Hey guys, sorry for the long delay, I have had quite a writer's block on this story. And I also apologize if this chapter isn't very good, I am hoping the next one will be much better. Please read and review!

Also I don't own anything except the original characters.


Lynndy made her way to the break room, needing to unwind a little. She and Nick had been hard at work processing what they could and nothing was probative to what might have caused Jennifer to accidentally ingest the poisonous Oleander. They did not find any trace of it whatsoever in that lab. They had nothing to go on at the moment and were waiting on when Jennifer finally woke up so they can question her. Greg promised them that he would call when she had stirred, so it was just a matter of waiting. Nick had to check on a few things and Lynndy took this time to rest in the break room to soothe her ever-growing migraine and hunger pains.

Reaching into the refrigerator, she grabbed a diet soda and stole a sandwich in a Ziploc bag that Nick had labeled in red sharpie a caution to those who wanted to take it that he would curse them for life. Unfazed by this, she pulled out one of the halves and proceeded to nibble on the treat that she borrowed without returning. As she made her way to the table, Lynndy sat down and made herself comfortable. She took this time to people-watch, as she saw some of the lab techs and CSI's walking around the hallways, talking to their partners about what they had recently found. It was nice to be able to be on the other side of that for a moment.

Her thoughts went into how this incident with Jennifer occurred. The more she thought about it, the more her heart felt like it was going to explode. She didn't know the woman very well but she felt an extreme closeness and responsibility towards her. The times she saw how stressed and frazzled she had become over the past few weeks nagged at her, but she had become too busy to sit down and figure out what was going on. It was apparent that this woman kept things inside and strived to better herself but it had backfired. With the rareness of this toxic flower and the high statistics of female suicides being caused by poisonings, it was starting to haunt her that this might just have been the case.

As her thoughts spiraled, she was suddenly brought out of her little world as someone scared her by exaggerating a cough. Lynndy involuntarily jumped and accidentally knocked over her soda with her arm in the process. Catching her breath and looking at her culprit, she saw that it was Nick.

"I knew it, you're eating my sandwich!" he told her, slightly annoyed with his hands planted on his hips as he stood in the doorway. In her defense, she gave a little smirk in his direction.

"Oh come on, my butt was too sore to fix my own lunch," she mentioned, trying to make him feel bad for torturing her out on the lake. He chuckled, still finding her soreness amusing, while she added. "Besides, you can run on half a sandwich.

"Yeah, right," he scoffed before pointing out, "Your soda's leaking."

Lynndy gasped as she looked at the floor, the contents of the soda pouring slowly now since most of the brown fizzling substance had pooled on the floor beneath her feet. She growled slightly as Nick suppressed a chuckle.

"When you get that cleaned up, I'll take you to the hospital to see Jennifer," he mentioned. Her interests perked up immediately.

"Is she awake?" she questioned, her hopes high.

"Not yet, but there's nothing much more we can do here, might as well go over there," he told her. He turned on his heels to make his leave towards the exit to the parking garage.

Lynndy watched him leave before she looked around to find something to clean up her mess with. Silently cursing to herself, she walked towards the sink to search for a roll of paper towels or a cloth towel but she could not find either. Her arms reached up to the cabinets and pulled open the white doors to see if she could find anything. As she rummaged around and pushing things aside, she came across something that she had faintly noticed before. When she reached for it, she thought better of that decision. Instead, she kept searching for the paper towels. When she found them, she ripped a sheet off of the roll to grab the item. Stepping over her mess, she put it on the table for the time being.

After cleaning up, she went back to the item and, still using the paper towel sheet, she grabbed it and took it with her into another room. Before entering the room she had seized her kit in the process. She unlocked the hinges noisily and pulled out her gloves so that she didn't have to use the paper towel anymore - it had served its purpose. She snapped them on and proceeded to take out the fingerprint brush and powder, wanting to see if there were indeed any other fingerprints besides one person she knew had touched it. Her eyes caught sight of some fingerprints and continued to take an adhesive tape to collect them. After she was done, she opened an evidence bag to place the item in and labeled it. Her next step was to head for the Toxicology lab.

As Lynndy walked down the hallways, she noticed a geeky looking man in the typical long royal blue lab coat. He was busy processing, his attention solely on his work with a serious expression on his face. When Lynndy entered the lab, she approached him silently. He took notice of a presence entering his domain and looked up to see who it was.

