Disclaimer: Sadly, I don't own any character, plot, anything pertaining to CSI or its actors. I do, although, own my original characters, my plot for the story and a really cute Flapjack shirt, but that's another story.
Riley sighed deeply, staring at the doors of the LVPD. She was leaned against the front of her car, arms crossed at her chest. She moved her arm and perched her sunglasses atop her head. She ran her hands through her blonde locks that had long been cut from her previous length that it had been before and it had now rested against her chin. No matter for how long or how hard she would stare at the doors, it wouldn't change the fact that she would eventually have to enter them. She stood up straight and was about to begin to walk when she heard a voice from behind her accompanied with stopped footsteps.
"Riley Adams." Riley turned on her heels, coming face to face with someone she hadn't seen in three years.
Nick Stokes stood in front of his former co-worker, an amused look on his face. "So the rumor's true." he said, accepting Riley's nod towards the door, telling him to walk with her as she approached the building at the end of the parking garage.
Riley held the door opened, accepting the thanks that Nick had told her and she spoke as they continued to walk. "Well, I see it's gotten around that I'm back." She said, swallowing the tenseness in her throat as she approached the desk. She heard a chortle from Nick, turning to face him once again. "What?" she wondered of Nick's response.
"Well, yeah. Henry said he could've sworn he saw you talking to Ecklie a few days ago and Cath said something about us getting a new member and that Ecklie hadn't told her much." Nick said, flashing his ID to the desk clerk. Riley reached inside of her jacket, pulling out her newly redone ID and doing the same as her co-worker. She followed him as he walked into his office.
"I asked him not to tell her it was me." She said, blunt as she stood awkwardly in the doorway of her old shared office, not really knowing what to do. After all, being away from somewhere for over two, almost three years and then returning can be a bit awkward no matter the situation. Riley caught a glance at the other desk on the opposite side of the room. She didn't notice the smirk at the sight of the plastic dinosaur on the desk until Nick had brought her from her thoughts. "Huh?" she said shaking her head, her short locks bouncing in time.
Nick nodded towards the chair in front of his desk. "Sit down, stranger." He smiled as Riley made her way and sat down slowly in the brown chair in front of Nick's desk. She crossed her legs as Nick asked her why. Riley simply shrugged as she answered.
"Didn't really want the woman who I slandered in my transfer report to know I was coming back. Kind of awkward, even though I didn't mean anything that I had written in it." She said, rubbing her eyebrow, a nervous habit she'd picked up when she moved back home.
Looking her over, Nick realized that this was a different Riley. This wasn't the fun, humorous CSI he'd worked with years ago, but was now a short haired, laid back, almost conservative woman. Raising an eyebrow, he asked her. "Why did you write it, then?"
"I was pissed. Not at her, directly. I don't know, I was pissed with myself and what had become of me. I just needed to get out of here and I guess slandering my boss was the most effective, quick way of doing so." She said, shrugging her shoulders nonchalantly. Before Nick could give a response to the excuse Riley had just given him, a groan could be heard from the doorway.
"Why the hell does construction decide to work on the road when I finally get to bed? All day, nothing but jackhammers." On instinct, Riley turned her head to see who was in the doorway, ripping off his jacket and tossing it onto the back of his chair. It had felt like Riley's airways had been crushed by a large hand and would refuse to let go to allow her to breathe. And the way Greg Sanders looked back at her; she could guess that he was having the same feeling wash over his body. Quickly, she stood from her seat and faced Nick again.
"I'll talk to you later. I need to go…talk to Catherine." She said, quickly pacing out of the office, feeling the stinging burn of the glances fixated on her back from the entire lab techs who were shocked at seeing the MIA CSI appear. She had finally gotten to the door of Catherine's office and took a deep breath, making her hand into a fist and knocking it against the wood a few times before she could hear a muffled 'Come in' from the other side. Riley reached her hand and took a hold of the cold metal doorknob, twisting it and opening the door. Her bottom lip between her teeth had almost become permanent as she came face to face with not one, but two of her old, yet new bosses.
Conrad Ecklie, at noting Catherine's shocked look towards her door, turned in seat from in front of Catherine's desk and he too came eye to eye with Riley. "Ms. Adams, just the girl we were talking about. Come in." Ecklie said, turning back around, hearing the door shut again and soft footsteps approached, plopping down into the seat next to his.
"Riley." Catherine said, looking at her from over her glasses. To the newly returned CSI, it felt as if she were back in high school, being chastised by the principals for being caught smoking pot behind the gymnasium. Riley crossed her legs in the seat and offered a small, weak smile to the supervisor.
"Hi, Catherine." She said.
