Chasing the Lab Rat

Rated T for violence and language.

Foreword

I especially enjoy television inspired fan fictions in which a completely inconsequential scene in some random episode is altered in a way that it makes a new and exciting story. A good example of this is the "Thoughtless Consequences" story by Goody. And…uh…well I'm sure there are lots more.

I've been an on and off watcher of the show since it started, and one episode I always liked was "Chasing the Bus." But what if something had gone different? Like if that convict survived the crash. That would change a lot, especially for everyone's favorite lab rat who wandered out of the DNA lab and into the chaotic crime scene.

Beginning just after the incident with the blood vomiting bus driver, I give you the new and very exciting "Chasing the Bus."

Part I

"Sorry…"

"It's alright, man. Just stop apologizing."

"Sorry," he started to mutter again before he remembered to bite his tongue. The glare on Nick Stokes' face was enough to shut anyone up.

Nick turned away and moved swiftly down the steep, rocky hill while keeping a tight grip on the safety cords that had been put in place. Greg Sanders was lagging behind him, still trying to apologize for his actions.

"I guess I just wasn't expecting blood to look like that. Pre collection it's so different."

Nick sighed as he reached flat ground again. He couldn't help but be reminded of his own first solo case as a CSI. It had been called in as a simple B and E, but when he arrived there were three bodies, children included, soaking in pools of their own blood. He hadn't been expecting it, and that's why it scared him. He had half a mind to tell Greg this story now, but thought better of it.

What Greg saw was no comparison. The driver had simply puked up a little blood. But he'd frozen up in absolute terror, not even responding to Nick's yelling at him to get a doctor. When the doctor had finally come around, and the bus driver was taken away on a stretcher, Greg promptly dashed towards the shrubbery and threw up his stomach contents.

"It was just a surprise," Greg said quickly in an attempt to disband any hint of discomfort in his voice.

Nick finally turned to face the young man, who had to stop dead in his tracts to avoid walking into the CSI.

"Listen, G," he said with a sigh. "I don't know what made you think you should come out here, but you obviously aren't prepared for this kind of stuff." He watched the younger man shuffle his feet and stuff his hands in his pockets, his gaze never leaving the ground. He was acting like a little kid that had been told off for misbehaving. "Maybe you should go back to the lab before you freeze or something."

Greg's head snapped to attention and his wide eyes met Nick's. "No way man. They said all hands on deck, so here I am. I can handle it, really! I can collect evidence and take pictures and all that crap…"

"No," Nick called back to Greg as he started towards the crash site. "You're here to take my notes. That's all, Greggo. Now let's go see what we can find on that bus."

"Greg…"

He was awoken from his thoughts by the sound of his own name. He couldn't help but picture in his mind what his boss, Gilbert Grissom, had just told him. A head in a can of paint. It must have been a really small head—or a really big thing of paint. Greg had half a mind to pick up a can from Home Depot after shift and see if his own head would fit in a gallon sized bucket of paint…

"Greg, bag this," Grissom was saying as he held out plastic bag to Greg. He pulled his hands out of his pockets, definitely regretting that he didn't have a warmer coat. His frozen fingers grasped the bag and he fumbled with it for a moment before he was finally able to open it and hold it out to Nick.

"Take it back to the lab and swab the rim for DNA."

Greg nodded as the broken bottle dropped into his bag.

"You should be wearing gloves."

Greg stopped and blinked at Grissom. Oh, great what was he supposed to do now? Drop the bag and get a pair of latex gloves? Did this mean Grissom was giving him advice for future field work? Or was already it too late?

His supervisor raised an eyebrow at him.

"Oh, sorry," he finally muttered once he realized he'd been silent for a good minute. But Grissom was already walking away, with Nick in tow. Both were shaking their heads at what Greg assumed was his own incompetence. He stood there, feeling stupid for a second before spinning on his heel and heading back up the hill.

"Stupid, Greg," he growled to himself. "Real stupid."

His first time out of the lab and he'd already screwed up. He looked down at the sample he held in his freezing hand. The least he could do was process the evidence and get Grissom some good news. Maybe that would make up for what he did wrong, and they would let him out again.