"Hello," Lynndy greeted the lab tech with a friendly smile, keeping a good grasp on the tip of the evidence bag.

"Oh hi, I'm Henry, I didn't get a chance to introduce myself before," he greeted back. Henry grinned at her, showing off a wide, toothy smile.

"Nice to meet you," she mentioned, then went down to why she was really there. "Can you do me a favor? I want you to process this and all of the contents inside. I need to know if there is any trace of Oleander in here."

"Oleander?" he questioned, the friendly smile fading. He understood the urgency but also confused as to why it would be that specific poisonous flower. He held up the bag to take a closer look at the object inside.

"I want to see if this had anything to do with Jennifer's poisoning," she informed him, getting a stare from Henry. He swallowed the lump in his throat and nodded.

"Oh, uh sure, I'll get right on it," he promised her, placing it on top of everything else. To him, this was important to process to find out what happened to his fellow lab friend.

"Thanks, I'll be back soon for the results," Lynndy informed him before heading towards Fingerprints and then eventually taking her leave to meet up with Nick.


In the parking garage, Nick sat in the driver's side of the charcoal Expedition with his arm resting lazily on the steering wheel in front of him as he patiently waited. The engine hummed and reverberated through the vehicle as he started to fumble with the key chains which hung from the ignition key. As patient as he was, frustration was starting to permeate him as he set his sights out the side window to see if the tall woman was at least making her way towards the vehicle. Confused as to why it was taking her so long, he was about ready to hop out of the car and come after her, even if it was kicking and screaming. As he was about to close the door behind him, he noticed the Texan woman trekking towards his direction, cocking an eyebrow at him in her smartass way. Nick couldn't help but grin at her, finding her strides intriguing, but quickly shook his head so that he could feign a pissed off look instead.

Lynndy approached him and kept walking towards the passenger side without saying a word, purposely ignoring his death stare. The door was unlocked so she made her way into the car, making herself comfortable on the passenger seat. Nick followed by getting into the driver's side and then directing his attention towards her.

"What took you?" he questioned, watching as she strapped her seat belt across her body. Finally, she turned her head towards him to respond.

"The doctors told Grissom that Jennifer had ingested Oleander so they had to pump her stomach," she started to explain. "I remember when I met up with her in the break room a few times, she had a box of tea that she would take out and proceed to make her own cup of it. I found the tea box in the cupboard and processed it before sending it off to Toxicology."

"You think the tea made her sick?" Nick asked.

"It's a hunch," Lynndy mentioned. "If I remember correctly, the sap of the Oleander flower is the most dangerous. It can cause the person to go into a coma followed by death, but what happened to Jennifer had a different result. I think she might have ingested a different part of the flower to receive such an adverse effect. I believe the leaves of the flower can be dangerous, so that's why I'm having the bags tested, to see if there are any traces of Oleander leaves in any of them."

"So someone stuffed Oleander leaves in the tea bags," he told her, seeing where she was getting at. "She unknowingly brewed some tea and drank the residue left behind."

"Yeah, at least we have something processing while we give Jennifer a visit," she said to him.

"Good idea, especially since I know for a fact that Greg once told me that she usually brought her own tea from home" Nick mentioned, turning the key in the ignition to start the car to proceed towards the Desert Palms Hospital.


The cold white room filled with machines and tubes were scattered around the brunette woman in the hospital bed. A seemingly heartless room trained to keep a person alive whether it be natural or not. The sounds of the monotonous beeps echoed off of the white walls. The dirty blonde was seated beside her in an uncomfortable chair, trying every which way to be comfortable for more than a half hour. The curtains around the bed were drawn, which was the result of Greg wanting to be alone with Jennifer. He watched her chest rise and fall with every involuntary breath she took. The pure white sheets covered her lean frame and the hospital gown she was changed into. Her hands were almost lifeless as the top of them were consumed with tiny tubes that were taped down and inserted into the veins - mostly for the IV and other things the nurses had to do intravenously. A tube was placed underneath her nostrils to make sure she consumed enough oxygen and an inflatable cuff that monitored her vitals every half hour; which stirred Greg since the whirring noise disturbed him, until he got used to it.

Greg's eyes were heavy from lack of sleep, but he tried his best to stay awake. He was determined to be there for her when she awoke. The doctors told him that she was going to sleep for a while since they needed her body to rest to rid the rest of the poison out of her. He wanted her to wake though, to make sure that she was really okay - to see her eyes open and look at him with a smile would ease his anxiety. As he gazed at her face for the millionth time, he noticed that the color was back in her face and that relieved him somewhat.

