Disclaimer: If it's familiar to you, it doesn't belong to me.

Spoilers (for those of you who've been living under a rock for 4 years): Cool Change

Nick's POV:

I eyed Catherine as she swiped the assignment slip from me and walked out, squandering my hopes to work the big case in the process. It would have been my first case as a CSI level three, and probably one of the toughest. Sure, I'd never actually met Holly, which was the reason Grissom gave me the case in the first place, but it was always tough when the victim was one of your own.

But my assignment was gone as quickly as it had come. I couldn't blame Catherine though, and Grissom didn't argue with her so I knew he understood too. We were all on edge, starting the back end of a double shift, running on caffeine and adrenaline. And Grissom's idea to bring in some outsider to help with the investigation didn't do anything to reduce the stress level. Catherine had made it clear before she stormed out that she wasn't too fond of the idea. But Grissom said it was someone he trusted, so I couldn't pass judgment too fast. She was from San Francisco, did he say? They probably went way back, maybe they met when he was still working in LA. She was probably a hard-nosed, no-nonsense scientist just like him. Not that we needed another Grissom, but at least we'd know she was competent.

So now that I was assigned a new case, I had to put the Holly situation in the back of my mind. I could only hope that Catherine would get our guy, which I was sure she would, and that Holly would pull through, which unfortunately I wasn't so sure about. Her condition was serious and she'd been in the operating room ever since she'd been brought in, the doctors working frantically to control the bleeding caused by the several gunshot wounds she'd sustained.

Grissom and I arrived at our crime scene at the Monaco and got to work. After he made me do a blind run through what might have happened, we ended up on the roof, and the next thing I knew I had Meyers roof dust all over my new shirt and I was throwing dummies off the roof.

After I threw the three dummies, I waited to hear Grissom's voice over the walkie, telling me that everything went okay and I could come down. When he didn't say anything, I cautiously peered over the edge of the building and saw that the reason he hadn't said anything was because he was talking to someone. Someone inside the crime scene tape. Female. No uniform, so it wasn't an officer. Wasn't Catherine. Sara Sidle maybe? I was too high up to distinguish any details, the only thing I could tell was that she was a brunette.

I watched the brunette walk away and finally Grissom gave me the okay to come down.

"Who was that you were talking to?" I asked when I was safely back on ground level.

"Sara," was all he said. "Load the dummies back into the truck and then have A/V get working on these photos." He handed me the camera. "I'm gonna go back up to the room, I'll meet you back at the lab."

"Okay."

I did what I was told, and once the photos were developed I started to go through them, comparing them with the photos of our victim. Unfortunately, I couldn't make heads or tails of the photos, they all looked the same to me and so I had no idea whether our victim had fallen, jumped, or was pushed. Why couldn't we just use a computer simulation like normal people? It wasn't like we didn't have the software. But Grissom had to be the traditionalist.

I had this crazy notion that coffee might help me see the photos in a different light so I headed for the break room.

"Hi," I greeted the unfamiliar brunette standing at the coffee machine.

"Hi."

Brunette. "You must be Sara."

"Yeah." Her tone was a little uneasy.

So this was Grissom's "good friend," the one he trusted? Definitely not what I expected her to look like. A lot younger than I thought she'd be. Kinda cute. How did they know each other exactly?

She gave me this look, like she was uncomfortable that I knew who she was when she didn't know who I was. "We haven't officially met yet. Nick Stokes." I extended my hand. "I saw you talking to Grissom at the Monaco."

"You were the one on the roof." It was more of a statement than a question.

"Yeah. And now I have Meyers dust all over me, all because Grissom is-"

"Old school, I know," she finished my sentence with a smile. Cute smile.

"Yeah, and this stuff-"

"Doesn't come off. Sucks, doesn't it?" She interrupted me again.

"Do you go around finishing everyone's sentences?" I asked with a slight smile, indicating I wasn't trying to be snippy.

"I guess some people are easier to read than others," she replied in a teasing tone, flashing me a toothy grin as she walked past me and headed out.

I shook my head and smiled to myself. What was that supposed to mean anyway? I could tell she wasn't a shy one. And since Grissom said she was a good CSI, I didn't doubt that. The air of confidence in her tone and the way she carried herself indicated that, and it made me decide that if she was the one that was going to be doing the snooping around, I had no problem with that. She didn't seem like another Grissom, at least that's what I'd gathered from our brief conversation. But then again, it was hard to tell.

I didn't see her the rest of shift, I was busy working with Grissom and she was off helping Catherine. Grissom and I eventually got our woman, and Sara and Catherine got their man, the man who had shot and in effect murdered Holly Gribbs. We all stood in the PD parking lot as we watched the suspect being carted off.

The van pulled away and Grissom told us to go home. I knew I should have, having just pulled a double, but I didn't think I'd be able to sleep.

"Hey Sara," I called out to her as she was heading for her car. "You wanna grab something to eat?" I hoped my tone didn't sound as tentative as I thought it did. I wasn't sure why I'd even asked; it sort of just came out.

"Uh…"

"Right, you're probably tired." I took her response, or rather lack of one, as a no. She had only come to help with the investigation, not to fraternize.

"Tired? No. You should be the one who's tired. I only worked one shift," she reminded me.

"Oh, right."

"So where do you people go for some good food around here?" she smiled at me. I noticed for the first time that she had a small gap between her two front teeth, and for some odd reason I found this kind of sexy. I'd just worked a double shift, one of my coworkers had died, and I was thinking about how sexy someone's teeth were. Must be the sleep deprivation. Or so I told myself.