Greg nearly stumbled as he crossed the road, carefully avoiding the markers and crime scene tape. He saw the backs of a couple of people in CSI jackets, scrutinizing the ground with their flashlights. He recognized one in particular, a petite brunette, and had half a mind to go talk to her. But Sara Sidle would probably just ignore him anyway. After all, she only talked to him in the lab when she wasn't really intensely focused on something. And she looked pretty focused now.

Shrugging to himself Greg continued the walk to his car, taking one final look behind him just to see if she noticed him. Nope, she was staring at the ground. Oh well. Even if she knew he was there she probably would have criticized him for screwing up, too. All the more reason for him to hurry and get the evidence he clutched in his frozen hand back to the lab.

He ducked under the final strip of crime scene tape, the one that separated the crash scene from the rest of the empty road. Greg's car was parked out here, on the opposite side of the highway. He had purposely parked far away and off the pavement, figuring it would be best if he was out of the way in case an ambulance or something had to get through. He knew they wouldn't let his car any closer to the scene anyway—it wasn't official looking enough. He sighed. His crappy little red '99 Honda. The second car he'd ever owned and the first car he'd bought by himself.

He fished his keys out of his pocket, still holding the evidence bag like his life depended on it, and moved around the car to the front driver's side door. He was just about to put the key in the lock when he heard a crunch coming from behind him in the dark. He practically jumped out of skin and turned, clutching his keys and the evidence to his chest in surprise.

Behind him, moving forward out of the shadowed desert, was a man with a scruffy dark beard dressed in dark, ruffled clothing. Greg noticed the mystery man looked older than he was and, he noted with dread, that he was a lot bigger, too. But there was something weird about the way he was walking forward—he was staggering, as though he could barely stay on his feet. Greg, feeling that the threat level had gone down significantly, cleared his throat.

"Hey, man," he called as bravely as he could to the figure that stood barely five feet from him. "Are you…um, okay?"

The guy stepped forward and Greg finally got a good look at his face in the dim light. He looked like he was drenched in red—blood was stuck in his hair and dripping down onto his clothes from somewhere on his head. The entire front of his face was streaked with blood.

"Oh, shit, dude… Were you in the bus accident? There're ambulances down there, they could help you out or…"

"Are you a cop?"

Greg was taken aback by the rough sounding voice that cut him off. "Uh…no I work for the crime lab…"

"You're going to get me out of here."

Greg blinked. "Um…what? Why? The ambulance is like right there," he trailed off, pointing toward the brightly lit crime scene, suddenly wishing he had parked closer to it. "They can help you out with your…your head or whatever…"

The man stepped forward, forcing Greg to take a nervous step back until he was pressed against his own car with nowhere else to go. He saw the light from the distant crime scene reflected off of something in the man's hand. Greg gulped when he realized it was a knife.

"The cops can't know I was on the bus," the injured man said. "So you're going to help me get out of here." He emphasized his point by bringing his little pocket knife to Greg's throat.

Greg swallowed hard and immediately regretted the action as his skin was pressed further against the knife. "O-okay, okay," he gasped. "I'll help you…"

"Good," the man said as he eased the knife away from Greg's neck and forced the younger man to turn and face the car. "Now unlock the door and get in. You're driving."

Greg didn't even think—he just did as he was told, all too conscious of the close proximity of the man standing behind him and the blade that was now poking into the small of his back. His attacker only stepped back enough for Greg to open the car door and get into the driver's seat.

"Unlock the other side," the man said. Greg leaned over and pulled up the lock on the passenger side door. "Good. Now buckle up and don't try anything." He slammed Greg's door shut once the seat belt was buckled and moved around the front of the car, his eyes never leaving Greg's.

Greg, meanwhile, sat stone still in the car, still unsure how he was processing the whole situation. He wasn't really scared. More…confused—confused that this crazy guy had the balls to hijack someone just outside of a crime scene. The way the man was acting convinced Greg that he had somehow caused the bus accident and now Greg was supposed to be his chauffer away from police custody.

Yeah right.

