "Significant other, huh?"
"Think you can deal with that?"
"It sounds a little dependent to me, but yeah, I think I can hang with it."
A knock on the door startled them both.
Grissom saw the truck from the window. "Movers are here."
"Great."Sara pushed off the couch sporting an anxious smile.
Sure, they didn't know if it would work out, but sometimes you just have to take the story of your life one chapter at time, and not dwell on the promise of a happy ending.
***
Chapter 2 – Moving In"How are we going to fit all of this stuff into your townhouse?" Greg asked while staring into the back of the packed truck. "When did I get all this stuff?" It seemed like it only yesterday that he had arrived in Vegas with a couple of duffel bags and a ton of books.
"I know exactly where your sixty-three inch flat screen plasma HDTV is goin'." Nick winked at his buddy before climbing into the truck. "Right where my old thirty-five inch is sittin' in my living room." He grabbed the first box. "Too bad it's not football season, because I'd love to kickback and watch A&M on that thing."
"A ha! So that's the real reason you asked me to move in." Smiling, Greg took the first box from his new housemate's hands. "That's okay. At least I know I have a place to live until after the next Super Bowl."
"Provided your crazy music and slob habits don't piss me off, yeah." The few times he had been at his buddy's apartment over the years it was a mess of dirty dishes, strewn clothes, reading material, and cereal boxes. "But we'll review the house rules later and if you follow them, there shouldn't be any problems."
"Remember, I was raised by California Liberals, not Texas Conservatives. Things were probably a little more laid back in my childhood home than yours."
"I don't doubt that." When Nick had moved enough boxes to free the hand cart, he lowered it out of the truck. "Every Sunday, we spent the mornin' in church, the afternoon as a family, and the evening around the table. After supper, my mother would present the master schedule and chore list for the week and we'd review it as a group. That list got tacked on the fridge and we stuck to it. Every Friday night, my father would evaluate our performance and if you had messed up or missed somethin', you were excluded from all the Saturday fun and sports if you played 'em."
Their unloading and stacking pace picked up as they streamlined the process.
"So, growing up in Dallas, your parents only allowed fun on Saturdays?" It was a startling concept, since joy had been permitted seven days a week in Santa Gabriel. "What if you were in a great mood on a Tuesday?"
Nick chuckled, "You kept it to yourself. Honestly with all the schoolwork, sports and chores, we were too tired for fun Monday through Friday anyway."
"I guess that explains your hardcore work ethic."
"What did you California slackers do all week? Eat tofu, smoke pot, and sun bathe naked?"
"Only on Sundays."
After sharing a laugh, Nick said, "Your parents seemed real nice when I met them at the hospital. Anxious and overprotective, but considerin' the circumstances, I can't blame them."
"Yeah, Jan and Dave Sanders were just a little over the top." The memory of his sobbing mother dropping to her knees and begging him to quit his job in front of his friends came to mind. "And everyone thinks Norwegians are an emotionally reserved people."
"Hey, my parents were nothin' like their normal selves when they were at my side after I was rescued." The image of his father crying over him in the ER still haunted him. "That was the most emotion I had seen from my father in my entire lifetime combined. And my mother…I thought she was going to stroke out right there in the ER. Thanks to Catherine's big mouth, they weren't only freaked over me almost dyin', they were dealin' with the news I had been molested as a kid and beatin' themselves up over that."
"In all fairness, Catherine only blurted the secret to us because she was stressed to the max over you being buried alive and was sure you were going to die. The context was that she felt bad that you had so many crappy things happen in your lifetime, and was rattling them off."
"Thankfully she didn't know about the time I got pantsed in junior high." Nick paused to wipe the first beads of sweat off his forehead. "Hell, I couldn't be mad at her though, not after I found out that she got Big Daddy Braun to cough up the million dollar ransom."
Trying to lighten the mood, Greg said, "You know what her blurting out your secret reminded me of? That scene in the movie Almost Famous, the one when their little plane is about to crash because they hit a storm."
"I love that movie, man."
"I have the DVD."
"Cool." Nick teased, "We can watch it on our plasma TV."
"I'm never getting my TV back, am I?"
"Nope."
After another laugh, Greg resumed his point, "So in that scene, remember how they're telling all their deepest, darkest secrets and confessions and just after the last guy yells out 'I'm gay!' the storm passes and the plane evens out? He's like 'shit, I never would have said that if I knew we'd all be around tomorrow to deal with it?" While waiting for Nick to pull more boxes, he leaned against the stack he had made. "That was Catherine in the hospital waiting area once we got word you would be fine. She grabs her hair and yells, 'Dammit! Nicky's gonna kill me for telling everyone his secret!' For a second it seemed like she was wishing you had died, just so she wouldn't have to deal with you being pissed at her. Warrick's like 'what the hell, Cath?' and she trips all over herself explaining what she really meant."
"Well, we all know Cath is a little self-centered."
"It was a great moment." Greg's smile spread as the memory played in his mind. "We hadn't smiled or laughed the whole time we were looking for you…obviously. There we were maxed out from exhaustion and nervous tension, when all of a sudden we're laughing our asses off at Cath's expense. We were totally ragging on her. Seriously, we didn't stop until we were crying from laughing so hard. Brass wet himself." Watching his buddy grab another box, he nostalgically said, "An hour earlier we were at rock bottom, but just like that…life was good again."
"Hearin' about the fun y'all were having, I'm sorry I missed it." Nick jumped down from the truck, so he could run inside and grab some beer. "While you guys were laughin' it up, I was on an exam table listenin' to my parents bawl while ten nurses and doctors probed my naked body for ants and treated my bites."
"Hey, take out the bawling parents, and you just described one of Grissom's biggest fantasies."
"How are we going to fit all of this stuff into your townhouse?" Sara asked, staring into the back of the packed truck. "I can't believe all of this is mine." It seemed like it only yesterday that she had arrived in Vegas with a couple of suitcases and a ton of books.
"I'll leave it up to you to decide," Gil answered, believing it was the correct answer to give his Significant Other. Having read many books on successful male-female relationships, he knew that women wanted to feel their opinion was valued. They wanted to have power.
"Why only me?" Sara quizzed, concerned that her Significant Other's lack of an opinion meant that he wasn't taking the endeavor as seriously as her. "Why don't you care where my things go? Or your things for that matter, assuming that I might choose to replace your things with some of mine. Like your ugly couch for example."
"Uh." After clearing his throat to stall, he explained, "I care. I care a lot. I just thought it was the gentlemanly thing to do in this situation."
"The gentlemanly thing to do?" Sara tried not to laugh, but promptly failed. "Did I ride over here in your truck or a time machine? What's next? Calling me your 'Little Woman'?"
"Sara…"
"I know that tone."
"That tone?" He cocked his head. "What tone is that?"
"You say my name with this lilt. This lilt that screams 'you are frustrating me Ms. Sidle'. It's…very…."
Please don't say paternal. He sucked in his gut and hoped his hair looked less grey in the sunlight.
"Professorial." She pursed her lips so she wouldn't fully snicker.
Gil tapped his watch. "The movers will be returning from their break in five minutes."
"So we have five minutes to resolve how we're going to blend my stuff with yours."
"Considering our educational backgrounds and our years of experience problem solving on the job, I think we're more than qualified." He removed his sunglasses to glare. "And since you've already established that my couch is ugly, that's a no-brainer."
"Come on…it's ugly. Honestly, it's fugly."
"That fugly couch is sentimental." Placing his hands on his ball-busting mate, he reminded her. "We shared our first kiss on that couch."
"We did not," she huffed, "Our first kiss was in your kitchen, by the fridge."
"No, that was the first intentional kiss. Don't you remember our first accidental kiss? It was a week after Nicky's abduction and we decided to work at my place because…"
"You mean after Nick almost died and you were going through a 'life's too short, but I still can't tell Sara that I want her' stage, so you kept making work-related excuses to spend time together?"
"Yes, and let's remember to discuss the statute of limitations on my emotional dysfunctionality later." Sliding his hands to her hips, he finished detailing the memory, "We were sitting on my couch working the Peggy Martin case and I needed a pen…"
"Right, right." Recalling it vividly, she began chuckling. "I turned around to hand you one just as you leaned over to grab one and my eyebrow crashed into your parted lips. It was an eyebrow kiss."
"When I pulled away, my glasses got caught in your hair."
"And I was so flustered by your proximity, that I spilled the glass of ice water I was holding all over my white blouse."
A naughty smirk took over his lips. "I needed a cigarette after that incident. It was the closest thing to sex I'd had in a while."
"And yet we still didn't get it on that night. Do you know why?"
"Because I was an idiot."
"Well, yes, but also because your fugly couch was romantically uninspiring." As their lips grazed, she whispered, "Mmm…after this kiss, I'll tell you all about my grudge against your coffee table."
Out of the corner of his eye, Gil saw his craziest neighbor on approach and braced for impact.
"How's my favorite Bug Doctor!" Seventy-two year old retired Vegas showgirl, Lana Weiss, a chain-smoking, prune with a penchant for showing her ample cleavage, came rushing over. "What's this I see? Is this a moving truck? What's with the truck? Is this your cute young girlfriend? Is she moving in with you? Good for you! Good…for…you Dr. G." She glanced over at the shell-shocked girl and took a puff on her cigarette. "What's with the gaping, Sweetie? Oh, I know what you're thinking. You're trying to decide if they're fakies. They're not. Have a touch."
Sara recoiled as the lunatic thrust her chest out. "That's okay, I believe you. Whoever you are." She turned to Gil. "Who is she?"
"Sara Sidle, this is Lana Weiss, she lives four doors down from me…us now, actually." He loved how 'us' rolled off his tongue. "Ms. Weiss and I see each other at the mailbox frequently." Because she stalks her neighbors and follows them there, jabbering incessantly and leaving a smoke trail. "From time to time she also stops by to borrow milk for her cats. 2 milk to be exact."
While thinking they should get a P.O. Box so they could avoid trips to the complex's mailbox, Sara forced a smile. "Nice to meet you, Ms. Weiss."
"Like wise." After blowing out the smoke in her mouth, she smacked her lips and said, "Have fun shacking up, kids, I'd talk longer but Mr. Keegal in 7B is waiting to give me a bikini wax." As she sashayed away, she giggled, "Good move getting a chippie, Dr. G, she'll keep you young! When I get back from my Brazilian, I'll drop off some Viagra from my secret stash. I keep it on hand for my boys. It'll be my way of saying thanks for all those times I've borrowed milk for my kitties!"
The mortified Levitra user craftily answered, "No thank you, I don't use Viagra."
"That's what they all say," she cackled while lighting up her next ciggie.
When they were alone again, Sara calmly told her man, "I have a great idea. Instead of unpacking my stuff, let's just get another truck for your stuff and buy a house with barbed-wire fence around the perimeter. That way I won't have to worry about the neighbors running over, shoving their fake-bake boobs in my face, and begging me to cop a feel."
"Oh Lord, here she comes." Nick cringed when he saw Tish Taylor, a thirty-two year old washed up showgirl turned cocktail waitress who had actively been trying to jump his bones for years. "Set down the mattress. If we continue inside, she'll just follow us. Let me handle this."
"Are those real?" Greg queried as the non-jiggling jumbo boobs mesmerized him.
"Hell, the only part of her that's real is her psychosis."
"Nick!" Fluffing her dyed strawberry blonde hair and C+ fakies, Tish hurried down the sidewalk as fast as her leopard-print stilettos would carry her. "No! You can't be moving out."
"I'm not."
"Thank you, Jesus!" she screamed to the heavens while clutching her head. "I saw you moving this mattress and I panicked. This complex wouldn't be the same without you, Cowboy." She pouted and thrust out her boobs. "I'd miss ya somethin' awful. You and me have been playing cat and mouse since the day I moved in and one of these days, Mister Sexy CSI Who Survived Being Buried Alive and Being Bitten by Big Bad Ants, I'm gonna catch you and the rest will be history!" She circled her arms around the sexy man's neck. "Come on, Nicky, when are you going to let TishaBaby cook you a cowboy meal? You must get homesick for the Lone Star state. I'll make you a juicy steak with ranch beans and Texas Toast on the side. Hmm? How about tonight? You're going to work up an appetite moving all this heavy stuff. Hey!" She gave him a playful shove. "You still haven't told me why you're moving this mattress!"
Watching Nick squirm out of the lunatic's reach, Greg had to cover his mouth to stifle his laughter.
"My co-worker Greg over there." He pointed. "He's movin' in with me for a while. He was hurt real bad in the line of duty and is having severe mental problems."
"Aww, is that why he looks so…confuzzled?"
Confuzzled? "I'm not really…" But when Nick gave him the 'be quiet or I'll kill you' glare he often used in the field, Greg shut up.
"Since I've successfully recovered from being buried alive, they've assigned me to be his peer-counselor. Unfortunately, I'm not allowed to leave his side. It's part of the LVPD code, helpin' a brother in need, so I hafta do my civic duty and tough it out, no matter how much it cramps my lifestyle."
"Aww." Tish teetered over to the guy wearing a funny t-shirt and bowling shoes. "You poor thing. Let Tish give you a squish." She felt bad for Nick too, because it had be rough for a Texas stud to be forced to live with a geeky gay guy.
"Uh, you don't hav…" Greg's words were cut off when she brought his face to her buxom breasts. She tastes like crayons, but I doubt she's non-toxic.
"Hey! I'll cook for both of you! Your little friend can watch a non-stressful Disney movie after dinner and I'll give my favorite hard working LVPD guy a massage. Have I told you that I got a certificate from an online massage school?"
"A bunch of times, yeah. While it's a really nice offer, Tish, poor Greg can't eat anything but his regulated diet." Nick stepped in back of his buddy and pulled him away from the shameless hoochie. Placing his arm around Greg's shoulders he explained, "He has to watch what he eats because certain foods interact with his meds. He also gets real stressed out around other people. Isn't that right, G?"
"People freak me out!" Greg yelled like half-witted psycho. "I'm a donkey on the edge! Do you have any Cheez-Whiz? I want Cheeeeeeeeeeez-Whiz!"
Tish backed off, trying not to show her disdain for short-bus riders in case her lack of compassion for retards might ruin her chances of marrying Nick one day.
"Greg's mom is gonna come out here to babysit him in a couple of…years…and when she does, we'll hook up, Sweetheart. That is if you'll wait for me to finish my charity work."
"As long as there's stars over Texas, Cowboy…I'll hang the moon for you."
"Thank ya, Darlin'." Ugh! Why'd she have to go and ruin that song for me? I love that song. "Hey, don't you have to get to work, Tish?"
"Ooh!" She nodded and started running. "See ya later, Cowboy! I hope your little mental friend feels better soon!"
Sniffing the air, Nick asked, "You smell that, Greggo? That's desperation. Like a skunk in the night, she leaves her scent behind."
"Ha!"
"That Bunny Boiler has slept her way around the entire complex, and most of Clark County. If I ever lose my mind and bed that whackjob, I want you to grab my pistol and shoot me dead, do you hear me? Promise."
"I promise." Picking up his end of the mattress, Greg said, "Seriously though, I don't want my moving in here to mess things up with the ladies. Do you want to work out a special signal for when you're entertaining? We could put a…"
"It won't be a problem, trust me. I don't bring chicks home."
"Really? Why? Unless it's too personal, then…"
"Nah." Walking backwards through the living room, Nick said, "I used to bring women here, but it sucked when I couldn't get them to leave. I wanted to sleep and they'd be yammerin' on for hours. Or they'd want to cook for me and mess up the whole kitchen trying to make a friggin' egg. If they tried to clean up, they loaded the dishwasher all wrong or put everything back in the wrong spot. I hate that. Everything in my kitchen has a place and the dishwasher space is easily maximized if you use common sense."
Duly noted.
"I reached my breaking point when this chick, Darla…or was it Marla? Who cares, let's just call her Stupid Bubble Bath Girl."
"This should be good."
"She brings over this bottle of nasty-ass stinky red shit and says," he mocked the bimbo's voice, "Nicky, let's take a bubble bath together, I got this new stuff and it's supposed to be totally hot!"
"Uh oh."
"Stupid Bubble Bath Girl was right, man. The shit was totally hot. Literally! My package was on…fire. Good thing I had already taken her around the world, because I woulda been pissed if I had a scorched hard on."
Greg shook with laughter.
"After I kicked her and her nasty-ass bottle of ball-burning bubble bath out the front door, I drained the tub. The stuff left a big…red…ring."
"No!"