He placed his elbow on the metal bar that was supposed to be the arm of the chair and rested his head in his hand. Sleep was trying to overtake him and it was apparent on his face. Since resting his head in his hand wasn't helping to keep himself awake, he resorted to finally placing his heavy head on the hospital bed beside her arm to rest for a bit. He figured that if she did wake, she would move and stir him awake. After a good amount of struggle, he surrendered to his fatigue and closed his eyes.


Lynndy and Nick arrived at the hospital entrance and asked where Jennifer's room was located. After being pointed in the right direction, they walked side by side in silence. Hospitals were never a happy visit, regardless of how minor or major the conditions were. They ultimately arrived at her room and saw that the curtain was drawn around the bed. Nick took the liberty of raising his hand and pushing it aside, the sound of the rollers moving at the top of the curtain didn't even disturb the dirty blonde, as they noticed Greg was hunched on the bed asleep. He looked peaceful and calm, which was a relief from all the worry that was etched in his face for quite some time. Nick and Lynndy looked at each other, not sure if they should wake him or not.

"I bet he's been up for the past two nights or so, with his case and now with her," Nick mentioned to her quietly.

"Yeah, I hate to wake him but maybe we should," Lynndy said to him. She took a couple strides forward to be beside him and gently placed her hand on the upper part of his back. Softly, she rubbed her hand back and forth to stir him - she was never one to wake someone up by shaking them. Greg's eyes fluttered opened before he squeezed them tight at strength of the light in the room. He awoke, sitting up in the chair before turning his head towards the two CSI's.

"Hey partner," Nick greeted with a smirk.

"Hey guys," Greg said, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes and trying to wake up fully. "Guess I passed out for a while."

"I think so," Nick agreed amused. "How's she doing?"

"Um," he had to think about it for a second to clear the fog out his mind. "She seems to be doing better, they put her in a medicine-induced sleep so she's been out like a light for hours."

"Or she could be making up for lost sleep from work," Lynndy absentmindedly remarked, then tried to cover that up, "Or she's just a heavy sleeper."

Nick crossed the room to grab a few chairs so that they could sit down near the bed. Just then, a knock was heard on the doorframe and the CSI's turned to see who it was. It was the strawberry blonde supervisor they recognized immediately, coming inside the room with a sweet smile to greet them.

"Hey Catherine," Nick welcomed her in the room. Catherine came in, her heels clicking behind her and the tight wardrobe that enveloped her showed off a thin frame she possessed. Like a little lamb, Warrick followed behind her in his usual casual clothing. Both of them were trying not to show worry, knowing that she was going to be okay, but the situation not only affected Greg but the other CSI's as well. The lab was a close knit family and if one person is affected, so is everyone else.

"What are you guys doing here?" Lynndy asked, knowing that they were multiple cases open right now and were shocked to see they got out of theirs for the time being.

"We wanted to see how she was doing," Warrick answered. "We made some free time to visit."

"You mean you ditched Grissom and Ecklie somehow?" Nick said with an amused grin.

"Something like that," Warrick answered with a grin, his piercing green eyes scanning from Nick to the woman in the white bed.

As if on cue, Jennifer began to stir.

Jennifer's eyes blinked and moved as she tried to get used to the brightness of the artificial lights that were above her. Not sure where she was, the confusion was apparent on her face as she moved her head from side to side, observing her surroundings. Her eyes took in some of her co-workers but most of all, to Greg. The relief was planted on his face when he was sure that she was all right.

"Hey sleeping beauty," Warrick mentioned, wanting to be the first to say something. The others chuckled, more out of relief then anything.

"What happened?" she asked, her voice groggy, and still confused. "Why am I here?"

"You collapsed," Greg started to tell her, swallowing hard. "You were poisoned."

The shock was revealed on her face as she tried to absorb that information as her eyebrows knitted together in bewilderment. How could she have been poisoned? If she was in the hospital, it sure as hell wasn't food poisoning…

"What...?" she tried to conjure up a question but felt lightheaded and dizzy, the room seemingly spun around. She placed her tube-covered hand upon her forehead as if to make the spinning stop.

"This might not be the best time to tell you, you need your rest," Catherine said, the mother in her coming out instinctively. Concern appeared on her fair face as she looked upon the others in the room.