The second the man had gotten to his side of the car Greg snapped to attention, unbuckled his seatbelt and pushed open the door, all the while making sure to hang on to the evidence Grissom had entrusted to him.

He'd just gotten his head out of the car when he felt himself being yanked back by the collar of his track jacket. Greg's attacker may have been suffering from a bloody head injury, but that didn't mean the guy wasn't strong. In a second he'd wrenched Greg back into his seat and pressed the little knife back against Greg's throat, this time hard enough to draw a thin line of blood.

"H-hey, take it easy…" Greg gasped, his fear suddenly taking over as the sharp blade cut into his neck.

"I told you not to try anything," the man growled, shaking Greg hard as he did so. "You're lucky I don't cut you open right now."

"Ah…okay, okay," Greg said, panic evident in his voice. "That's not really necessary…"

"And what the hell is that?"

Greg blinked. What was what? He followed the other man's gaze to Greg's chest, where he was still clutching the evidence bag with white knuckled fists. "It-it's just…evidence…"

"That's mine!" The man relented his grip on Greg's jacket and snatched the evidence bag out of Greg's hands was a short laugh. "You found my boos…" His good mood was dashed however when he realized the whiskey bottle in the brown bag was broken. "Damn, what a waste…"

Greg could do nothing but watch as the evidence was tossed haphazardly into the back seat of his car. Oh man, Grissom was going to be so pissed at him… He'd never let Greg come to another crime scene again.

"Take off your jacket," Greg's attacker demanded. He reached over Greg and pulled the door shut again before finally relenting the blade from the lab rat's throat.

"Why?" Greg was genuinely confused. His jacket…?

The man was clearly loosing what little patience he had. "Because mine's ripped and stained and it's cold out so I want your jacket," he growled, his voice rising slightly with each word.

"Fine," Greg said as he slowly eased the thin jacket off his shoulders. "Here, take it."

His attacker did take it, but made no move to take his own jacket off. "Now buckle up and start the damn car. We're getting the hell out of here."

"Yeah, sure, whatever," Greg muttered as he did as he was told. He managed to keep a somewhat brave façade, when in reality he was becoming more and more fearful of his situation. The hijacker was clearly unstable and the last thing Greg wanted to do was leave the crime scene. But, seeing as how he didn't really have a choice, at least not with the knife still pointed at him, Greg stepped on the gas and eased out onto the highway.

"Good. Just keep going. Nice and easy."

"Where are we going?" Greg dared to ask.

"Nowhere," his attacker growled. "So keep driving and shut the hell up."

Greg did, deducing that cooperation with the man would be his best option right now. He would just drive really slowly, and hopefully the CSIs would eventually notice he was gone and would be able to find him. Hopefully.

Out of the corner of his eye he watched the man ease out of his leather jacket and toss it into the back seat with the evidence bag. He started pulling on Greg's jacket, all the while muttering how it was "too small."

He'd just gotten the jacket on when he noticed the ID badge clipped to the front breast pocket. He yanked it off and got a good look at it, and in a second the knife was in Greg's neck again.

Greg barely managed to keep the car on the road as he jerked in surprise from the sudden attack. "Wha—?"

"I thought you said you weren't a cop?!" the man roared at him.

"I'm not!" Greg gasped, finding it hard to focus on driving while being threatened and yelled at.

"It says 'LVPD' on your badge and you were at the bus crash…you must be a cop!" He was still yelling, only now he sounded horrified by his own realization that he had just hijacked a cop.

"Do I look like a cop to you?" Greg said defensively and as bravely as he could. "Read the rest of the thing—it says I am a laboratory technician. I work with Crime Scene Investigators, not cops. That's why I have your bottle in an evidence bag. It's my job."

But the man still looked skeptical as he held the knife to Greg's throat.

"Could you ease up already?" Greg continued. "It's kinda hard to drive like this. You'll ending making my car crash just like you made the bus crash."

Finally the man pulled back, but his narrowed gaze never left Greg's face. "You think I caused the crash?" he said in low and malicious voice

Greg swallowed hard and immediately regretted voicing his suspicions in the first place. "Yeah…well…it is kinda weird that you wanted out of there so fast…"

"I didn't do it," the man said honestly.