"Yes! I had to replace the damn thing." Easing the mattress into the empty bedroom, Nick said, "After that, I instituted a No Girls Allowed policy and it's been great. Yeah, this place has been estrogen-free since July 17, 2004." He laughed, "There's a lot less laundry that way too. I go to their places, muss their sheets, and then things end when I want them to. I make my pager go off and pretend I'm bein' called into the lab. It's great, they actually feel bad for me when I'm runnin' out on them, because they think I'm out workin' to keep the streets safe, but really I'm home snorin' or playin' XBox."
"Teach on, Obi Wan."
"Unpack your pens and start takin' notes, man."
"Speaking of notes, what do I tell these ladies when they call here asking for you? Are you going to leave me a list of who you're avoiding? My roommate in college did that, it worked well."
"Like I give any of them my real phone number. Young Anakin, you have much to learn. No, the only girls who call here are my sisters, my mom, Sara and Catherine."
"What about Sofia?"
They lifted the mattress.
"You know how she used to flirt with me at work, but suddenly doesn't?"
"Uh oh."
They dropped the mattress on the box spring.
"Yeah, she was all over me when we were waitin' on Vartann in Boulder City about a month ago. What was I supposed to think she wanted? We ended up screwin' like rabbits in the back of my Denali."
"No!" Greg took a seat on the edge of the bed. "Was she any good?"
"Eh, no better or worse than the rest of them."
"I thought she was sleeping with Griss at one point."
"Me too. I asked her, but she said no." Nick gave a puckish laugh, "I don't want to have sex with anyone Grissom has been with, 'cause that would be like sharin' a chick with my Dad. So I did the customary 'have you slept with Grissom or Ecklie' background check."
"Chicks sleep with Ecklie?"
"Tish probably has."
After a belly laugh, Greg probed, "So what happened with Sofia?"
From the opposite side of the mattress, Nick droned, "Unbeknownst to me, she thought it was the beginning of a relationship, so when I referred to it as a boredom-bang, she got more than a little pissed off."
"Hey, just so I'm on the same page, what exactly is your definition of a boredom bang?"
"It's when you decide to do it because you have nothin' else to do. Like when you're trapped in a house because of a storm and the power goes off. Why? What's yours?"
"Same thing, a storm, no power…you can't cook, read, or play Monopoly, so..." Getting a head start out of the bedroom, Greg launched a joke on the run, "Sorry, when you first said the term boredom-bang, I panicked thinking it was something that occurred between lonely ranch boys and their sheep."
"Like you can outrun me?" Nick bolted after him, but when he reached the kitchen, he went for the fridge, not revenge. "I'd hurt you, but I don't want to make your mommy cry."
"You break me, you buy me."
"Tell me…" Nick grabbed two Amstels from the fridge with a smile. "What's a badly dressed lunatic geek boy with a poor excuse for a sense of humor goin' for these days exactly?"
"Dude, you know the saying." Greg snatched one of the bottles. "If you have to ask the price…"
"Careful!" Sara panicked when Grissom tossed one of her boxes on the kitchen table, "Sorry, I didn't mean to yell. That box is fragile."
"It's not marked fragile." He pointed to the small empty square next to the word 'fragile' on the box. "You're supposed to mark it if it's fragile. That's why they put that on moving boxes. " Using the marker from his pocket, he checked the designated space. "You can't be extra careful with something if you don't know it's fragile."
"Thank you for that very thorough lesson in appropriate box marking," she laughed, loving him most when he was in uber-geek mode. "I'll be more careful when marking boxes in the future."
"Are you already planning to leave me?" he jokingly asked, before legitimately worrying.
"The thought hadn't crossed my mind."
"Good."
"Especially after it took so long to get you," she sweetly laughed, "I mean, come on…I need some return on investment."
"Tell me…" His smile grew. "How far in the red are you exactly?"
"Deep. Center of the Universe deep. It's going to take a long, long time to dig out of the hole, and after I expend all that effort…" She shrugged. "You'll be a habit by then."
They gravitated to each other, noses gently bumping until their lips brushed.
"Lucky for me…habits are hard to break."
"Only bad ones."
Forgetting the movers could enter at any minute, they gave in to a passionate kiss.
"Ma'am?" Len Diaz laughed when he saw the couple split apart like busted teens. "Sorry. Where do you want the desk?"
Gil pointed. "Down the hall, first door on the left."
"Thanks."
"If you could go out and direct Joe…"
"I'll be right there," Sara replied without turning. When the movers were gone, she brushed her lover's cheek, like she had touched him when they stood outside an apartment covered in chalk dust many years ago. "I forgot to do something." She snatched the black marker out of Gil's hand, tugged her v-neck shirt aside, and drew a small box with a check mark over her heart. "Now you know."
***
Chapter 3 – The Honeymoon Stage of Cohabitation"Time to wake up." When he didn't get a response the third time, Gil gently shook his sleepy lover, who also happened to be his employee. "You have to get ready for work, Honey." He was anxious to get to the lab and check on the beetles he had accidentally left there the previous night. In his pre-Sara life, he would have returned in the middle of the night, but bugs were no longer his top priority. "We're covering for day shift's vacation, remember?"
"It's okay." Groaning, she pulled the covers over her head. "I won't get in trouble, because I'm sleeping with the boss."
"All the more reason not to call attention to me giving you special treatment."
"You can yell at me when I get there, I don't care. Kill two birds with one stone and yell at me in front of Catherine so she'll be in a good mood the rest of the day and not irritate the rest of us with her bitching."
"Sara…"
"There's that tone." Tossing back the luxurious comforter she had purchased that weekend, Sara grumbled, "Yeah, yeah, I know, let it go. For the record, I think Nick's way more irritated with her than me now. Her foray into Reverse Forensics still has him shooting daggers on the sly."
He didn't mask his irritation. "How quickly people forget who came up with their million dollar ransom."
"How quickly people turn on the team mates they've known for years to cozy up to Ecklie…and the Sheriff…and the new guy…or any guy. Sorry, but us people with trust issues are having a hard time with Catherine's tactics."
"Look, I brought you juice," Gil announced, changing the subject.
"Day four and he's still greeting me with juice." Thrilled to move on to a better topic, she pushed herself up to sit with her back against the headboard. "How long will this honeymoon stage of cohabitation last?"
"Well, this juice isn't freshly squeezed like the past two mornings, so perhaps we're already on the downhill slide."
Taking the glass, she smiled, "What will it be by Friday? An orange on the nightstand with a note that says 'squeeze the damn thing yourself'?"
"Thanks for the idea, I was stumped."
As Gil leaned in for a kiss, Sara shielded her mouth. "Sorry, morning breath."
"I work with the dead, remember? A little morning breath doesn't bother me." He tugged at her bottom lip with his mouth. "You've spoiled me the past two mornings, and my body quickly adapts to new routines. It's assuming that morning three will mirror one and two."
"My body craves routine too, and just like on mornings one and two it's expects to use the bathroom before any romance." She pecked his lips before dashing out of bed. "And don't expect to get lucky on 'Orange with a Note' day."
Slipping under the covers, he laughed, "I think I just reconsidered Friday's breakfast menu. How does pancakes, fresh fruit and gourmet coffee sound?" The only answer he heard was a flush. "Living together really does remove some of the mystique out of a relationship, doesn't it?" He tossed his boxers.
"Speaking of which..." She returned holding a pair of his boxer-briefs. "I don't recall you not hitting the hamper when I visited, but you're 0 and 3 since I moved in."
"Really?" He patted the bed. "I hadn't noticed, but I plan on making a concerted effort to score every day going forward. I'll try to get my shorts in the hamper too."
"Look at you." Sara dropped the briefs on the floor. "Your crazy neighbor was right. Having me around is keeping you young. Right now I'd guess you to be about eighteen and horny."
"You'll find evidence to support your theory when you join me under the sheets."
Knowing this slice of carefree romance would soon be replaced by depressing case files or gory fieldwork, she savored every moment. "Hello," she murmured while sliding under the covers.
"Hello." Stroking her hair as he gazed into her eyes, Gil whispered, "I love waking up with you in morning." Although it was crazy to think anything so serious so soon, he couldn't help but wish he could do it every day for the rest of his life. "It feels so…"
"Right." Hearing him use the word 'love' made her delightfully anxious. They hadn't exchanged 'I love yous' yet, but she felt it and believed he did too. Was his 'I love waking up with you in the morning' a sneaky way of saying it without saying it? Was he not saying it because he wasn't ready to, or did he believe she wasn't ready to hear it?
Gil made his move, blanketing her body with his as he claimed her mouth with a passionate kiss. "I think you were off, I feel sixteen."
Swept away in the moment, she returned the stealthy affirmation, "I love waking up with you too." It had only been three days, and far too soon to know what the future held for them, but as her lover claimed her body, she wanted to believe that life would always be this good.
"Sara…"
They opted to trade places as the passion grew.
"Hell of a way to start the day, isn't it?" she growled while claiming the top spot.
"Beats the hell out of a cold shower." His eyes drank in every inch of the luscious body enticing him. "Perfect." A naughty smirk took over his mouth as he reviewed the reality of the situation. I'm in bed with Sara Sidle, a young, gorgeous woman with a brain as beautiful as her gyrating hips. She's mine, all mine, and no one knows. Soon we'll be sitting in a conference room reviewing case files with the team and they'll wonder why I'm in a good mood. Wouldn't they be surprised to know? And wouldn't I love to tell them, especially Greg, because it's no secret that he wants her too.
Her body rushing toward satisfaction, Sara closed her eyes and counted her blessings. Finally she had a guy who loved her for her brain as well as her body, and in spite of her baggage. He was wonderful, and living under the same roof was going great, but as their loving reached its crescendo, she thanked God that she also lived with a guy who knew what to do in the sack and wasn't afraid he'd offend her by growling a few dirty words.
"I've never felt like more of a genius than I do right now," Gil stated after a minute of post-coital panting.
"Why's that?" Sara dropped onto the bed catching her breath.
"Because asking you to move in with me was a brilliant idea."
"And I'm feeling pretty good about my answer of 'yes'." Sara's smile lit the room. "Waking up alone and horny every day really sucks."
The satisfied fifty year old who was feeling pretty damn cocky about getting the girl pursed his lips to keep the terribly immature thought on his tongue from slipping out. I'm sure Greg would agree.
"Mmm, now I really don't want to go to work."
"Don't take this the wrong way." Gil rolled on his side to explain, "As much as I'd love some pillow talk, I have these beetles in my office…"
"Go."
Now that he said it out loud, he felt ridiculous. "Actually, it's okay, I…"
"We both know it's not," Sara laughed at him. "Go play with your bugs, I'll see you there."
"Thank you for understanding." After a goodbye kiss, he hurried for the shower.
"Breakfast for one it is." Grabbing her abandoned glass of juice, she sighed, "Never shoulda fell for an Entomologist."
"Time to wake up." When he didn't get a response the third time, Greg pounded on the door. "Stokes! Your kit and keys are by the door, so I know you're in there." Now that he had his confidence back, he was excited to go to work. "Okay, I'm outta here. You have forty-five minutes to…"
"Sanders!" Throwing open his bedroom door, Nick snarled, "What the hell, man?" He shoved his sports watch in his obviously insane friend's face. "It's friggin' seven o'clock in the morning. I just went to bed a couple of hours ago."
"Dude, did you forget? It's day shift's spring vacation week. We're trading off with swing to cover every other day. We have Monday, Wednesday and Saturday. Today is Monday. Yesterday being Sunday should have been a big clue."
Nick stuffed his hands on the waist band of his rumpled boxers "No, we're coverin' Tuesday, Thursday and Friday."
"No, that's what we had back in January for their winter vacation week. It rotates, remember?"
"Dammit!"
"What time did you come home?" Staring at the man who looked like death and reeked of cheap perfume, Greg asked, "What did you end up doing last night anyway?" He chuckled, "Or is 'who did you end up doing' more accurate?"
"Uh…give me sec." Running a shaky hand over his beard stubble, the late night partier groaned, "I went to play some Texas Hold 'Em at the Tangiers with Vartann. While I was there, I hooked up with this cocktail waitress, a cute little red head. Carissa?" He looked to Greg for confirmation. "Or was it Nina?"
"Why are you lookin' at me for an answer?" Greg laughed. "I wasn't there. You asked me to tag along, but I opted to stay home and tweak my paper, remember?" It was his third attempt at getting something published and unlike the previous unsuccessful efforts, he was hoping this one would be the charm.
"Carina! That was it. Sorry, I'm still half asleep. She moved here last month from Fort Worth and I could tell she was a little homesick by the way she was talkin'. I told her how I felt the same way when I first left Dallas and we hit it off from there." Rubbing his bare, grumbling belly, Nick trudged back to his bed and collapsed on it. "Her shift ended at midnight and she offered to make me the best fajitas I ever had. You know how much I love fajitas, man. We went to her place, and she was real nice, but it took frickin' forever for herto make the meal. Seriously, you woulda thought she was grindin' her own flour for the damn tortillas. That's why I'm dyin' this morning. We were drinkin' margaritas while she cooked and I got tanked."
"Good thing I added a shot of espresso in here." Greg strolled into the room with a steaming mug of coffee. "It's my Blue Hawaiian too, not that generic Costco swill you buy in bulk. I won't even let my coffee be in your pantry with that crap."
"Thanks, I love this stuff." After hacking up a lung, the hungover ladies man struggled to a sitting position and took the steaming mug in his jittery hands. "I think Carissa had OCD."
"Car-ina."
"Sorry," Nick chuckled.
"Why do you think Car-ina had OCD?" Because it takes one Obsessive Compulsive to know one?
"Because first she was obsessed with slicing the peppers and onions so they'd be exactly the same size, and then I caught her countin' out shreds of cheese onto her fajitas like she was dealin' cards. I honestly think she was worried one fajita would feel gypped if it got twelve strings of cheddar instead of thirteen. It was really bizarre, and I didn't want to sleep with her if she had issues and was vulnerable. I checked her medicine cabinet to see if she was taking anything for a mental problem, but I didn't see any meds."
"Ah, the perils of dating a CSI, we're always secretly on the prowl for evidence to support our theories." Note to self…hide your pills.
"Exactly." Grinning, Nick held up his mug. "You know, between the plasma TV, this righteous coffee, and you loadin' the dishwasher correctly last night, I'm almost thinkin' this wasn't the worst mistake of my life lettin' you move in here."
"I should probably be pacing myself." Greg's infectious laughter filled the room as he headed for the window. "Shield your eyes, Nosferatu." He snapped open the blind.
"Damn, it really is morning."
"What time did you get home? I didn't hear you come in, which is a great sign, because it means I've finally stopped sleeping with one eye open while waiting to be attacked."
"Uh, let's see." Sipping coffee, Nick thought back to the previous night's events. "We hit the sheets about two-thirty, and I was able to rock her world, fulfill her need for pillow talk, and be on my way home in a little under two hours. So about five I guess." Yawning, he whimpered, "I swear I could sleep for a year."
"So, was it good?"
Nick shrugged. "It was okay. She made chicken fajitas, I prefer steak, and she didn't have beans or Cholula, so I'd give it about a five. Maybe a six, 'cause she did a real nice job on the presentation."
"Hey, Emeril," Greg deadpanned, "I meant the action, not the food."
"Oh." Laughing, Nick lowered his mug. "She screeched when she popped. I hate that, it's like nails on a chalkboard to me." He shivered. "And she was a big-time talker, but not in a good way. She was talkin' like I was one of her girlfriends. I mean, know your audience, right? I don't want to hear about how you got your lingerie on sale. I'm a guy. All I want to hear is 'take it off, Cowboy'."
"Have you considered that maybe she was overtalking because she was nervous around you?"
"I guess that coulda been it, yeah. Oh, but get this…she let her two Shih Tzus up on the bed after we were done, and one of them almost licked my crack. See, right there is why my parents never let us have pets on our beds as kids."
"No bestiality allowed, huh?" Greg rolled with laughter. "Not even on Saturday fun day?"
Nick rolled his eyes, cursing himself for ever sharing the details of the Stokes Family Schedule. "It's unsanitary to have pets on the bed, that's why." He padded across the floor to the bathroom. "Dogs step in piss and turds when they're out walkin', and I don't want my naked ass on sheets covered in urine and feces."
"Some people pay good money for that at Lady Heather's."
