Title: Friday the 13th
Author: Jorja-Fan23
Disclaimer: I don't own CSI, though I wish I did.
Feedback: Hell yeah! :-)
Sara awoke to her radio alarm clock blaring in her ear. She reached over trying to find the snooze button, but she only succeeded in knocking the alarm clock off the bedside table and sending it clattering to the floor. She groaned and pulled herself from the tangle of blankets bunched around her legs and sat up on the edge of her bed. Rubbing the sleep from her eyes she stood and walked over to the bedroom window and looked at the city laid out in front of her. The sun was setting, painting the sky in swirls of orange and pink. She wondered what mystery was waiting out there for her. Would it be in the chaos of Vegas or the vast expanse of the desert? She stretched her arms up to the ceiling and yawned, turning from the window to get ready for the night.
Padding towards the bathroom she peeled off the oversize t-shirt that she slept in and tossed it in the general direction of the bed. Turning on the shower she stood letting the water sprinkle her hand and arm, waiting for the hot water to kick in. When it was sufficiently hot, she stepped into the stream of water, closing her eyes as she let the hot water flow over her face and down her. She stood for a moment feeling the water stream down her body, awakening her senses and bringing her to life. It was a new night; there were new cases, and new beginnings. Lately she had to remind herself of that more and more. It was hard to have a good attitude about life when the person that you cared about most didn't seem to care that you existed. It was like being invisible. Sure, things were great with the rest of the night shift. Nick was still like a brother to her, Warrick was so much fun to hang out with, Catherine was the mom of the lab, shepherding everyone around where they needed to be. But Grissom was, well, Grissom. When she first came to Vegas they were so close, sometimes it seemed like they shared a brain. But lately something had come loose in their relationship. He was pulling away again, hiding from her. She knew it was probably temporary, it always was, but that didn't make it any easier.
She shut off the shower and reached to pull her towel from the rack and dry herself off. If she let herself think about it too much it would just bring her down. It was better to keep moving and try to forget about the empty void in her life. That was one thing that her job was perfect for. She could bury herself in it, work and work until she fell into a deep dreamless sleep, then do it all over again. A new day.
Walking into CSI a few hours later, Sara maneuvered her way around the various ladders and scaffolding in the front office. The entire place was being remodeled. As she walked into the break room, Sara was still lost in thought and not really paying attention to what was going on around her.
"Think fast!" came Greg's voice from the side of the room by the coffee machine. Sara whipped around and caught something pink just before it would have hit her in the face. "Nice reflexes, Sara."
Sara looked down apprehensively at the ball of pink fluff in her hand. "Greg, what is this?"
"It's a lucky rabbit's foot, just for you," he said, punctuating the last three words by poking her in the shoulder in time with his voice.
Sara looked at him with a perfect 'are you out of your mind' look. "Greg, I don't need a lucky rabbit's foot, especially a pink one," she said, pinching it between two fingers and holding it out from her body as if it was a piece of smelly garbage. "I'm not superstitious."
"It's not about superstition, Sara. In three hours it will be Friday the 13th, and everyone knows that is the most unlucky day of the year."
"Just take it and he'll stop," whispered Nick from by her shoulder, dangling a green rabbit's foot in front of her face.
"You brought these for everyone?" asked Sara. She looked around the room. Catherine was holding a yellow rabbit's foot, and Warrick's was purple. Had her co-workers lost their minds?
"Yup," said Greg. "Now I just have to wait for Grissom, I hope he likes orange..."
"Why is my color preference relevant to you, Greg?" asked Grissom from the doorway, startling everyone in the room. He certainly had a way of sneaking op on people.
"Because," said Greg. "I bought you a present." He held out the orange rabbit's foot to Grissom, a happy grin on his face.
Grissom looked at the orange fuzz in Greg's hand. "You don't believe in superstition, do you Greg?" he asked.
"On Friday the 13th I do."
"Ah, Friday the 13th. The unluckiest day of all. A silly superstition, really. But strange things have been known to happen on that day. The British Medical Journal in 1993 published a study of driving patterns over a period of years on Friday the 13th and the preceding Friday the 6th. Each year while less cars were on the road, the number of accidents resulting in hospital visits was considerably higher on Friday the 13th."
