DISCLAIMER: Not mine. I promise I'm only borrowing them and will return them to their rightful owners whenever they ask for them back. My imagination took a flight of fancy.....my bank account stayed empty. (Seriously, the cast of CSI belong to CBS and Jerry Bruckheimer and Alliance Atlantis and I'm only borrowing them for some free daydreaming that I wrote down).
SPOILERS: None specifically, although good knowledge of what happens in general is required. There will be the occasional reference to a case seen on the show, with any eps up to the end of Season 3 regarded as fair game. It is from this point that the AU occurs, although back story from the show (such as Nesting Dolls in s5 most obviously) will be incorporated where relevant/appropriate.
SERIES/SEQUEL: This piece is a standalone piece in its own right, but there is a
companion piece of the same name in the L&O: SVU fandom (coming soon).
These two fics will combine to be a crossover......eventually
ARCHIVING: Only with the permission of the author.
Cold Feet, Cold Case, Warm Hearts
By ncruuk
Part Five
Entering the break room, Sara was handed a cup of coffee by Warrick, along with a smile and an apologetic
"Sorry, I don't make it as good as Greg's special beans" which Sara recognised as an oblique reference to Greg's absence
"Thanks Warrick. Greg's hopefully asleep for another couple of hours before coming in, though he's on call in case we need him for new cases." Explained Sara to all the gathered CSIs
"What did he do to get that reward?" groused Nick good naturedly
"Be a CSI 1 who's just worked the biggest scene of his life. He's still having to concentrate on procedure, rather than the rest of us who can do it instinctively" explained Sara, knowing that no one really minded the exuberant young CSI having a couple more hours sleep, but feeling the need to have justified it anyway, not wishing to be guilty of favouritism. Seeing everyone had settled down comfortably with coffee and were looking expectantly at her, Sara surmised that they were happy with her decision and so she turned her attention to starting the shift.
"Ok, we'll come to last night's scene last. First of all, the FBI last night caught 6 cases for us!" As Sara paused to gulp some of her coffee, her colleagues collectively formed a range of pained expressions. Somehow, they had all managed to forget that they might have other cases to worry about, other than the crash.
"That's the bad news. The good news is that they actually managed to tie up some of them by themselves. There was a rape, but the guy forgot to use a condom. Seems he'd been involved in a brawl a couple of years ago, so the system had his DNA from then. One down!" Again Sara paused as she pulled up the next file, whilst Warrick and Catherine exchanged a thankful smile at the thought of one case from last night already cleared.
"Ok, two DBs found. FBI processed the scene but we now have to wait on an autopsy. None were done last night on account of all the coroners being out with us. One was a suicide note and one looks like just freak heart attack. The autopsy will confirm or deny both, but the case files are currently looking like we're not going to need to do anymore on them, hopefully." This time it was Nick who reacted first, commenting
"Might we have struck lucky for once?"
"It seems that way, at least for last night. 3 more cases to go through: first, a B and E at a warehouse out on Industrial Road. The FBI has kept this one and is working with Treasury on it, so we don't need to worry about it anymore."
"Why?" asked Catherine, curious as to why both the FBI and Department of Treasury would be interested
"Because what was stolen was forged dollar notes, hot off the press from a rather sophisticated counterfeiting machine. Too sophisticated if you ask me" commented Sara, recalling her own case involving counterfeit money a few years earlier when it had actually turned out to be a set up by the Treasury to make sure that the CSIs were up to speed on what to do. She was glad that the FBI had kept that one, if only because of the nagging doubts she had about the authenticity of the operation. Somehow, she had a feeling that the FBI might be being tested, much like she had been.
"Weird" Nick's summation was an equally accurate assessment
"Yeah. So, that leaves two cases. Another B and E with what the FBI called 'unusual, mono-tread linear tracks, with narrow diameter'." At everyone's blank look, Sara smirked and waved a photo at them, elaborating
"I call them more of Greg's wheelchair treads" prompting smiles and chuckles from Warrick, Nick and Catherine
"So, that case we keep but, since what was stolen was low value electrical goods, like the one Greg got, it waits for Greg. The last case we don't need to worry about as Archie's got it covered, in between helping Day Shift with their casinos."
"Archie?" asked Warrick, surprised
"Yeah, A-V Archie. PD went to break up a domestic disturbance and, whilst on the property found some questionable materials, including what looked to them like print out from Internet sites. Vice thinks it's related somehow to the big case they've got on internet porn and got warrants for a whole load of computer equipment. Archie's helping them dig out the deleted and encrypted files, and will then talk to QD about printer matches. Currently, it's just a plain detective case, needing a bit of computer wizardry, for which Archie is the best. In the event that they find some leads that might direct them to potential 'film sets' one of us will ride out with them." Understanding, everyone looked quite relieved. For a busy Friday night in Vegas, it had actually generated little work for Saturday night, as succinctly summarised by Catherine
"So, 6 cases means for us one B and E for Greg and two autopsies for the coroner?"
"Yup, good isn't it?" Sara dumped the pile of files relating to the Friday cases on the table and drained her coffee before starting on the next matters for discussion.
