ON A WHOLE

Joe Stanton recovered quickly from his fainting incident. Not a fan of blood; it would seem. Although Phoebe didn't know many people out of law enforcement and medicine that could handle seeing a gnawed foot. Neglecting medical treatment, Joe sat in his office while Phoebe collected the blood from the sand machine and Sara packaged the foot into evidence. Then Phoebe sent Sara, along with their findings, back to the lab while she, Brass and uniformed police officer went to this new location.

They arrived in Henderson a short time later at the home of Walter Michelson. Phoebe noted he was quite irate for someone who had been setting up a Zen garden. He led Brass and Phoebe to the back of his home where sure enough, an open bag of sand lay sprawled on the ground with a bloody hand sticking out of it. It seemed like Walter had been pouring out the sand and dropped it immediately when he saw the hand. The day shift coroner, happily telling Phoebe this was his last case for the day, cleared the scene to let Phoebe get to work.

Taking out her evidence brush, Phoebe carefully swept the sand away from the hand. She was lucky and unlucky at the same time. This was a female hand and it appeared to have all five fingers accounted for, accept the tips had been torn off; most likely from that sand machine. So there was no way to obtain fingerprints. Phoebe silently hoped that Sara could find something on the finger she'd found in the sand bag back at the lab.

As Phoebe continued to sweep away the sand, she spied something that could prove to be extremely important in identifying the victim. It was a silver ring, smeared in blood, but stuck firmly on the ring finger. Not wanting to destroy the hand, Phoebe took photo's of the ring in its place before sweeping the rest of the sand off. The hand was cut just below the wrist; it was a gruesome sight.

"Well, that's not pretty." Brass was leaning over Phoebe's shoulder to get a look at the hand.

"It's a severed hand; it's not meant to be pretty." Phoebe told him, carefully lifting the hand into an evidence bag and tagging it with her initials. "What did Walter have to say?"

"Nothing incriminating." Brass told her. "He showed me the receipts, he had the stuff ordered in yesterday. Which doesn't really help with time of death."

Phoebe stood up and gestured to the hand in the bag. "Well maybe this will."

xxx

Phoebe met up with Sara as she arrived at the lab. Together they took Doc Robbins the hand. He was mulling over both the feet as they came in. After telling the Doc that she'd need the ring from the hand ASAP, the girls left him to his devices and went back to the lab. Sara told Phoebe she was able to get a print from the finger she'd found and it was running a search in the lab. Phoebe told her she'd go and wait for the results while Sara went to see Greg in hopes he'd got something interesting of the blood Phoebe had swabbed from inside the sand crushing machine.

As she neared the lab, Phoebe saw someone at the trace computer. It was Nick. He had his back to her so he didn't see her coming. She'd been so preoccupied with the case she'd momentarily forgotten Nick's rudeness to Ben earlier in the day. She thought maybe he'd just been having a hard time on his case and was in a bad mood so she went into the lab trying to act as though all was well.

"Hey, is my fingerprint still searching?" She asked in her normal voice.

Nick didn't turn around. He lifted his head; he'd heard her, but he didn't look at her. "Not yet." He replied in a low voice.

And in that voice Phoebe knew he was mad at her. Or at least annoyed anyway. Plus, only when he was mad would he keep his back to her. "Are you okay?" she asked.

"Fine." He replied hotly, his eyes on the computer.

Phoebe was fed up. He was acting like a child. "Alright, that's it." She said firmly, shoving a chair out of her way as she walked towards him. "What the hell is the matter with you? Are you mad at me or something?" he still didn't turn around. "Nick; look at me. Nick!"

He turned around in his chair and looked at her. She was mad. Or was it frustrated? Those two emotions seemed to meld in Phoebe. "Why didn't you tell me?"

"Tell you what?" She almost spat the last word out. She wasn't going to play the innocent one when he was acting so juvenile.

"That you were engaged." He said flatly.

Phoebe opened and closed her mouth a couple of times; stunned by what he'd just said. He was mad because she hadn't disclosed the most humiliating time of her life to him? That's what this was all about. "What?" was all she managed to get out.

Nick was still irritated. "Some guy just shows up and says he's your fiancé; I'm just supposed to let that go? We're meant to be friends, Phoebe."

Now Phoebe knew how mad he was. He never called her Phoebe unless he was being dead serious. Never. "I don't know what you want me to say." She muttered uselessly.

