Disclaimer: All people, events and thoughts are borrowed or invented. Serious Spoilers for season 13, especially 'Risky Business Class' and 'Dead Air'. All familiar words were painstakingly transcribed the old fashioned way, play, pause, scribble, play, pause, scribble, play, pause, scribble, play, pause, scribble!
Author Notes: I watched Dead Air and found myself inspired... Doesn't happen often these days!
Home is where the coded notebook is...
By Rianne
She eyed the lurking black form of her phone again.
Bottom line was that she needed it out on the desk in case DB or one of the others needed her for something.
The frustrating thing was that her willpower was at an all time low and her attention kept drifting over to the screen without her permission.
Just to check.
Her dependency as much of an addiction as a poison to her mood.
Each new hour, each new day, stretching lately into each new week, that passed without them talking to one another increased her distraction.
Each missed call.
Each new voicemail that arrived, just when she was in a meeting, at a scene, out driving, even in the bathroom.
Like he could see a sign by her name that told him she was occupied and now was the perfect time to call. She was beginning to feel suspicious that he aimed for times she would be unavailable, so that he would look like he was making the effort, but he wouldn't have to actually explain himself and his continuing absence, his incommunicado behaviours.
That flashing missed call notification always gifted her with that heart stopping moment when she saw that she had in fact missed him again.
It was getting harder and harder and taking increasingly longer to summon the courage to listen to whatever he had recorded. Feeling her heart stumble at the sound of his voice.
Occasionally he would text, but each new message he sent seemed as empty of emotion as a message sent from a stranger. Leaving her wondering what, if anything, he was attempting to say.
They had tried to coordinate time zones at first, but that hadn't helped much. His signal and connections were often turbulent and patchy. Her shifts were erratic and she often remained at work way past the time that they should have been over.
Yet, no one here noticed, or if they did no one passed comment. Pro bono always accepted, even expected from someone as focused as she.
Tonight though, the hours of her regular shift were plodding by, and all quiet on the Vegas front she was reduced to cleaning the equipment.
She had tried to work on an older cold case; hoping boredom would vie with infuriation and bring fresh perspective. But it was officially not happening tonight. The cold case had eventually been pushed aside, and now sat rapidly turning to freezing; developing ice crystals around the edges of the pages it felt that hopeless.
The others were dispersed out over the Lab. She could see Morgan at work in the next room, but the Plexiglas between them provided a sound barrier to idle conversation.
Her room was oppressively quiet, she could hear the dull tick from her watch and the surrounding corridors held the same eerie stillness in the hush of the night.
So empty they echoed.
An unsettlingly familiar feeling and the thing she usually came to work to escape.
Home was not really a word she felt anymore when she spent time inside the resonant walls she currently lived within.
The silence, the inactivity made her thoughts seem so much louder.
Filling her with an edge of paranoia and slow rising panic.
Her stomach twisted at the realisation that these thoughts had begun to broach her consciousness more and more often.
Causing herself worry she tried to ignore as she felt as the dull aching loneliness increase.
The what if's steadily gaining significance.
What if she had not come back to Vegas? What if their grant had come through? What if they had stayed in Paris? What if he had asked her to go to Peru with him? Why wasn't he asking her to join him now? Was she not qualified, experienced, wanted?
What would her life be like?
Thoughts like that building until she had to check herself.
Admonishing her weaknesses at letting the middle of the night blues steal into her.
She cleared her throat, reaching out for her phone.
His number eternally her speed dial no.1.
She crooked the cool plastic between her ear and her shoulder as she continued to clean.
Keeping her hands busy as her hopefulness at the prospect of talking to him swelled as the first ring filled her ears.
Building with the second, the third, the fourth, the fifth.
But by the sixth and then the seventh and final trill resignation had set in.
Her hope now fallen and adding to that ache in her stomach.
His voicemail was generic, not recorded anymore as he was using a network local to him.
"Hey Gil,"
Her voice sounded loud, sounded a little unfaithfully upbeat to her ears.
"I just wanted to hear your voice. It's kind of a slow night here."
Another empty meaningless arrangement of words.
She had nothing to say, or at least nothing to say to a machine and still despite everything she didn't want him to worry.
"Give me a call if you get a chance."
She hung up, lifting her hand to press the end call button before tossing the phone back to the table dismissively.
Like it was the phones fault her husband was unavailable.
Like it was to blame for the promise of connection it offered and then couldn't bring to fruition.
Like it was to blame for making her loneliness a sharper sting than ever.
For making her hope seem foolish.
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When her phone buzzed to life a few minutes later her head snapped up in expectant reflex.