"Ok, cases that come in tonight we have to take, even though we've already got more work than we know what to do with"
"Can Day Shift not use up some of their untouched overtime and give us a hand?" asked Nick, not relishing the idea of the work that normally came on a Saturday night on top of all the work he knew he already has from last night
"Is that why Sofia and Charlie are hanging around?" asked Warrick, referring to the Day Shift supervisor and one of her CSIs
"Yeah. They're waiting to check that some results or something arrive. I'm sending those two out on the first scene we get whilst we sort out how we're going to deal with last night."
"Does Sofia know that you're supervising her?" asked Catherine amused, interpreting Sara's comments
"She does now"
"Did she know when she volunteered to cover the start of your shift?"
"She may have had the misguided idea that I was handing my shift over to her, yes" replied Sara vaguely, prompting laughter from her team. Whilst the rivalry was far quieter than the Grissom Ecklie one had been, there was little love lost between the two supervisors. Sara's problem tonight was not that she couldn't supervise, just that she didn't have enough CSIs for all the work she had. Since she was working her shift, if Sofia offered overtime, it was as a CSI, not a supervisor, just as it would have been if Sara had offered her CSI services ever to Day Shift, something which it seemed that Sofia might have forgotten when she offered.
"Seriously, the first assignment goes to Sofia and Charlie, but after that we're on our own. So, as and when assignments come in, I'll assign someone to go out and do the collecting. What priority the collected evidence has for processing will be determined each time. We're going to be working this way for a few shifts I think." Before Sara could continue, her cell and pager sounded simultaneously. As she answered her phone whilst checking her pager, Catherine moved to get more coffee whilst Nick and Warrick debated sports for a minute. After a minute or two, Sara hung up, only to make another call
"Sofia?"
"Yes, Sara Sidle. You've got a case"
"Yes, you have O'Reilly's number?"
"Good. Meet him at the Tangiers, 7th floor. DB suspicious circs"
"Yeah, come find me when you're done." Before hanging up again, prompting all the CSIs to try to look like they hadn't been hanging on to every word
"Yes, we've had our first case, and yes, it's DB at the Tangiers. Yes, I've just given it to Sofia to work, not to supervise. Now, before the next assignment, let's work out how we're going to sort out this crash." Nodding to a white board that was standing at the far side of the break room, Sara said
"Nick, can you draw?" prompting him to cross to stand by the white board, ready to mark up what they did and didn't know as the others moved to gather around him.
"Ok, we know there are three vehicles involved which have all been confirmed: a hydrogen tanker, a gas tanker and the Martindale school bus. We also have a hypothesis for what actually happened. Hydrogen tanker steering fails, causing it to drive off the highway, across the path of the two lanes of uphill traffic, wiping out any traffic in its path; tyre tracks support a theory of mechanical failure rather than driver error."
"The brakes were hit too soon for driver error" volunteered Catherine
"There were signs that the steering was already failing on earlier bends" volunteered Warrick
"So, the question is, whatever the mechanical failure was, was it accidental or deliberate" volunteered Nick, as he put down bullet points on the board
"Exactly. We need to get down to the garages and start sorting out the bits of vehicle. We need to identify the various vehicles involved and try to reconstruct the steering system of the hydrogen tanker as much as we can."
"Are we looking for sabotage or accident?" asked Catherine
"Once we've identified the steering components, we're looking for sabotage. The manufacturer is checking their test fleet vehicles of the same age for any signs of exceptional wear and tear and the tanker fleet's impounded. Depending on what our guts tell us, we'll either know that this was a one off caused by a faulty part, or I'll start getting that fleet ripped apart." Sara's words were cold and calm. Unlike her last bus crash case, if this was sabotage, there were going to be no mitigating circumstances. It was one thing to weaken a tyre on a bus, which, as the guy had said, shouldn't normally cause anything more serious than a blown tyre, but it was another thing completely to start mucking around with the steering on a hydrogen tanker, if that was what happened.
"The specs arrived from the various manufacturers?" asked Nick, recalling the case when they'd found a random assortment of bones in the desert and had to rebuild the body, with a little help from Grissom's blonde lady friend. That had been fairly tricky as jigsaws go. Trying to sort out the pieces of 3 separate long wheel base chassis and then put them together again, in order to find what caused the steering to fail in one of them….that was the sort of jigsaw that really, really needed a plan or two to help.
"Pinned up waiting for us in the garage; Catherine, you were processing the hot spot. How intact do you think the chassis are likely to be?" Although Sara had been present whilst all the evidence had been collected, she'd not seen all of it come up from the ravine and hadn't been able to get an overview of the scene from her position on the highway.
"Umm, reasonably good; given how the explosion happened, the school bus came off the worst structurally. The tanks of the tankers were understandably blown to pieces, but the cabs managed to be kept if not intact then at least in large lumps. The Auto boys should have got them back here by now, I know they were having to think about it when I called them at 6 this morning."
