AN: Here it is, the story that follows We Can Work It Out, which was the story that followed Saturday in the Park in my Everything Old is New Again series. It's pretty essential to read those two stories before starting this one because otherwise you'll likely be lost with the characters and their respective backstories. If you haven't read all of the oneshots in this series, that's not a big deal, though some of them might be beneficial to your understanding of all of the dynamics between characters and whatnot.

Heed the rating on the story. I don't use them a lot by any means, but it is possible that a swear word will pop up here and there. Also, there will be some more mature leaning plot points, so if you're looking for fluff, this isn't really it.

Before I forget, thanks as always to my amazing beta, Kerry Blue. She's been especially helpful in developing this story and letting me bounce ideas off of her and that has been invaluable.

Finally, as always, the disclaimer: I do not own CSI:NY or any of the characters and history from that show. I do not own the song "Everybody Plays the Fool" or the group whose version I was thinking of when I wrote the story, The Main Ingredient. You can also probably figure out other things that I don't own. All that is mine are some of the characters and the crazy situations I come up with to put them in. :)

Late April, San Diego, California…

Before the events of Saturday in the Park…

"I can't believe you dragged me here on such a beautiful day! We could be at the beach or shopping or…"

Brandy Charles put a hand over her friend's mouth. "Stop. You told me I could pick the outing if I went with you to the opera and I picked this. So quit complaining. At the very least you can work on your tan if you can't bring yourself to pay attention."

"Pay attention to what? It's just a bunch of guys out on the grass right now. If you had to bring me to a baseball game, why did we have to come so early?"

She shouldn't have tried, but she had wanted to see one last Padres game before she moved and wanted to spend some time with her childhood friend Elise, and this seemed like the perfect opportunity to combine the two things. But Brandy had forgotten how much her old friend looked down on things such as sports sometimes. As much as she loved her friend, the woman was a bit of a snob. "Why don't you try people watching or something? There's got to be a hot guy around here that you could flirt with."

"Well, I would think about that guy a couple rows in front of us if he wasn't in the military. Probably has an IQ of about twenty."

Brandy looked at the man in front of them that was wearing a blindingly white Navy uniform. "When has that ever stopped you before? And don't be so condescending, just because you're not a fan of the military doesn't mean that it's filled with idiots."

Elise rolled her eyes and flipped some of her blond hair back behind her shoulder. "You're going to start defending the military now? Sheesh, you really have gone over to the dark side."

Brandy reached back to put her own blond hair up in a ponytail. She and Elise might look a lot alike with their naturally blonde hair, but that was pretty much where the similarities ended. While she preferred to pull her hair back in a simple ponytail, most of the time her companion had to spend at least an hour in front of the mirror curling and crimping until her hair was perfect whether she was going to a club or a baseball game. And while Brandy was using her master's degree to go into forensic science and work with law enforcement, Elise was an artist who thought the world revolved mostly around her and who had an aversion to law enforcement and the military that she had inherited from her parents. Really the two of them should never have become friends, but Brandy supposed that stranger things had happened in the world. And as stuck up as she was, no one was more loyal of a friend than Elise and she had always been there when Brandy really needed her.

"Yeah, yeah, I know. But you have to allow for at least the possibility that he could have a thought in his head."

"If he had ever had a thought, he probably had it drummed out of him in basic training. Besides, he looks like too much of a jock to be some smart guy just using the military to get a college education."

"Would you stop it? He's like, right in front of us."

Elise laughed. "It's not like he can understand us!" And it was unlikely that he knew what they were saying because they had been carrying on this entire conversation in Italian. Elise had gotten Brandy to take courses in the language when they were in college together and while she enjoyed knowing and using a foreign language, she didn't like using it to talk about someone behind their back.

"Just because he can't understand us doesn't mean we should insult him. We don't even know him."

"Whatever. I won't talk about the poor little sailor. Can I talk about the dumb jocks on the field then? Because at least their uniforms are a little more flattering to their figure."

Brandy smirked. "I knew there was a reason why you didn't put up too much of a fight about coming to the game. You just wanted to ogle cute guys in baseball uniforms, didn't you?"