D.B. RUSSELL
10 – 19 THE BREAK ROOM.
Displayed across the screen.
Work mode overtook her disappointment.
Her legs moving her forward before she had even finished reading the words.
Eager for a change of scenery and focus.
To find out why she, and by the look of it Morgan too, had been summoned.
Tossing her lab coat onto the back of the door hook and her latex gloves in the trash, she slipped her casual jacket on as she left the room.
Her long strides making short work of the corridor before an unexpected face brought her up shorter, her mouth opening in a wide-eyed gasp of surprise.
Doug Wilson.
As she lived and breathed.
Or didn't breathe as the case seemed to be.
The surrealistic sight of him being there, right there, in her break room was a little too much after the inertia of the last few hours.
Her heart was loud in her ears. Making itself known against her ribcage.
Her brain stumbling with confusion as an old world, an old life, came crashing into this one.
But before she could question, before she could even see his whole face or acknowledge his existence, D.B was gesturing for her to sit and she slammed her mouth closed and did as suggested, as the others, Nick, Greg and Morgan, joined them around the table.
The TV was on, playing a recording of a plane crash landing just off the strip, narrowly missing the Mediterranean Casino tower by mere feet.
Her eyes were on the screen, but her mind was far from it.
What was he doing here? Last she heard Doug was NTSB - National Transportation Safety Board, so pairing that information with the video she determined that the mystery summons was clearly about a plane crash.
But she was surprised that her brain had even made it that far with the current scrutiny.
Doug would already know the specifics of the case, and therefore would not need to watch the screen, but as far as she could tell that didn't really justify his attention not having left her since she had arrived in the room, or the fact that she was completely aware that his eyes were on her.
He was right next to her, standing whilst they were seated to watch.
Doug Wilson. All six foot something of him. Looking like her life from 14 years ago.
Hands in his pockets, casual as all get out, whilst she fought the urge to fidget.
She folded her hands in her lap to keep them still, and remain unflustered, conscious that the gold band she always wore felt cooler than her skin.
The tape paused and her attention was grounded again as DB said, "This was shot about 40 minutes ago, right before a chartered aircraft nosed into the ground at Tresser park."
Greg announced the mutual surprise of the assembled, "That's just a mile off the strip."
DB continued, gesturing to the man before them, "This is NTSB Investigator, Doug Wilson. He is going to be leading the crash investigation."
A final conformation for her that he really was here and not a tedium induced daydream on her part.
DB gestured between Doug and herself with the TV remote, casually announcing to all, "You two worked together before, right?"
Caught out, their eyes met for the first time since she had entered the room and the years disappeared as a few scattered memories of her San Francisco life breezed by.
Their mutual 'Yes's' tumbled over one another exposingly, as Doug broke their eye contact to acknowledge DB and she had to bite back her first smile all evening somehow managing to smother her response before Doug turned back to her, looking slightly guilty and she had to wonder what explanation he had given DB about their history.
They were all watching her now and so she had to say something.
"Yeah, on an NTSB crash scene when I worked at the San Francisco Crime Lab," she confirmed, a negligible amount of information, not incriminating and she was pleased to sound casual, unable to lift her focus from Doug. Appreciating all the slight changes which had overtaken his once so familiar face.
"Yeah, well right now we have very little information," Doug addressed to the others in the room to refocus their attentions, efficiently avoiding any more discussion of how the two of them were acquainted.
He continued to detail the little that they knew, mostly flight information gathered from the airport towers, and she watched, reluctantly proud of him and his calm professionalism, before he turned back to her at the very last moment, right at the end of announcing, "Answers that we hope you CSI's can find through evidence," and caught her watching him, before she reflexively looked away with a small acknowledging smile.
000000
Their first clue came from Finn. Sara found herself following DB and Doug along to hear what she had discovered.
Using audio analysis software on the distress call, Finn had enhanced the recording and discovered another voice from the cockpit, a male voice, which sounded agitated, leaping out from the background noise as the frightened Pilot had communicated his distress call to the airport command towers.
Two in the cockpit and yet, they had only found one body and that had to be the remains of the pilot and company co-owner, Keith Manheim. There were other remains, from the body of the plane but frustratingly they could not say how many passengers had been onboard as the plane was small and there were no legal requirements for a passenger manifest for such a charter.
Beside her Doug took copious old-school shorthand notes and she kept finding her eyes drifting to him.
Wondering what he was scribbling away at, his code completely indecipherable to her now.
When he spoke she had an excuse to watch him, tilting her chin upwards, and nearly forgetting that there were others in the room with them.
