Ready, Aim, Fire
When Warrick's Canadian wiz-kid cousin gets a job at the Las Vegas crime lab as a lab tech, he promised her parents- and himself- to protect her from the dangers of Las Vegas. But who can save her from the one thing she wants more than almost anything?
DISCLAIMER: I do not own CSI, unfortunately, as much as I wish I did. I am in no way being rewarded by the creation of this story, other than in reviews, which boost only my self esteem.
Author's Note: This is just a random idea I started to write down; quite honestly, I have no idea how much of this is accurate(as to # of years in university, how jobs are filled or whatever), as most of it was just included to work with the story. In other words, I'm going by the show and random things I've read, though I'll try to stay away from writing about the lab as much as I can. If you have any corrections for me, I'd be happy to take them.
Chapter One
Warrick sighed and leaned against the doorframe of the locker room, almost too tired to go any farther. Today had been a tiring day: a robbery on a small grocery store, quickly solved when the perp, a first-timer of about seventeen and a clerk at the store, had come forward, and the start of a rape case investigation. Also today- in about twenty minutes, mind- Warrick was due to pick up his cousin, Lianne(or Lia, as she preferred to be called), at the airport. He grinned as he thought of Lia, finally mustering the energy to walk into the locker room and over to his locker. As he reached it, his cell phone rang. He sighed, figuring it was either Sara, with news on the rape case, or Greg, with news on the rape case.
"Warrick," he said, and was surprised to hear neither Sara nor Greg on the other end.
"Hey Warrick, it's Lia."
Warrick raised an eyebrow at her, before remembering she couldn't see him. 'Man, I am tired...gotta sleep tonight, Brown,' he told himself.
"They got phones on planes now, or are you early?" he asked of his cousin.
"Neither, smarty, you're late, by about ten minutes at the moment. Mum said to call you right when I got here, she doesn't seem to trust your sense of time for some odd reason," she replied with a hint of laughter in her voice.
"Yea, sorry, it's just been a long day...I'll be there in a few, alright, then we can go sleep."
"Warrick, it's ten in the morning-"
"Yea, and I got the graveyard shift, and you will too. Anyway, the sooner I go, sooner I'll be there, so I'll see ya soon, Lia."
"See ya," she answered, then hung up. He couldn't help but smile. Lia was a remarkable kid. She had been born in England and lived there til she was ten, and she still had a British accent, though not as pronounced as it had been on her arrival. Her parents, to the surprise of Warrick's, had opted to settle in Montréal, and Lia and Warrick had had to keep in touch through letters and, later, e-mail. She'd always been obsessed with science, and to be honest he was partially to blame for that. When he was in junior high and she was in grade school, they'd write letters to eachother almost every night, his filled with science trivia and random information and hers filled with thanks and some trivia of her own. Now, a year out of university, she had been working at the Montréal crime lab for most of it. Recently, she'd decided to come down to the States for a while and Warrick, knowing that she was a bright kid, had asked her for a copy of her résumé for Grissom to look over. He knew Grissom had been thinking about bringing in some 'new blood', although perhaps that term would be better left to lines of work less apt to work with blood. In any case, he had been right, and Lia had the job. She had been very excited, and Warrick was as well. The team had been told pretty much only that "Warrick's cousin will be joining our team, and I would appreciate if you would make her feel welcome." from Grissom, and Warrick knew that, without even really knowing it, they were all expecting her to look like him: dark skin, dark eyes, and dark hair. He smiled, imagining their respones to her light skin, blue eyes and red hair. Greg, being Greg, would probably need to scrape his jaw off the floor; Nick would do what he normally did to any member of his team's families, be polite and friendly; Catherine would just be her normal self, commanding without really meaning to be and probably would end up as Lia's role model; Sara, well, she'd probably end up another role model, even though she might not let Lia know her well. Sara was that kind of person, much too involved in her work. But maybe having a younger female around to mentor would help her get past that, even a little. Grissom knew what she looked like and sounded like, because he'd talked to her on the phone. Brass knew as well.
Getting up, he grabbed his keys and his coat and went out to his car.
She was pacing out in front of the main door. He grinned, noticing that she had, unlike many girls he knew, managed to pack only one suitcase, and a small one at that. He pulled up to the curb and rolled down the passenger window.