Ecklie cut the tension in the room by speaking. "So as you can see, Catherine, Adams' is back and I have to go finish going over her reports from St. Louis and then I have a meeting, but I'll expect you in my office tomorrow Adams, when I tell you to be. Am I clear?" he stood from his seat and looked down at the young woman who nodded curtly.
"Yes sir." She said, giving another weak, yet kind smile as the older man walked out, leaving the two women alone and doing so raising the tension levels tenfold. She looked to Catherine who now had her head down, going over some kind of report and by Riley's position she could tell that Catherine was reading over Riley's old transfer file. Riley opened her mouth but had been beat to the punch by the other.
"So, what I don't get is why you'd want to return to a place where you said had poor supervising skills among other things." Catherine said, not really asking a question, but rather making a statement. She placed her glasses on the desk and crossed her hands over the file, staring down the blonde.
Not knowing really how to 'answer' the statement, Riley just took a deep breath and went for it. "Look, Catherine. When I was filling out that report my mind was clouded. I was angry, ashamed, hell, I was even scared. But, none of it was ever meant to be directed towards you or any of the staff personally. I really just needed to go home. There was something there that I didn't have here." She said, once again rubbing her eyebrow. She could feel the angry water building up behind her grey eyes and sighed, pushing them back, blinking.
Catherine exhaled and continued to stare. "Riley, if you had complications in the middle of your workplace all you had to do was come talk to me or hell, even Ecklie and we could've gotten it straightened out. Whatever it was, I'm sure it wasn't worth leaving a good paying job and moving back home halfway across the country." She spoke and her tone shocked Riley to say the least. Her tone had changed from cold and professional and now had a tinge of kindness and understanding in it.
"I was pregnant." She said straightforward. There was no reason to hide it now. It was all done and over with and the past was in the past, although the little girl at her place in bed was a constant reminder of why she'd left Vegas.
Catherine's blue eyes widened in what Riley couldn't decipher as shocked or frightened. The older of the two immediately could relate to Riley, remembering what it was like finding out she was pregnant and knowing no matter how stable a woman was, finding out that you're carrying another human being could make the sanest woman do things she wouldn't normally do. "Riley, why would that matter to your job? You could've asked for paid leave and gotten maternity time off. It wouldn't have interfered with your work." Catherine was now more intrigued than angry as she sat up straight and folded the file close, placing it on top of the growing pile of folders on one end of the desk.
"The father…was someone I worked with. I didn't want to make him or I change shifts because I knew that this job was very important to him. I knew if I went home, I could chalk it up to being homesick and wanting to advance occupationally." She said, now becoming more relaxed, which was something Riley had seen little of since moving back to Nevada. Catherine nodded, listening intently as she continued. "I don't know how many times my parents lectured me on how running away never solved anything. Well, it was bits and parts in between all of their psychobabble. I didn't listen. Even after Anna was born, I never listened. Finally, last month some kind of urge hit me, telling me I had to leave. Had to go back to Vegas and get my old job back. I thought It was better to do it now while Anna was still young and really wouldn't know too much of a difference." Riley had begun to go on and on and almost forgotten that only a few minutes ago, she was terrified enough to go huddle in the corner with her knees to her chest. She hadn't noticed the tears that were returning to her eyes until she felt a wet track drip down her cheek, rubbing at it, drying the skin.
Catherine too had forgotten Conrad telling her that the 'new' member was in fact an old one, and then seconds later as if on cue, said member walked in. Normally anyone else who would've written what Riley had on their report, she would've been a bit more hesitant to understand their doings, but she couldn't hold a long grudge against a young girl who had been pregnant at the time and was torn between what she wanted and what she thought the father wanted.
It seems as if Catherine was the second person that day to see a new Riley. Catherine never would've imagined a tearful, almost scared Riley crying in her office about the things she'd been explaining. Apparently, becoming a mother and moving back to your old hometown tended to have effects on people. She leaned forward and put her hand on Riley's shoulder. "Don't explain anything else. You're welcome back whether I have a say in it or not, but you know you're the new guy again; with Nick being Assistant Supervisor, Greg working his way up and Wendy being in the field now." She explained
Riley nodded but curiosity struck her. "Wendy's in the field now?" she wondered, sitting up straight as Cath pulled away and nodded.
"Yeah, about six months after you left, Langston did too. He just felt as if something was missing and he needed to go back to his old job and about a month later, Wendy passed her test." She smiled gently, standing up and grabbing her coffee cup. "Come on, we'll talk. It's about time for a break and you don't officially start until tomorrow, according to Ecklie." Riley nodded, wiping the last remnants of tears off her face and followed Catherine out and they made their way towards the break room. Before filling her own cup back up, Catherine reached up in the cupboard and offered a cup to Riley, who smiled gently and accepted with a quiet thank you.