"They rang me an hour ago to tell me they've got all the large lumps back here now. They were quite glad to know that you'd already cleared the site. Johns said they wouldn't have been able to get them up if they'd had to watch where they were putting their feet."
"They trashed our scene?" asked Warrick in horror
"They had to. There were bits of axle embedded in the desert from the force of the blast. Don't worry, they only wrecked Catherine's bit" teased Sara, amused and pleased at how protective and proprietary everyone became of their scenes.
"Oh, sorry Catherine"
"No worries. So, we're playing with trucks tonight?"
"Amongst other things. Warrick, Nick you need to go to the morgue."
"The morgue?"
"Yeah. David and Doc Robbins are going to do the autopsies for last night's DBs first and you need to take one each. Hopefully, it will just be a formality, but you're there in case it isn't. After that, the coroners are going to start preparing the remains for release to families…" at this, Sara paused, before finishing carefully
"We're going to need to do DNA matches for confirmations before release." Which was a delicate way of saying that Nick and Warrick needed to help the coroners match up the body parts they had recovered from the scene so that complete sets of remains could be returned to families. It was going to be a tricky job, requiring a mix of intuition from where on the scene the remains had been recovered from, along with confirmation by DNA analysis. Thankfully, both Nick and Warrick understood what Sara was getting at.
"Right. What are we doing about ID?"
"PD has already collected samples for comparison from the families that we know are affected, and they have all been put into the system. All we need to do is sample and compare against the system." Again, Sara chose her words carefully. When she had arrived earlier, she had seen the Officers carefully carrying evidence bags through to the DNA lab containing hairbrushes, tooth brushes, retainers…..little bits and pieces representing the teenagers of the basketball team and cheerleading squad from Martindale High. It takes a lot to bring the busy CSI labs to a standstill for a silent minute….Sara had thanked any God that would listen at that moment that Catherine hadn't arrived, glad that she was busy helping Lindsey get ready for her best friend's sleepover party. Her internal recollection was halted when Nick spoke up again
"In that case, unless you need us for anything else, I guess we should head down to the morgue?"
"Take two Tahoes. I may need you to go out on a case individually."
To a mix of 'sure thing' and 'see you later', the guys departed, heading for the locker room for their kits, before setting off to the morgue to begin their vital if somewhat gruesome tasks, leaving Catherine and Sara alone in the break room.
"You ok?" Catherine asked the question not so much for the answer, but more as a way of drawing Sara's attention away from wherever she had drifted off to, to her hand that she had now discretely placed on Sara's knee, her fingers beginning to automatically try to smooth the creases in the dark jeans.
Sara watched the agile fingers play with the creases at her knees for a moment before reaching out to clasp the fidgeting hand, stilling its motion. After a comfortable silence, Sara looked up away from their clasped hands and started to speak
"I'm…." her intended "I'm fine" comment died on her lips as she locked eyes with Catherine's. This was the woman she loved, the one she shouldn't lie to, the one she never needed to lie to.
"Sara?" Catherine was concerned when Sara once again fell into silence and her eyes clouded over, shaded by something Catherine couldn't interpret, rendering those gloriously rich, expressive depths fathomless to her.
"Was Lindsey excited about her sleepover?" came the tangential response
"Linds? Ecstatic! Was ready a good ten minutes before she needed to be, and having done her evening jobs without a word of complaint."
"Oh? What's going on?" asked Sara, intrigued
"The Cunningham's Labrador has just had a litter of puppies. I know she's excited to see them…."
"And perhaps trying to look responsible so we'll think about getting one?" finished Sara, recalling the 'saga of the puppy litter' as she and Catherine had dubbed it.
"Something like that, yeah" agreed Catherine, smiling
"You're beautiful when you smile like that"
"Huh? Oh, thank you" Catherine tried not to visibly preen too much at the compliment, suppressing her urge to counter with a snappy remark about being beautiful all the time.
"What did you and Lindsey do after I left?"
"Of all things, cook!"
"Cook? But she hates all that 'grown up domestic stuff'!" exclaimed Sara, understanding Catherine's surprise
"Yeah, well, it seems that one of the girls in her class brought in a batch of homemade cookies she'd made with her grandmother, raisin and oatmeal"
"A flavour she hates"
"Well, that's what I thought too, but she said they tasted really good, and when she asked the girl why that was, she replied "Everything tastes better when made with love not machines.""
"Excuse me?" Sara actually blinked at the statement Catherine had repeated, complete with a quote mark gesture with her free hand
"Apparently, the girl's grandmother was visiting and decided her granddaughter needed to learn how to cook, and that was one of the things she said. Anyway, Lindsey was impressed and wanted to try it out, so we baked cookies." Catherine couldn't suppress her smile as she recalled the fun time she'd had with her daughter. It constantly amazed her, both as a mother but also as a CSI, as to how quickly little girls were supposed to become mini-adults, complete with all the attitude and behavioural quirks. When she had gone out to see Lindsey in the garden, she had been genuinely surprised that her daughter had let her join in with her basketball game without protest. The fact that she then wanted to do something as 'homey' as bake with her Mom, well, Catherine was still waiting for the other shoe to drop, so to speak.