"Going my way, miss?" he called to her. He laughed as she whirled around, then she joined in when she noticed it was him.
"Of course, kind sir," she joked back, opening the back door to drop her suitcase in before moving up to the front seat. "Right, business first, am I actually working graveyard with you or what?" She got a nod in reply as Warrick was concentrating on the traffic. "Any dress codes or whatever?"
"Nope, just dress to impress, and I know you can do that," Warrick answered.
"Right then, now for the girly stuff- any hot guys on the team?" Warrick just gave her a weird look and she burst out laughing. "Come on it's not THAT hard a question!"
"I do not look at any of my colleagues as 'hot', thank you very much. Sara or Catherine, attractive, yes, but way out of my reach. The guys, NO way...but my guess is there'll be one guy VERY interested in you..."
"Ooh, the plot thickens...stats?" Warrick rolled his eyes in mock frustration. Maybe turning her into a geek in high school wasn't his smartest move, he thought somewhat belatedly, she's reverting to a teenager...
"Greg Sanders, he be the other lab rat... he's probably got a fan club somewhere, he's that type...but he'll probably need to be scraping his jaw off the floor when he sees you, he has a thing for almost any unattached female he sees."
"And he'll figure I'm unattached- how?" Warrick shrugged.
"You've just moved here. He'll figure you didn't bring your boy along. Or he'll believe that his charms will be too irrisistible for you, or something." Lia grinned.
"He sounds okay. Stuck up maybe, but that might be just your view of him. Anything he's into, besides being a lab rat?"
"Rock music and girls. Apparantly he's got a three track mind."
"Rock music, woohoo, he's got taste...I'll have to raid his music collection...or add to it, as the case may be." She laughed. Warrick just raised an eyebrow at her and commented,
"Grissom doesn't like it too much, by the way."
"Meh. Good for Grissom. Hasn't he heard that any form of complex music enhances brain waves to help people think better? Or something?"
"Y'know, Lia, you had me convinced you knew what you were talking about til you said 'or something'. I'd say work on that speech before feeding it to Grissom. Now, you wanna stop and eat out on your first night here, or are your culinary skills significantly better than the last time you tested them on me?" Lia burst out laughing. When she recovered, she managed to say,
"Significantly. I remember to turn the oven on now." The two cousins were still laughing as Warrick turned into the parking lot of a local pizza joint and they went in.
"So, Nick, you hear anything about this cousin of Warrick's?" asked Greg.
"Like what, Greg?" Nick, for once, honestly wished Greg would go away. He'd been pestering almost everyone for the past half hour.
"Is she hot? How old is she? I'm willing to hear pretty much anything besides 'I don't know'."
"Sorry to disappoint you, buddy, but zip is about all anyone except Grissom and Warrick know. Why don't you ask Griss?" The question, though said to seem innocent, was really meant to make Greg shut up. They both knew he wouldn't ask Grissom.
"Well, you know, the lab calls..." Greg said hastily, getting up and leaving the break room. Sara shook her head in wonder.
"Why didn't I think of that?" she asked, a hint of incredulity in her voice.
"Cause I'm smarter than you," teased Nick.
"Break it up, you two, we don't need our CSIs fighting like children in here," said Catherine from her spot on the couch, behind a newspaper.
"Yes, mother," said Nick and Sara in perfect unison. Suddenly, Nick's cell went off. He checked the caller ID, as he always did now.
"It's Warrick," he informed the two women before answering. "Hey Warrick, where're you?"
"Yo, ESP dude, figure it out yourself."
"Aww, come on man, you know I have caller ID now."
"Yeah, just teasin' ya. Anyway me 'n Lia are just heading in from home, should be there in about twenty minutes. Greg gotten on everybody's nerves yet?"
"Warrick, next time one of US goes and picks her up, so YOU can deal with Greg. He didn't stop bugging me, Sara or Catherine til I told him 'we don't know anything, go ask Griss', and then he left, with 'the lab calls' as his excuse. And, Sara's sulking because I thought of it and she didn't-"
"I am NOT sulking!" Warrick heard Sara's voice through the line and chuckled.
"Well, we're on our way...I'll see how far I can stretch the speed limit. See you soon."
"Yup."
"Hey, everyone." Nick, Sara and Catherine looked up to see Warrick followed by a girl who looked about as different from him as possible. He grinned at the looks on their faces, then turned to Grissom who smiled back at him and Lia.
