A/N: Here's a short little story--3 chapters, max! Just to celebrate Valentine's Day. We return to the past.
Valentine's Day in Vegas Chapter 1
It all started with a pair of socks—the cheap kind made with sparkly fabric sold at the front of Target before any holiday. Sara Sidle had been with Greg Sanders when they made a quick stop for food and she made a wise crack about the socks.
"Who wears those things?" She asked, head directed to the display. "I've never seen 'em on anyone—anyone, even you!"
Of course, because she noticed them, Greg had to pick up a pair and threw them in his basket and when she got outside, he waved the socks in her face, saying "Wear these on Valentine's day and I'll win the bet!"
A few days later Sara had ended up in the hallway of the lab yelling at Catherine which Ecklie overheard which resulted in Sara going home with the threat of terminating her employment. She wasn't fired but it had put an awkward cloud over everyone; the guys had called and visited her while she was off. Grissom had showed up unexpectedly at her apartment the first day—she knew he saved her job—but she had also had a major collapse involving tears and a reveal of her very private life. When she returned to work, the guys welcomed her as if she had been gone for a weekend, Catherine was cautious but civil, and Grissom—she didn't know what to expect, but he was almost the same.
Today, Sara pulled on red socks covered with little white hearts. She would wear them tonight even though Valentine's Day celebrations would really begin tomorrow. Her boots almost covered them so she jerked a little harder to pull them higher. She'd show Greg—after all these were a gift from him—that she did and would "celebrate" the day for lovers. She grimaced at the thought; her love life was pretty much non-existent and, from the way things were going, would remain that way for the future.
She checked her bag for all she might need—change of clothes, phone, gun—running down her mental list as she made a last sweep of her apartment. She had made her bed, picked up her clothes, cleaned the kitchen, and rechecked her bathroom. Not that she expected company, but she had been in too many homes and seen the debris of everyday life that no one would want another to see, so she made sure her place was neat and orderly before she left—just in case. She even checked her refrigerator to throw out old food and, last, she took her trash out as she left.
At work, Nick, Warrick, and Greg were waiting for her, hanging around out front until she walked up.
"Here she is!" Greg was as excited as a sixth grader handing out Valentine cards. He jerked on his pants leg.
Sara slowly pulled one leg of her pants above her boot, lifted and wiggled her foot. She knew what was going on, having worked with these three for years.
Warrick's elbow punched Nick. "Pay up." Money changed hands and she reached for the bills. Nick laughed as he let her take the money.
"I can't believe you wore those!" Nick said with a laugh as they entered the building together.
The beginning of shift went as usual—Grissom sat behind his desk with a stack of files and handed Warrick a solo convenience store robbery, Nick and Greg were going across town to a dead body, and as Catherine was off, Sara would hang around the lab as back-up. Grissom waved several folders at her.
"Back log," he grumbled. "You can work on these." He turned his head back to the paperwork on his desk with an obvious dismissal.
Sara took the case files and sat down at the table in his office. She could finish these in an hour or less so she opened the first one and let her mind wander. Grissom had been unusually nice to her lately—ever since he had taken her home that night after Nick's almost promotion he had watched her, discretely and carefully. After Ecklie had nearly fired her and the emotional breakdown that followed, Grissom had kept her close either from fear that she would blow up in flames or break down in sobs—she wasn't sure.
The first case was an easy one and everything was signed and checked per protocol. She opened the second folder and her breath must have made a sound because Grissom looked up.
"You okay?" He asked.
"Yeah," she said as she faked a cough. She was looking at the case that gotten her sent home; the two dead women encased in tar; she closed her eyes for a second or two.
"Are you okay?" Grissom asked again.
Sara opened her eyes. "Yeah—this—this case—it's the one…"
He waved a hand, "I thought you might like to see how it was closed."
Greg had told her; she had been right about the husband. She nodded and returned to reading the file, putting several pages in order, and checking for signatures. It took longer than normal because she read every word of the thick report.
By the time she got to the third case file, she was ready for something else, but she kept reading. This was why she would never be a supervisor, she thought. Her butt was numb and she had not been in the chair for an hour.
The ringing of his phone brought both heads up before he could answer it and she waited, listening to a one-sided conversation.
"Red Rocks—I know the place." He glanced at his watch. "Maybe an hour, little more." He reached for his jacket and turned to Sara. "We're on—dead body out at Red Rocks, on a trail. You up for a night hike?"
"Sure. Who found it? Why so late?"
Red Rocks was an undeveloped desert conservation area west of Las Vegas popular with hikers and backpackers and those who loved unspoiled nature. This call was unusual because the Bureau of Land Management handled most accidents—falls, occasional suicides, but few incidents required more than finding a note or interviewing witnesses.
"Why us? Do you have batteries? Anything special?" Sara ran through her questions without taking a breath.
Grissom chuckled. "You are ready to leave. Get your kit—camper found the body. Sounds decomposed and BLM has no record of lost campers. Bugs all over the body." He smiled as his hand went up in a motion that signaled "let's go".
They easily found the right trail—blue lights everywhere—with a dozen cars and a helicopter in the parking lot and twice as many people standing around. But no body—it was three miles up the trail—and Sara knew most of these guys were not going to hike into the hills for a dead body. Grissom walked over to talk to several men; Sara went to the back of the vehicle and unloaded most of her kit into a backpack adding bottles of water and snacks.
They started the hike using flashlights but as soon as they were out of sight of flashing lights, Grissom turned his off. The path they walked was easily seen in the moonlight as a white trail between rocks.
"Should take about an hour," Grissom said as he walked ahead of her. "There's a team on sight—campers freaked out when they found the body—called 9-1-1 after climbing to the top of one of the ranges. BLM sent a helicopter but it couldn't land, so a couple of men went down with a basket." He continued to talk as they walked downhill, but once they started up, he stopped; the climb was steep and both found it easier to walk in silence than to walk and try to carry on a conversation.
Sara was having her own issues; the damn cheap socks on her feet kept slipping down. She stopped every few minutes to tug them up, then took a few fast steps to catch up with Grissom. He never noticed.
A/N: We would be tickled pink to have a bunch of reviews on this first chapter!