"What flavour?" Sara's eyes were beginning to regain some of their shine, from either the idea of home baked cookies or Lindsey being well behaved, Catherine wasn't yet sure
"We used your white chocolate and some raspberry jam." Catherine waited for the reaction from Sara. It was well known throughout the lab and their house, that the white chocolate in the refrigerators was always sacred and never to be stolen. It was Sara's one weakness, and there was only one way to survive an admission of theft….do something with it that involved Sara's favourite flavour combination…
"You made white chocolate and raspberry flavour cookies?"
"2 dozen"
"Have I told you lately that I love you?" Sara's mood was obviously soaring, something that Catherine was glad for, but still determined to find out why it was so depressed earlier
"Not since we left your office."
"Oh, less than an hour ago." Even by Sara's standards, that was a bit soon to start reiterating her undying love for this fabulous woman
"But, to make up for your horrid neglect of my emotional ego…." Began Catherine teasingly, earning her a stuck out tongue from Sara, giving her the encouragement to continue
"You could share what was making you upset earlier?" asked Catherine quietly, hoping her lover wouldn't clam up at the direct question.
"It…"
"And don't tell me it was nothing. You were there for me in bed this afternoon and so now it's my turn." Thwarted, Sara smiled slightly, marvelling yet again at how well her lover knew and could read her before deciding that the truth wouldn't hurt Catherine, not after the afternoon she'd had
"Whilst you were baking, the personal effects came in for the school bus…..a whole box full of hair brushes, tooth brushes, orthodontics….all the paraphernalia of teenage life, all that's left for some people of their kids." Sara paused in her recollection, obviously searching for the words to express what she was trying to tell Catherine. Catherine squeezed the hand she still held, trying to convey strength and love to her stoical love, keeping patient and quiet.
"I couldn't help thinking what would have happened if it had been me on that school bus as a teenager. Would anyone have really missed me, I mean, I was an overachieving, shadow hugging awkward teenager who was being bounced around foster parents like I was some grenade or something, you know, that no one wanted to hold in case it blew up on them? All I would have been was a toothbrush or hair tie. I didn't even have orthodontics. I guess it got to me, that's all, seeing all those bits summing up those kids' lives like that, reduced to nothing more than a string of code."
"You're more than a string of code Sara, much, much more"
"You're biased" came Sara's dismissive response. Once again, Catherine inwardly screamed at all those who had gone before her in Sara's life, causing seen and unseen wounds to this incredible woman, cutting her confidence and self image back to nothing. Literally grasping the nettle with both hands so to speak, Catherine pulled her hand out of Sara's grasp, cupping Sara's face with both hands
"Yes I am, and so is Lindsey. We're the kind of biased that's called Love. And you have just as much right as anyone else to feel upset when you saw all those things being brought into the lab for DNA sampling. You're not a grenade anymore Sara; no one wants you to explode, and I'm certainly not passing you on to someone else. I'm hanging onto you with both hands for as long as possible, and, despite her teenage angst, Lindsey does too. I love that you love me enough to try to protect me, but you don't need to protect me all the time. Some things I'm meant to see, to feel, to discover, and you trying to shield me only wears you out, like now. You don't have to be strong for me when something hurts you: if something makes you want to cry or scream, let me cry or scream with you; you're allowed to hurt just like the rest of us you know. It won't stop me loving you. Not much will!" Catherine punctuated her statement with a tender kiss, hoping that Sara understood where she was coming from, and also hoping that her literally minded lover wouldn't resort to analytical analysis too much and start questioning what would make Catherine stop loving her, since Catherine had no answer to that question, and didn't want to even think about it. To her surprise, Sara fixed on something else that Catherine had said
"Merchant of Venice, Act Three, Scene 1"
"Huh?"
"Shylock, 'If you prick us, do we not bleed?' – you paraphrased Shylock."
"Lindsey had an assignment on it last week for English; I read the scene with her. Something must have stuck. Shakespeare had a point there"
"What, that discrimination was shallow? Or that money lenders knew how to play to an audience?"
"I was more thinking along the lines of the natural order of things. No matter how hard you try to stop it, if you're cut, you bleed. Doesn't matter who you are, or whether you think you deserve what you might see as a luxury you can't afford." Catherine noted Sara's eyes turn to focus at her own fingers that were now fiddling with the creases in her jeans, recognising from the body language that her words had resonance with Sara, but continued without pause
"You're allowed to bleed, to hurt, we all are. This case is a true tragedy, but we can't do anything about what has happened in the past. If there was a crime, we will find the people responsible and offer them to the courts; if it is a horrid accident, we will prove it beyond any doubt, if only so the driver's family and friends don't have their memories tarnished. You can't protect me from the tragedy of the case any more than you could protect Lindsey when she was being bullied about Eddie's death. Don't get angry with yourself or think that you fail us, because you don't. The very fact that you love us enough to think that you can protect us from those things, well, that's special, and something more than anyone else has given us, including Lindsey's father."