"Hey, Warrick. Hey Lia, and welcome to the Las Vegas crime lab. Hope you have an interesting time."
"Hi Mr. Grissom."
"I told you before, no real need to call me that. It's just Grissom. Anyway, that's Sara Sidle," he said as the woman with brown hair waved at her, "Nick Stokes," to the guy, who nodded in her direction, "and Catherine Willows." The second woman, this one a blonde, gave her a smile. "Greg you'll meet in a few minutes. Everything alright so far?"
"Yes, I know everyone's names, I can find my way in, I think I'll be fine for now."
"Alright then. Warrick, could you take her to the lab? Tell Greg to show her the ropes, and then you can come get your assignment."
"Yes, sir." said Warrick, and nodded to everyone before leaving again with Lia.
As Warrick pushed the door to the lab open, he and Lia were hit with a wave of The Used's 'All That I've Got'. Greg was sitting in front of a microscope, peering at the contents of the slide while air drumming like mad. Lia had started softly singing along to it as Warrick moved towards the stereo and pressed pause. Greg stopped in mid-hit as if he, too, were paused.
"I was listening to that!" he said indignantly, turning to face Warrick and at the same time noticing Lia. Now that he was facing her, Lia saw that, no matter what Warrick's opinion of guys was, Greg wasn't bad looking at all. Light brown hair somewhat spiked up, brown eyes, and a charming smile to rival that of her best guy friend in high school, who'd been known to be a ladie's man. Now, though, Greg was staring at her. "Who are you?" he blurted out.
"New lab tech, Warrick's cousin, Lianne Fox, but call me Lia."
"Warrick's- how are you related to Warrick?"
"Quite simple really. Warrick's mum's sister got married to m'dad, and then I was born."
"And you don't look like him why?"
"Dad's English, male gene domination, and mum wasn't all that dark anyway. Geez, boy, do you know how racist you sound?" Greg raised his hands in a defensive gesture.
"It's not my fault. When Griss said 'Warrick's cousin' I'm sure we all thought you'd look alike!"
"Grissom didn't seem too fazed."
"He doesn't seem fazed at anything-"
"And he's seen your picture, kiddo, remember that one of you I keep in my wallet?" Warrick said, cutting Greg off.
"You showed him that? Oh God, that's a horrible picture, Warrick, you could've at least gotten a different one."
"Yeah, well, I didn't, you'll live...anyway, I gotta go, I'll find ya after shift and take you home." With that, Warrick waved and left the lab. Greg shifted nervously.
"Sorry about that. I really didn't mean to come off looking like a jerk, I was just kinda surprised-"
"Yeah, yeah," she waved it off, "most people are surprised when they find out we're related. There was this one time when I was in junior high and he was visiting, and I was showing him my science project at the school science fair, and this one girl who normally avoided me like the plague came up and started acting all friendly, and then all of a sudden she was like, "So, Lianne, who's your hot boyfriend?" and me and Warrick just burst out laughing so hard...I think we scared her a little..." Greg smiled at her and she smiled back. "So, anyway, I've been meaning to ask you, Warrick said you're into rock music. True or false?" Greg shrugged.
"True, but I can turn it off if it bothers you."
"Turn it off? I was singing along to that when Warrick turned it off." Greg looked surprised.
"Wow, someone who knows the Used? You know how rare that is around here?"
"I can guess. Have you tried telling Grissom that any kind of complex music helps the brain function better? Warrick said he doesn't like it much."
"That is the understatement of the universe. I'd say he hated it, only he probably wouldn't waste that much time on it." Lia shrugged.
"My mum's the same way. She hates my music, but she's learned to live with it. Or at least, put up with it while I'm staying at home," Lia said with a grin forming on her face.
"Yeah, great about parents, huh? Always looking over stuff for their kids." He winked at her, pressed play, then said, over the music, "Let's get you started then." She nodded in reply and not half an hour later, anyone looking into the lab would see the two of them working, Greg sometimes showing her where things were, both of them singing along to the music.
A/N: Well, first chapter out of the way. I don't know if people will like it or hate it(though I'm hoping on the like side!) but if you read it, please R&R and tell me what you think. This chapter was actually going to be longer but I figured I should break it up to see how people liked it first.