A/N: It is my hope that by now everyone realizes the characters in Four-Hour Drive are extremely OOC! LOL! I'm trying to write them with very "exaggerated" characteristics that they each have. ("very" exaggerated) So, I hope you all enjoy my little trek into the Twilight Zone (or as Sara puts it, Hitchcockville) with our favorite CSIs.

Chapter 20

"Well, you're not sticking me in with her!" Catherine Willow's voice came up the street as Greg, Nick, Grissom and Sara entered the parking lot of the motel.

"Catherine, be reasonable," Ecklie tried but Catherine stood beneath the streetlight with her hands on her hips in a defiant stance.

"Me? Be reasonable? How reasonable is it to make me stay in the same room as that stench?"

"Sophia," Ecklie looked at her as if he knew it was a lost cause. "I thought I told you to come back here and get cleaned up."

"I did!" She exclaimed. "I washed with lemons—just like they said! I used all of them that I bought off of Greg!"

"You "bought" lemons from Greg?" Catherine asked with disbelief. "You really are an idiot, aren't you?"

"Beside the fact that she shouldn't have had to "buy" the lemons, what exactly makes her an idiot?" Ecklie asked.

"If they're the lemons I'm thinking they are—they've been in his car for the past three weeks. They're probably more mold than anything else."

Sophia's eyes flew to the young man who was almost standing with them as they approached the motel. "You little bastard! You said the mold was what helped activate the acid from the lemons!"

"Well, you wouldn't have paid me a buck and a half a lemon if you'd have known they were rotten," he explained, as if it should have been completely clear to everyone.

Catherine laughed at the other woman. "Now you smell like decomp and moldy lemons."

"Greg! Now you can drive back to that 24-hour gas station we passed on the way here and see if you can buy any lemons in the convenience store," Ecklie told him.

"That must've been thirty miles from here!"

"You should've thought about that before cheating Sophia out of her money. Go!"

Greg started toward the SUV he had driven there that morning, mumbling his complete disapproval of the whole idea as he went. "It isn't my fault she's so gullible."

"Wait, Greg," Nick spoke up. "I'll go with you. Anyone else want anything brought back?"

"If they have anything that remotely resembles edible food—bring some," Catherine told him.

"What are you talking about?" Nick asked.

"Hot food—like pizza, burgers, hot dogs. . .stuff that's warm."

"I'll take a cheese sub!" Sara called to them.

"If they have burgers, I want three," Ecklie said.

"Nachos," Warrick called.

"Gris?" Nick called back. "Anything for you?"

"Just grab something," he said as he walked closer to Catherine where Warrick was leaning against the Tahoe's fender. "Preferably something that hasn't been in a showcase for the past four hours."

"Oh, well, now, doesn't that make it all sound appetizing!" Catherine snarked at him, then looked back at the boys getting in the Explorer. "I want at least two slices of pizza and a bag of chips! Oh—chocolate milk!"

"Sophia?" Nick was about to close the door. "Last chance—what's your preference? Besides a bushel of lemons?"

"Nothing! Just get the damned lemons!"

"Okay," Nick said with raised brows then closed the door and Greg pulled out of the parking lot.

Sara started toward the room she had shared with Grissom earlier that day. She wanted a shower desperately and by then the guys should be back.

"Uh—where do you think you're going?" Sophia asked as she stepped in front of Sara.

"To take a shower."

"Not in there, you're not."

"What are you talking about?" Sara thought the woman was absurd and attempted to step around her but Sophia side-stepped her again. "Would ya get outta my way? I'm tired and want a shower!"

"That's Grissom's room," Sophia smiled smugly at her. "You're stuff is still in my room, remember?"

"Dammit! You better not have gotten your stench all over my clothes!" Sara told her.

"I'll help you get your things out of the room," Grissom offered.

"I bet you will," said Sophia. "And bring it right back here."

"I don't know "where" her stuff is going," Grissom said sternly as he eyed the blonde. "But I do know I'm tired and don't want to stand out here arguing about this little fantasy you've got running around in your mind."

"Sara, you can get your own room. I booked it for you. Number twelve. Catherine, if you're not going to bunk with Sophia, then you can have my room in fourteen. Warrick, do you want to stay with Nick?"

"As long as he doesn't snore like a locomotive," Warrick complained.

"Okay, that puts Greg in thirteen."

"Ah, he ought to love that," Sara spoke up. "He already thinks Michael Myers, Freddy Krueger and Jason are coming after him here at the Bates Motel—when he finds out he's staying in lucky thirteen, he's gonna freak out."

"Ya know, I'm getting real tired of trying to keep all of you happy!" Eckie complained. "Fine! I'll take thirteen. That puts Nick and Warrick in eleven, Sara in twelve, Greg's in ten, Catherine's in fourteen and Grissom stays in fifteen."

"No, I don't want eleven," Warrick spoke up. "Nick and I can stay in thirteen."

"Then you can give Greg eleven!" Sara spoke up.

"Why would I want to do that?" Ecklie was getting more and more frustrated.

"Because. . .Greg hates number ten. He's superstitious about ten," she told him. "His Grampa Olaf told him ten and thirteen are extremely unlucky numbers for descendents of German ancestery."

"Swedish," Grissom said quickly.

"Swedish," Sara corrected herself.