Greg blinked in surprise but kept his eyes on the road ahead of him. "Well…then…why do I have to drive you out of there? You should have just gone in an ambulance or something…"

"Just 'cause I didn't cause the crash doesn't mean I'm completely innocent," the man snapped. "The name's Calvin. Calvin McBride."

He paused, as though Greg should recognize the name and react appropriately. Greg wracked his mind but couldn't come up with anything. The only Calvin that he could think of was from Calvin and Hobbes, but that was a cartoon character. If he'd worked on McBride's case, he might remember what the guy's DNA looked like, but names…Greg was never good with names, or spelling them for that matter.

"Nothing?" McBride said, his anger rising again. "You work for the cops and you haven't heard of me before?"

Greg shook his head, though he suddenly wished he had heard of him before, or at least what he might have done to his victims.

"Well, I just got out," the convict continued. "I served my time and now I'm out."

"So…why the hell are you running away?" Greg said, now very confounded. "If you didn't cause the accident, you should be fine…"

"I wasn't supposed to be on a bus," McBride admitted. "I was violating my parole."

"Oh." Greg didn't know what else to say. This whole thing was a stupid waste of time to him. All he wanted to do was go back to the lab and process Grissom's evidence. "Well…you want me to just take you back? We could forget this whole thing ever happened…"

"No way, man," McBride said with a shake of his head. "If you assumed I did it, then so will everyone else who knows I have a rap sheet. Hell I wish I crashed the bus. That would've actually been a cool thing to be arrested for."

Greg wasn't so sure what was so cool about crashing a bus. But it made him nervous to think of what this guy could have possible done to put him in jail in the first place. He swallowed hard and asked in a small voice, "what did you get arrested for?"

To Greg's surprise, McBride actually answered his question. "Aggravated assault with a deadly weapon."

"Oh," Greg muttered. He felt somewhat relieved that the convict hadn't in fact murdered anyone. At least not yet.

Another moment of awkward silence passed before Greg asked another question.

"Why were you violating your parole in the first place?"

"What is it with you, kid?" McBride growled angrily. "You just like pissing people off with your stupid questions?"

"No," Greg countered quickly. "I would just like to know where exactly I'm supposed to be driving to."

Greg was getting even more nervous as they were now miles away from the crime scene or any civilization for that matter. The only thing ahead of him or on either side was the dark, cold desert.

"I've got a score to settle with an old buddy of mine," McBride said simply.

Greg paled. "Oh, yeah sure," he said as bravely as he could. "He owes you money or whatever…maybe over the game…something harmless like that…right?"

"I'm gonna stab the son of a bitch…which means I'm probably gonna have to off you too now for telling you that."

Greg choked and clenched the steering wheel tightly in his shaking hands. He was afraid McBride would say that. "I…I don't think that'll be necessary," Greg said, his voice shaking significantly as he stumbled over his words. "I can forget you said anything…"

"That's impossible. You work for the cops—you'd be the first guy to snitch on me."

Crap, Greg thought miserably. This crazy guy was going to kill him for being at a crime scene he wasn't even supposed to be at that in the first place.

"But who knows," McBride said with a shrug. "If you play it real cool and get me the hell outta Nevada, maybe I'll forget I have to kill you."

"Oh, yeah," Greg said as he let out a tense breath. "I'm cool. No problem."

"You know what'd be really cool?"

"Uh, what's that?"

"If you would shut the fuck up and keep your eyes on the God damn road!" McBride yelled.

Greg flinched at the harshness of his tone and did as he was told. He kept his eyes glued to the road that was only illuminated a few feet in front of him by his headlights. Things were not looking good, but Greg figured that so long as he cooperated he would at least be able to get out of this with his life. Hopefully. He just wished he would stop shivering.

They drove in silence for a while before Greg heard McBride rummaging through the glove compartment. Greg could hear the rattling of the Tic Tac box, a shuffling of papers, and then McBride slamming his hands on the dashboard in frustration.