Sara, who was pouring herself a cup of coffee, looked up. "It's all a bunch of hogwash if you ask me. The number 13 isn't unlucky. Chinese people regarded the number as lucky. Ancient Egyptians did as well. They regarded death as the 13th stage of life, the passage into the sacred afterlife, something they held in great esteem."
Grissom raised one eyebrow and took a step towards Sara. "But thirteen has also been unlucky in the eyes of many people. Hindus have believed for generations that it is always unlucky for thirteen people to gather in one place, particularly diner. As the story goes, twelve Gods gathered together for a feast. A thirteenth God, Loki, the God of mischief, showed up to crash the party. The arrival of him, the thirteenth guest, caused the party to be a wreck. Thirteen is also the number of witches in a traditional coven, and in the Christian religion the 13th person at the Last supper, Judas, ended up betraying Jesus."
Sara took another step towards Grissom. "But witches are not truly evil or unlucky. Just because they don't subscribe to the mainstream patriarchic religions doesn't make them bad. Thirteen was also the number of lunar months in their traditional calendar. It was the number that stood for the sacred feminine. And since we are talking about Friday the 13th, Friday also has roots in Goddess worship. The name "Friday" was derived from the names of two Goddesses, Frigg, the goddess of marriage and fertility, and Freya, the goddess of sex and fertility. She was also associated with Venus, the Roman goddess of love. Friday was the traditional day of marriage in the pre-Christian world."
Grissom closed the distance between them further. "Friday was also the day that Eve tempted Adam with the apple, the day the flood started, and the day that Jesus was crucified. It was Hangman's day in Britain, the day of executions. In fact, in the late 1800's the British government wanted to get rid of the whole lot of Friday superstitions. They built a ship and named it the H.M.S. Friday, they started construction on a Friday, selected the crew on a Friday, hired a man named James Friday as the captain of the ship, and set sale on a Friday, and was never heard from again."
"All right, alright, enough with the battle of the minds," said Catherine, stepping between Grissom and Sara and breaking up the competition.
"So you really believe in superstition, Griss?" asked Nick.
"Of course not. I just think the history is interesting," he tossed the orange rabbit's foot onto the break room table. Sara smiled and set hers down on the table as well.
"Suit yourselves guys, but I'm hanging on to my rabbit's foot," said Greg as he walked out of the room and headed off to the DNA lab.
"So do you have assignments for us?" asked Catherine. "Or are you and Sara just going to give us history lessons all night?"
"Right," said Grissom, his attention moving from Sara to the pieces of paper he held in his hand. "We have two DBs, both at the same carnival, on different ends of the park, no idea if they are related yet or not. Catherine, you get the Haunted House. It is closed for repairs, one of the workers found a DB in the living room. You can take Nick with you. Sara and Warrick, you two are with me. We have a suspicious death in the fun house."
"Well," said Warrick, "for at least two people Friday the 13th seems to be off to a pretty unlucky start."
"Friday the 13th doesn't start for a few hours, its still Thursday," pointed out Nick.
"Technicality. On nights were there is a full moon the madness starts hours or even a day or two early."
"Are you superstitious, Warrick?" asked Sara.
"Not exactly. My Grandmother was, and sometimes it's a little hard to totally shake it, but no, I don't really think stepping on a crack would break my mother's back or anything like that."
"Well, just in case, you can have my rabbit's foot," teased Nick, tossing his rabbit's foot to Warrick who caught it in his left hand.
"Very funny," he said, setting his and Nick's rabbit's feet next to Sara and Grissom's, which were already sitting on the break room table. Catherine followed suit and left hers there as well.
"I don't believe in lucky charms," she said, "I think you make your own luck."
The CSIs filed out of the break room and down the hall to collect field kits and jackets before heading out to their respective scenes. Behind them on the table lay five colorful rabbit's feet, one pink, one green, one yellow, one purple, and one orange.