"Ha!" Yelling from the bathroom, Nick said, "So that's why I didn't sleep at Car-ina's last night even though I was beat. Plus, she started showing me pictures of her as a bridesmaid in all these family weddings and talkin' about her sister bein' pregnant with her first baby. That's like a woman puttin' a neon sign over her head that flashes 'I'm desperate to get married and be impregnated on our honeymoon'. I got totally freaked. I excused myself to the bathroom and grabbed the used condom out of the trash to make sure she didn't purposely put a hole in it." Washing his hands, he explained, "After that heart attack I decided I'm only usin' the ones I bring from now on, not theirs."
Could ya be a little more full of yourself? "You know, maybe she wasn't really after your swimmers. You said she was homesick, so it makes perfect sense to me that she got carried away talking about her family and looking at pictures because she missed them."
"No, no, wait 'til I tell you what she did when I..."
"Actually, I've heard enough. This all sounds remarkably similar to your Friday night story, and about a hundred other ones you've told me over the years."
"Aww, are you jealous, G?" Nick strutted out of the bathroom grinning, "If you come out with me next time, I'm sure I can get you laid." He hated watching the poor guy trip over himself chasing Sara week after week.
"By one of the crazy chicks you come home and talk about? No thanks." Greg asked a burning question, "Seriously, why do you continue to waste valuable hours of your life with people you don't enjoy, in homes you find uncomfortable, while eating food you don't like?"
"Jesus H, I hope that's a rhetorical question. I do it because I wanna get laid!" Nick chortled as he headed for the kitchen with Greg at his heels. "It's a trade off. I politely put up with all that BS in exchange for some action. If I could get action and great food with a person I liked, then life would be sweet, but until then…a man's gotta do what a man's gotta do. Hmm, let me see if I can put it in a way that you would understand. Don't you ever do things you don't like just to keep your hand happy and puttin' out?"
"Laugh all you want, dude, but least I enjoy my hand's company, know where it's been, and will never have to pay it child support." Greg pointed to the counter. "I made an extra burrito if you're hungry."
"But did you wash your hands before you made it, Spanky?"
"Twice. It's on the counter next to the bottle of your precious Cholula that I bought when I went shopping last night, because I was tired of hearing you whine that you were out." He popped open his kit to make sure it was stocked.
"Oh yeah!" Smacking his lips, Nick hopped onto one of the stools, unwrapped the breakfast treat and doused it with his favorite condiment. After a bite he was surprised to find out that it tasted as good as it looked. "Wow, this is great, seriously, it's restaurant quality."
Greg muttered, "I should have withheld my burritos to use as leverage after football season."
After another delicious bite, Nick declared, "I know what I'm going to do from now on. I'm gonna get my kicks with the ladies, come home and sleep in my own bed, and then have you cook me breakfast. That's best of all worlds right there."
"Nice, but what's in it for me?"
"Geez, you've got a frickin' roof over your head in the safest neighborhood this city has to offer and my sunny personality to come home to. What more could you want?" Nick took another bite. "I guess the honeymoon's over. We've only been livin' together for four days and we already sound like a pissy married couple."
"I'm really sorry." Suddenly worried, Greg rushed to explain, "I didn't mean to sound like I wasn't grateful. I was kidding. I owe you big for letting me move in here, because if you hadn't stopped me, I would have quit and…"
"Hold up! I wasn't serious."
"Really, it's okay. I know you felt sorry for me and didn't think it through, I would totally understand if you were regretting it. I mean it. I know you don't really need the cash, and you…"
"Jeeez! Shut your pie hole and let me finish."
"Shutting."
"I never woulda asked if I didn't want you here. I know you don't believe me about the money because I make a lot more than you, but the truth is," Nick lowered his voice to a sincere hush, "between you and me, one of my sisters ran into some trouble and I cleaned out my savings to help her. It wasn't enough, so I'm going to send her the money you're payin' me in rent every month until she gets back on her feet. She was too ashamed to go to our parents or ask our big bucks big brother, who's also a big asshole sometimes. Okay? And look…I'm a proud guy too, so I get where you're comin' from. I'd feel awkward if I thought I was someone's charity case. I need the money, that's the truth and to be real honest…I kinda needed a friend around too." Nick smiled, hoping all doubts had been removed. "Cool?" When Greg nodded, he moved on to prove it was behind them, "So, uh…" He held up what was left of his burrito. "Is this your specialty? Every guy learns to cook one thing well so he could impress the ladies, is this yours?"
"It's one of many." Closing his kit, Greg quietly replied, "When a guy is tied to his overprotective mother's aprons strings for eighteen years, he learns to cook whether he wants to or not."
"Did you have to spend a lot of time in the kitchen with your mother?"
"No, I had to spend too much time everywhere with my mother." Ready to drop the emotional subject, he grabbed his kit. "Okay, I'll see ya at work."
"Only 'cause you woke me. I woulda slept 'til four." As his overly sensitive housemate prepared to leave, Nick couldn't resist joking to prove all was well between them, "Yo, bitch! After I bust my ass all day workin' to save up for that double-wide you keep naggin' me about, I'll be wantin' a turkey pot pie for supper! You hear me? And you better get your sorry self to the Circle K for a twelve pack of Bud, because if there isn't any in the fridge when I come home, I'm tossin' all that shit you keep buyin' off QVC out the god damn door!"
"You're like scary good at that, Cletus." Shaking his head at the Southerner, the California boy headed for the door. "You should have saved that gem for the team meeting this morning."
"Don't you back talk!" Nick grabbed his coffee like it was a beer. "I want some extra cash to buy another coon dog and the last time I checked there wasn't a god damn money tree in our backyard, so how 'bout you stop your bitchin' and get to work."
"Never shoulda fell for a redneck." Greg smiled all the way to his car.
***
Chapter 4 – Workplace Harassment"You're in a good mood this morning." Sara joined Greg at the coffee pot, hoping he was making Blue Hawaiian. "Singing in the breakroom?" It was a 180 from the last time she had seen him. "You must be happy to be here and be over that nasty flu that kept you out of work for days."
"I didn't have the flu." Filling a mug for the woman he had been flirting with for years, he confessed, "I was home packing boxes and writing my resignation letter."
"You were going to throw your career away just because those idiots paid off the James family?"
Greg laughed as if the idea was preposterous. "No." Unfurling his sweetest smile, he handed her a mug of freshly brewed Blue Hawaiian. "I was leaving because I saw you with Griss the other night at the scene. You were vomiting in the backyard and he brought you a can of Sprite. I saw the way you looked at him, and realized…game over, I'll never have you." He sheepishly admitted, "A guy chases a dream for seven years and finds out that it's never gonna happen because his girl has been in love with someone else the whole time…he feels like a fool."
"Uh." The confession mentally knocking her off balance, Sara stammered, "I…um…I know sometimes I might have said things or done things. I…I'm really sorry, Greg, you've been through so much recently. Please believe me when I say I never meant to hurt you in any way. You're a great guy. Too good for me actually, because you're such a high energy, happy person and I'm moody, bordering on bitch at times. Seriously, you don't need my baggage bogging you down. You're a gentle soul and there's someone out there who needs a sweet, fun guy like you." Nerve wracked by the news, she kept overtalking and attempted humor, "And I saw your bod in the shower, remember, so I know what I'm talking about when I say, whoever she is, she'll be very lucky to have you for that reason too. I'm rejecting him while telling him he's well hung, so on top of being cruel, I'm making no sense. "Also, would you mind not saying anything about what you saw, because Grissom didn't exactly return my affection." And now I just confirmed I don't want him even though I'm alone and rejected myself. Nice. "What I mean is…"
"It's okay, Sara." Soulfully gazing into her eyes, he stroked her cheek and whispered, "You know why it's okay?"
"Why?" she breathed out, feeling terrible.
"Because I'm yanking your chain. It was the payout. I felt incredibly screwed."
"You bastard!" She was about to throw her beverage, but remembered it was hot and controlled herself.
Laughing his ass off, Greg darted away. "Ha! You don't want to waste your favorite coffee by throwing it at me."
"No, I just remembered it was Catherine's job to give you third degree burns at the lab."
"Oh! Would that be the moody bitchy side that you were referring to?" he asked in between laughs.
"I can't believe you!" Her heart was still pounding from the drama. "You made me feel so guilty!"
Safely using the table to separate them, he deadpanned, "In all honesty, you were a colossal tease over the years, so the guilty feelings aren't all that inappropriate."
"Oh!"
Puffing up, he teased, "I guess you were just trying to make Grissom jealous by pretending to be interested in a better," he winked, "bigger man."
"What's going on in here?" Grissom asked when he saw his significant other lunging for Greg.
"After seven long years, Sara and I finally declared our love for each other, and she doesn't want to wait to consummate it." Darting behind Grissom, Greg laughed, "Come on, help me out! Tell her it's against department policy to get it on in the breakroom unless your name is Catherine."
Looking at the man she had made passionate love with earlier that morning, she snipped, "I sincerely hope you know he's joking about the love part."
"No, I think he's quite serious," Grissom casually replied on the way to the coffee pot. "People suffering from delusions always believe their fantasies are real."
Fearing she'd blurt 'I love you for that', Sara covered her mouth.
Greg reached into his pocket. "Hey, Griss, I need to give you this."
When the supervisor glanced at the paper he said, "A change of address form?"
"Yeah, I'm supposed to turn it into my supervisor."
Sara anxiously looked at Gil. "A change of address form?" They hadn't thought about paperwork required because of her move.
"It's department policy," Greg explained. "You're required to update your address within seven days of a move."
"This is Nick's address," Grissom remarked with a puzzled expression.
"With all the recent publicity, I was having some problems at my apartment complex."
"What kind of problems?" Sara's concern made her forget her own issue for the moment.
"Flat tires, glares from some of the residents."
Grissom snapped into supervisor mode, "If anyone directly threatened you, then we…"
"Look, it's over, I'm gone, the last thing I want to do is draw more attention to myself." Greg pointed to the form. "Long story short, I had to move and Nick offered to rent me the extra master suite in his townhouse until I finish saving up to buy a place of my own in a better neighborhood." He backpedaled, "I didn't mean that to sound…what I meant was a better neighborhood for me to be in right now, because of the circumstances. Under normal circumstances I would have no problem in any neighborhood with any people, I still don't, they just seem to have a problem with me and I don't want to cause anyone…"
"You're overtalking." Sara smiled at her friend. "It's okay, I do that sometimes too when I don't know the right thing to say. Overtalking usually just makes things worse though. Isn't that right, Grissom?"
"Indeed." Gil nodded at Greg. "Your friends know who you are. Don't worry what anyone else thinks."
"Thanks."
"Now back to this department policy." Sara snatched the form from Grissom's hand. "Is it mailing address that's critical to them or physical address?" I'm sure that didn't sound too suspicious to the genius. "Because…because I'm not sure if I changed my physical address with them when I move a couple of years ago."
"Mailing, so if you're using a P.O. Box, they won't care," Greg confirmed while suspecting something was up between the two people who supposedly weren't together. "Hey, Grissom, it's not a violation of department policy for two people who work together to live together, is it?"
Concerned the nosy genius might be catching on, Grissom calmly replied, "Only if it's a supervisor, subordinate relationship and the two people are married. So you and Nicky will be fine unless one of you becomes the other's boss, the State of Nevada amends its policy on same-sex marriage, and the two of you continue to work together in a supervisor-subordinate capacity should you opt to tie the knot." He patted Greg's shoulder. "Until then…enjoy all the perks of shacking up with a coworker." I am.
"You're in a really good mood today, Griss."
"Yes." Because your fantasy is my reality. There, I've thought it to your face, so now hopefully I can stop being twelve. "Thank you for noticing, and welcome back." Grissom strolled for the door. "I'll see you two at the meeting."
"You look noticeably upbeat today yourself." Sara came to rest in front of her friend.
"You do too, especially around Grissom, which is odd since you said he shot you down."
"I bounce back quickly."
"So, uh…are you guys gonna carpool now?"
"You're in a good mood this morning." Standing next to his buddy, Warrick threw open his locker and unbuttoned his dress shirt. "What was her name?"
"Car-ina." Nick smiled at the inside joke and thought of the laughs he had shared with Greg before coming to work that morning. Cletus…ha!
"What'd you do?"
Knowing that smart ass, he'll bring home a turkey pot pie and a twelve pack. I should borrow one of Bobby Dawson's coon dogs and have it sittin' on the couch with me tonight when...
"Yo!"
Nick glanced up. "Huh?"
"You're distracted." Warrick stepped back smiling. "This girl really got to you. Tell me about her."
"Carina? Yeah, I met her last night playin' Texas Hold 'Em at the Tangiers. Cute red head, just moved here from Fort Worth. We went back to her place and she made me fajitas." Nick sat on the bench to re-tie one of his boots. "You're gonna have to imagine how it went from there, 'cause you know I don't kiss and tell."
"You gonna see her again? Or did she have an extra long pinky toe or something else wrong with her that made you lose her phone number?" Because there was always something that sent his buddy running away from a woman without looking back.
"She had these Shih Tzus…"
"I knew it." Warrick shook his head. "Three words for ya…fear…of…commitment. I don't get it. After your abduction, it should have been you who realized life was too short and got married, not me." With 20/20 hindsight, he wished he hadn't. "This is just you and me, alright? Is it too hard to trust someone after that, or what? Because you're worse now than you ever were."
"You're right, it's a trust thing." Nick nodded, "I figured I'd wait and watch how the commitment experience worked out for you and Tina, and if it all went well, then I'd give it a shot. Sorry, man, but the jury is in and when it comes to wantin' a long-term relationship with a woman, I'm less enthusiastic than ever after watchin' you suffer."
"Is that why you asked Sanders to move in?" He had found out two days earlier. "Because you're sick of women and switchin' teams?" When his buddy shot daggers, he stopped laughing, "Don't worry, I know you asked The Hood's Most Wanted to move into that lily-white neighborhood of yours because you were worried about some brothers killin' his ass, not because you want it for yourself."
"Thanks for the benefit of the doubt, man." Nick rolled his eyes.
"Hey, I'm your friend, I know the score, but you'll be hearin' some shit about it from LVPDs not-so-finest, so be prepared." Warrick grabbed his work boots from the locker. "Oh yeah, two thirty-somethin' guys…neither one of them ever having a relationship with a woman all these years…Sanders wearin' jacked up clothes half the time and gettin' his ass kicked because he's too scared to pack heat…you sucker puchin' that punk at the scene when he riled you about Greg. Come on, Nicky. You grew up in Texas and played ball, do the math. As soon as the word's out, cops like Castorini will be humming the theme to Brokeback Mountain when they see you two approaching a scene."
"How does the Brokeback Mountain theme go exactly? Just so I can recognize it."
"You think I saw that movie?" Warrick's laughter bounced off the metal lockers.
Nick joined in laughing, "I figured Yoko made you watch it."
"Oh she tried."
"Ha!"
"Oh yeah, she brings that DVD home one night and of course, I refuse to watch it with her. She's like," he mocked her voice, "'what do you mean you won't watch it?' I'm like, what part of 'Baby, I have no desire to see two gay cowboys having sex don't you understand?' She's gets all bent and accuses me of bein' homophobic. I tell her I'm not homophobic, I work with people who are gay, I even have gay friends. I don't care what my gay friends do behind closed doors every night, that's the truth, I don't. It's noneof my business what anyone does with their significant other, I just don't want to see it in front of me, or on my TV, no more than two gay men want to sit down with a bucket of popcorn and watch a brother gettin' it on with his woman."
"What did she say to that?"
"Nothin'." Grabbing a fresh shirt, Warrick sighed, "Apparently hearing me talk about gay sex was a turn on, because she jumped my ass right there and never did end up watchin' the movie."
"That's messed up."
"Nicky! I can't believe I'm the last to know." Catherine strutted over grinning like a Cheshire cat. "Do you and Greg want a toaster or a blender?" She took the spot next to Warrick so she would have a clear view of Nick's eye roll. "How are your conservative parents taking the news of you shacking up with a liberal Californian?"
"I haven't told them yet actually." Nick stood to inspect his firearm. "Greggo was havin' problems with his landlord, and some of his neighbors were givin' him crap, that's why he had to move. So, sorry to disappoint your twisted mind, Catherine. It's as simple as he needed a place to go and I had room." His voice dropping, he said, "Just a friend helpin' out a friend in need with no strings attached. Like when you tried to save me by gettin' the ransom which, just so we're clear…I'll never forget no matter what happens the rest of our lives." No matter how much you go behind my back or piss me off. So could you please stop hinting that I have. "I'll be grateful forever. Okay?"