"Eddie doesn't count." Interjected Sara
"Doesn't he? Why, because he was a heel? Someone who cared more about some floozy's singing ability than his own daughter because a floozy might make money but a daughter only costs? Eddie was a bad father when he showed up, and a tolerable one when he wasn't around, but you don't doubt his right to the title of parent, do you?" Quite how they ended up talking about this, Catherine wasn't quite sure, but, if slamming another layer of nails into Eddie's coffin helped Sara understand that she was loved, but that she wasn't expected to protect Catherine from everything, well, Catherine would hammer and hammer and hammer.
"No" confessed Sara quietly, still boring a hole with her gaze into her knee.
"We are more than strings of code Sara; family isn't something biologically determined. Just because you and Lindsey don't have common genetics doesn't mean you're not her parent, because you are. She's your kid as much as you are her parent, and that means you get all the love and all the sucker punches. You got sucker punched earlier with those samples, just as I would have been if I were here, but you can tell me, you don't have to take your punches on your own, 'kay?"
"No more punches, got it" muttered Sara carefully, trying not to let the dam burst. Somehow, at the back of her mind, a little voice suggested that her image would be a little tarnished if Sofia walked in on her weeping. Professional pride and ego was very good at holding back tears.
"And no more getting angry with yourself when you can't stop me from seeing all sides of our job? I have been doing this for a while…..I'm a big girl now!" teased Catherine, beginning to see Sara's posture relax and the shadows lift from her face
"I'll try" came the quiet concession
"That's all I ask. You wouldn't be you unless you let a fair sized portion of the world rest on those shoulders of yours"
"Only a fair sized?" asked Sara, not quite able to tease, but beginning to recover her equilibrium once more
"Yeah, there's always a little gap reserved for something else"
"Oh, what?" asked Sara, now looking at Catherine's shining blue eyes, marvelling at the love shown in them, and, thought Sara in disbelief, love for her
"My head, when the rest of me is in your lap!"
"How could I forget? That's the most important!" Finally, thought Catherine, Sara's fog had burnt off, revealing the confident, collected, loving woman once more.
"Always good to have your priorities in order"
"Girlfriend's snuggling comes before anything else"
"Well put"
"Cat?"
"Yes?"
"I think I need a snuggle for a sec" Catherine didn't need to be told twice and quickly rearranged herself in Sara's lap.
"Better?"
"Yes. I'm sorry we keep going over my insecurities, it must be really tedious for you."
"Don't apologise. Your insecurities are, in one tiny way, are part of your charm, if only because they keep reminding me how lucky I am that Lindsey and I am the recipient of your trust and love, things which we know you don't give on a whim. And we don't go over them that often, only when your buttons get pushed, same as with me. Someone decided to play with your buttons these last couple of days, that's all." Stated Catherine, not at all fazed. Whilst Sara readily accepted that Catherine had triggers for her insecurities and was always quick to be supportive, Sara had a much harder time accepting that Catherine was there to do exactly the same for Sara. It wasn't a new problem, one which they had learnt needed addressing carefully early in their relationship, but now, admittedly thanks to practice that they could have happily not had to experience, was a problem that they knew how to work through and solve, without inflicting pain on each other, as they had done now.
After a moment's quiet thought, Sara signalled her calmness to Catherine with a gentle tightening of her embrace, before her body relaxed completely as she exhaled slowly. Pulling back slightly so she could look at her lover, Catherine asked
"Better?"
"Much, thanks. I guess I had a 'Mom' moment without seeing the signs?" asked Sara lightly
"They don't always come with signs - that's part of their charm" offered Catherine wryly, standing up again, inwardly now listening to the little voice reciting all the work that had to be done.
"Ah, no wonder. Good job you were around then"
"It goes with the job description"
"What, human kleenex?"
"I was thinking more along the lines of lover and co-parent, but that works too. My germs are your germs!"
"Eww, I don't want your germs!" Sara scrunched up her face in mock disgust whilst reaching for her discarded files
"Too late hun, part of the deal when you moved into my bed!" bantered Catherine, glad that Sara had recovered herself fully and was now making a move to head towards the garages to look at the evidence collected last night
"Hmm, I guess I'll just have to make sure I keep up my immunity"
"And how do you plan to do that?"
"Repeat exposure"
"Ah, so that's all I am to you, a course of medication?"
"Yes. Catherine Willows: to be taken daily, preferably more frequently, with or without food and drink; if dosage missed, increase dose at later date. Dedicated adherence to this treatment regime will ensure a healthy, happy, loving life. Medicine not transferable." Quoted Sara, trying to remember the phrasing she had seen on her numerous pill bottles over recent years. Laughing, Catherine placed both coffee mugs in the sink, saying as she did
"You ready for some jigsaw puzzles?"
"Yeah, but I need to read this report from Auto first" explained Sara, waving said report at Catherine who, understanding the gesture for what it was, crossed the room so that she was standing behind Sara's chair. Pushing her lover out into the corridor, the ladies headed off to start unravelling the cause of the accident. No matter what the case would now throw at them, they had confidence, in their love and relationship. There may be problems in the world at large, but in the world of the Willows-Sidle family, the natural order was restored.