"You don't have any drugs in here? No pain killers…not even a bottle of Aspirin?"

Greg remembered to bite his tongue and shook his head mutely.

"God damn it," McBride muttered. "I've got a fucking headache."

The convict rummaged through the glove compartment once more for good measure, then seemed to stop moving altogether. Greg couldn't see what he'd found, but McBride slowly sat upright again in his seat with something clenched in his fist.

"Pull over somewhere…over there, behind those rocks."

Greg swallowed hard and pulled over the car in the direction McBride was pointing. He hadn't said anything and he was cooperating with the convict, so he wasn't going to be killed…right?

"That's real good," McBride said as he reached over and pulled the key out of the ignition. They sat in eerie silence for a moment, now without even the car's engine as background noise.

Greg might have been thinking of saying something, anything, just to break the uncomfortable silence, when McBride interrupted his thoughts.

"Hey, kid…look at this."

Reluctantly Greg turned his head to look at McBride and came face to face with a small, grey cylindrical object with the nozzle pointed right at him. Greg paled considerably as his stomach performed fear induced summersaults. McBride had gotten that out of Greg's glove compartment. His mom had always made Greg kept it in his car, just in case he'd ever needed some sort of protection, especially while he was living in the city.

Before Greg could even think of reacting, McBride pressed down on the handle and sprayed Greg right in the face. The burning liquid got in Greg's eyes and he cried out at the painful sensation, only to feel the agony in his throat as some of the chemical entered his mouth. McBride didn't have his finger on the pepper spray trigger for long, but it was more than enough for Greg.

"Shit!" he croaked as he wiped at his eyes. He'd never been pepper sprayed before, but he could easily say now that it was probably the most painful thing he'd ever experienced. He couldn't even see as McBride reached for him and grabbed a handful of his spiky hair.

Greg felt his head being pulled back and slammed against his window. His left temple hit hard, but he couldn't even yell anymore because of the burning in his throat. McBride pulled back again and bashed Greg even harder this time against the solid glass. Greg heard a sickening thud when his head made contact and felt sticky warm liquid ooze down his face. Then McBride finally released his hair and Greg slumped down in his seat, unconscious.

"Just what you'd expect," CSI coroner Dr. Al Robbins said as he looked over the corpse of bus driver. "Massive injuries, internal bleeding."

Nick nodded. "So it's not the driver…"

"We're looking at the bus," Grissom said matter-of-factly. "Nicky, you haven't seen Greg around, have you?"

Nick shook his head.

"Sanders?" Doc Robbins interjected. "I heard it was his first time out in the field. Little out of his comfort zone, don't you think?"

Grissom peered at the doctor over his glasses. "And what would make you say that?"

Robbins nodded his head to Nick. "Because he said it."

Nick glared at him for a moment before shrugging in defeat. "Well, it's true, isn't it? Now don't get me wrong or anything—I like Greg, he's a great guy—but he should just stay in his DNA lab where he knows what's going on, you know what I'm saying?"

"Well, I think that's for Greg to determine for himself," Grissom said wisely. "I would like to know where he is though. He never came back with my evidence this morning."

"You mean the whiskey bottle?"

Grissom nodded. "I need to confirm whose it was if the driver had no alcohol in his system."

"The missing convict…"

"My thoughts exactly. Brass is still on it, though I doubt we're looking at him for causing the accident."

Nick was skeptical. "Why not?"

"The evidence is telling us the bus crashed due to external tampering. If our convict did disable the vehicle, I doubt he would ride knowing the bus would crash. He was breaking parole, not suicidal."

Nick nodded in agreement. "I'll head to the garage to check out the bus and see what was tampered with."

"Good. And if you see Greg, tell him to stop hiding from me. He knows better than that, even if you are spreading rumors about how poorly he did in the field."

With that Grissom turned and left the morgue, leaving a guilty looking Nick and Doc Robbins saying to the young CSI, "he sure told you."

Keep in mind for Part II of this very random story that I've followed the CSI ideal that processing evidence and catching crooks and stuff happens impossibly fast. So while Greg's on a road trip, the rest of the episode happens like it normally would :)