"Evidently he's superstitious about thirteen as well, any other numbers I should know about that Greg has a problem with?"

"No," Sara said. "No, that's about it."

"Why is everyone over on this side of the motel and I'm stuck all the way over on the other side?" Sophia asked with her hands on her hips.

"Uh—take three guesses," Warrick responded.

"That's not fair Conrad! You're ostracizing me just because. . ."

"Just because, what, Sophia? What feasible reason would I have to separate you from the rest of the group, other than you've already spread your stench into Room 22, we don't want you damaging any other rooms and costing us extra for clean-up charges," Ecklie said, clearly fighting to hold onto his temper.

"That and the fact that no one wants to spend the night sleeping next to a psychotic bitch," Catherine said under her breath.

"Catherine! That's enough!" Ecklie corrected her then looked at Grissom who was now standing on the small porch of his room. "Grissom, these people are your crew—can't you keep them under control?"

"You try keeping Catherine under control," Grissom told him, then turned to look at Sophia. "Sophia, Conrad's right, at this point, if you try to go into another room, the decomp would contaminate that room as well. Just wait until they bring back your lemons and then we'll consider moving you."

"To where?" Sara asked as she looked up at him.

"Come on, guys!" Catherine spoke up again. "Why can't we just leave her over there? It isn't hurting anything! It isn't as if she's on the other end of town! She's right on the opposite side of the wall for God's sake!"

"We'll discuss it after she cleans up. I'm going in for a shower. I'll meet you all out here when Nick and Greg get back with our food," Ecklie told them then went into Room 10.

OoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOo

Within an hour and a half, seven of the eight CSIs had gathered at the tailgate of the SUV Nick and Greg had returned in, each feasting on their late-night dinner with vigor. It wasn't until Sophia walked around the corner that Greg stopped midway through a bite of his chili dog and quickly looked over at Nick who was downing a super burger. Nick didn't seem to notice the anxiety on Greg's face until with a mouth full of food, Greg uttered, "Oh no!" and got up from where he was sitting on the tail gate and quickly moved to stand behind Catherine and Sara.

Catherine was working on her second slice of pizza as she watched Greg with curiosity, then saw that he was staring at Sophia in fear.

"What did you do, Greg?" Catherine asked quietly then looked at the food scattered around the back of the SUV before looking back at Greg. "Oh, Greg, you didn't!"

"He didn't what?" Nick asked between bites and when he looked to where Catherine and Greg were staring, he gulped and choked slightly on his burger. "Oh, shit!"

"Stay back there," Sara told Sophia. "We're trying to eat here."

"Where are they?"

"They? Who?" Warrick asked.

"My lemons."

"Oh, shit," Nick repeated.

Ecklie looked at his male CSIs then quickly looked to the back of the SUV. "Greg!"

"We forgot!" Nick tried to explain.

"How could you forget?" Asked Ecklie in astonishment. "That's the whole reason you went to the store!"

"Yeah, but we were hungry, and everyone wanted food, and she didn't want anything, so we didn't think about her and we. . .forgot," Greg said in a rush as he peered out over Catherine's shoulder.

"You forgot my goddamned lemons!" Sophia charged after Greg who quickly jumped inside the SUV and locked the door.

"Ah, come on!" Warrick complained as he caught a whiff of her passing through their small crowd.

"Now my pizza smells like decomp," complained Catherine as she dropped it into the box it had come in.

Sophia, realizing she couldn't get in at Greg, turned on Nick. "And you! You went with him! You couldn't remember your main purpose for leaving for more than thirty minutes! Is that too much for your cowboy-hick ass to remember?"

"Jeez, I'm sorry, Sophia," Nick told her as he also stopped eating. "But you're really not number one on my list of things to remember. Anyway, I thought Greg was going to get the lemons. I was in charge of the food."

"You didn't even have to remember the food!" Sophia turned back to Greg again. "And you still couldn't remember them?"

He gave her a chuckle and quick shrug of his shoulders and she immediately grabbed onto the handle of the door and started pulling on it to no avail.

"Excuse me, is there a problem here?" Asked the young officer who had talked to Sara the night before when he met her and Grissom on the street after eating dinner.

Everyone stopped what they were doing and turned to look at him then as if finding his youthful appearance nonthreatening, they all started talking again.

"Leave him alone, Sophia!" Sara told her. "You'll get your shower in the morning when the store opens down the street."

"She has to wait for the store to open. . ." the officer started, then stopped and made a face when Sophia's smell hit him. "Oh—you need lemons for that Ma'am."

"I "know" what I need," she said through grit teeth.

"Well, if you'd like, I could wake up Mr. Templeton and I'm sure under the circumstances he'd go down and get you the lemons. Would you like to come along with me and we'll get you fixed right up."

Sophia looked at the young man as if he had finally turned human in her eyes. "Yes. Yes, I'd like to come with you, officer. . .?"

"Jeremy, ma'am. Everyone just calls me Jeremy around here." He took off his hat as he looked at her and smiled, then gestured for her to walk with him. Sophia stared at him as if she couldn't believe her good fortune then silently started down the street with the young man as he continued to talk to her.

Sara stood next to the cab of the SUV when Greg finally got out. "You didn't really "forget" the lemons, did you?"

"Nah," he grinned as he went back to his dinner as everyone around the truck dug in again, as well.