Hi guys!

It's been a while since I uploaded a new story, but I'm finally ready to give you this one! I really hope you'll enjoy it!

Big Love

pikapikatchu

"How about this one?"

"No..."

"This?"

"No, I'm thinking of something more like this..." Russell was pointing at a bucket of peach colored wall paint as he was standing in a DIY market.

"Yeah, it's nice," Greg answered, obviously a little annoyed already.

"...But I'm not too sure about this one... Isn't it a little too... peachy?"

"...Isn't that the purpose in buying peach colored paint? Come ooooon, Russell, pick one already. We've been here for 15 minutes. I'm bored. ...And getting hungry. That's not how I planned to waste my lunch break today."

"Hey, this is important to me. My wife told me to pick a new color for the kitchen. I don't just want to pick any color, I want it to be nice."

"But this one is nice. Why don't you just take it and ask your wife if she likes it. If not, you can bring it back and take another one instead."

Russell thought about this proposition for a second. "That's not a bad idea, actually." He laughed. "If only you'd have said that 15 minutes ago, we'd already be back at the lab."

Greg gave him a look.

Russell stood there, thinking about something.

"...What now?"

"Nothing, I'm just unsure whether I forgot something or not..."

Greg sighed. "I'll pay for the paint if we leave now!"

Russell was finally ready to pay and leave. As they were walking towards the cash register, a young woman walked up to them. "Excuse me, are you two police officers?"

Both of them were on their break and still wearing their CSI vests. "Not exactly, we're CSIs," Russell explained. "Why, do you need help?"

She had a quite nervous look on her face as she pulled out a gun and fired it at the two.

As Greg was trying to take cover behind the shelves, Russell was hit by one of the bullets and went down. Being more of a CSI than a law enforcer, it took Greg a moment to think before he got his gun out, too. He pointed it at the direction the woman was just standing at, but she was already running out of the DIY market. When he noticed she was gone, he turned to Russell. Only now he realized his boss had been hit. "Russell!" He hurried to him, trying to find out where he'd been hit. Blood was on Russell's shirt as Greg inspected it, but Russell tried to get up. "No, don't! Lie down, you..."

Russell interrupted him. "I'm fine..." He put Greg's hand away from his body and slowly tried to get up, coughing painfully.

Two customers hurried to their side, trying to help them any way they could. "The ambulance's on the way!"

"I don't need one." Russell shook his head. "It's a good thing I forgot to take my bulletproof vest off..." He looked down on his shirt, a bit confused about the blood on it. He patted himself down, but couldn't find an injury on his body. "...Who got hurt?" he asked as he looked at his bloody hands.

"He did..." one of the customers said, pointing at Greg.

"We were standing here when she approached us..." Russell was walking Nick through what happened nearly half an hour ago. "And after asking us if we were cops, she opened fire at us."

Nick nodded as he looked around. "How many shots did she fire?"

"I'm pretty sure I heard ten."

"And one of them hit you in the chest."

He nodded. "I honestly just forgot to take my vest off... I don't even want to think about what could've happened if..."

Nick patted him on the shoulder. "Then don't. You were lucky, enjoy that." He smiled. "...Another one hit Greg?"

Russell nodded. "We didn't even notice at first. ...He didn't even notice..."

Nick walked away and up to Greg. He was sitting on some piles of tiles while a paramedic was taking care of him. "How're you feeling?"

Greg sighed. "This was so random, I... I just don't get it."

"I meant your hand."

"Oh... Right..." Greg looked down on his hand. The paramedic was just putting some bandages around it. "A little more to the left and I would've lost my thumb."

"Does he need to go to the ER?" Nick asked the paramedic.

"I'm fine, I don't..." Greg tried to answer, but the paramedic interrupted him.

"I told him it would leave a nasty scar if I just patched it up and that he should go get some stitches, but he refused."

Nick gave Greg a look.

"Come on, don't look at me like that. You want me to go to the ER, wait there for five hours just to avoid some scarring?"

Nick sighed. Greg's stubbornness was not that easy to take for him sometimes. "Fine, whatever."

"If it starts bleeding again you'll have to go to the hospital, anyways," the paramedic explained, a bit annoyed by the stubbornness the CSI presented, as well.

Greg hopped off the tiles he was sitting on and walked away with Nick. "Why would anyone do this?" he asked, trying to keep up with Nick's steps.

"We'll have to find out who she is to answer that."

"She didn't care who we were, she just wanted to hurt some police officers. I mean, that's..."

Nick stopped. "You should go home."

"Huh?"

"Go home, get some rest and deal with the fact that you've been the victim of a random act of violence... again. And count your blessings, because it could've been worse."

"...What are you talking about, 'again' ?"

Nick rolled his eyes a bit. "You've been beaten up by a bunch of kids who thought it would be fun to do that, and you still wonder about random attacks?"

"...Why are you being that way? It's totally different. They were willing to take the chance of killing someone, this woman wanted to."

Nick gave Greg a look. "So? How does that make her any different from them? Go home!" He walked away, leaving Greg standing there with a confused and annoyed look on his face.

While Greg went home to get the rest he needed, Russell decided to stay with Nick and help him to reconstruct the scene. They stayed at that DIY market for almost three hours until they finally finished. "You know, you should go home now. You should've gone home when Greg did," Nick said to Russell as they were packing their things. "I can take care of this myself."

"I'm fine, I don't need any rest."

"You've been shot at. You would want me to take a few days off, too."

"I'm the boss, Nick. I can't just take a few days off whenever I want to."

"That's what you have me for, right? I can handle this. Don't worry." Nick grabbed his CSI kit and walked out of the market.

Russell followed behind. "Greg's at home, Sara's on vacation, you can't do it alone. This case alone would need another hand, but we have two other cases waiting at the lab."

"I said I can handle it. I'm sure Henry and Hodges will gladly help me. Maybe Charlotte and Robin will help, too. Go home, be with your family."

When Greg arrived at the apartment he moved in a few months ago, his neighbor Mrs. Dandrige walked out of her home. "Craig, nice to see you!" She was a nice old lady with curly white hair, always forgetting his name, flashing him a smile.

"Hello Mrs. Dandrige." He gave her a tired smile and walked towards his door.

"Oh no, what happened to your hand? Are you alright?"

"Sure." He nodded. "It's fine, just a little accident at work..." He didn't feel like making too much small talk at the moment, he just wanted to go inside and rest.

Seeing the tired, almost sad look on his face, she felt sorry for him. "You know, I made some lasagna yesterday, I could warm some of it up for you. You look hungry."

"That's nice, but no, thank you. I'll head straight to bed."

She couldn't hide the disappointment. "Well... Then maybe some other time." She was a lonely woman who needed some company badly.

"Sure, that'd be great," he responded without actually meaning it.