"I just want to know why you didn't think you could trust me with something like this." Nick told her. "Why you felt you had to hide it from me."

Phoebe sighed. "Because I'm not proud of it, okay?" she admitted snappishly. "I was young and stupid and I made a mistake. I left Sydney in the same week I was supposed to marry Ben." She felt hot tears in her eyes. It annoyed her that even after a decade she still couldn't talk about it. "I left him there to deal with the fallout on his own. I didn't see or talk to him for three years; not until he came here for my mothers wedding." She wiped the tears out of her eyes before they could fall.

Nick watched her earnestly, soaking in the information as she spoke. He felt like a complete bastard for making her cry; all because he couldn't handle Ben acting like he was Phoebe's boyfriend. It was so childish that if it had been happening to someone else, Nick would have given them a lecture on maturity.

"I didn't leave because I didn't love him." Phoebe admitted painfully. "It's just that...I didn't want to...be that person. Be married at twenty-three, have kids, not work...I wanted to finish university; I wanted to travel." Phoebe was talking to the floor now, but she could feel Nick's eyes on her. "Ben's originally from Chicago, he'd done his traveling. He was ready to settle. I wasn't." She looked up at Nick. He was giving her his full attention. "And I've never told anyone that before; not even Ben."

Nick was speechless. He hadn't expected her to be so blunt; but he was glad she had been. He, again, felt like a bastard for basically forcing the truth out of her. He was sure that if he hadn't acted like a child to Ben and just asked Phoebe about him later; she would have answered all his questions. But no; he had to go and act like a jerk.

"I'm sorry, Pheebs." He told her honestly.

Phoebe smiled sadly. "It's okay." She held her arms out to him; gesturing for a hug. "Are we good?"

Nick smiled and got up off his chair. "Yeah, we're good." He said before wrapping his arms around her and squeezing her tightly.

Phoebe was resting her head on his shoulder when she saw the computer light blinking; her results were in. "My prints!" she said, probably a tad overzealously. She broke away from Nick and together they checked the computer. The fingerprint had found a match. "Lucie Stafford, seventeen. Gotta love over-protective schools." She said. The print had found its owner in a school database. A lot of schools were printing students these days, in case of abduction or kidnapping. Phoebe hit print on the computer and the printer spat out her results.

Sara came to the door of the lab. "Pheebs, we got another call. While building a sandbox downtown apparently a human female head slipped out of the bag from Shirley's Sand Temple." She said happily.

"I just ID'd our vic." Phoebe proudly waved the paper in front of her.

"Nice." Sara said appreciatively. "Although technically, I got the print off the finger and started the search." She smirked.

"You suck." Phoebe told her, following it up with a smile.

Sara held up the fingerprint information. "I'll fax this to Brass and meet you downstairs." She turned on her heel and headed down the hallway.

Phoebe turned to Nick. "This case is in more pieces then the body." She rolled her eyes, about to leave.

Just do it, Nick told himself. "Pheebs, wait."

She turned around and smiled. "Yah?"

"Can I take you to dinner tomorrow night?" He asked, smiling as he did so.

At first Phoebe thought he meant as an apology for their little tiff, why else invite her out on their night off, but she saw how nervous he looked. And if it was an apology dinner; he would've said so. He was asking her out on a date. She grinned, but couldn't hide her shock. "Dinner? Really?"

"Yeah...I've just been thinking a lot about you lately." He told her honestly. "And I think we should give it a shot."

Phoebe, still smiling inanely, was unaware that she hadn't spoken in a matter of minutes. She kind of jumped when she realized. "Huh...I, ah, I did not expect you to say that." She saw worry flash across his face. "Absolutely." She answered happily. "I'd love to."

Nick looked relieved and pleased at the same time. "Okay." He grinned.

"Okay." Phoebe grinned back and nodded. Then she remembered her case. "Oh, I have to go."

"I'll catch you later?" Nick asked as she backed out of the room.

"Definitely." Phoebe was smiling so much her cheeks hurt. She turned and walked down the hall feeling lighter then air. It was only when she got out of Nick's sight that she remembered she was meant to have dinner with Ben. The way this case was going that wasn't going to happen. Then she realized how little she cared about Ben. She had a date with Nick; and that was all that mattered.