"I admit that the possibility for that did cross my mind. Though ogling is about as far as I would take it with these guys. I don't hold much more hope for their intelligence than I do for Navy guy there." She sat up as she noticed one player who was jogging from his dugout towards some other players standing nearby their seats which were a few rows back from the third base line. "Though I might make an exception and have a one night stand with that one. Lack of intelligence doesn't mean he wouldn't be fun for a night."

Brandy was about to reply when the sailor in front of them turned and shocked the hell out of both the women. "Could you two possibly take your insults elsewhere? I didn't mind so much when you were just talking about me, I'm used to that from your type. But insulting my brother when you don't know anything about him goes a little far." It wasn't that he had turned and spoke to them that was so shocking. It was that he had apparently understood their words and had talked back to them in perfect conversational Italian.

The two women were speechless. What did you say in a situation like this when you had just been made a total fool of? The man noticed their discomfort and smirked. "Not so much fun when the tables are turned, is it?" He turned to the field and let out a sharp whistle. The baseball player that they had been discussing previously turned in their direction and smiled wide. He waved, finished his conversation with the man next to him, then jogged over to the wall between the field and the stands.

"Devon! I didn't know if you were going to make it. I called and left a message on your answering machine." The two men did that manly one-arm hug that guys do.

"Yeah, I got back yesterday and I thought I'd just show up. Some of the other guys are going to come with me to tomorrow's game, but I thought I would come today too. It's not like I have a long drive since I'm just over the bay."

"Sounds great. Hey, why don't you come out here and meet some of the guys. And I bet coach would let you sit in the dugout."

"Sure, but first I want you to meet a couple of people." Brandy knew her cheeks were beet red as the two men turned to look at her and Elise. "These two ladies were just talking about you and I thought they'd like to meet you. Ladies, this is my brother, Dominic Messer."

Dominic was giving his brother an odd look since he had started speaking in Italian but he smiled at the women and followed his brother's lead. "It's nice to meet you."

"Uh, yeah, nice to meet you, too." Brandy's brain wasn't working well at the moment, but she at least managed that much. Elise wasn't so lucky.

"You speak Italian?" she blurted. Brandy put a hand over her eyes. This whole situation was just perfect.

"Yeah," Dom said in a tone that implied he was a little unimpressed by the question. Of course he could speak Italian, he just had been speaking it to them. "Our father taught it to us. But I'm a little rusty since I don't get a chance to use it all that much. Devon on the other hand is a bit of a linguistics expert. How many languages do you speak now?" he asked, turning towards his brother. "Eight? Nine?"

Devon shrugged and grinned. "I don't know, I lost track."

A voice came from the direction of the visiting team's dugout. "Messer!"

Dominic looked over and held up a finger to let his coach know that he'd be right there. "Sorry ladies, gotta run. You coming, Devon?"

"Yeah. Goodbye, ladies. Or maybe that's not smart enough. How about arrivederci? Or maybe adiós? Or dosvidaniya?" When he didn't get a response he finally turned and hopped over the wall to join his brother on the field and they walked away.

"Well, that was interesting." Elise was understating things just a bit.

"That will teach us to assume things like that again I suppose." Brandy felt horrible about making such a bad impression on the guy. At the end there he was obviously mocking them, but there was something in his eyes that had gotten to her. Something that said he wasn't just annoyed at being insulted or having his brother insulted. It was almost…frustration, like he had run into people like them before and dealt with their prejudices towards the military. And sadness that he knew he couldn't change their opinions. And pride in who he was, damn the opinions of anyone who didn't like it. She got all of that from just the few seconds that her hazel eyes had locked with his deep brown ones and it was somewhat overwhelming. If the situation was different…but it wasn't and that wasn't necessarily a bad thing. She was moving next week and from what he said he was stationed in San Diego so it's not like they could have started anything meaningful.

But she wished she could at least have the opportunity to apologize to him. The conversation hadn't been entirely her fault, but she still felt bad about the whole thing. Oh well, she was sure he would forget about her soon enough.