"You ready for this man?" asked Warrick, as he and Nick weaved their way through the corridors, heading for Doc Robbins' domain.
"Ready for the autopsies, or ready for the jigsaw, or ready for tonight's slam?" asked Nick, seeking clarification from Warrick as to what precisely he felt needed extra preparation for
"Any and all or the above? Seriously, this is one hell of a case we've got."
"Yeah. I don't envy Sara, do you?"
"What, trying to supervise this lot? No way, I had enough of that job just with a regular shift of work"
"Tell me about it. You know, I'm glad it's her, not Grissom? I mean, not that I didn't like working for him or anything….." Suddenly, Nick wasn't quite sure how to express himself. The name Grissom was still somewhat holy to some people in these halls
"I hear ya. Sara's the same, but different. When I heard about the bus, I wanted to punch something" began Warrick
"I did" commented Nick "And the Tahoe came off better"
"Yeah, I kicked at a cruiser, think it was a tie. It was good….." now it was Warrick who seemed at a verbal loss
"It was good to know that all the supervisor would ask was if we felt we hit hard enough, rather than lecture us on being emotional, right?"
"Right" confirmed Warrick
"Did you?"
"What, hit hard enough?"
"Yeah"
"No" muttered Warrick dejectedly, unconsciously flexing his right fist, as if testing to see how the knuckles felt
"I don't think you can hit hard enough" observed Nick as the rounded the corner
"What do you think Sara hit?"
"Nothing, she wouldn't." Warrick sounded certain, but in a way that made Nick's hackles rise
"Why, cause she can't?"
"Hey, settle down. I only meant that she and Catherine, well, it was different for them, personal" came the cryptic reply
"Huh?" Nick wasn't following
"Lindsey" was all Warrick said, pausing at the door to the morgue
"Oh shit. She ok?" Nick felt guilty for having forgotten about the young teen
"Yeah, I forgot too. Brass told me. She'd been out in the desert on a field trip. Sara rang and woke her up to talk to Catherine before Sara told Catherine about the bus. Said she was shouting and swearing at Catherine's sister on the phone."
"Oh god. She thought……" Nick's face lost all colour as he realised the significance of what his friend and boss had gone through in those few moments last night
"Yeah, but Lindsey's ok. Had pineapple on her pizza….." That one detail, the controversial pizza topping, seemed now to be the fact that everyone who knew Lindsey was using to keep the night in perspective. As with Brass the night before, it served now to help the guys refocus and move on
"No one sensible has pineapple on pizza" stated Nick determinedly, looking to bait his friend
"I'll have you know, it's one of the best toppings, right up there with anchovy!"
"Oh man, do you know how to wreck a pizza. Pepperoni and mushroom all the time, though I'll give you bell pepper!" countered Nick, his good humour and colour returning, well, as much as it could right before you watch an autopsy. Grinning at the long running gripe between the guys as to who had the superior pizza taste, they shouldered their way though the morgue doors, ready to face their next task.
The breaking of dawn signalled the passing of another shift, and, for once, Sara decided, the end of their work for the 'day'. There were cases where you pulled out all the stops, searching for an immediate solution, like when a rapist was on the loose. There were big, high profile cases, where you were obliged to pull out all the stops, searching for a scapegoat, someone that society could point a finger at. This case was slightly different. There was an urgency, a need to find the truth, but the truth was not going to provide much in the way of help or closure to the victims. In this case, the truth would be hollow for many; for the families of the dead, the answer had already been found: the truck did it. The evidence gathered at the scene already told the story: something caused the hydrogen tanker's steering system to fail gradually as the tanker wove through the hills. Regrettably, it failed on perhaps the worst possible bend, when the oncoming traffic in its path was another tanker and a full school bus. It was, as the saying goes, all over bar the shouting. The truck did it, and currently, could do no more harm. If it was sabotage, the owner's fleet was grounded both by legal warrant and also the owner's cooperation. If it was defective parts, the manufacturer was investigating far more thoroughly than the CSI lab could, and Sara had been promised a preliminary report from them by the start of her next shift, the manufacturers having brought in external analysts to perform rigorous testing and investigation on the test vehicles through the weekend.
The garage was quiet as Sara and Catherine worked side by side, carefully allocating pieces of vehicle to one of the three piles that had been growing though their shift. Jigsaw puzzles of this size were completed in stages – first, sort your pieces. Next shift would see the reconstruction of the hydrogen tanker, but only after some rest and recuperation, the four hours of snatched rest, grabbed whilst the majority of Las Vegas enjoyed a Saturday afternoon, now, early Sunday morning, seeming a life time ago.
*Beep Beep* The comfortable silence of the garage was broken by the trill of Catherine's pager, who, intrigued, straightened up from her task and crossed to where she had placed her cell and pager some hours before. Reading the simple, to-the-point message, she frowned in confusion before asking
"Why did you page me about the meeting? Are we not talking or something?" Whilst the tone was teasing, it was founded in fact. One of the advantages of working with her lover was that there was no expectation on Sara to make idle small talk as she worked. The concept of the comfortable silence was very real, as exemplified by the fact that, for the last 4 hours or so, since the last case had come in, Sara hadn't said a word.