"Awww, lighten up, Nicky. I was joking. I know you're as red-blooded as a male comes. Hell, we go to a bar together and we're not there five minutes before you're leaving with a girl on your arm, right?" That's how I wound up drugged in a motel room, because I was abandoned by my friend because he had to get laid. She dropped a hand on his shoulder. "Honestly, I think having quirky, hyper Greg around will be good for you. You take everything way too hard these days and you can't let go of things that used to roll right off your back."
"MmmHmm." Nick shut his locker and forced a smile, "Okay, as much as I'd love to stick around and discuss what's wrong with me, I have a stack of cases to review before we meet with Grissom. I'll catch you guys later."
Once they were alone, Warrick took his co-worker by the elbow. "Pointing out that you think he's messed up and walking around like a bomb waiting to go off, isn't gonna work, especially not now when he doesn't trust you because of the Reverse Forensics garbage."
"Which part of 'I didn't have a choice' do you people not get!" she snapped, sick and tired of the issue being thrown in her face.
"Cath…"
"Don't Cath me!" Her frustration exceeding her patience, she blasted, "How can he question my loyalty when I showed up with a million in cash? How can what happened last month when I was following orders take that level of trust away? And why isn't he pissed off at Brass too?"
"Come on, you know it's not just about what happened with Keppler. It's about Sara and Ecklie and…"
"And you're all perfect? You never make mistakes? Sara's backing him up, because she's still pissed about something that happened over a year ago, that's ridiculous."
"You never did tell her you were sorry."
"You're one to talk about saying sorry."
"Is this about…"
"Don't play innocent." She postured, swinging her hair off her shoulders. "You know exactly what I'm talking about. I'm done here." She turned to leave. "Shit or get off the pot, Warrick. Your indecisiveness is making you look pathetic."
"Hey!" Shaking his head, Warrick watched her storm off, then turned to his locker. "Second woman to bite my head off today."
"Warrick?" Greg's voice called out.
"Yo."
"Hey." Greg anxiously cleared his throat and said, "It's your lucky day."
"No, it's not, trust me."
"Yeah, well, I was being sarcastic."
Warrick slammed his locker and checked his firearm. "Welcome back by the way."
"Thanks."
"So what's goin' on?"
"My biggest fan, the Under Sheriff, just ordered that you and I spend some quality time in the field today…in a specific geographic region that I'm sure you can guess, all because he thinks it will be a good PR move. He hasn't ordered us to play basketball together, but I'm sure that's coming. He's probably out getting matching jerseys printed right now. Yours will say 'I like white guys' and mine will say 'Black people are way cool. After that, he'll have us eating fried chicken and quiche together in the park on a Burberry blanket while listening to Michael Jackson's oh so poignant Black or White."
"No, no, no." Warrick holstered his gun. "What that man doesn't know…."
"Honestly, I think there's a good chance that he's hoping I won't come back alive and the whole thing will be put to rest. For all I know, he's ordered a hit and this is the ruse."
"That's not gonna happen on my shift, Greggo. No way. They'll have to take me down too." Warrick tossed his arm around the jittery man's shoulders and walked him out of the locker room. "You know why I'm gonna be your bodyguard?"
"Because my mommy is paying you?"
"No, because Nicky would kill me if I let anything happened to his significant other."
"Ah."
Fishing his keys out of his pocket, Warrick laughed, "Are you guys gonna carpool now?"
"Guess what?" Nick dangled his keys in front of Sara, who was sitting in the conference room in front of a stack of files. "Instead of meeting with Grissom, we have a possible suicide."
She jumped to her feet. "I wanna drive."
"Actually, you have to drive." He whispered, "I thought we were coverin' Tuesday, not Monday, and I didn't get home until five. My BAC is still over legal. I took a cab here."
She snatched the keys. "Why didn't your roomie drive you? Don't tell me you already had your first quarrel after only four days."
"Cute."
They walked side by side down the hall.
"I think it's good." Sara smiled as she nodded. "It's good to live with someone."
"Then why do you live alone?"
"Not me, I was referring to Greg. It's good he lives with someone, because it has to be scary living alone after getting attacked. The poor guy probably lies in bed hearing every creak and gust of wind, thinking it's someone trying to break in and grab him."
"Yeah." Nick knew the feeling all too well. "That's why I wanted to help him out. That's no way to live."
"You're such a nice guy."
"Don't spread it around." Donning his sunglasses, he opened the front door for her like the gentleman he had been raised to be. "Let's hit the Java Bean drive-thru on the way."
"Hangover special?"
"Yep. Unless you need breakfast…"
"Already ate at home."
Nick chuckled, "Since when did you start eatin' breakfast at home? You're a worse bachelor than me, Sara, you don't even buy food."
"New habit, trying to save cash."
She hopped in the truck.
"But if you need breakfast," Sara offered when Nick took a seat, "we can stop."
"No, I ate at home today too."
"Since when did you start eating breakfast at home?" she asked while driving out of the lot.
"Greg cooks, can you believe it? He says he learned because he had to spend a lot of time in kitchen with his mother."
"After meeting Jan Sanders, I'd say she probably tied him to a kitchen chair every day so he wouldn't get hurt playing in the backyard."
"You may not be far off."
"Yessss!" Greg snapped his cell shut. "Grissom's rerouting us to The Tangiers. There's a DB in the men's room. Before we left, he said he'd think of something to get us out of this BS, but I didn't think he'd kill a guy." He laughed and the knots in his stomach eased.
"You ever think Grissom has a basement full of dead bodies?"
"No, but I'm relatively certain that he has a few skeletons in his closet."
"Who doesn't, man, who doesn't?" Turning down the radio, Warrick said, "Maybe we'll run into a few angry black men at The Tangiers. Then we can do our soulful rendition of Black and White and kill two birds with one stone."
"Join in when you're ready." After a beat box intro, Greg broke into the rap chorus. "Protection, for gangs and clubs, and nations, causing grief in human relations, it's a turf war..."
"Yeah, you need to stop that."
Greg froze.
"Hey, I need to get serious for a sec…"
"I didn't mean to offend you with the song, I was kidding around. I…"
"Would you…it's not about the damn song, it's about Nick, but I can't believe you know the words to that song."
"I was a huge Michael Jackson fan as a kid. I taught myself to moonwalk. There was a talent show at school, and my mom even made me a sequin glove and…" When he saw Warrick shaking his head, Greg cleared his throat. "I'll shut up now."
"Did your mommy video tape you dancin' to MJ in the living room?"
"What didn't she video tape? First she did it the old fashioned way, but when Sony released the BetaMovie recorder in 1983, we were the first ones to have on the cul-de-sac. All because she had to document my life. Seriously, she has video tape of me sleeping. She still tapes me when I go home for visits. She has them all in the library cataloged on shelves. My dad said she's been watching them non stop since I was attacked. Her special project right now is making a tape of all my firsts…first smile, first word, first steps, the aftermath of my first wet dream, I'm shutting up now." Greg redirected, "What did you want to ask me about Nick?"
"You weren't serious about the wet dream part, right?"
"No!" At least he hoped she didn't have footage of it, because he was still traumatized from her finding the soiled sheets that morning when he was twelve and hearing her cry 'my little boy is growing up' while stripping them off the bed.
Chuckling, Warrick turned in the direction of the The Strip. "Does Nicky seem alright when he's home? This is between us by the way," he joked, "got that, Notorious G?"
"Got it."
"Do you think Nick's doin' okay? Because his fuse has become incredibly short, and he can't let go of anything, he never used to have a problem with that."
"Uh…" Watching the scenery zip by, Greg was torn between mutually worrying about Nick and betraying him. "I know what you mean. When we were working last week, the six girls murdered, he seemed one step away from explosion more than a couple of times, but yeah, we had a blast moving my stuff in and he seemed great. We drank and laughed our asses off. He was telling crazy stories like the ones that used to have us rolling at the diner. After moving, we ordered pizza and had a Farrelly brothers movie marathon. He seemed fine, but considering the amount of booze we consumed, he wouldn't have been able to be tense if he tried."
"Beavis and Butthead, huh?"
"Exactly." Greg smiled out the window. "Don't worry, I'll keep a close eye on Nick."
"I don't think this was a suicide." Sara stood staring at the words written in scarlet red lipstick on the couple's bathroom mirror. "'What comes around, goes around. Die you two-timing BASTARD!' What about you, Nick?"
"Not really, no." Walking out of the bathroom, he sighed, "Looks like another case of love gone wrong, Vegas style. And people wonder why I don't settle down and get married. Is it really a mystery after what we see day after day?"
"Aww, but you used to be the hopeful romantic of the group."
"I used to be a lot of things." Standing at the side of the bed, he shook his head at the dead man, who had a fireplace poker stuck in his chest. "What the hell was that rookie thinkin' callin' this a possible suicide? That note on the mirror and this guy stabbed in the heart."
"Maybe the rookie is a hopeful romantic."
Nick paused to ponder the statement. "How the heck is thinkin' the guy offed himself a hopeful romantic's theory?"
"Think Romeo and Juliet."
"I haven't read that since high school, but from what I recall, Juliet didn't leave a note on the bathroom mirror sayin' 'Die you two-timing bastard'."
"I mean…suicide because of a broken heart. In order for a person to want to take their own life, the love had to be strong, and if it's strong, it exists and there is hope that love exists for everyone." She spoke with Shakespearian eloquence, "Think Star-crossed lovers. Unrequited love. Isn't it better to have loved and lost than to have never loved at all?"
Snapping on his gloves, Nick sighed, "You really need a boyfriend, Sara."
She chuckled to herself. "And you really need a wife."
"You sound like my mommy and all five of my sisters." Nick laughed. "Hey, Greg's really grown up a lot, hasn't he?" He started snapping photos. "Yeah, I'm really proud of how he's handled himself with all this BS goin' on, aren't you?"
"Totally."
"Yeah." Nick continued inching into delicate territory. "And when he's not bein' serious, he's a great guy to have fun with. He had me laughin' my ass off all weekend. And I think he's a guy you can trust, don't you? I think he'd be loyal to a fault, and I don't know about you, but to me, there's nothin' more important in a relationship than trust."
"I agree." Sara stopped working to stare at her friend.
"Greg also strikes me as the kind of person who falls in love once and stays in love for life. Like my dad with my mom."
"And swans." Sara quietly asked, "Why are we talking about Greg like this, Nick?"
Walking over, he placed a hand on her shoulder, "Because maybe it's time."
"Um, time for what?"
"For you to give Greggo a shot." Smiling sweetly, he said, "The poor boy's been on your heels for years, you know he's nuts about you. What could it hurt?"
"Nick!" Her cheeks flushed. "Is that why you were singing Greg's praises? To convince me to go out with him? I don't tell you who to date, so why are you telling me?"
"I'm sorry for oversteppin' my bounds," he spoke from the heart, "I just feel bad for the guy is all and I've watched you be lonely for years. Now that Grissom's got someone, you..."
"Grissom has someone?" She feigned shock. "Who? How do you know?"
Seeing how hard the news was hitting her, Nick felt bad for letting it slip. "I don't know who it is, but I heard him talkin' on the phone with the movers the other day. Whoever it is, she's movin' in with him."
"Do you think it's Sofia?"
"No, it's not Sofia, that I know."
"Oh." Sara turned, so her smile wouldn't give her away.
"Are you okay?"
She felt bad for not being able to tell the truth, especially knowing Nick's sensitivities about deception. "I'm fine."
"Think about what I said, Sara, because it's a cold hard fact that Grissom is no longer available and..."
"What makes you think I want Grissom?"
"Sara, come on." Nick resumed snapping pictures. "Stop lyin' to yourself. Life's too short to waste it livin' a lie."
Hurrying across the casino floor with the supplies Warrick had requested he grab from the truck, Greg didn't see a cocktail waitress in his path.
"Oh!"
"OH!" Greg saw the poor girl was coated in wine. "I'm so, so sorry! Here." Setting down his stuff, he scrambled to pick up her tray. "I'm such a spazz, I'm so sorry."
"It's okay," she assured the flustered cutie wearing an LVPD jacket. "Are you here for the dead guy?"
"Yeah."
She whispered, "It's so creepy knowin' there's a dead guy in the bathroom."
"In this town, it happens more often than you think." When Greg handed over her tray he saw the red head's name tag. "Carina."
"Yeah?" the twenty-five year old smiled.
"My buddy Nick, actually he's my house mate, he just told me this morning that he met a cocktail waitress at The Tangiers by the name of Carina. Was it you?"
"Nick Stokes?"
"Yeah."
Carina's expression softened. "How long have you known him?"
"About eight years."
"You live with him?"
"Yeah, we're great buds."
Convinced the man was telling the truth, she asked, "Is he okay? I don't have his phone number. I thought about lookin' it up, but he was already so embarrassed, I didn't want to make it worse by checkin' up on him."
"Uh…"
"He was just so freaked out."
"Oh no, did it happen when he was with you too?" Greg hoped the leading statement would lead to specifics.
"Aww, is a regular thing? The poor guy. I guess if you live with him, you'd know."
"Yeah. How did it happen this time?"
"I was in the kitchen makin' fajitas and he was on the couch watchin' ESPN. Back home, my mama did all the cookin', so I'm just learnin' and I'm real slow." Dabbing her wet shirt with a cloth, she continued, "The poor guy was exhausted and fell asleep waitin' on me. That's when it happened. My dogs, I have two Shih Tzus, Minnie and Mickey, they jumped on him." Placing her hand on her chest, she asked, "What causes him to wake up screamin' and freak out like that? Is it like a Post Traumatic Stress Disorder thing from the job? Because when my cousin Bobby came home from Iraq last year he was sufferin' from that pretty bad. Y'all must see bad things like he did over there."
"Yeah."
"I kinda got a little scared at first because he was so agitated, and he was a stranger. I know, I know, it was a huge risk bringin' a stranger home, but he was so nice and I knew he was with the police department. Heck, any guy who sits through a girl showin' him family photos, has to be a sweetie, right? Anyway, I tried to talk to him about it, to tell him that it happens to my cousin, but he just said he had to go and bolted out the door."
"Uh." Thrown by the girl's story in comparison to Nick's version of events, Greg stammered, "Yeah, um…he's not much of a talker when it comes to personal stuff, even with friends, so don't feel bad."
"Here." Carina handed over her number. "You tell him to call me if he wants a rain check on those fajitas. Us Texans stick together, and like I said, I'm used to it with my cousin, so it won't scare me none now that I know what the problem is. You can tell him I'll put my dogs away when he's there just to be sure."
Greg took the paper. "Okay, but if he doesn't call, don't take it personally. When he gets embarrassed about something, it's hard to…"
"Carina!" The bar manager shouted, "Flirt on your own time!"
"Sorry, gotta go. It was nice meetin' ya!"
"Same here." Unsure of what to do with the information he had accidentally learned, Greg stuffed the paper in his pocket and resumed working.
***
Chapter 5 – Fever! In the Morning…"I think I'm coming down with something." Nick entered the kitchen massaging his temples. "I woke up with this nasty-ass headache."
Sitting at the kitchen counter working on his paper, Greg glanced up from his laptop. "Whoa, you look like death warmed over twice."
"Good morning to you too." Nick rolled his eyes. "I think a week of livin' with a smart ass has taken its toll. That and coverin' for Days every other day. TGIF, that's all I have to say. They're back on Sunday and like the Lord, we get to rest. I'm going to sleep all day too, because I feel like crap."
"Come here." Greg instinctually spoke his mother's words as he waved for his housemate to come closer, "Let's see if you're feverish." He held up the back of his hand. Oh God, I'm turning into my mother! If anyone within arms's reach of Jan Sanders mentioned the slightest ache, the maternal busybody checked their body temperature without invitation. "Sorry, you probably don't want me to..."
"No, check, 'cause my face does feel kinda flushed." Nick trudged over, his spirits as low as his sagging shoulders. "God, I hate being sick."
Greg pressed the back of his hand to his buddy's forehead.
"Gris and I spent hours at that Urgent Care on the corner of Ray and Westin the other day. Lots of germs in those urgent care places. I probably caught something gross."
Here comes the hypochondria. Greg had first learned of his co-worker's intense medical paranoia when the casual mention of biotoxin residue on evidence sent the man into a sweaty panic over his imminent death. "Any chills?"
"Now that you mention it," Nick rubbed his crossed arms, "I feel a little chilly, yeah. What'dya think? Did I feel feverish to you?"