DB confirmed that NTSB had secured the scene and that all efforts were being made to identify these unknown victims. Nick and David had been sent out to the crash site to recover the bodies; Morgan and Greg were out there to collect what remained of the passengers personal effects.
"What about the Black Box?" she asked, turning to look at Doug again.
"Still haven't recovered it. I was about to head back to the site, could use some help?" Doug asked, tilting his head questioningly and she realised he was watching her just as intently, attempting to decode her too, and a long moment passed as she felt the corner of her mouth lift just slightly at the prospect of chasing the clues with him.
"The two of you have worked together before, you probably have your own shorthand," DB's uncanny words shattered her concentration and she turned her attention towards him and out of the corner of her eye she saw Doug turn too, in sync with her motions. "It's a good idea." DB continued, "Alright, let's get to work, a lot of eyes on this, we need answers."
She nodded, realising in that moment, that Finn was smiling at her in a very knowing way. That, I'm on to you and your past relationship kind of way, just the kind of look she herself had eyed Finn with in Seattle recently.
And she realised in that moment just how obvious her inability to stop staring was making the history between she and Doug, and that if Finn had so easily guessed their secret, that Doug must realise that she was giving the game away too, one look at him and his sheepish grin as they left the room confirmed it.
She bit down her groan.
She really did need to remember that she worked with trained investigators and that she had to be more careful if she wanted to keep her secrets just that.
000000
Heaving her kit from the locker, a faint flutter caught her attention, a rectangle stirred into flight by the removal of her belongings.
She watched it spiral before coming to land face down on the ground at her feet.
It was the photograph which had once been tacked to the inside of her locker; the picture had been missing for several weeks. The tape must have dried out, allowing it to fall. She had known it would return eventually, nothing disappeared from a sealed locker, but had never found time to search for it.
Placing her kit on the bench she stooped and collected it from the floor, holding the precious item in her hand for a second. White-side up.
Before placing it back on the shelf it had fallen from, without turning it over.
Instead reaching for her CSI SIDLE vest, and then her gun, holstering it securely on her belt.
"Ready to roll?"
Doug's voice from the doorway brought her attention back from the picture.
"Just about."
"Just like old times, right?" His voice was filled with his smile.
She had to laugh, despite herself.
"Very old times."
She closed the door to her locker. Waiting for the delve into the personal that was clearly on the horizon.
He cleared his throat, in that way he used to when he had something to ask that he knew he perhaps shouldn't.
"So, I hear you married your boss? What's his name again?"
Her mind skipped back to the fallen photograph.
"Gil" her chin tilted up, ready to hear whatever response he gave, remembering with an age old pang the rapid decline of the relationship between the two of them which had started the moment she met Dr. Gil Grissom.
"Right," his voice was tinged with a crisper edge than before, but his eyes still teased. "Grissom. Bug Guy."
Oh, he remembered alright. Yet, it was interesting to her that he must have asked someone about her to have learnt of her marriage. It was kind of nice to think he was still curious about her, considering all the years that had passed since she left San Francisco. And he must have asked or been told by someone as a wedding ring alone does not name a spouse, especially when she had kept her own name.
But two could play this game, she though back to the long, blonde, vacuous airhead he had rebounded with.
"Are you still married to whatshername?"
She remembered her name, and she knew they were not.
"Candy?"
How he could say that without laughing?
"Candy, right!"
She had to look down, to control her smile.
Yoga Instructor."
She could hear her own sarcasm and the damn, I knew that, snap, implied in her voice, but she could also hear and feel the rhythm of their banter taking her right back to her twenties.
"No, we crashed and burned years ago."
She again had to summon her resolve, looking away for a moment before looking back at him and managing a very sincere sounding, "I didn't see that coming."
But he knew her too well.
"Yeah you did!"
She moved towards him, ducking past at the very last moment as she shook her head and slowly muttered, "Just like old times."
Before finally, out of his view, allowing the smile to bloom.
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Their stay at the scene was short, when they arrived the team there had already recovered the Flight Recorder so within half an hour they were arriving back at the Lab.
Moving their evidence into one of the smaller rooms, flicking on a few of the desk lamps to light their way.
She carefully unpacked the battered red box and plugged in all the necessary leads, whilst he readied the software.
It looked like they might get something.
"Flight data recorder is intact. I wish we had the cockpit voice recorder too." She mused, thinking out loud.
"Yeah, join the club," he concentrated on connecting the other end of all the leads into the computer before him, "they're not required for smaller charters."
"Hey," he added, his tone turning wistful and conversational, "did you hear that the Rusty Nickel closed?"
She laughed and saw it make him smile.
God, that name brought back a million memories.