Sara, Warrick and Grissom walked up to the carnival fun house. From the outside it looked like any normal funhouse. Through the windows in the front of the building they could see rope bridges, rooms of mirrors, slides, crooked stairs and rotating round rooms. They could not, however, see the body. They entered the funhouse, each searching the room for any hint of something amiss, and saw nothing. Room after room was empty, until they reached the back of the funhouse, a second room of mirrors. Above the mirrors was a robe bridge connecting two rooms on the second floor. One whole side of the bridge was broken, dangling down towards the floor. Right below the broken bridge was the body, lying in a sea of broken mirrors. The victim looked to be about 20, female, and very dead. There was a lot of blood surrounding the body, probably from deep cuts and gashes caused by falling onto the mirrors from high above.
"She bled out," observed Sara.
"She was probably knocked unconscious from the fall, and couldn't call for help or crawl out," said Warrick.
"First collect the evidence," reminded Grissom, "then interpret it. Warrick, take the body, Sara, find a way upstairs and take a look at that bridge and the rooms that it connects, I'm going to take a look around on this floor." Sara and Warrick moved off to their assigned tasks, their concentration intense as they got themselves into the mindset of collecting the evidence, of solving the mystery.
Once upstairs, Sara looked out from the doorway of one of the rooms at the damaged bridge. The floor of the bridge was not damaged at all; only the railing on one side had broken. Sara reached down with one gloved hand to pull up the dangling rope so she could examine the place where it broke. She braced one hand on the doorjamb and leaned out to reach for the rope with the other. She felt her hand start to slip an instant before she started to fall forward.
A hand grasped her shoulder and another encircled her waist and pulled her back on solid ground. She turned to see Grissom behind her, a look of pure terror on his face. He left his hand on her shoulder; the other was around her waist, holding her close to him.
"Thanks," she said, her pulse racing from a combination of her near fall and the closeness of their bodies. She felt his hand caressing the small of her back. Just that little sensation sent shivers up her spine. She looked into his crystal blue eyes, wondering if he could see her now, or if she was still invisible.
"Maybe we should reach the rope from the ground, with a ladder. It's a bit safer," said Grissom, breaking the spell. She closed her eyes for a moment, realigning herself to face this Grissom, the one who couldn't see her.
"Right," she said. "Lets go see if Warrick needs help down there." As they made their way out of the room and down to the ground floor of the funhouse, neither CSI saw the pink rabbit's foot sitting on the ground near the edge of the bridge.
Across the park Catherine and Nick were approaching the haunted house. Each of the CSIs looked up to the dilapidated looking mansion with a touch of apprehension.
"It looks like it could fall down any second," observed Catherine.
"It makes it look more haunted like that," said Nick. Smiling he turned to Catherine. "Are you ready to go search for the undead?"
Catherine rolled her eyes. "How about we start with the dead, if we find some undead in there, we'll deal with that then."
The CSIs turned and walked in through the front door. The body was in the living room, near the back windows. It was pinned to the floor by a large ladder that had either been pushed or had fallen on top of him.
"Well, it looks like our vic learned the hard way that walking under a ladder is bad luck," said Catherine. "I'll take the perimeter, you got the body?"
"Deal," said Nick. He walked over to the body and began looking around. He gathered blood samples from the vic, fingerprints from the window he was next to and from the ladder, and took pictures of everything. He stood up and was about to go look for Catherine when her heard her yell out from behind him.
"Nick!! Look out!" she screamed. A half an instant later she slammed into him, roughly shoving him to the side. A loud crash sounded from behind them, and Nick turned to see that a full paint can had fallen from the latter and exploded right where he had been standing.
"How the hell did that happen?" he asked, shaken.
"I don't know, I just saw it rolling from the landing above you. I was just there, there is no one else in the house, I have no idea how it moved."
Nick picked up his field kit. "Let's go, I'm done anyway." He turned and walked out of the haunted house, followed by Catherine. Behind them on the ground next to the paint splatters was a rabbit's foot, a green one.
Stepping out the front door of the house and onto the front porch, both CSIs breathed a sigh of relief to once again be outside the confines of the 'haunted house.' Normally neither of them would be the least bit bothered by something as silly as that, but tonight was different. Maybe it was because it was Friday the 13th; maybe it was just a bad night, who knows. But they were glad to be out.