"Maybe a low-grade fever, like 99."
"I used to have a thermometer, but I dropped it and it broke. I keep meanin' to buy a new one. Do you have one? Because I should probably find out for sure."
"I don't have one, sorry. What about your throat?" Greg continued through the Jan Sanders checklist. "Any scratchiness? Swelling?"
Nick gulped. "It's kinda sore, yeah."
"Aches and pains?"
"My legs, they're kind of achy, a little weak even." Nick dropped onto a kitchen stool. "Now that I think about it, there was this woman with a weird rash on her face at the urgent care place."
"Uh oh, what kind of rash?" Greg couldn't resist having a little fun. "It wasn't a red bumpy one with little blisters, was it?"
"Uh…" The hypochondriac cleared his throat. "I didn't get real close, but it was red, and bumpy, and I think there could have been blisters, yeah. Is that bad? What causes that kind of rash? Is it contagious?"
"Are you worried it's flesh-eating bacteria?" Greg struggled not to laugh. "Hey, did you notice if the woman had a fresh manicure and/or pedicure? Because nail salons are breeding grounds for," he copped an ominous tone, "deadly Necrotizing Fasciitis."
"I…I can't remember, I wasn't lookin' at her hands and feet, because I was so freaked out by the scary rash and I was really distracted because people were hacking up lungs all around me, but yeah, the rash was definitely red with pus bubbles, I can see it now." His panic mounting, Nick reached for the cordless phone sitting on the counter. "If it was flesh-eating bacteria, they woulda reported it to the CDC, right? Maybe I'll call them and say it's for a case. I wonder if Grissom has any symptoms? Maybe I should call him first and…"
"Relax, Cletus." Greg snatched the phone. "I was describing Chicken Pox."
"What? Why the hell did you go and make me all paranoid?"
After strategically moving out of arm's reach, the smart ass answered, "Because it's incredibly easy and fun."
"You're an asshole."
Greg kept laughing. "Have you had Chicken Pox?"
"Yes!" Nick snipped, feeling ridiculous for falling for the joke.
"Seriously, don't worry, it's probably just a run of the mill virus, there's a bunch of stuff going around." Greg moved to the fridge. "I bought some organic OJ yesterday. I'll get you a glass and a couple of Advil. If you're worse after shift, I'll make up for being a smart ass by brewing up a batch of Nana Olaf's chicken soup. She'd always say…two servings and you're on you're way back to health."
Watching his housemate pour juice, Nick shared, "My Grandma Kay made the best chicken soup. She used those really thick noodles." His mind flooded with fond memories. "Whenever one of us kids was real sick, she'd bring over a pot…yeah, I miss her, she was great. My mom is carryin' on the chicken soup tradition with her grandkids now."
"How many grandkids do your parents have?"
"Uh, two of my sisters are pregnant, so after those babies are born, it'll be up to eighteen."
"Whoa."
"Yeah, I'll be an uncle eighteen times over by Thanksgiving." He quietly said, "My brother has four and never misses an opportunity to tell me how far behind him I am."
Greg placed a glass of OJ and two Advil on the counter and reclaimed his seat.
"Thanks." After chugging half the juice, Nick asked, "Hey, is your Nana Olaf still alive? You talk about her all the time, but…"
"No." While continuing to type on the laptop, Greg shook his head, "No, she passed away when I was in my junior year at Stanford, within a month of my grandfather. They were inseparable, so it didn't come as a big surprise that one couldn't go on without the other. It was really hard on my mom, because they lived with us and she had been taking care of them, not that she minded, because my mom's a big time nurturer. Yeah, Jan's not happy unless she's nurturing someone. First she was a stay at home mom with me. Then just as I went to college, she became a stay at home daughter for her parents." Sighing, he said, "When they died, she was literally home alone for the first time ever. I mean, she still had my dad, but she didn't have anyone to dote on. My dad, he's a Structural Engineer by the way, I don't know if I ever mentioned that, he had just started his own firm the year before, so he was working really long hours. His firm specializes in retrofitting old buildings with seismic upgrades. In California there's huge money in that business and he's loaded now, but it wasn't always that way. When the firm took off, he wasn't about to risk losing money to hold my mother's hand. Not that he didn't love her, he did, he still does….hell, he'd have to or he would have been gone a loooong time ago. One day he called me at Stanford and begged me to take a semester off and stay home with her. You know, just till she got back on her feet. Since I started college a year early, it wasn't a big deal, and how was I supposed to say no, when she had just spent the last twenty years of her life taking care of me, right? That's why I did it, not because I wanted to. I mean I wanted to help, because it's hard to turn your back on a person who gave up her dreams to stay home and raise you, right? So, I couldn't say no. I mean, I could have, but it was my time to give back to her, and accepted that even though I would have rather been at Stanford with people my own age, being a normal guy, instead of my mother's babysitter."
Just as Nick was finally about to get a word in, Greg resumed talking.
"My dad bought me a car as a thank you, which was totally unnecessary, but totally cool." Typing on his laptop while mindlessly rambling, he shared, "In California, your car defines who you are, not that I knew who I was back then…not that I've figured it out all that well since either. When I couldn't decide on a car, my dad ended up surprising me. He bought me this tricked out Toyota Celica with pop up headlights, the works. It was totally rad, and I couldn't wait to drive my hot new wheels around town and impress people. I was positive the car would change everything and my social life would finally be off the hook." Rolling his eyes, he shared, "Unfortunately, my mom wanted to go everywhere with me, and it's hard to feel cool when you have your clinically depressed mother in the passenger seat. So, even though I had the wheels, I couldn't get a date. Thank God I had cable in my room and a lock on my door," he laughed.
Unable to break in verbally, Nick reached over and tapped his verbose housemate on the shoulder. "G…"
Greg stopped talking and turned to meet Nick's gaze. "Yeah?"
"When I asked if your grandmother was living, I kinda assumed it would be a yes or no answer. I hate to cut you off, really I do, but I'm not ready for work like you are. I still need to grab a shower."
"Oh." Greg flustered, "I can't believe I was rambling on like that about my mommy. Like you wanted to hear all that, like anyone would. Sorry."
"It's okay, really."
"I guess it's no surprise why I don't get second dates, huh?" Greg rolled his eyes. "Yeah, after telling that story and outing myself as a mama's boy, I usually delve into 'how I won the Science Fair seven years in a row while running the Chess Club full time'. God, I'm such a loser. You should get some earplugs to wear around here."
"I already have, man. I wear 'em whenever you're singin'." After a wink, Nick started out of the room, "Hey, if it will make you feel better, I'll bring a 12-pack home after shift and make you listen to me ramble on about my obnoxious big brother while we drink. Then we'll be even."
Relieved the awkwardness was over, Greg returned to his work on the laptop. "Sounds great to me."
"I think I'm coming down with something." Gil entered the kitchen clutching his forehead. "At first I thought it was a migraine coming on, but it's not."
Sitting at the kitchen counter using her laptop to surf Amazon, Sara flatly replied with her eyes on the screen, "That stinks."
"Yeah." Smiling, he stepped closer. "Good morning by the way."
"Oh." The bookworm pulled her gaze away from the computer. "Sorry, I was checking out this…"
"It's okay." With a smirk plastered to his face, he took a seat on the empty kitchen stool next to her. "Just for the record…back when you were focused on me and I was confused about us, I know I suggested you find other interests, but now that we're together, feel free to renew your obsession."
"Apparently your weakened condition hasn't spread to your ego." Grabbing his hand, she made up for her relationship faux-pas. "Good morning."
"I wouldn't kiss me," he said, thinking of potential germ transfer. "I could be contagious."
"Yeah, and thankfully we've had no time for sex the past seventy-two hours."
"There's something I don't want to hear too frequently."
"Me either, loverboy." Noting the bags under her man's eyes Sara realized he wasn't kidding about feeling sick. "You really do look awful."
"Is this an attempt to bring my over inflated ego down a peg, or are you serious?"
"No, you're seriously awful looking."
"I think I might have a fever actually."
"I hope not." Sara left her stool to take her plate of toast crumbs to the sink.
Gil pressed the back of his hand to his forehead just like his mother always did when she thought he looked feverish. "Hmm, could you feel my forehead and see what you think? Because I think…"
"What are you, five?" Entertained by her usually mature man's backslide into childhood, Sara burst into a hardy chuckle. "We're scientists, we don't guess, we use equipment. Go take your temperature with a thermometer."
"I don't have one."
"I do." Sara started for the bathroom. "You can use mine."
"It's not rectal, is it?" he laughed in spite of his headache.
"Yes, it is." Recalling the Bruce Eiger case, she joked from the doorway, "I thought it was about time I shared my desire to incorporate mommy-baby play into our relationship. Give me a sec to put on my nanny outfit, and I'll take your rectal temperature, Sweet Cheeks."
"On second thought, maybe you should have moved in with Greg!" Alone in the kitchen with his significant other's laptop, Gil couldn't resist taking a peek at the screen. "Hmm…"
"Relieved to find I was on Amazon and not an Infantilism forum?" Sara asked upon returning a minute later. Shaking her head, she handed over her oral thermometer to her nosy roommate. "You're busted, Snoopy."
"My curiosity knows no bounds unfortunately." Taking the thermometer he gave a penitent nod. "I'm very sorry for snooping."
"Forgiven." She returned to her stool. "You know how I can't resist crime fiction novels. I heard Nick talking about this book and I told him from the sound of it, I'd like to buy it."
"Nick reads books?" When he found himself on the receiving end of a glare, he chuckled, "Wow, I'm scoring all kinds of points with you this morning, aren't I?"
"Yeah, but not the right kind."
"How's this?" Gil shoved the thermometer in his mouth.
"Much better." Wearing a fresh smile, Sara returned to reading the screen. "What's the verdict?" she asked upon hearing the digital thermometer's beep.
"99.4."
Sara clicked to purchase the book. "Bummer."
Gil huffed, "Nick and I spent hours at that Urgent Care place on Ray and Westin the other day. It's very plausible that I could have picked up something there."
"Uh oh."
"What?"
"People might get suspicious if I get what you have, because I never get sick." Worried their relationship would be discovered, she suggested, "When we're at work tonight, why don't you make a point of accidentally sneezing near me in front of everyone. That way, if I get sick, I can say 'remember when Grissom sneezed on me?'."
"You want me to look like an ill-mannered sneezer on the off chance you might get sick in the near future? That's your best ruse, Harvard?"
Laughing at his new nickname for her, she said, "Not an ill-mannered sneeze, make it one of those sneezes that just catches you off guard so you didn't have time to politely step away." Watching him gape, she said, "Okay, fine, I'll take the hit. I'll pick up your coffee, sip it, and then I'll realize my mistake."
"But you may really get sick if you drink my coffee and I'm contagious."
"Not if you don't drink the coffee before I sip it."
"How are you theoretically going to catch my germs if I haven't sipped the coffee?"
"See! This is why the spontaneous uncontrollable sneeze plan was better."
"No, it's flawed, because if I sneeze near you, you could really catch my germs."
"This is pathetic," she laughed at herself and her co-conspirator. "People get away with murder in this town, and two well-educated Criminalists can't pull off a feigned germ transfer?"
Before Gil could reply, he forcefully sneezed.
"Did you really need to practice your sneeze?" Sara hurried to the sink to wash her arm, which was coated in droplets. "Gross."
"No, that was real." Embarrassed, he snatched a couple of napkins from the dispenser on the counter and used them to clean himself up. "I'm so sorry, that was incredibly nasty."
"I'll say!"
"I'm really sick, I wasn't pretending." Watching his significant other grimace as she disinfected her arm, he joked, "You're not much of a nurturer, are you, Honey?"
"What? Are youseriously used to being coddled after sneezing?"
"Does my mommy making me chicken soup whenever I got a cold count?" He couldn't resist one more tease. "Hey, I know you're a vegetarian, so maybe you can make me minestrone."
"Make up your mind." She laughed in his face, "First you're all anti-infantilism, but now you're longing for me to be your soup cooking mommy and spoon-feed you."
"Not spoon feed, but…."
"The only things my mommy taught me to make were cocktails and ice packs. I can mix you a top notch vodka tonic to deaden the pain, and if you…" she used air quotes, "'accidentally walk into a door and give yourself a black eye', I'll be able to make you a great compress."
Gil's laughter ceased. "I'm sorry, Honey, I didn't mean to…"
"It's okay, really." She slapped on a smile. "I'm fine. Sometimes I get defensive about family stuff without even knowing it's happening. I…um…can we just drop it?"
"Consider it dropped."
"Thank you." She started for the bedroom. "If I don't grab a shower and get ready for work, I'll be late."
"Honey…" Gil treaded carefully. "Hey, if I'm feeling up to it, how about we go out after shift?"
"Are you getting cabin fever with me already?" She couldn't believe it was happening so fast.
"No," he flashed a sweet smile. "I just thought it would be nice to go out like couples who don't live in fear of getting busted do. There's this place in Boulder City that I like and I've never seen anyone I know eating there. They have great vegetarian selections. We can sit down and talk about things we want to talk about, or we talk about the things we want the other person to know not to talk about." He scratched his head. "Do you know what I'm talking about?"
The explanation allaying her fears, Sara nodded. "Sounds great to me."
"Hey!" Catherine hurried over to Warrick, who was just closing his locker. "Sign this."
"What's this?" He took the folder she was waving. "Are you divorcing me too?"
"Huh?" Noting his blank stare, she asked, "Do you mean…"
"I didn't think I said that out loud." Exhausted from hours of arguing with Tina, he leaned against the row of lockers. "She told me to expect papers, because she's through." He shrugged. "She's said that at least once a month since we got married, but this time…I told her I'm through too." He looked to his long-time friend for empathy. "I don't know how you felt when you split with Eddie, who was an obvious asshole, but for me, even though I know Tina's a lying, unreasonable bitch, and I'm pretty sure has been screwing her Ex, I still feel like a failure. I feel like the one person I swore I'd never be…my old man. He walked out on my mom and never looked back."
While successfully masking her excitement, Catherine sympathized, "You can't compare yourself to your father. You don't have a kid in the mix, and your mother was a saint from what you've told me." Tina is a skank. "It's apples to oranges, Warrick. We all know that under the right circumstances, you're a stand up guy."
"I appreciate that." He nodded. "And if it's okay, I really don't want to talk about it anymore. At least not today, and don't tell anyone else, I'm not ready to…"
"You got it."
"Thanks." Reaching into the folder he pulled out a yellow envelope. "So, whose birthday is it?"
"It's not a birthday card, it's a…uh, it's actually a card that you probably don't want to read today."
"Now I have to." He read it, and then asked, "Enjoy the gift? What gift?"
"I bought the boys a blender."
"This'll be good, and I need a laugh." He signed his name and returned the card to the folder. "Too bad you didn't get a cake, 'cause I'm starving."
"I did!" Catherine giddily confirmed as they walked out of the locker room side by side. "It has two grooms on top. The bakery even managed to find a spiky-haired one and a dark-haired jock type."
"Let me guess…fruit filling?"
"No, chocolate," she sighed, "I was PMSing."
"Cake!" Nick reacted like one of Pavlov's dogs when he saw the string-tied pink box on the conference room table. "And a gift." He turned to his buddy. "G, it's not your birthday, is it? I know it's in the Spring, but I'm really bad at rememberin' dates."
"No, mine's May 7th."
"Right, right."
Greg plopped into a chair and put his feet up. "A gift card to Best Buy would be great, thanks."
"Duly noted." As Nick sipped his hot tea, he repeated the date in his head a few times, hoping he'd remember it. "Well, then whose birthday is it? 'Rick and Sara's are in the Fall, Griss's is the day before mine, and Cath just had hers. Wait…when's Hodges's?"
Greg matter-of-factly replied, "Sadly, they didn't have time to put his birth records in the escape pod before his planet was destroyed."
Nick choked on his tea, almost spitting it. "Don't say funny shit when I'm drinking." His curiosity getting the best of him, he attempted to peek inside the box, but it was wrapped too tightly.
"Hey!" Cath yelled at the sneak. "Where are your manners, Stokes? You have to wait for the rest of us." As Grissom, Sara and Warrick filed in with her, she stuck the card on the gift. "Take a seat everyone."
Before Sara left his side, Grissom released their agreed upon fake sneeze.
"Oh!" Sara zoomed away.
"Sorry, I'm very sorry." Grissom reached for the tissues pre-loaded in his pocket. "I'm coming down with something."
Here we go. Greg counted down. 3, 2, 1, let's hear it, Cletus.