"We're glad you're okay, you gave us quite a scare," Warrick mentioned, rubbing Jennifer's arm slightly to show his comfort.

"Thanks," Jennifer said softly, feeling the discomfort fading slightly. Catherine and Warrick nodded to each other, sensing that they needed to get going before they were found out. They left the room quietly together to resume their tasks since, after all, they were still on duty.

Lynndy turned towards Greg, not sure how to break it to him. "Greg, we need to be alone with Jennifer so that-"

"I know, I'll just go get a soda from the vending machine," Greg told her, knowing that they needed to question her just in case this was a case of foul play. Since he wasn't on the case, he needed to leave them alone with her for a while. He made his leave, reluctantly, out of the door and down the hallway.

"How... What was I poisoned with?" Jennifer asked, finding it hard to believe that this happened to her.

"You had Oleander in your system, how you got it, Nick and I are trying to figure that out still," Lynndy told her.

"Oleander?" she questioned, finding that odd. She had heard of that plant before but finding it strange that it would end up in her system.

"Some people in the labs thought you consumed it intentionally," Nick mentioned, he needed to rule out the possibility that she did this to herself.

"I swear I didn't do this to myself, I have no idea how this happened to me," she defended. They were relieved, finally finding out that this wasn't premeditated.

"Do you remember what you ate?" Lynndy asked, trying to figure what might have happened.

"Actually, I haven't eaten anything for the past few days," she confessed regretfully with her head hung slightly. Her fingers intertwined with each other as a form of distraction so that she didn't have to look into the disappointed faces of her co-workers.

"Why not?" Nick asked, concerned. Jennifer sighed.

"When I get stressed, my appetite lessens," she admitted, finally looking up into the faces that she feared at the moment. "It's just a bad habit."

"You shouldn't do that to yourself," Lynndy said, concerned.

"I know, I do remember that I was in the labs and I felt lightheaded," she started to remember. "But I thought it was because of the lack of food and then I blacked out."

"You don't remember anything else?" Nick asked.

"Just that, and waking up now," she relayed. Lynndy then decided to question about what she had to drink.

"Did you have anything to drink?" she asked.

"Um, I believe that I drank some water and some of my tea, but that's it," she recalled.

"Do you think there might be anyone who might want to hurt you? Any grudge-heavy ex-boyfriends?" Nick asked, amused at Jennifer's reaction to that question as she laughed.

"No! I don't think I'm hated that much," she tried to joke, trying to make the situation a little lighter. "This is all a shock to me, I don't understand how this happened."

"We have to rule out any possibility since you were poisoned with a flower that is not common," Lynndy explained why they were playing twenty questions with the woman.

"Yeah, I know," she said understanding.

"We should go, you need your rest and I know that someone wants to spend time with you right now," Lynndy said, already knowing that Greg was in the hallway listening in. She happened to glance out the doorway and saw his shadow that was created from the artificial lights.

"Take care sweetheart, we need to get back to the labs," Nick sweetly told her, as if she was a child.

"Thanks," Jennifer told him with a soft smile. As the two CSI's stood up, they made their way to the doorway. Greg was leaning against the wall in the hallway, waiting for them to finish, with a can of soda in hand. From the look on his face, it wasn't helping much with waking him up.

"Hey partner, you need to get your rest soon," Nick said, taking note of how much fatigue had affected him.

"Thanks for the advice, Dad," Greg joked even though he was sleepy still. Lynndy smirked as she looked at him.

"We need to get going but let us know if anything changes," she told him. Greg nodded as he made his way inside the room to meet up with Jennifer. Her demeanor perked up as she saw him enter, a smile graced her face as he sat next to her and spoke to her. Nick and Lynndy made their leave down the hallway.


The labs were buzzing with different cases, different results, different conversations as Lynndy and Nick made their way through the winding hallways. The dissimilar noises around the labs were evident that the techs were busy like bees. Side by side, the two partners were headed towards Toxicology. It was perfect timing because Henry had paged Lynndy when they had arrived at the labs to check up on things. They entered the lab to find Henry processing a sample from another case.

"Hey, we're here, what did you find out on the tea bags?" Lynndy asked, glancing at the lab tech. Nick stood nearby, crossing his arms across his chest. Henry raised his head at her as she loomed over him.

"How is Jennifer doing?" Henry asked, worried about his fellow co-worker. He needed to be comforted that she was doing all right before confessing the results of the evidence.