"Do you want to stop for burgers on the way back to the lab?" asked Nick, "I have a craving for grease."
"Sure, said Catherine, stepping down onto the first stair, "Just as long as…" She never finished her sentence. When her foot hit the stair it didn't stop on solid ground, it went straight through the wood as she fell through the stairs.
"Catherine!" yelled Nick as he dropped his field kit and reached to help her up. "Are you ok?"
"Yeah," she said pulling herself up from the gaping hole in the stairs. She looked down into the hole; it went straight into the basement. If it weren't for the one two by four that her foot landed on, she would have fallen down into the basement, and probably been really hurt. As it was, only her ego was bruised. Nick helped her down the stairs and into the car. Sitting behind them on the two by four that saved Catherine from a long fall, was a yellow rabbit's foot.
Back outside the funhouse, Sara and Grissom were standing outside by the Tahoe waiting for Warrick. He had run back inside to grab his field kit, and then they were heading back to the lab.
Sara was lost in thought. Her close call in the funhouse had shaken her up a bit, making her more agitated than she was before. It didn't help that ever since then Grissom had been following her around as if she was going to trip over something and get herself killed on the shards of mirror that littered the funhouse floor. It's not that she was bothered by his attention. Quite the contrary, she would normally enjoy his increased attention to her, it meant that he could see her again; she was no longer invisible, at least for now. What bothered her was that she knew she would be invisible again soon, that he would push her away like he always did. It was so frustrating to feel so much for someone who felt so little.
Grissom looked over at Sara from the corner of his eyes. She still looked shaken from her near fall. He reached over and put a comforting hand on her shoulder.
"Sara," he said. "Are you ok? Is there something you need to talk about?"
She looked back at him, mildly startled. Grissom didn't talk; he avoided people like the plague, why would he be asking her about her feelings? She momentarily considered telling him exactly what she was thinking about when a loud crash sounded from inside the funhouse. Both Sara and Grissom took of running for the door of the funhouse. When they got inside they found Warrick standing in front of a new pile of shattered mirror. Another one of the large mirrors had given way and fallen to the ground just inches in front of him. Besides being startled, he was unhurt.
"Warrick, what happened?" asked Sara, going to comfort her friend.
"I have no idea, I was just walking and that mirror wall fell right in front of me, I could have been really hurt if I was just one step further towards the door."
"Thank goodness you're fine," she said, taking his filed kit from his hand. "Come on, let's get back to the lab."
The three CSIs trooped out the door, oblivious to the purple rabbit's foot lying in the pile of shattered mirrors.
Back at the lab Sara and Nick walked into DNA at the same moment. They had both given several samples to Greg to process and they were checking on the results.
"Hey Sara, how was your crime scene?"
Sara hesitated, wondering if she should tell him about their near death experiences. She decided not to. "A woman was on a rope bridge that either broke or was cut and she fell twenty feet onto a bunch of mirrors which shattered, cutting her to shreds, she bled out."
"Ouch, now that's bad luck. My guy walked under a ladder and was crushed in the haunted house. I guess some superstitions you should believe, huh?" A brief picture of himself narrowly missing getting hit on the head by the falling paint can flashed into his mind, but he pushed it away.
"You guys both have cases linked to popular superstition? On Friday the 13th? I hope you all are carrying your lucky rabbit's feet!" said Greg, rolling over to their side of the room on a wheeled desk chair.
"I doubt it has anything to do with superstition," said Grissom from the doorway. "Breaking mirrors is thought to be bad luck for silly historical reasons. In the sixth century B.C. the Greeks used mirrored bowls filled with water to predict the future, a broken mirror predicted death. In the first century A.D., the Romans changed it a little. Since they believed that life moved in cycles of a length of seven years, the broken mirror signified the next seven years were not going to be good. Still later, in the fifteenth century, Italians started manufacturing the first modern mirrors as we know them today. They were so expensive to make that the rich owners of mirrors warned their house staff that breaking them was bad luck."
"And I suppose walking under a ladder has a more mystical bad luck history than getting crushed?" asked Nick, again thinking of the paint can.