"I'm sick too, Griss!" Nick pointed at his sniffly co-worker. "I think we caught something when we were at that friggin' Urgent Care place from hell. That place was crawling with germs, remember? Rashes, productive coughs, vomiting…frickin' small pox for all we know."
"Would you stop!" As Greg pressed the back of his hand to Nick's forehead, he informed the group, "He was obsessing about this at home too." Removing his hand, he assured his agitated buddy, "Dude, your fever is gone, so chill out."
When Sara caught her secret lover's reaction to the 'back of the hand fever check' that he had been denied from her earlier, she burst out laughing. Maybe you're the one who should have moved in with Greg.
"Stop laughin' at me, Sidle!" Nick pointed a finger. "You're a compulsive hand washer, so don't throw stones."
"I wasn't laughing at you."
"Then what were you laughin' at?"
"Yeah, Sidle?" Grissom prodded, "What's so funny?"
"If you must know," Sara stalled, "I was thinking that Greg sounded like your wife just now." She mimicked him, "'He was obsessing about this at home too'." As everyone laughed, she said to Nick, "Aren't you glad you asked?"
Seeing a perfect segue, Catherine brandished her scissors and cut the cake box string. "Surprise!" The shocked looks on her cohabitating co-workers' faces were priceless. "This is even better than I thought it would be. Which one of you wants to open the gift? And there's no cake until you do!"
Well versed in all traditions, Grissom instructed, "It's customary for the groom to read the card while the bride opens the gift."
"Am I late?" Brass rushed into the conference room.
Catherine waved him over, "Just in time."
Warrick handed the card to Nick. "I'm going to make a not-so-bold assumption here and guess that Greggy is the wife."
Nick snatched the card. "If I wasn't starvin' for that cake, I wouldn't be playin' along."
"Awww, didn't the wife make your favorite burrito this morning?" Sara needled.
"Cute." One look at the card, and the Texan tossed it. "I am not reading that out loud."
"I will!" Jim grabbed the Hallmark and read with glee, "Congratulations to the happy couple! Wishing you a lifetime full of happy memories, long on laughter, short on tears, may your love endure through the years! Nick and Greg we are thrilled for you. Enjoy the gift!"
"It's a blender. Cool!" Greg excitedly told the gift givers, "This is great, because mine just broke."
"No, no, no, don't encourage them, Sanders, they'll…" Nick sneezed uncontrollably. "Dammit! I'm tellin' ya, Griss, we got sick workin' that case."
Knowing the Texan's penchant for paranoia, Brass anxiously asked, "Hey, seriously…you guys didn't work that case at the Urgent Care last week, did you? Because I just found out there was a patient there with Bubonic Plague."
"What?" Nick jumped up from his chair. Then he saw Jim laugh. "Okay, okay, are we done with amateur comedy hour?"
"Yes, you've been very good sports." Catherine declared, "Let them eat cake."
"Just don't let Stokes blow out the candles," Jim advised. "All jokes about him being sick aside, we don't know what he's been doing at home with the missus."
As the conference room shook with laughter, Grissom's cell phone rang. "Hold it down while I take this call." He moved to the corner of the room.
"I'm keeping the gift," Greg whispered to the group. "I like smoothies and I don't have one."
Jim leaned in, "I'll buy Stokes an electric razor for his birthday, maybe that'll help get rid of the stubble."
Everyone laughed into their hands.
"I'm afraid the party's over, people." When Grissom rejoined the group, all the joy in his face and voice were gone. "Multi vehicle accident, including a school bus of junior high students on their way to a field trip. There are multiple fatalities and no one knows what happened."
"Damn." Warrick stood, ready for what he knew would be heartbreaking work. "Remember that bus crash about five years back? If it's anything like that, this is gonna be rough."
"Yeah, and that bus wasn't packed with kids." Grissom turned for the door. "Good thing we got some laughs when we had the chance, because we won't be smiling again for a while."
***
Chapter 6: Fever All Through the Night – Part 1"It's hard to believe it's been five years since that bus accident." Sitting in the passenger seat of Grissom's Denali, Sara focused on the clear blue sky as they drove on the I-15. "It seems like yesterday."
"That was a rough night." Gil remembered it all too well.
"It was Greg's first time in the field." A smile popped up on Sara's face. "He was terrified. He was also freezing to death, because in his excitement to get there and be part of the action, he forgot to grab a coat."
"After that experience, I was sure he'd be content in the lab for the rest of his life."
"Hey, were you jealous of him this morning?" Sara asked in a curious tone.
"Of Greg?" Gil laughed at the notion. "No. What made you think I was jealous?"
"Not jealous of Greg, jealous that we have to hide our relationship while Greg and Nick can say they're living together."
"Ah, I see what you're asking." He joked, "No, I'm not jealous, because I'd rather live secretly with you, than live openly with Greg, and not just because of the sexual ramifications, I think he'd be a highly irritating roomie whose music would annoy the hell out of me."
Sara savored what she knew would be the last minutes of laughter for a while.
"Technically we don't have to hide our relationship, Sara." Gil pulled the truck to the side of the road to let a slew of emergency vehicles pass. "But if we went public, aside from the teasing we'd have to endure, Ecklie would remove you from the team. That's not a price I want to pay, do you?"
"Definitely not." Sara smiled at her secret lover. "I wouldn't have minded a new blender though."
"I thought Greg's reaction to the gift was quite…" he raised a brow, "…interesting."
"I thought Nick would strangle Catherine."
"Thought or hoped?" Gil teased.
"Don't go there." Sara rolled her eyes. "I just hate how she has to be in everyone's business. If the boys were really a couple, she'd be stirring her coffee asking them who was the bottom last night."
"Honey, she's been like that since the day I met her, she's not going to change. People never do."
"You're right, she's been bugging me for details of my sex life since I arrived in Vegas." Sara eagerly shared, "The other day we were getting coffee and she was telling me how worried she was that Lindsay was sexually active. She looks up and says 'how old were you when you gave it up? Like I would share that with her, in the breakroom of all places, with Nick resting on the couch."
"How old were you?"
"How old were you?"
"Fifty." Gil winked at his lover. "Thanks for making it so special."
After laughing at the lie, Sara quietly shared, "Okay, fine, I'll go first. I was eighteen. His name was Leo. I met him in Physics 15b, Introductory Electromagnetism, but it was hardly a strong attraction." Shaking her head at the memory of her first lover, she said, "Leo was my equal in many ways…academically brilliant, socially inept, and sexually frustrated. Love didn't bring us together, mutual desperation did. Neither of us had any experience, and I do mean none, but somehow we managed to fall on top of each other and get the job done." Now she could laugh. "It was as romantic as it sounds too. Actually, I shouldn't complain, because Leo was very sweet, and lots of girls have nasty first times. After we were done, he took me out for ice cream."
"Now I'm jealous."
"Why?" Sara chuckled, "Because you didn't get to be my first? Aww."
"No, although, I certainly would have been thrilled. No, I'm jealous because my first time was a nightmare."
"Details please. How old were you?"
"Twenty two." Pulling over to let another round of emergency personnel by, he slipped into the memory. "Her name was Carol. She was in Bio 101 and I was the grad student assigned to the lab."
"So, you have a lengthy history of coming on to younger women under your supervision. Hmm."
"I guess so," he laughed lightly. "I asked her to dinner, which went reasonably well. She was pre-med, so we had plenty to talk about and by the time the meal was over, she was highly impressed with my brain."
"I know the feeling." Sara tossed a smile in Dr. Grissom's direction. "I fell head over heels during our impromptu lunch after listening to you lecture at Berkeley."
"And the only reason I kept your respect that day was because I didn't sleep with you."
"Okay, tell me the nightmare part."
"I took Carol to my place." Back on the road, he stared at the horizon and traveled back in time. "She was the first woman I had ever brought to my off campus apartment, so I was nervous, but I had watched enough movies to theoretically know how to put the moves on a lady. I managed to fake it extraordinarily well, so well, that she expected me to be good in bed."
"So, the movies you had watched…none of them were porn, huh?"
"Sara…" Gil droned, "I was a Biology grad student, it wasn't a matter of knowing where to put it, I just didn't know what to say or how to finesse it. After we finish having what I thought was amazing, mind-blowing sex, Carol says 'was this your first time or are you always that bad in bed?'"
"She did not."
"Oh yes, she did." He shivered, "Trust me, her voice and those words echo in my head to this day."
"What did she do after that?"
"Dropped my lab class. Thank God, because I really couldn't imagine tutoring her on reproduction after that night." Sighing, he added, "You know me…I don't like to be inferior at something, no, so I saved up some money, went out to the Chicken Ranch and obtained professional instruction, vowing never to be on the receiving end of such a self-esteem crushing statement ever again."
"HA!" Sara covered her mouth as her laughter built.
"Now you know where I learned my moves."
"What was her name? I'd like to send her a thank you note."
"Aurora."
"Like Sleeping Beauty."
"Yes, and at first that was awkward, because my mother had read me that story as a boy, but once Aurora started stripping I was able to separate her from the chaste princess character and leave my Oedipal concerns behind."
"Your mother read you Sleeping Beauty? But it's a princess story."
"She read me all the classic fairy tales." Reaching out, he gave Sara's hand a squeeze. "That's how I learned how to help damsels in distress."
The words resonated with Sara. "Is that what I am to you?"
"What?" The question had come out of left field.
"I get it…I shed a few tears and you swept me away to your metaphorical castle." Staring out the window, she said, "This is a great morning. First I find out that Greg kicks my ass at nurturing, and now I realize I'm your damsel in distress. It's kind of an eclectic combination, isn't it? Distressed damsels are typically vapid women with no career options other than nurturing their Prince and the babies they have together. At least I'm uniquely pathetic."
"I never said you were a damsel in distress."
"You squeezed my hand when you said 'that's how I learned to help damsels in distress'."
"I squeezed your hand because I felt close to you after sharing something very personal that I have never shared with anyone ever before."
"Then it was subconscious," Sara confirmed while lowering her head. "Considering the amount of tears I've shed in front of you…I don't blame you for thinking I'm a helpless little girl."
"Shedding tears doesn't make you weak, it makes you human." His voice softened, "Everyone cries, Sara, some people hid it, others don't." He gave her hand another squeeze. "I'm flattered that you feel safe enough with me to cry in my arms."
Glancing up, she saw they had arrived at the scene of the tragedy. "Thanks for clearing that up, because I think I may shed a few tonight."
"I think we all will."
The site of a mom sobbing over a body bag sent a shiver through her spine. "I think you're right."
"It's hard to believe it's been five years since that bus accident." Sitting in the passenger seat of Nick's Denali, Greg focused on the clear blue sky as they drove on the I-15. "It seems like yesterday."
"That was your first time in the field." Nick shook his head, "God you were greener than green that night."
"Yeah, you'll be happy to know that unlike last time, I have a warm jacket in my duffel bag, so I won't freeze my ass off when the temperature drops tonight." As his team mate sneezed furiously, Greg reached for a wad of tissues. "Here."
"Thanks, man."
"Grissom assigned me to be your note-taking lackey last time, remember?"
"Yeah, good thing he picked me too, because 'Rick would have tore you to shreds that night." After blowing his nose one more time, Nick recalled, "You kept gettin' overwhelmed and zonin' out, and you were shakin' so hard all the notes you took for me were chicken scratch."
The memory playing like a movie in his mind, Greg shared, "Yeah, I was much more Boy Blunder to your Batman than Boy Wonder. You were in superhero mode, volunteering for anything difficult or dangerous, and staying calm, cool and collected as guys were collapsing and bleeding out in front of you, while your sidekick just stood in your shadow shaking from fear and reeking of incompetence."
"Hey, it's hard to be good at something you've never done before," Nick joked, "at least that's what I tried to tell Missy Melrose in the back of my Daddy's Ford when our first time sucked."
Greg laughed before asking, "Did she buy it?"
"No."
"What happened?"
"No way, it's too pathetic."
"After I told you my mama's boy story, pathetic is relative." Greg nudged him. "Come on…a good story will take my mind off what's ahead."
"Tell anyone and you're a dead man." Nick took a second to back up the statement with a glare. "I'm serious; I've never told anyone."
"Scouts honor." Greg even made the pledge sign. "And I was an Eagle Scout, remember?"
"Hey, was your mom your den mother too?"
"What do you think?"
"Damn. Okay, yeah, you deserve a good story." Nick channeled the horrible memory. "Okay, so after a bunch of Saturday nights tryin' to make it, Missy finally gives me the green light to go for home. I'm thrilled, because my idiot big brother has been bustin' me for still bein' a virgin. He kept sayin' 'out of the seven of us kids, Nicky, I guess you're the token queer'. He lost his at fifteen, and couldn't understand why I was takin' so long to follow in his footsteps."
"How old were you?"
"Eighteen, senior year of high school. You?"
"Now remember, if my clinically depressed mother hadn't been hurting my chances at a social life it would have been much sooner, but since she was…" Greg mumbled, "Twenty two."
"Hey, there's nothin' wrong with waitin' for the right girl."
"Yeah, well…I didn't wait for the right girl. I did it with Cinderella."
"Cinderella?" Nick laughed at the name. "Seriously? Her parents named her after a Disney character."
Greg sheepishly admitted, "No, that was her professional name."
"A professional." Nick didn't mask his surprise. "A legal professional I hope."
"Totally. I inherited a bunch of cash from my grandparents, so money was no object. I went to the Bunny Ranch, rented one of their best babes for the day, and made up for some lost time. Cinderella was great," he chuckled, "she guaranteed her prince would come, or he'd get his money back."
Nick laughed himself into a coughing fit.
"It worked." Handing over a cough drop, Greg said, "Before I went to the Bunny Ranch, chicks could smell my desperation a mile away and wanted nothing to do with me. Once the desperation stench was gone, I finally got some action on my own."
"Was Cinderella worth the big bucks I'm sure she conned you out of?"
"Technically speaking she was great. I paid for the ultimate party and she made sure I got a taste of everything there was and she gave me plenty of tips to use in the future, but…" Greg shrugged, "I know this will sound very 'After School Special', but honestly, I would have preferred a real experience for my first time, even if we were both clueless and fumbling through it. I should have waited."
"You think so, huh? Okay, we'll see if you still feel that way after you hear my story."
Knowing they were only about ten minutes from the site, Greg kicked back to enjoy what would be the last minutes of levity for a while.
"So there we are in the back of my father's car and she says 'Patti and Monica went all the way with their boyfriends last night, so I want to go all the way tonight.' I am too excited to reply with words, all I do is nod my head and dive into my pocket for a condom."
"It doesn't surprise me that you were prepared."
"Yeah, my brother had been slappin' condoms in my hand since I was fourteen." Staring at the road, Nick continued down bad memory lane, "All I can think about is tellin' my brother how I popped two cherries at once, and finally getting him off my back about bein' queer. I'm so excited to get the job done, that I actually finish upon entering."
"Ha!"
"And there's Missy expectin' this great experience and I'm already done. I decide not to let on and hope that I recharge ASAP, but I was overthinkin' it, and when I overthink it…"
"Yeah," Greg empathized with a laugh. "Me too."
"Missy's like, 'I thought it would feel better', and just as she says that…the condom slips off inside her, spillin' my soldiers everywhere."
"Oh!"
"She freaks, I freak." Nick winced at the memory. "We're in a confined space, remember? During the panic, I hit my head on the ceiling, just as she knees me in the balls. As I'm keeled over tryin' to breath, she grabs my clothes and a can of the beer we were drinkin' illegally to clean her self up. I didn't bring any extra clothes and by the time she was done, my clothes and my dad's car were covered in sperm and Budweiser."
"Okay, yeah, I'm starting to feel better about my Disney experience."
Nick flashed a sarcastic smile, "I didn't get to the best part yet."
"Uh oh."
"Understandably, she was scared to death that she'd get pregnant. I was too. She was screamin' and sobbin' that our lives would be over and her daddy would kill me."
Pretending there was a shotgun in his hand, Greg pointed it at his buddy. "Don't knock up a redneck's baby girl."
"That's exactly how it woulda went down too, let me tell ya. Missy's dad was a hardcore rancher and he would have strung me up by my balls." After stopping to blow his nose, Nick finished the story, "She had me so terrified, I felt sick. When I got out of the car to puke, she took off and left me there. Naked in the middle of nowhere."
"And you were like…in Deliverance country."