"What?" Sara looked up slightly dazed, having only partially been listening to Catherine. Pausing a moment to regroup, Sara considered what she had been asked
"Oh, the page. Sorry about that" she grinned sheepishly before continuing "I knew I'd probably lose track of time, so asked reception to page everyone at 7 to let them know about the meeting in the break room at 8. I didn't know then that I'd still be here with you….." Sara trailed off, feeling uncertain of her explanation. On the face of it, she could see how silly it must look, having her lover paged about a meeting when she was sitting less than 6 feet away from her, and had been for most of the night.
"Did they page you too?"
"Yes, but I'm set to vibrate" offered Sara, hoping that would answer Catherine's next question
"Which explains why I only heard my pager go off; where's your pager?" asked Catherine, settling a hip against the table as she stood next to her lover, happy to have a moment or two to stretch out her back before returning to work for a few more minutes
"Umm….." Sara coloured as she tried not to catch her lover's now penetrating gaze
"You haven't left it in your office again, have you?" asked Catherine, recalling the now infamous time when, having already missed her own scheduled Shift meetings due to losing track of the time, Sara started paging herself, only for her pager to be in her office. Whereas once she'd never gone anywhere without her pager, she had found that wearing it clipped to her waist was uncomfortable when she was sitting in her chair, so often took it off once she returned to her office. Unfortunately, she wasn't very good about remembering to pick it up again when she went somewhere else, causing her still to occasionally miss her own meetings, much to her team's amusement.
"No, I haven't left it in my office, I have it right here" Sara had verbally answered her question, yet Catherine could tell from her body language that something was still wrong, prompting Catherine to resort to humour to try to extract the full truth
"So why look like Lindsey does right after I discover she's used the last of the hot water?"
"Umm, cos vibrate only works if it vibrates against something I can feel?" admitted Sara quietly
"Oh honey" Catherine felt horrible for teasing her lover about something that had turned out to be so sensitive to her. Whilst Sara coped remarkably well with her paralysis and lack of feeling, there were times when she got caught out by simple little things, like when she clipped her pager to her jean pocket rather than her waistband. Clipped in that position, the vibrating pager settled against her thigh rather than her hip or side.
"Good job nobody needed me after my last page a few hours ago, wasn't it?" asked Sara, forcing herself to sound light about it. On the whole, she coped quite well with her physical limitations, but just occasionally, well, it only took a little thing to unbalance her
"Have you checked it?" asked Catherine, sticking to the business end of the matter for the moment, knowing that Sara did not react well to gushing sympathy or, as she saw it, pity
"Yeah, when yours went, I automatically reached for mine. There was only one message stored, and I remembered that I had asked for a massed page at 7, so when you got yours, I just ignored it and carried on" explained Sara, glad that Catherine wasn't 'mothering' her
"So, no harm done then" commented Catherine, pragmatically
"I best put it on beeping again, if I'm going to be stupid…" muttered Sara, reaching for the offending box. She really despised the beeping alert – for some reason, whilst she could cope with being startled from her work by a physical sensation on her body, the beeping always startled her more, on a few occasions causing her to spill stuff during analysis, something the compulsively precise scientist found extremely irritating.
"Who pages you?" asked Catherine, understanding her lover's dislike of the audible alert
"Anyone from the lab or PD who might need me"
"And if you don't return they're page the moment you get it, what do they think?"
"That I'm busy with something else, so they have to be patient"
"And if they can't be patient?"
"They call me on my cell, which I always have with me." Whilst Sara had occasional issues with leaving her pager around, her cell never got forgotten. For some reason, it was always at her side, possibly, reasoned Catherine, because it was one of the emergency numbers for Lindsey and herself, two people Sara always wanted to be contactable for
"So, in the unlikely event that you don't feel your pager, they either wait for you to check it and call you, happy to wait because what they need you for isn't urgent, or they call you on your cell if it is urgent. Either way, since you would never go more than a couple hours without checking your pager anyway, because hearing mine or Nick's or someone's go off makes everyone reflexively check their own, no harm would be done. Would you say that was an accurate assessment?" asked Catherine cheerfully, glad that a solution was so easily found in this case
"Have I told you lately that I love you?" came Sara's bantering response, as she recognised the accuracy of Catherine's assessment.
"Actually, no. I believe the last time was in your office, although you did try less than an hour later in the break room"
"I'm neglecting you" stated Sara seriously, although there was a mischievous twinkle in her eye
"You're forgiven, assuming that the boss is going to tell us in this meeting of yours what I want to hear" countered Catherine, happy that Sara seemed to be returning to her usual self again.
"And what would that be, CSI Willows?"
