Part Nine - Surprise

(Random Acts of Violence)

By the time Sara had walked from the entrance of the CSI building to Lea's lab, she'd heard from no less than three different people the details of Warrick's blow-up at Grissom, every word he'd said in exact detail. She'd known for a long time that the place was gossip central, but the speed of this rumour surprised her nonetheless; it seemed like everyone had either seen it, or had been talking to someone who had seen it. Sara knew better than to believe the scuttlebutt - after all, she'd heard false stories about herself more than once - but this seemed to have the ring of truth to it. She'd talked to Warrick earlier on, asked him how he was doing, and he'd all but bitten her head off. She'd wanted to voice further concerns, to ask him if he should be on this case at all, but she decided against it when she saw the look in his eyes.

She hadn't seen Warrick look at her like that in a long, long time, and it wasn't a memory that she wanted to revisit.

She put the thought out of her mind as she greeted Lea. "Hey," she said, dropping a file on the bench, crossing her arms over her chest and looking at her expectantly. "Got my test results for me?"

"They're here somewhere," Lea muttered, leaving her microscope, going to the pile of papers at the edge of the bench. "I got a little backlogged."

"You're busy tonight?" Sara asked, making conversation, receiving a raised eyebrow in response. "I know, I know," she said quickly, holding up a hand. "You're always busy."

"True," Lea allowed. "But that's not what it was … " She looked from left to right, lowering her voice. "You heard about Warrick and Grissom, right?"

Sara nodded. "From three people." She paused, wondering if she should ask, deciding that she'd rather know. "Was it as bad as they're saying?"

Lea chuckled. "I wasn't there," she said. "But Warrick losing his temper? I'd say so."

Which was exactly what Sara had been thinking, but confirming it didn't make it sit any easier with her, the opposite in fact. "Yeah," she sighed, reaching up to rub the bridge of her nose.

"In other news … " Lea said, drawing each word out. "I analysed the funny powder you found." Sara perked up at those words, and Lea gave her a grin. "I thought you'd like the sound of that. Mexican brown and mannitol, just like you thought."

Sara nodded slowly, taking the page from her and looking at the results. "So … " she murmured, thinking it through. "Drugs in his system, drugs in the crack between the glass and the wood of the table, but no obvious paraphernalia … "

"Someone cleaned up after him," Lea concluded.

"Someone cleaned up after him," Sara agreed. "The living room was scrubbed clean, not a fingerprint, not a hair out of place … looks like I'm searching the rest of the house." That meant hours of fingerprinting and checking the place with a fine tooth comb, not the easiest of things to do on a solo case.

"Sounds like fun," Lea quipped, and Sara kept back a smart retort with considerable effort, literally having to bite her tongue. She did roll her eyes though, giving the other woman a smile to take any sting out of it, taking the page and her file and taking a step towards the door.

"Sara?" Lea's voice stopped her, casual as could be; too casual, Sara realised at once. "The detective on your case … " Her voice trailed off, and Sara nodded, prompting her with the name.

"Lockwood?" When there was still no response from Lea, whose face was still inscrutable, Sara put the folder back down on the table, forgetting about processing a scene for a few moments, in favour of collecting evidence of a different kind. "What about him?"

Lea suddenly found something very interesting in her microscope. "You're friends with him right?"

"Isn't everyone?" Sara asked, because she didn't know of anyone who didn't get along with Cyrus, and it was then that she remembered a similar conversation and what her advice had been. "You know, I never asked you how things went with him after Christmas," she grinned, knowing that she was on the right track when Lea looked up at her from over the top of the microscope. Unlike Sara though, she wasn't smiling.

"That would have been a very short conversation," Lea said dryly, rolling her eyes. "Since nothing actually happened."

Sara knew she was doing a lousy job of keeping the surprise off her face, and was too shocked to care. "Nothing?" she asked, because Lea was the kind of girl that all the guys went for; she'd lost count how many guys she'd heard express their admiration for the lab tech.

"Not a hint of interest," Lea confirmed. "Oh, he talked to me, and he's a really nice guy, but romantically? Nothing."

Sara raised an eyebrow, not sure of what to say. "He did say that he had a flight to catch," she suggested. "Maybe he was in a hurry."

Lea was looking at her, and while her face might have been vaguely neutral, there was a hint of something in the twist of her lips, in the tilt of her head, that told Sara she was thinking more than she was letting on. "Yeah," she said flatly. "Maybe that was it."

"You should have a word with Nick," Sara continued. "He knows Cyrus pretty well … "

She stopped when Lea began shaking her head. "I'm not sure that it would do any good," she said. "I know when a guy's interested in me Sara, and that's not the vibe he was giving off." She held Sara's gaze for a long moment, and it looked to Sara like she wanted to say something, or was waiting for Sara herself to speak, but either way, Sara had nothing more to add. Perhaps Lea saw that, because she waved her hand, looking back towards her table of work again. "Anyway, this isn't getting your scene processed … or my evidence."

It was a clear dismissal, but the notion that she was missing something didn't sit well with Sara. "OK," she said, having no choice but to follow Lea's lead. "We'll talk later?"

She heard the uncertainty in her voice, and Lea must have too, because she gave Sara a wide, genuine smile. "Yeah. Count on it."