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Catherine, Warrick and Phoebe arrived at the local Medical Centre where Angela Somerville had her blood tests taken. On their way inside, Phoebe expressed to Catherine her massive distaste for needles.

"You're a CSI." Catherine told her blatantly with a smile to let Phoebe know she wasn't putting her down.

"I know, I know. I see decapitated bodies every day." Phoebe agreed. "But it's just the act of sticking a needle into that part of the arm." Phoebe shuddered quite noticeably. "Grossest thing ever."

Catherine laughed and Warrick shook his head as they walked into the halls of the medical centre. There was no one at the front desk and no one in the waiting room. Seemed to be a very slow day. Catherine heard voices coming from one of the exams rooms down the hall so she led Phoebe towards them.

Through the doorway of the exam room, Phoebe spied a young man about her own age in a lab coat, drawing blood from an elderly woman.

Warrick turned to Phoebe; her face had turned shock white. "You okay?" he asked.

She nodded, still looking extremely pale. "I'm gonna sit down." She told Warrick, turning on her heel. Then she slumped into the side of the door, banging her head on the Perspex window.

Warrick grabbed her around her middle so she wouldn't hit the floor. "Whoa, easy now." He nodded to Catherine, telling her to go in and talk with the blood technician, and sat Phoebe on one of the plastic chairs against the wall. He sat beside her. "You really don't like needles." He realized.

Phoebe laughed, colour returning to her face. "Just the 'being in the skin' part." She told him. "On their own; I find needles quite pleasant."

The elderly woman who had been having her blood drawn exited the exam room. With Warrick's, unwanted but relentless help, Phoebe headed into the exam room.

"We're from the crime lab." Catherine was saying as Warrick and Phoebe entered. "We're here about a Miss Angela Sommerville."

"Last month, your clinic tested her blood." Warrick added.

The man, whose nametag read Bobby Jones, shook his head. "Actually, we don't do the testing. Common mistake. I'm contracted by Adminalab to withdraw blood, and the lab processes." He paused. "And the whole thing is confidential, so…"

"Oh, we've already seen her results. She's dead, so, the confidentiality privilege no longer applies." Catherine said with a hint of a smirk. "We need to know which tech
withdrew her blood."

"I'm the only tech here." Bobby said plainly.

Phoebe, feeling 100 better, pressed on. "She had a pendant around her neck with blood in it."

Bobby shrugged in a disinterested way. "What does that have to do with me?" he asked.

"Her blood was mixed with a polyester base." This time Phoebe was the one who almost smirked. "I think you know what that means."

A glint of...something...ran through Bobby's eyes. "I...know who you're talking about." He paused, staring off into space for a few moments. "I'd taken more than enough for testing purposes, so, I figured it's her blood. Why not just give it to her?

"My bet is that it's against your lab's policy." Said Catherine as Warrick began to wander around the room.

"Great." Bobby sighed. "You gonna report me?" He was distracted as Warrick opened the refrigerator against the back wall. "Uh, you can't go in there." He said quickly.

"We have a warrant." Warrick told him, nodding at Phoebe who whipped the warrant out of her pocket and smiled at Bobby before handing it over.

Bobby took the warrant but didn't look over it. "Th-that's my personal fridge." He said weakly as Warrick pulled out a beaker half full of blood from the fridge."

"Now, what's this blood doing here?" Warrick asked him, showing the blood to Catherine and Phoebe.

"Mr. Jones, I'm going to need a sample of your blood." Catherine told him.

"I bet you don't have a warrant for that." Bobby said with an annoyingly pompous grin.

Warrick eyed the container. "Cath, I think we have all we need right here."

xxx

Back to the lab again, Phoebe thought as she entered the laboratory with the beaker of blood in her latex-gloved hands. She set to work on a lip print that was on the outer rim of the jar, but she already knew what the results would be. But knowing and proving were two different things when it came to evidence.

Phoebe's eyes wandered out of the transparent walls of the lab as she awaited her analysis results. Her traveling gaze fell upon Nick and Sara in the lab beside her, most likely still working on their weirder-by-the-second Chinese Antiques case. Nick was in the middle of explaining something to Sara, quite vehemently it would seem. He always tensed when he wasn't getting his own way. Or when he couldn't get people to see things his way. Phoebe realized she hadn't noticed that before. Well, she had. But she hadn't really cared. So why do I care now? She wondered. I don't. She told herself firmly.

"Dammit, Warrick." She mumbled under her breath. He'd put these ideas in her had. At least that's what Phoebe told herself. But even as she cursed Warrick in her mind, her eyes wandered back up towards Nick. He was now leaning against the desk Sara was sitting at. His arms were crossed tightly which made his muscly arms even more pronounced. And for some reason this was an extremely important thing for Phoebe to note. Shaking her head abruptly, Phoebe cursed herself for feeling like a hormonal teenage girl, and went back to work. It was at that point she realized her blood results had been ready for quite some time.

xxx

Catherine let Phoebe sit in on the interview with Bobby Jones and Phoebe was thrilled at the distraction because, on her way out of the lab after she got her blood results, Nick had asked Phoebe if she wanted to grab breakfast with him and Sara. Too afraid to agree, fearing that she'd be obviously self-conscious, Phoebe had declined citing that Catherine wanted her in the interview with their suspect. In reality, Catherine hadn't asked her to sit in until after that chat with Nick.