After filling both of the cups, Riley and Catherine sat down at the table and drank in silence, until Riley broke it, asking a question she wasn't sure she was going to be answered with. "Do you want to see a picture of her?" she wondered, out of habit trying to push a strand of her hair behind her ear. Catherine smiled and nodded. "Sure." She said, leaning closer to Riley who had pulled her cell phone out of her jeans pocket. Riley flipped through her menu and photo albums until she got to one labeled 'Anna' clicking another button, Riley brought up a photo full screen of a little two year old with dirty blond pigtail braids and excited brown eyes. She was holding onto a small white furred, blue eyed kitten. The girl had a smile that someone could see from a mile away and that could melt the most frozen hearts.
"Oh Riley, she's adorable." Catherine took the phone, smiling as she flipped through the photo album, letting out small giggles as she looked through them. She was thinking about how much her own daughter had grown up and thought someday Riley would be thinking the same with her little girl. There was something that Catherine had noticed about the little girl. The eyes. Riley's were a grey blue shade and her daughter's were deep brown, but it really wasn't the color that stood out; it was how they looked when she had a smile stretched across her face, how carefree and loving they looked. She knew those eyes.
Catherine handed back the phone as Nick walked into the room. "Hey Cath, hey Riley." Nick said, nonchalantly and to that, received a strange look from his boss. He sensed the strange glare and turned from the coffee maker with his cup of caffeine in his hand. "What?" he raised an eyebrow towards the strawberry blond. Almost as if reading her mind, Nick nodded knowingly. "Oh, yeah yeah, I saw Riley a while ago walking in. No need for surprise introductions." he said, happening to steal a look at Riley's phone as she fiddled with it and smiled. "Cute kid. Is she like a niece or something?" he wondered, sitting down at the table across from the two women.
When Riley was opening her mouth to answer, one of the last two missing members of the 'group' walked in. Riley and Greg caught each other's eyes for the second time that day. Greg averted his direction to the coffee and doing as the others in the room had done so, poured a cup of coffee. With Greg's back turned and figuring he was too much into what he was doing, she answered Nick.
"Thanks. No, she's my daughter. Annabelle, but I call her Anna. Turned two a few months ago." She smiled, looking at her watch and eyes widening. "Crap. I told the sitter I'd be back in an hour. I have to go. I'll see you guys tomorrow. Tell Wendy I said hi." Riley said, taking one last gulp of her coffee and giving a quick wave to her co-workers as she darted out of the building. Little did she notice a certain CSI's eyes on her back the whole time she was leaving until she was completely out of sight of him.
Greg winced as he touched the side of the coffee pot, burning his finger. "Damn." He put the pot back and sucked on the tip of the injured finger. He didn't join in on the conversation between Nick and Catherine, but listened in still with his back turned.
"Wow, Riley a mother? She kind of stuck me as the kind of girl who wouldn't wanna bring a kid into the world 'with all the sadness and crap' and stuff like that." He said, using air quotes, trying to make himself look more convincing than he actually was. Catherine sighed and sipped her coffee.
"But that was almost three years ago, Nicky. People change." She said, making sure to stare at Greg when she said the last two words. "Speaking of; Greg how come you weren't talking to Riley? Normally you too would bicker and flirt like teenagers." She couldn't help the small smirk that left her mouth as she said it.
Greg turned on his heels, leaning against the counter, sipping his coffee and shrugging in response. "I'm just tired. I'll talk to her tomorrow." He said, waving off the two as he made his way back to the office. He sat himself down in his seat. He hadn't been at work for an hour and already he had felt like a semi truck had been lifted up and dropped straight down onto him as if it came out of a Looney Toons cartoon. All he wanted was to have a nice dumpster-diving free, quiet day in his office but of course things didn't go that way as he came eye to eye with someone he hadn't seen in so long and it was someone he wasn't sure if he even wanted to see in the first place. He rested his head against his arm and closed his eyes.
"Today's going to be a long day." He grunted to himself and the quietness of the office and wasn't even aware that he had fallen asleep.
Okay, I know it is kind of crappy and out of character, but ha, I'm trying my best. I know Catherine forgiving her was a bit rushed, but I would feel sympathy for anyone in Riley's predicament too. I did the last minute editing at one a.m., so advanced apologies to any errors or such. Also, I just felt like I needed to get rid of Ray to make room for Wendy and eventually Riley to come back. It'll get loads better soon than it is now. I like reviews and constructive criticism, but not flames. Flames suck.