"Uh huh, and when a beat up old pick up came down the road, I shit bricks that Billy Bob and his friends were gonna take me for a ride." Nick shivered, "Luckily it was this nice old man who had a similar experience with a girl named Melanie before he left for World War II. He had some coveralls in the back of his truck for me to put on and he gave me a ride to Missy's house. I saw my dad's car around the corner and drove it to the car wash." Sighing, he shared, "After a week of sweatin' buckets, Missy got her period and she never spoke to me again."
"That's a great story." Greg smiled at his buddy before returning his gaze to the passenger window, "I'd trade Cinderella for that in a heartbeat, because as bad as it was, at least was real."
"I guess you could look at it that way," Nick shrugged. "How the hell did we get on this topic anyway?"
"We were discussing how pathetic my first field experience was."
"Right." Nick popped another cough drop in his mouth. "Five years ago you were Boy Blunder, but now you're a superhero. Yeah, you earned your cape the second you put your own safety aside and took action to save a guy's life."
"I have to tell you, I'm not really feeling the superhero vibe." Greg shook his head. "Mayor Gordon of Gotham City never paid The Riddler's family 2.5 mil because of Batman's actions, did he? No, the only thing the Sheriff of Clark County wants me wearing around town is a cloak of invisibility."
The distinct sound of helicopters startled them both.
"Evac choppers." Greg abruptly changed the subject and his tone, "It's such a gorgeous day. Doesn't that seem wrong for a tragedy?"
"Yeah," Nick somberly replied, following his buddy's redirect. "Those kids were probably sittin' on that bus psyched that they got such a beautiful day for their field trip, happy that they weren't going to be wastin' it in class. I lived for field trip days when I was in school, didn't you?"
"Yes and no."
Nick waited for an explanation, and when it didn't come, he prodded, "Aren't you gonna tell me why?" He pulled the truck off to the side to let a battalion of fire trucks pass.
"Sorry, I thought it was supposed to be a yes or no answer, like the grandmother question this morning."
"If you answered 'yes' or 'no', but you answered 'yes and no', so that requires explanation. Actually, 'no' would have required an explanation too, because everyone loved field trip days and I wouldn't have understood a 'no' answer either."
"Okay, here's my expanded answer." After a quick breath in and out, Greg said, "Yes, I loved field trips, because it was fun going some place cool and not being in class. No, I hated field trips, because from kindergarten through senior year, my mother was a chaperone on every field trip, and she insisted on sitting next to me on the bus every time, which was totally humiliating."
"Seriously? She didn't sit with another mom?" With the four trucks and two ambulances on their way, Nick resumed driving. "That's what my mom always did. I mean, she didn't get to come to many because of her career, but she came to a few over the years."
"Sometimes, we didn't even ride the bus. If the bus driver looked too old, or too shady, or the route to the place was too dangerous in her opinion, I had to ride in my mom's car with her and meet the rest of the class there."
"Why?"
With the horrific accident scene in full view, Greg gulped, "She was scared to death the bus would crash and I'd be killed."
His stomach twisting at the site of six mangled vehicles, including two mini-vans, Nick asked, "Where's the school bus?"
"There." Greg pointed. "There's a break in the safety rail, I think the bus went over the edge." Blood draining from his face as emergency personnel raced by with a supply of black body bags, Greg said, "I think we're looking at my mother's worst nightmare."
Watching a woman sobbing uncontrollably over a body bag, Nick gulped, "I think you're right."
After feverishly working for ten grueling hours to rescue and treat victims, and clear the accident site of hazards, Fire Chief Rich Swanson declared the mountain pass road safe for re-opening. "Grissom! Are you all set?"
"Give us five minutes to get our trucks out of here, Chief!" Normally Grissom would have liked to keep the scene closed, but since I-15 was the main artery between Vegas and California, it was an unavoidable necessity.
Because of the time pressure to open the road, Grissom had to ask all of the CSIs and associated personnel on the scene to work nonstop to secure all evidence and photographs needed from the interstate. The six cars involved in the accident, as well as the bus wreckage, had been successfully removed and were en route to the lab. "So we all know the plan, right?"
"Can we talk about this for a second?" Standing in the middle of the team, Catherine announced, "I really think Nicky should head back with you and me, Gil."
"Hey!" Nick huffed from ten feet away. "Couldya stop talkin' about me like I'm not here. Griss asked me what I wanted to do and I said I wanted to stay here. I have a frickin' cold, I'm not dyin'."
After checking to make sure there weren't any cops nearby, she quietly explained, "This isn't about your cold, I'm concerned because..."
"Why are you still…" Even after a deep breath, Nick heatedly replied, "A fourteen year old boy died in my arms this morning." He pointed to Sara. "The same thing happened to you last week with that dancer, so back me up here. Tell Catherine it's normal to get upset when you watch someone's lights go out as you hold them. And since it's normal, and since it isn't the first time I've shed tears over a dead kid's body on the job, I don't see why you suddenly think I'm an incapable nutcase who should be removed from the field." Pressing his palm to his chest, he admitted, "I grew up with six overly emotional women, and I blame them for teachin' me to cry when I'm upset, but there's nothin' I can do about it. I wear my heart on my sleeve, and y'all should know that by now. Okay? There's nothin' wrong with me, so please, for the last time…get off my back!"
"Hey!" Warrick scolded his long-time friend, "Don't yell at her, man, she's just worried about you. We all are. You didn't just shed a few tears, you completely lost it. You were out of your head. Aside from that, it's obvious that you're burnin' up from a fever and you're tired. Sorry, I agree with Cath, you should go. And this is twice you've been emotionally unstable in the field around me, first punchin' that punk and now this. That's a problem."
"I disagree," Sara chimed in. "If that punk had tweaked me when I was scraping up a piece of Greg's scalp, I would have kicked him in the nuts, and I know exactly how Nick felt when that boy took his last breath, I understand why he flipped out, but just like I did last week, after purging the emotions, he pulled it together." Nodding at her friend under fire, she confirmed, "I have no problem with CSI Stokes being in charge of this field operation after Grissom leaves."
Staring at Nick, Catherine snarked, "Hey, be happy we're talking about you in front of you, because take my word for it…being on the receiving end of a private mutiny is far more humiliating."
Sara didn't miss a beat, "But not quite as bad as being suspended by Ecklie because one of your team mates got her feelings hurt hearing the truth."
"Stop!" Greg yelled, surprising himself. "Everybody, just stop! We haven't had a break for ten hours, and I know we're exhausted and punchy, but…we're like standing in a graveyard for fourteen dead kids arguing about stupid stuff. It's…it's disrespectful. There's a time and a place and this is neither." When he saw everyone staring at him, he anxiously cleared his throat. "And that's all I have to say about that…yeah."
Grissom patted the youngest and currently wisest team member's shoulder. "I think we'll leave it at that. Catherine and Warrick, we need to get going before the road opens. Sara and Nick...Greg is in charge of this field operation, he'll tell you what to do next. I'll be in touch."
"W…what?" Greg chased after the boss. "In charge? Me? How high is your fever, Griss? I've never been in charge of a scene ever."
"There's a first time for everything, Greg. So stop the quivering virgin act and get on with it."
"It's not an act!"
Grissom dangled his keys. "I'm out of here, the road is opening."
"Griss!" Greg stood at the bottom of the hillside, watching his mentor pull himself up with the rope placed there. "Seriously! Why me?"
"Why did Willy Wonka choose an honest child to run his chocolate factory?" Once at the top, Grissom waved to the terrified CSI in charge and quoted from the beloved book his mother had given to him on his 9th birthday, "I'm an old man. I can't go on forever. So who is going to run the factory when I get too old to do it myself? Someone has to keep it going, if only for the sake of the Oompa Loompas."
"What are you smoking?" Greg screamed while holding his head.
"Charlie Bucket…this is a golden opportunity to impress me."
"Oh."
As Grissom walked away he gave one more push, "Remember…even though Charlie was the last kid picked and the unlikely star of the five, he ended up with the keys to the factory when Wonka retired."
"Right." The reluctant leader took a cleansing breath. "Thank you!"
***
Chapter 7: Fever All Through the Night – Part 2"I think Dad's pissed at his kids," Nick told Sara as they watched Greg return from his chat with Grissom. "Seriously, that's just how my father acted when all of us kids bickered."
Sara pushed beyond the squicky father-figure imagery and replied as though she weren't shacking up with 'Daddy', "Yeah, except for the baby of the family. He's the golden child."
"Can you believe he put me in charge?" Greg asked his teammates.
"No," they replied through smiles.
"Clearly the fever has affected Griss's judgment." Nick dropped a hand on his buddy's shoulder, giving it a supportive squeeze. "But what the boss says goes, so we'll make the best of it, and don't worry…if you start screwin' up bad, we'll tell ya." He winked. "Maybe."
"Thanks."
Nick pointed to the techs. "You've got an impatient bunch of CSI wannabes standin' over there dyin' for more field experience on their records. They're all wonderin' what to make of Grissom leavin' the scene. You better round 'em up and give them somethin' to do, or they'll start guessin' what they should do next, and you don't want that, trust me."
"Right. Thanks." Greg took off for the group that had eagerly arrived in the field when the call for all Crims with field experience was sent earlier. "Officers!" He waved for the three cops sipping coffee at the relief station to join them for an impromptu meeting. "If you could come over here too, thanks."
"This should be good," Sara whispered, feeling nervous about her pseudo brother's first foray into field leadership.
"Whatever happens, just let him work through it," Nick advised, "the last thing he needs with all that's happened lately is for one of us to rescue him. It's better for him to look clueless in front of everyone than weak."
Sara flirtatiously joked, "You're cute when you're protective, Stokes."
"I get it, Sidle." He returned the teased, "Now that Griss is shackin' up with someone, you're gonna flirt with me full-time. Okay, okay, since Catherine and Sofia have backed off, I can work you in."
"Pfft. Like you could handle a real woman."
"On second thought, I'm too young for you. You like 'em fluffy, gray, and in need of reading glasses."
Mmm, yes I do. "Stop talking, Stokes." She pointed to their teammate gathering the group. "I want to hear Greg's cherry pop."
"Okay, um..." When Greg's voice cracked, the reluctant leader cleared his throat. "Everyone! If I could have your attention! Thanks." With thirteen people staring him down, he anxiously forged on. "Grissom returned to the lab to take the lead there and has left me in charge of this scene."
Snickers and whispers immediately followed the daft statement.
"Why isn't Stokes in charge?" Carl Sanchez, a Trace Tech jonesing for a field position inquired. "He has seniority, doesn't he?"
"He's um..." Greg searched for a good answer, and when one didn't materialize, he said, "Grissom picked me, and no one argues with Grissom or his decisions, not me, not Stokes, not you. Now that we have that cleared up, here's what we're going to do…"
Standing next to Sara, Nick smacked his lips to make a pop.
"And it was relatively painless," she whispered in reply.
With his confidence building, Greg directed, "While Nick, Sara and I continue roping off grid sections, I want you to divide into teams of two and process the sections we've already established sweeping from the right to the left. Upon completion of a section, I want you to place all your properly photographed, bagged, and labeled evidence into a truck before moving on to another next section. While I know this sounds like grunt work, it's not. We never know what will help us solve a case. So take the assignment seriously, every piece of debris matters. With the drivers of three vehicles deceased, and the other two in critical condition, we have no witnesses to help us out. The evidence will tell the story, and I thank you in advance for your hard work. Any questions?" He glanced behind him and when he saw Nick and Sara holding their thumbs up, he relaxed.
"I have a question." Crumbling an empty Styrofoam coffee cup, Officer Damon Tufts grumbled, "Did you just want a bigger audience for your pep rally or what? Why did you call us off our break?"
"Sorry, I was just getting to that." Greg pointed to the top of the hill. "With the road open, people are slowing down and I noticed a few are parking and getting out of their cars. Could you extend the tape and put some extra guys up there. We're done with the road, but anything beyond the safety rail is still part of an active crime scene. Thanks."
"Yeah, we'll get right on that, boss man." Walking away with his partner, Officer Jamar Watson muttered, "Cracka has a rep for runnin' a brother down with his truck when he doesn't get his way, so we better..."
"Hey!" Nick snarled at the cops. "I heard that."
"Heard what, Stokes?"
Nick blasted the tenured officer, "Doesn't get his way? You knowthat wasn't the score. He was stopping a murder."
Sara grabbed her friend's arm. "I thought we weren't going to rescue Greg?"
"Yeah, I can handle this." Still smarting from the comment, Greg warily approached the officer. "Is there a problem? If you have a problem with me or my request, I'd prefer you tell me to my face, so we can resolve it. Do you…have a problem with me?"
"Do I have a problem with you?" Deciding the confrontation wasn't worth it, he backed off. "Nah, it was just a bad joke that I didn't intend for you to hear. Okay?" When the CSI nodded, Watson walked away. "If you need anything else, you just let us know, boss man."
When Greg saw the Techs gaping he shooed them off. "If you guys want field credit, you better get to work."
As the Techs scurried, Sara dropped her arm onto Greg's shoulders. "Nice job. Very authoritative."
"Really?" Greg glanced around to see if the cops gone. "I was too busy trying not to soil my underwear to notice. I can't believe Watson said that."
"I can," Nick slapped his buddy on the back. "That guy's an ass, always has been. It's not a racial thing either, Watson and Rick came to blows a few months back, when the idiot talked smack about Yoko. You did good, Greggo. I'm proud of you."
"Thanks." Greg gushed from the validation. "That means a lot."
"Frog and Toad." A grin exploded on Sara's face.
"Frog and T..." Nick fell into a coughing fit before finishing his sentence.
"That's who you two remind me of." She explained, "Frog and Toad Are Friends, it's a children's book. It was one of my favorites as a kid." Her first foster mother, Mrs. Sweeney, had a copy and would read it at bedtime using cute voices for the characters.
"What's with people comparing me to children's book characters today?" Greg remarked while handing Nick a cough drop. "Grissom called me Charlie Bucket."
"Yeah, but who listens to Grissom?" Sara smiled at the inside joke. "Trust me, Frog and Toad fits you two perfectly." She handed over a coil of rope. "Let's go."
"I think Dad's pissed at his kids," Catherine whispered to Warrick when they received the cold shoulder from Grissom upon returning to the lab.
"I don't blame him. We sounded like a bunch of five year olds arguing on the playground."
"Except for Charlie Bucket." Catherine rolled her eyes. "I love Greg, everyone loves Greg, but come on…the idea of him being Grissom's replacement one day is laughable."
"Griss loves throwin' out that retirement BS. We all know he'll be here until the day he dies." Warrick led the way into the locker room. "He uses it for motivation. He pulled the same thing on me, remember? He was breezing out of the office with a jar of roaches to go to some conference and decided to put me in charge even though Nick had seniority and Sara was dyin' to boss people around. I didn't want to run the show. I told him I didn't, but he didn't care. I ended up having to deal with Ellie Brass. That was a nightmare."
"Remember in school, how teachers loved to call on the students not raising their hands?"
"Exactly." Warrick flipped open his locker. "Hey, I'm gonna grab a shower before I start processing the bus."
Catherine pulled a towel from her locker and joked, "I'll scrub your back if you scrub mine."
"Watch it!" Sara pointed to the darkness beyond the plateau. "Greg, you almost went over the edge when you were walking backwards."
"Whoa." He hadn't noticed how close he was. "Thanks for the heads up."
"You can't fall into that ravine, because Nick's too sick to play hero and I'm not in the mood. Where is Nick anyway?"
"As his field boss, I ordered him to take a power nap in the Denali. He was burning up." Greg smiled, "Don't tell Warrick and Catherine though. That was the only way he'd agreed to get some rest, if I promised not to tell."
"What is going on with him and Catherine?"
"I have no idea." But the not knowing was driving him crazy.
"You're a good nurturer." Sara slammed another pole into the ground and tied off the rope. "Temperature checks, tissues, a cough drop from your pocket…getting the baby to nap. You're a natural."
"Really?" He shrugged. "I don't even know I'm doing it. All those years of hardcore smothering rubbed off on me I guess."
"Did you mean mothering? You said smothering."
"No, smothering is exactly what I meant. I…" Greg whipped around. "Did you hear that?"
"What?"
"It sounded like an animal." He walked to the edge with his flashlight
"There are all kind of animals out here, including mountain lions." Sara pulled her gun. "Just in case."
"I really hope it doesn't come to that," he droned, "Then I'll have animal rights activist screaming at me and taking me to court."
"I promise to take the heat." They were five hundred yards away from the nearest person. "Careful."