She had worked days back then, but slept just as little. She and Doug and several others had regularly hung out till the early hours in that little underground place, with nothing but cold beer and a pool table to recommend it. It had that old beer smell and sticky floors and no one ever used the bathrooms. The kind of place you were glad not to see in the harsh light of day, but they had been young, and still clinging onto the student way of life.
And her pools playing skills had been legendary.
Physics, the game was nothing but physics and she loved physics.
"Well, that's about time!"
She shifted in her chair, barely resisting hugging her knees to her chest at the endorphin nostalgia wave; instead she folded her hands placing them in her lap.
"That bar gave dives a bad name."
"What are you talking about? You loved that place!"
Damn, she had underestimated how well he could remember her.
Younger her had thrived on a place like that. The triumph of the win. Being just a little reckless.
"Yeah, you're right, I did love it."
She straightened her trousers, feeling older, fidgeting again, leaning back in her chair. Before rushing her next words.
"Right up until the moment that they kicked me out for life."
She saw him turn quickly to look at her, but kept her eyes forward, knowing that he knew exactly which night she meant.
Beers after shift had been chased by shots of tequila, numerous shots, then she had literally slaughtered him at pool, before finding great amusement standing around watching the next guys play and loudly commenting on how terrible they were compared to her. Leaning back against the wall, cockily suggesting how certain angles and vectors could improve their prowess, until one guy had finally snapped back about her. A split second of alcohol fuelled courage had found her up in his face, knocking his cue to the ground, and whilst Doug had tried to calm things, she had simply ignored him and slugged the crappy pool playing bastard, knocking him out cold. In what was probably not her finest hour, she may then have tried to take down Joe, the ex-army security guard who had intervened, until Doug had literally lifted her around the waist and carried her out, whilst she fought him all the way, loudly declaring that they couldn't ban her, and she was leaving.
Yeah, maybe she wasn't proud, but the adrenaline high had given them the best sex of their relationship that night, they had barely made it back to her tiny studio apartment and some pretty lucid remembrances of that encounter brought colour rushing to her cheeks. She daren't risk a glimpse at him to see if his memory of that night was as vivid as hers, instead she shifted in her seat again, cleared her throat and then pressed her lips together placing her hands on the table before her. The picture of innocence.
"They did do that." He admitted, and looked away and she had to wonder if her cheeks were as red as she imagined, hoping that the darkroom hid at least some of her sins, but she had little doubt what his memories of that night were.
"Yep."
But it was nice to think of those days.
"Okay, moving on," he said as quiet professionalism fell over them again, "so we have the primary flight display up."
"Should show us everything on the instrument panel," she replied, mainly to keep her attention focused and show she was listening and attempting to match his professionalism. Damn he was good at changing the subject.
"Seventeen minutes into the flight, airspeed is 250 knots, altitude is 29,800 feet and climbing, heading is 50 degrees. All normal. Looks like there is a slight decrease in cabin pressure. Pilot's turning around, making a descent. Looks like he is putting in vectors to return to the airport."
Both jumped back at that moment as a big red ALERT flashed up on the screen.
"What the hell just happened?! She gasped.
"Massive depressurisation," he read from the instrument panels. "30,000 feet, virtually no oxygen, temperature is 30 below."
"They were dead before they even hit the ground," she surmised.
"The plane just kept going. Vector entries kept it on course right into the ground."
"Barely missing the Mediterranean tower." She concluded.
He hummed in response. Well that was one mystery solved and several other mysteries posed.
"Why the depressurisation?" she asked thinking aloud. "Gunshot, maybe? We know there was a gun on board."
He shook his head, "Bullet hole alone wouldn't trigger that kind of event. This was instantaneous. Catastrophic."
"Like a bomb?" She suggested.
"Bomb would have taken out the avionics and hydraulics. Plane wouldn't have stayed on course."
She had missed this, this sparring over a theory.
"Alright, what's left then? Maybe a window blew out? Or a door? Whatever it is it had to fall to earth, right? Extrapolating from their position at the time of depressurisation, factoring their altitude and velocity, I mean I can zero in on their location."
She was breathless by the end.
And he was laughing, his eyes smiling.
"Always a physics major."
Oh yeah, he remembered that night at the Rusty Nickel alright.
She stared him down, but he did not flinch, continuing to smile.
"I'll tell you what," she declared laying down the gauntlet, "I'm going to take my physics and I'm going to find whatever fell out of your aeroplane."
"And what about me?" What do I do?"
There were those big blue puppy eyes she used to find it hard to resist.
"Well," she drew delight from drawing it out. "You're going to build me a plane."
Her smile was the final challenge.
And was mirrored right back at her.
TBC...