"That whilst this case is important, it is also important that we don't exhaust ourselves in the early stages, so no overtime unless it's due to some other cases that come in during later shifts." Offered Catherine, assuming a look of mock seriousness
"Hmm…supposing this boss of yours did say this, why would that be of interest to me?" asked Sara, happy to keep the now flirtatious teasing going for a few minutes, especially since they were unlikely to be overheard, tucked as they were in this out of the way corner of the lab garage
"Because I'm horny" came the bold statement, prompting Sara to choke in shock, which, considering all she'd been doing was breathing, was fairly good going
"Horny?" Despite having recovered a normal breathing pattern, Sara couldn't get her voice to function at anything other than a high pitched squeak
"Yes, horny. Do you have any idea how hot I find you when you are being all commanding and supervisory?"
"But all I've been doing is sorting pieces of truck with you" countered Sara factually, her voice returning to its normal register as she appraised Catherine sceptically, inwardly questioning her lover's mental sanity if she had been getting turned on by sorting dirty lumps of twisted metal
"Last night" clarified Catherine
"Last night?" Sara's brain seemed not to be cooperating much, requiring Catherine to spell it out for her
"Last night, when this lab had to process the biggest scene it has ever had to deal with using 200 extra firemen and cops to help, all organised by this marvellous person who just happens to be my lover. That commanding and supervisory enough for you?"
"But that was last night!" the squeak had returned, as too had the blush
"Yes" If Sara wasn't being so cute, Catherine might have started losing her patience with her suddenly slow lover
"And you're still…."
"Horny? Yes"
"Oh" Catherine couldn't help herself anymore, and burst out laughing, a rich peal that echoed round the empty garage, causing her lover's perplexed brow to furrow even further. Getting control of herself once more, Catherine explained to her bemused girlfriend
"You know how some people have a thing for women in uniform? Well, I have a thing for you, but sometimes, well, you do things that make me want you even more than usual. Last night, you were in what I heard one cop describe as 'kick-ass mode' and he was right. You were incredible….." before Catherine could finish, Sara had finally cottoned on to what her love had been trying to tell her
"And you find kick ass mode a turn on?"
"Hell yes"
"I did kick a lot of ass last night, didn't I?" asked Sara smugly, her brain now communicating with baser, more primal instincts, rather than worrying about aspects of forensic science, as it had been for the majority of shift
"God yes" Catherine was trying to keep her voice from becoming husky, but, having explicitly told Sara how she was feeling, it was making it harder to suppress
"And we went straight to sleep when we got in after shift" clarified Sara, eyes now sparkling, prompting Catherine's patience to snap
"God Damn It woman, quit teasing me! Are we going home at the end of shift or not?"
"Well, I had thought of seeing if Sofia wanted a hand with her case….." began Sara seriously, although her harsh words were softened by hands that were reaching out for Catherine
"Do that and you can see about sharing your bed with that little witch!" Catherine wasn't feeling at all charitable to the day shift supervisor it seemed
"Why would I do that when I could enjoy a Sunday in bed with you, safe in the knowledge that our daughter is at a friend's house?" asked Sara reasonably, before dipping her head and stealing a quick kiss from Catherine, who was now settled on Sara's lap.
"Why you….." Catherine couldn't think of a suitable insult so instead, exacted her revenge by kissing Sara with all the raw passion that she had been carefully controlling for the last 24 hours or so. As they separated when oxygen became an issue, Sara muttered
"Why didn't you say something sooner?"
"Because I wasn't sure I could persuade the Boss to sleep with me straight after shift sooner" taunted Catherine, playfully
"The Boss would have agreed, I guarantee it. And if she hadn't, well, that argument was fairly persuasive."
"Sara, be serious for a moment" Catherine suddenly changed mood, as she took what Sara had said in a joking tone a little too literally
"Yes?"
"Were you really going to say that we should all go home at the end of shift and not work any overtime on this case today?"
"Yes"
"You didn't just decide that so I would feel better?" asked Catherine shyly
"No, I decided that about 2 hours after shift started, when I learnt that the manufacturer's report would arrive at the start of next shift. There wasn't much point us killing ourselves this shift only for that report to solve the case for us." Offered Sara pragmatically
"You sure?"
"Yes, I'm sure. As much as I love you, I would never call a shift off just to make love to you, not when the case was as big as this one." To anyone else, the words might have seemed harsh, but to Catherine, they couldn't have been more perfect. As much as she loved Sara and Sara loved her, they both loved their jobs as well, and understood the responsibility those jobs gave them.
"I'm sorry, I was being silly."
"Yes, but no sillier than I was being about my pager"
"Guess we're a perfect match then?"
"Yup"
"Wouldn't swap me?"
"Nope"
"Fancy a coffee before meeting with the boss?"
"Lead on, I hear she can have moments when she turns into some commanding 'kick-ass' geek. Those are best faced fully caffeinated!" And laughing at Sara's quirky self depreciating humour, recognising it as an extension of their earlier teasing, Catherine stood up and began securing their partially sorted evidence, ready to return to it next shift. She loved her job, and could quite happily stay for hours past the end of her shift, worrying at some puzzle or conundrum until the solution dropped out, but there were some days when she just loved her lover more, and, after the last couple of days they'd worked through, today was one of them.