"Shhh. I heard it again." Greg crouched at the edge and moved the flashlight's beam into the ravine. "Sara!" He jumped to his feet.
"What?" She readied her pistol.
"There's something reflecting in the beam." He rushed to wheel one of the portable lights to the edge. "And the noise…it sounds like crying."
"Hold up! You're stuck." Sara hurried to untangle the cord coming from the generator. "Okay, now you've got some slack."
When he aimed the spotlight over the edge, he saw it. "Sara! There's a car down there. It's covered with by brush, but…"
"What?" She ran to the edge. "Oh my God. It fell though the trees."
"Shh!"
"I heard it that time. There's somebody down there." She dropped to her knees. "If you can hear us and can speak, say yes!"
They both heard the word cried out loud and clear along with the words 'help', 'bleeding', and 'hurry'."
"We never looked down here," Greg raced to tie off a length of rope to one of the generators. "That's why we didn't see it before. No one said there was another car unaccounted for in the caravan."
"Hang on!" Sara shouted in return. "Tell me your name and age!"
"J…Jenni…fourteen."
"She must have been unconscious until now," Sara turned to see Greg looping rope around his waist. "We should wait. Let me radio."
"It's not that far." He hurried to the edge.
"Really, let me get…"
"Radio for an evac chopper, grab a first aid kit and get some guys down here." When he saw the concern on his friend's face he assured, "Don't worry, I had to learn how to repel for a scout badge, I'll be fine." When she still look unconvinced, he said, "Sara…she's fourteen and terrified. Would you want to be down there alone in the dark a second longer than you have to be? If Nick were here, raging fever or not, he'd be down there already, right? I can do it. Have some faith."
"Go for it." Sara pulled her radio. "But be careful!" she shouted over the edge. "I don't want to have to deal with your mother if you get hurt again!"
"Grissom," Gil answered his cell while slowly walking around the mangled bus positioned in the garage. "They dispatched an EVAC chopper to the scene?" He stopped. "Did someone get hurt?" His pulse notched. "Who?" When he heard it was an additional victim from the accident and not Sara, he began breathing again. "Thank you for the update. I'll call my guys and get the rest of the details."
After the call ended, he took a steadying breath and realized he was a little deeper in love than he thought. What if she had been hurt or killed just now….before he ever had the chance to tell her. I have to tell her. He shook his head in a show of conviction. I will tell her.
Soon. He punched in Sara's speed dial code. But not yet.
"Jenni…" Greg shined his flashlight into the car and gasped when he saw an obviously dead middle-aged woman in the driver's seat. "Jenni!"
"Here."
Determining the pained voice was coming from outside the vehicle, Greg ran the flashlight's beam through the rugged landscape. "There you are." The terrified girl was curled in a ball between some desert brush. "Jenni, I'm Greg, I'm with the LVPD Crime Lab." He rushed to hold her hand. "We're going to have to wait until the EMTs get here with a backboard to move you, so just stay like you are, don't move." He quickly checked for bleeding. "You have some dried blood on your head, you definitely smacked it on something, that's probably why you were out for so long. Lots of cuts and scrapes, but I don't see any active bleeding, that's good. Where does it hurt?"
"Head…arms and hands…I…I can't feel my legs." A fresh tear trail cut through the dirt on her cheeks. "I'm paralyzed."
"Try not worry. Injuries tend to seem much worse than they are when they first happen. I was seriously hurt about six months ago, much worse than you from the looks of things. I couldn't see and I couldn't move, I thought for sure I was going to be in a wheelchair for the rest of my life, but once the doctors put me back together, I was fine. Between the shock, broken bones, and swelling, your body gets really stiff, that's why it can seem like paralysis. So stay positive, okay?" He stood to push back the bushes around her.
"Don't go," the girl whimpered, while weakly grasping the man's hand.
"Are you kidding? After I came all the way down here to see you, you think I'd leave? No way." He brushed her bloody, matted blonde hair. "I'm not going anywhere, I promise. I was just moving that jagged bush off you." He placed the flashlight on the ground so it would illuminate his face.
"I'm thirsty," she smacked her parched lips.
"I'm sure you are, you've been down here for about twelve hours." He tenderly stroked her hair. "I'm really sorry, but I can't give anything to drink in case you have internal injuries. But hey…" He reached into his coverall pocket. "I have chap stick, that'll help a little. It's never been used, so don't worry about germs." He popped off the top. "I don't want you to move, so may I?"
"Y...yes."
"I'm not really good at good at doing someone else's makeup," he joked, hoping it would help her relax, "so this will probably feel a little messy." When the girl smiled for a split second, he burst into a grin. "I see your t-shirt says Greenfield Science Club."
"I'm President."
"You should know, you're looking at a big time Chem Nerd right here. Bachelors and Masters, even thinking about going for my Ph.D. What's your favorite science?"
"Ph…physics," she answered through quivering lips.
"You're freezing. Of course you are, you're in shorts and a t-shirt and I'm bundled up." He yanked off his jacket. "Sorry, I should have done this first." He placed the jacket over her, gently tucking it around her. "Like I said, I'm a Chem Nerd, so I've spent most of my free time in labs, not on dates. Consequently I'm not very smooth with the ladies. Now, if my buddy Nick had come down here, he would have had his jacket around you before he introduced himself. I've seen the 'gentleman gives his coat to the shivering girl' move in movies a billion times too, duh, I can't believe I did that."
The warmth of the jacket soothing her, she relaxed slightly. "It's okay…you're really nice. Thank you for not talking to me like a…kid."
"You're welcome." Next he yanked off his sweater, revealing his vintage Smiths's 'The Queen is Dead' tee. "Let me put this over your feet, it'll warm them up." As he draped the sweater he remarked, "So, Physics, huh? In Junior High? That's a little ahead of the curve, you must be really smart."
"Top student," she proudly whispered.
"Cool! I'm honored to be helping out a fellow brainiac." He continued to stroke her hair and squeeze her hand. "My friend Sara, you'll meet her real soon, she has her degrees in Physics. She went to Berkeley, which she believes makes her my intellectual superior." He rolled his eyes. "I'm a Stanford man myself."
"You look…really familiar. Are you on TV?"
"Yeah, a lot of people ask me that lately," he sighed, "Do you watch the local news? I'm sure you must if you're a top student. I've been on the news a bunch of times regarding the Demetrius James…"
"Yes," she quietly replied, "that's it. Honors Social Studies…we debated…the payout and your actions."
"Seriously?" Greg couldn't believe it. "I'm a classroom current event and debate topic?" It never dawned on him that he would be, but now that he thought about it, in high school, his class had done the same thing after the Rodney King beating. "How did I fair?" he asked with trepidation. "What was the verdict?"
"Not guilty, no money."
Smiling, he said, "When you get back to school, tell your classmates thank you for me." Suddenly he remembered that fourteen of the girl's Science Club friends were dead and others were in the hospital injured and even fighting for their lives. "Do you remember how you got here, Jenni? How you got hurt?"
"No."
"That happens too, the brain doesn't want us to remember the trauma, so it blocks it."
"I…I was late for school…for the bus. My mom…had to drive me. We…" Her vocal cords desperate for liquid, she rasped, "She was honking at the bus. I…I can't remember after that."
Greg reflexively glanced at the crushed car behind him, realizing the teen's mother was dead. "Let's not worry about that right now. Let's talk science instead." Choking up on the girl's behalf he squeezed her hand with both of his. "It's not often I find a girl who speaks geek."
"Hey! Greggo!" Nick shouted from above. "Sara filled me in, are you okay? I'll grab some rope and get down there."
"I've got it under control until the EMTs come." Greg joked with the girl, "See, I told you he's a ladies man. He's afraid I'm going to be the hero and get the girl for a change, so he's trying to barge in. We don't need him though, right? We're doing okay."
"Uh huh." In spite of the jacket's warmth, the girl shivered. "Cold."
Turning his eyes upward again, Greg yelled, "We could use some emergency blankets!"
"I'm on it!" Nick replied. "The chopper is about five minutes out. I'll be right back!"
"My mom," Jenni weakly asked as exhaustion overcame her once more, "is she hurt too?"
"I don't know," Greg lied, feeling it was the right thing to do to keep the girl calm and still. "All I know is that I showed up to the process the scene and I found you."
Growing weary, Jenni shut her eyes and spoke in a dreamy whisper, "I hope my friends had fun on the field trip."
"Eyes open, Jenni!" he panicked. "You have to stay awake."
"Shh."
"Sorry, you're not allowed to sleep when you have a head injury. That's what they told me when I was on the pavement after the beating. Gotta stay awake." He vigorously rubbed her hand, hoping it would keep her roused. "Let's see how well you know your periodic table. Give me copper."
"Copper," she mumbled, "CU."
"Good. What about sodium?"
"N…" she drifted.
"Sodium, Jenni!" He got lower, to be eye to eye. "Look at me, right here. Tell me sodium."
"NA."
"Good. Real good." Sara and Nick already had people die on them this week, you are not going to die on me. "Hang with me, Jenni. Tell me gold."
"Hey you!" Seeing Warrick appear on the opposite side of the crumpled bus, Catherine decided to take her mind off the blood soaked interior by chatting, "I'm going to buy a Wonka bar and put a gold piece of foil in it before giving it to Greg. I'll write congratulations on surviving your first field leadership experience, Charlie Bucket."
Warrick winced at the sight of a pink backpack amidst the gore. "Let's wait and see if Sanders survives the challenge."
"How could he fail with Nick attached to his hip?" Inspecting what was left of the driver's area, she asked, "Were you at all surprised at how happy Greg was when he opened that blender this morning?"
Sensing that the mother of a teenager was trying not to dwell on the fact that her daughter rides a school bus and could have died that day, he indulged her need for mindless banter. "You heard him. He likes smoothies."
"I was referring to the way he was gushing like an excited bride and not minding the razzing about being Nick's 'girl'."
"Cath, please promise me you're not going to corner Nick and tell him not to worry, that you'll still love him if he's gay and banging Greg." Warrick shook his head while readying his camera. "Because that will be the straw that breaks his back, I assure you. And I won't defend you if you do, because it's sick and rude."
"I won't, I promise." She continued snapping photos and blocking the knowledge that she was looking at the bus driver's brain spatter. "But if Greg shows up for work proudly sporting one of Nick's priceless A&M sweatshirts, that he wouldn't let me wear when I was freezing my ass off in Blue Diamond one night," she chuckled, "all bets are off."
"It'll be a cold day in hell before he'd let that happen, so I'm not worried." He crouched down to inspect a blood covered baseball, considering it an odd find on a bus full of science nerds on a field trip to study G-forces by riding the Desperado roller coaster.
"Aww, you know you love my sense of humor."
Bagging the baseball that could have distracted the driver if had been thrown up front, Warrick said, "Trust me, I've been out carousing with Nicky enough to know he's a ladies man and not the least bit interested in Greg's ass."
"No more than Grissom's interested in Sara's ass anyway."
"Sara…" In the privacy of his office, Gil spoke freely, or at least as much as his prior relationship baggage would allow. "I got a call about an evac chopper being dispatched to your scene and I…I…"
"You what?"
Her loving lilt put an unexpected smile on Gil's face. "I grew concerned, very concerned. I wanted to call to say…" He wanted to say the three little words, but couldn't get beyond the fear associated with the admission. "I wanted to say it's a relief to hear your voice, to know you're well. I can't wait to hold you later. That's all." He hoped it was enough.
"I think I know what you're saying," she sweetly replied. "I feel the same way too. You sound awful, are you feeling any better? How's your fever? Nick's burning up."
Ignoring the rapid-fire questions, he stammered, "Sara, I…I…"
"Sorry, Greg is calling me and you know I have a hard time saying 'no' to the boss."
After the click, Gil's lips fanned into a glorious smile. "I called to say I love you, Sara." He slipped the phone into his pocket. That was much easier than I imagined.
Over the roar of the evac chopper's blades, Greg directed Sara, "They have room for one of us, and I want you to go with her. So far, she's the only victim conscious enough to give us a clue. She remembers her mother speeding to catch the bus, that's an excellent start."
"You bonded with her, not me," Sara protested, dreading the idea of holding a dying girl's hand again. "You need to go."
"No," Greg stuck to his plan. "I'm in charge of the scene. I told her all about you. She loves physics, start there and build her trust, she's really sweet."
"I don't want to." Sara let her vulnerability show.
"She's not gonna die."
"And you know that how exactly?" If Grissom were here, she would be able to get out of it.
"Because there's been enough death today. Come on, they're just about ready to go." Greg stepped back so Sara would have a clear path to the chopper. "Grandpa Olaf always said…if you fall off a yak, you have to get right back on and ride."
"A yak?"
"It might have been something else, but I'm not completely fluent in Norwegian." His decision made, the boss man walked off. "Give her a hug for me!"
"I'm not a hugger!" she yelled after him. "Everyone knows that! You're the nurturer!"
"Yeah, but I'm already looking after Toad, remember?"
Her anxiety growing with every step toward the chopper, Sara hoped for a happier ending this time.
"You made Sara do what, Greg?" Grissom barked into his cell phone. Stepping back from the autopsy table, he blasted his ex-protégé. "She's still disturbed from that dancer dying in her arms, and you set her up for a reprise!"
"No, I set her up for a victory, Griss."
"You have no idea what the extent of that girl's injuries are. She could be bleeding internally and die on the evac ride."
"You sent me into the field solo on my first day back after the beating, I was emulating your supervisory style. I'm a sponge remember? Sorry, but I really thought it was the Grissom thing to do."
Dropping his head in his shaky hand, Gil wished he could say 'There's a lot you don't know about Sara Sidle, Greg. She's already watched one too many people die before her eyes', but he couldn't. "Your logic is perfect, let's hope your psychic ability regarding the little girl's outcome is just as sound. If not…I have to go." He snapped the phone shut. "Doc, I need to run out to University Medical Center." If the girl died en route, Sara would be a wreck.
"Duty calls, huh?"
"Something like that." Gil tossed his gloves while plotting the quickest route to the hospital.
"Look at you." Doc was taken aback by the normally stoic man's flustered appearance. "You're a wreck."
"I'll be in touch!" His heart racing, Gil hurried out of the morgue. I am a wreck, an emotional one. Dammit! This is what I get for letting her move in with me.
"I didn't do this five years ago when you were freezing your ass off, because you were a lowly plebe and unworthy, but a lot has changed, so here." Nick tossed a his heavy A&M sweatshirt at Greg. "It was in the back of my truck. Sorry, it's not washed. Probably smells like me after working ten cases, but oh well…beggars can't be choosers, and you should feel honored, because I never dole out my Aggiewear."
Chilled to the bone, Greg couldn't pull the garment on fast enough. "I don't have a problem with the smell." Instantly warmed by the feel of the soft cotton against his goose-pimpled flesh, he breathed easy. "It's perfect." He gave a quick nod. "Thanks."
The sight of his housemate in his prized alum sweatshirt made Nick dizzier than his flu-induced fever.
When Greg noticed the funny look he was getting, he glanced down at his appearance asking, "What?"
"Nothin'." Nick shook off the awkwardness. "This just feels a little weird…sacrilegious even." He pointed to the shirt. "A Stanford boy like you in my maroon, but…as long as none of my old school friends find out, I won't be killed, I'll just burn in hell for lettin' you wear it."
"Oh! I get it." After the drama of Jenni's rescue, Greg needed a laugh. "In Aggieland terms, this would mean we're hooked up, hence the sacrilege and the Bible Belt mandated trip to the eternal hellfire."
"I wasn't thinkin' of it that way, but now that you mention it, you better give it back and freeze."
"Fat chance!" Greg hurried away laughing. "I finally have something that's worth as much to you as my Plasma TV! I'm keeping it as collateral!"
"What?" With his hands firmly planted on his hips, Nick stood in the middle of the desert shaking his head. Tonight he steals my favorite sweatshirt, what's it gonna be tomorrow? Dammit! This is what I get for letting him move in with me.
***
Next part of Where You Are.
- Main CSI page
- The new stories
- Gil/Greg stories
- Gil/Nick stories
- Gil/Warrick stories
- Nick/Greg stories
- Nick/Warrick stories
- Greg/Warrick stories
- Nick/Bobby stories
- Jim Brass stories
- David Hodges stories
- CSI: New York stories
- CSI: Miami stories
- All f/f stories
- Other pairings & threesomes
- Gen CSI stories
- C.S.I. Crime Scene Investigation: The Complete Ninth Season