--------------------

Sara's POV:

I'll admit I was a little scared at first. Not because of where I was going, but why. Grissom had asked me to come to Vegas to help with an investigation. I thought it was a rather odd request; I was no expert criminalist by any means so I didn't see why he'd asked me in particular, but there was no doubt in my mind that I'd go. A chance to work with Gil Grissom, at the number two crime lab in the country? Nobody would pass that up.

But when he told me why he wanted my help, that was when things got a little complicated. He said he wanted me to investigate someone. A CSI. From his own team. Internal Affairs investigations were touchy enough, bringing in an outsider would surely only increase the tension. But again, I couldn't turn down an opportunity like that, so I was on the next plane to Las Vegas.

I went straight from the airport to the Monaco, where LVPD dispatch said Grissom was. I found him standing outside the building, photographing dummies someone had just thrown from the roof. I couldn't help but smile. While Grissom was a brilliant criminalist and knew practically all there was to know, sometimes he could be such a traditionalist.

After Grissom filled me in, my first stop was to check in with Catherine Willows, who was working Holly's case. After wandering around the lab, which I noticed was a lot nicer than San Fran's, I eventually found her. She immediately jumped on me and accused me of trying to steal the Holly case from her.

She seemed pretty adamant about it being "her" case. She came off as confident, almost arrogant. Maybe it was her attitude that gave me this strange vibe that told me I should try and change her mind by using some kind of feministic, womanly bond kind of approach. "Two strong women are better than one," I reasoned.

For whatever reason, which was probably because all that really mattered to her was finding the person who shot Holly, she gave in, but I knew she wasn't completely comfortable with it. And she seemed to have everything under control, so I moved on to what I was really there for, to investigate Warrick.

I found him right where Catherine said he'd be, a casino on Blue Diamond Road. We went to a diner to talk, and, as expected, he didn't look like he had any intention of trying to befriend me. But that didn't bother me, I wasn't looking to befriend him either, I was looking for the reason why he'd left Holly alone at that crime scene.

He looked at me (with the most stunning green eyes I'd ever seen, but that was well beside the point) in disbelief when I told him that Holly Gribbs had just died, while in the operating room. His cocky demeanor immediately faded as his feelings of guilt became acutely evident. It was hard not to feel for him, because it wasn't his fault that Holly was shot, but the bottom line was that he'd broken protocol, and I couldn't push that aside. And when I left him sitting there, I knew he knew that was what I was thinking.

So, Catherine didn't want me there and pushed her feelings aside only because she was a professional and would take all the help she could get with the case. Warrick definitely didn't want me there because I was investigating him and would inform Grissom in my report that he left Holly to place a bet.

And then there was Nick.

Strangely, it was he who approached me, in the break room when I was getting coffee. He greeted me with a friendly handshake and a smile. I immediately noticed his soft drawl, and it along with his nearly perfect smile put me at ease, which I wasn't expecting to feel after my encounters with Catherine and Warrick.

He started to gripe about the roof dust on his shirt, which I thought was kind of cute, in a boyish sort of way. Which was the way I saw him, some ex-frat boy, ex-jock, getting by on his boyish charms. Okay, so I just met the guy and I shouldn't have judged, but he had that look.

He gave me this look when I finished his sentence for the second time.

"I guess some people are easier to read than others," I replied with a teasing smile, and immediately wondered where that had come from. I was certainly in no mood to be cheerful and friendly, or flirty, if that's what that was. Especially with someone I'd only known for less than two minutes. But there was something about him, something that seemed to make me comfortable standing there talking to him. We'd only spoken a few sentences to each other, but I could tell he, unlike the rest of his coworkers, didn't seem to have any preconceived notions about me, the outsider brought in to snoop around the lab and pick apart their closely knit team. I guess he was easy to read.

When I saw him again, we were in the PD parking lot, watching Holly's killer being taken away. I was ready to head back to the hotel I was staying at, fairly tired after a long day, when I heard him call out my name.

"You wanna grab something to eat?"

So there I was, having dinner with Nick. While we sat and waited for our food, he had no difficulty making friendly small talk, asking things about me, where I grew up and the like, not mentioning anything related to work. Once our food arrived, we ate in silence for a few minutes, which I normally would have felt was awkward, considering I didn't really know him that well, but it surprisingly wasn't.

"You gonna be joining us permanently?" Nick finally got to more serious issues.

"Probably. It was supposed to be a temporary thing, just to handle the IA stuff, but since you're one CSI short now…" my voice trailed off. Sure, I'd never met Holly, so of course I couldn't know how Nick and the rest of the lab were feeling after having lost someone they knew, but she was nevertheless a victim of a senseless crime, and I couldn't help but feel for her.

"Right," he said understandingly.

"I used to think about what it would be like to work here, with Grissom, at the number two crime lab in the country. I just never imagined that this was how I'd get here." My voice was quiet.

"Yeah," was all he said. "So have you every worked graveyard before?" he changed the subject, for which I was grateful.

"No, actually I haven't."

"The best shift in the world. I mean, this is Vegas, crazy stuff happens all the time, but all the really good stuff goes down at night. You'll love it, trust me." He flashed that smile of his again. Did I already mention what a nice smile he had?

Okay, so maybe Vegas wasn't going to be so bad after all.

The End