"She's through the worst of it, but her body is in the process of riding itself of the poison," Lynndy admitted. "I'll let you know more news when I get it." He nodded, finding that good enough for him for now. He walked over to the results that printed on a sheet of paper and read the results to them.

"I analyzed the tea bags that she had brought to work. There were trace amounts of the typical tea ingredients; cinnamon, hibiscus, chamomile, chicory, so on. But I did find traces of oleandrin and neriine which are commonly found in oleander leaves. There were a good amount of leaves mixed in each one of the bags, it was difficult to determine exactly how many, but based on that amount, that is enough to kill a grown adult." Henry swallowed roughly before adding, "If the paramedics didn't get to her in time, she might not have made it."

"All of the bags contained Oleander?" Lynndy asked, feeling a little insecure that someone could be trying to poison the staff for their sick pleasure. When she examined the box, there were only about 5 bags but she didn't know how many were brewed by Jennifer before she finally collapsed. Henry nodded as an answer before she continued. "I guess it makes it easier to make sure she picked the right one."

"But here's the thing, the leaves were dried-" Henry started to explain but was interrupted.

"Well, being in the tea bags for however long they were, they tend to dry out," Lynndy told him.

"Not necessarily, Oleander is known to hold its toxicity even after drying," Henry revealed. "They're purposely dried since the ingredients in tea are as well, it's easier to blend into the other leaves and spices."

"So the question is, how did Oleander get there, it's not native to the States," Nick told them, placing his hands on his hips as he looked on to the other two.

"Oleander only grows in Morocco and Portugal through southern China," Henry informed.

"This could be a case of factory negligence," Lynndy theorized. "Most companies import their ingredients from different countries, especially when they try to commercialize their products as being exotic. There are always reports of toxic plants being shipped along with the provisions. This could be a case of a simple recall."

"That's what I thought at first, but take a look here," Henry mentioned, directing their attention towards the microscope nearby. He had Lynndy and Nick look into it one at a time.

"If you look closely, there are a total of four holes in the tea bag. Which can only mean that the miniature staple holding the tea bag together was taken off and replaced," Henry mentioned.

"Seems as though they were tampered with," Nick stated, sighing as now it seemed like there was more to this than what they initially thought.

They thanked the lab tech and headed down to see another one. The duo visited Mandy the Fingerprint Analyst, but they were told that the only fingerprints that were on the tea box were Jennifer's, which Lynndy predicted anyway. Even though it did seem like a case of negligence, now with Henry's findings, it seemed there was a lot more than meets the eye. There was one more place they needed to go to figure out if there was foul play involved: Jennifer's apartment.


The two CSI's opened the door to Jennifer's apartment. When they entered, it was very tidy which would make it easier for them to search the rooms. They knew that she had brought the tea from her home, as Nick had stated from what Greg told him, so they needed to figure out if there were any traces of the poison in her living arrangement. If they didn't find anything probative, then they would have to assume the tampering was done in the store from which it was purchased from.

The two separated so that they could go into the different rooms and check out anything suspicious. Lynndy took the obvious room first which was the kitchen. She set the silver kit down on the ground as she took out her flashlight to check for anything peculiar. Her gloved hand grabbed the handles of the cabinets and proceeded to search.

Nick headed for the bedroom with kit in hand and proceeded to take out his flashlight too so that he could see if anything would catch in the beams of light to perk his interest. His eyes scanned the room slowly as he tried to see what he could find. He knelt down on the hardwood floor one knee at a time as he took his flashlight to check underneath the bed. The beam of the light illuminated the darkness that consumed the area. When he moved the flashlight from one side to the other, he noticed something that was lying on the floor almost out of sight. He reached out for the item and grabbed it with his latex-covered hand as he kept one knee down on the ground and rested his arm on the other. It was a piece of paper with some handwriting on it; apparently it was a letter. His eyes scanned the cursive words and studied each sentence. As he did this, he slowly stood up on his feet, his brows knitted together. He relaxed his arm beside him with the paper still in hand and took long strides towards the bedroom exit to where his partner was.

"Lynndy," he called her name to get her attention. She was going through some documents that were littered on the table in the kitchen. Her attention was directed towards the call and she looked around for him. When she saw him, the concern was apparent on his face and her face fell into that of confusion.

"What's wrong? What did you find?" she asked, trying to figure out what was wrong. Nick held up the piece of paper to show her what he had found.

"This isn't a coincidence, someone wanted her dead."