Sara smiled and chimed in, "That one I know. Ancient Egyptians revered the shape of a triangle, and the pyramid. They believed that the shape had a supernatural power of sorts, and to interfere with or disrupt that shape would bring misfortune. Walking under a ladder disrupts the shape, therefore, bad luck."
Grissom looked at Sara with an approving smile. "Very good, I'm impressed."
"Is there anything you two don't know?" asked Nick.
"I know something that none of you know," said Greg. All eyes in the room turned to focus on him. He had two print outs in his hands, one he handed to Sara, the other he handed to Nick. "I know that the DNA of Nick's victim was on the rope bridge at Sara and Grissom's funhouse." The CSIs exchanged a look.
"I guess we are all on the same case now," said Sara.
Just then Catherine walked into the room. "I got IDs for both of our vics from Brass. Jennifer Hanson and Jeffery Williams. Both were 22, both worked at the same record store, and in fact they have the same home address on file. Think we have one case here?"
"His blood was at her crime scene," said Greg when none of the other CSIs spoke.
"Oh," said Catherine, "So you beat me to it. And I thought I was all excited that I broke the case."
Sara looked to Grissom, "So the boyfriend offs his girlfriend in the funhouse, tries to escape by hiding in the closed down haunted house, and is crushed when he walked under a ladder? I was hoping for something more exciting than that."
Grissom nodded. "It appears so, we just need to tie up the lose ends." He looked at his watch; it was four o'clock in the morning. "We should be done in time for breakfast. Would you like to join us Greg?"
Greg looked surprised. "Me? Go to breakfast with the CSIs? Sure!"
"Well, it was you that broke the case," replied Grissom. "Plus, I still need to convince you that Friday the 13th is nothing to worry about."
"Well, I don't know if you can do that. You just had a murderer that broke a ton of mirrors in a funhouse, and then was crushed when he walked under a ladder. I think you all should go get your rabbit's feet back."
Two hours later the CSIs were all in the locker room getting ready to go out to breakfast. They were all chatting happily, the unusual events of the night almost forgotten. Their merriment was cut short when Greg came running into the locker room, in quite a panic.
"Guys, the construction workers just crashed the ceiling in Grissom's office, the place is covered! Is he in here with you? Where is he?"
Everyone moved quickly into the hall and down towards Grissom's office. Other people were trying to break down the door which was wedged shut by some fallen debris. The five friends stood outside his office, each worried about Grissom.
Sara was the worst off, she was just about to go and start trying to claw her way through the door when a voice behind her stopped her dead in her tracks.
"What happened here?" asked Grissom. All five CSIs turned around, stunned to see their supervisor alive and well, and not trapped in his office.
"The construction workers…we thought…you…your office…" stammered Sara, still in shock.
"I went back to the break room to get my rabbit's foot," said Grissom, holding out the orange fluff that Greg had given him earlier in the evening. "I figure after the night we have all had, it couldn't hurt."
"Did you grab ours, too?" asked Warrick.
"They weren't there," said Grissom. "Shall we go to breakfast?"
The team started off down the hall and into the bright sunlight. Friday the 13th was just starting for most people. They all hoped that the cases that night wouldn't prove as dangerous as these had. Sara and Grissom walked several steps behind the rest of the team, hands brushing as they walked.
"I just hope no one spills any salt at the restaurant," said Sara under her breath.
"Interesting you should mention that," said Grissom, "Do you know why people throw salt over their left shoulders when they spill salt?"
"No," said Sara firmly, putting one hand on his chest and stopping him just inside the door. "And I don't want to."
"Sara, you aren't superstitious, are you?" he teased, his blue eyes sparkling.
"No," she responded defensively.
Grissom reached up and brushed an eyelash off her cheek with one finger. He held it up for her to see. "Do you want to make a wish?"
"Are you making fun of me, Grissom?"
"Not at all," he said seriously. "Make a wish."
Sara closed her eyes and thought hard about her wish. 'I wish that this time isn't temporary, that this time he stays by my side,' she thought as she blew the eyelash off his finger.
"What did you wish for?" he asked.
"I can't tell you that, then it wouldn't come true." She turned and walked out the door to join the rest of the CSIs, and Grissom smiled.