In the interview room, Catherine showed Bobby photos that Warrick had taken of the container of blood. The last one she placed in front of him was a close up of the lip print.

"The blood in your personal fridge belonged to Angela Somerville." Catherine told Bobby. "We found a lop print on the rim of this container we got from your stash."

"I pulled DNA from saliva on the rim." Phoebe chimed in. "Ran in through the database. Did you know the medical centre you work for has your DNA on record?"

"It's not a crime to drink someone's blood." Bobby said quietly to his hands.

"How did her blood end up in your personal fridge?" Phoebe asked.

"When Angela came in for her HIV test, she asked me to withdraw an extra unit." Bobby explained. "She paid me twenty bucks to store it, and never came back to pick it up."

"And what, you got thirsty?" Catherine deadpanned, but Phoebe had to force herself not to crack a smile. "Angela's test date was 32 days ago, and our lab determined that the blood from your fridge was less than a week old." She continued. "Would you explain that?"

Bobby sighed. "Most girls turn away when I stick the needle in...but she was into it." Bobby closed his eyes, absorbed in the memory. I started watching over her. She was dating this wannabe total Hollywood freak show."

"Oh, so you're the real thing?" Phoebe asked skeptically.

Bobby smiled. Both Catherine and Phoebe noticed sharp fangs on his incisors. "These don't come out." He said proudly.

"Mr. Jones, give me a file and I could sharpen my teeth into fangs, too." Catherine said with a frustrated undertone.

Bobby shook his head. "Nah, I was born with these."

"Mm-hmm." Catherine muttered. "The night that Angela was murdered, you were watching over her."

"The poser just took off." Bobby said, referencing Lazarus Kane. "She...invited me in." He smiled, his eyes still closed. "She was happy to see me." He continued in a whisper. "We kissed." Bobby opened his eyes and looked directly at Phoebe. "She...offered herself to me."

"You mean she offered her blood to you." Phoebe corrected him.

"Yeah." Bobby smiled at the memory.

"She may have offered you her blood, but you took her life." Catherine spoke up in an attempt to bring Bobby back down to earth. "You murdered her."

Bobby smiled in a psychotic way. "You can't prove that."

"DNA I pulled of the lip print matches the saliva we found on the puncture wounds on Angela's neck." Phoebe told him.

Bobby shook his head, as though he thought Phoebe and Catherine had no idea what they were talking about. "I released Angela from her body." He explained airily. "She's inside of me now. A part of me." He grinned, showing them his fangs. "And she's very much alive."

xxx

Phoebe's plan had been to pack up her stuff and head home before starting work again that evening, but while waiting for Warrick to give her a lift home in the break room, Phoebe fell straight to sleep on the couch. She had a dream she had never had before, and one that blamed completely on Warrick for putting the idea in her head. She had fallen asleep with her iPod playing in her ears and in her dream; she and Nick were dancing oh-so-closely to a Michael Buble tune Phoebe adored. One main feature of the dream was that while she wore a sheer, black dress; Nick was shirtless and wearing only jeans.

Waking with a start by someone shaking her into coherence, Phoebe felt annoyed that this time the day before she'd only thought of Nick as...well, Nick. Not as any sort of prospect of the future. A gorgeously shirtless prospect at that.

So that was why it was that much more strange for Phoebe when she realized that it was Nick who had shaken her awake and was now kneeling beside the couch.

"Hey." He said in a low voice.

"Hi." Phoebe said in a tired voice, quickly wiping her mouth and praying she hadn't drooled. She was thankful when she realized she hadn't. "What time is it?"

"Lunch time." Nick told her. "Warrick didn't want to wake you. I said I'd take you home."

"Oh, thanks. You don't have to do that." Phoebe pulled herself up into a sitting position.

"No; it's no problem at all." Nick smiled at her.

Phoebe smiled back, very aware that it probably came off shaky. A point that Nick noticed as well.

"You alright?" He asked, concern suddenly evident in his eyes. "Being Buffy take it out of you a little?"

"Ha-ha." Phoebe laughed dryly. "Even she got a break now and again."

Nick smiled and then noticed a bruise just above Phoebe's right temple. "Hey, what happened?" He instinctively reached out and placed his hand on the side of her face.

Phoebe was so taken aback at his touch she didn't realize what he'd said. Then she remembered her little fainting spell at the medical centre earlier. "Oh, I hit my head on a door." She told him. "And it's just as dumb as it sounds."

"You sure?" Nick asked, his hand still on her face and concern still in his eyes.

Phoebe smiled, more steadily this time, and nodded. "Positive."

"Okay then." Nick took his hand off Phoebe's face and she realized at that point how much she wished he hadn't. "It's lunch time. And since you blew me off for breakfast then we'll just have to go now." He got to his feet and reached both his hands down to Phoebe. "What do you say?"

Phoebe looked up at him and then took both his hands. "Alright." She agreed as Nick heaved her to her feet.

The pair of them headed out of the building and over to Nick's car. He took her out to lunch, they caught a movie and then he dropped her home with a quick wave as a farewell. As Phoebe watched him drive off she came to the conclusion that, as much as she had been planning to kill Warrick for what he'd made her think about, those thoughts about Nick had quite possibly had been in her head since the day they met.