Disclaimer: I still don't own CSI, and that goes for all of the rest of the chapters.
Author's Notes: Yes, I'm alive and finally updating! Thanks a ton for your encouragement and feedback! For those of you who asked - the actual humor story took maybe a minute to randomly hit the keyboard, a couple more to undo the auto-corrects, and about twelve gazillion hours to run it through spellcheck. This chapter was (obviously) a whole lot easier to do - enjoy!
~
~
~
"So?" Catherine began, gazing at the bored-looking group gathered around the computer. "You wanna place bets as to who's going to die?"
Warrick quickly snapped back, "No."
"Come on, guys!" Catherine tried to be cheerful. "What's the matter? The page is loaded, we have a story to get through! And how bad can it be? After all those other stories, I'm up for a mockingly bad fic."
Resentful to be subjected yet again to more torture - but still curious to see the page's contents - the CSI's leaned forward and began to read. "Fine, ignore me." Catherine muttered under her breath.
Sunshine
By Caitlin
A/N: After "Butterflied" I decided to have a little fun! Tee hee! And, like, don't be mad at me, but I think I could send this to whoever does the show and stuff and maybe they'll turn it into an episode cuz that would be really cool, and then I could meet dat sexy Warrick and we could hang out at a hotel and order room service and
Blushing, Warrick asked, "How long does this go on for?"
"A while," replied Sara, now controlling the mouse and scrolling down past the endless Author's Note. "Is there even a story in here?"
"Keep scrolling." Was all Warrick said, catching sight of the words "Warrick", "chocolate syrup" and "handcuffs" in the same sentence and grimacing. He wished he had called in sick that day, or that the computer would suddenly simultaneously combust. But since he had come into work that day and the computer appeared to be in perfect working order, he had to resort to simply praying that the mortifyingly explicit Author's Note would end soon.
"Here we go!" Nick said as they finally reached the beginning of the story.
"No vibes this time, Nick?" Grissom asked, smiling. Nick muttered something darkly and cursed the day(s) he ever dated that psychic hotline receptionist.
"Sara," Grissom said as he looked down at his co-worker. She was surrounded by a pool of blood on the ground, and as she weakly coughed blood sputtered up. "I'm so sorry."
"It's not your fault." She managed to choke out. "Just . . . hold me, Griss."
"Of course." He said, dragging her into his lap while giving her a long, passionate kiss on the lips.
". . . Further depleting her oxygen supply while staining his pants with her blood . . . " Warrick added sarcastically. Catherine smacked him in the back of the head with an old magazine that was lying around the breakroom. "Hey!" Warrick exclaimed. "You're the one that said 'mockingly bad'! I'm just mocking it!"
"There's something you should know, Griss," She let out a long breath after their kiss. "I've always loved Catherine." Gulping, she gazed up at her boss. "Can you tell her that, Griss?"
"Yes." He whispered, heartbroken, and then she died.
"Well," Nick said, oblivious to Catherine and Warrick's slight sniffling, "That was kind of abrupt, don't you think?"
Sara frowned. "If they're going to kill me, can't they at least tell me why I'm dying? And how I'm dying? And why I'm asking Grissom to hold me and kiss me before confessing my love for Catherine?"
Hodges quickly retreated out of the breakroom - after entering it only a few seconds ago - upon hearing Sara's comment. "I'm not even going to ask." He muttered, deciding he would come back later for his coffee.
"I just think it's better for us not to question these people's logic right now." Grissom said, shaking his head. He was simply trying to keep his anger under control for now. "Do you two need a tissue?" He asked, offering the box to Catherine and Warrick, who declined, facing the screen again with only the occasional sniffle.
He went home that night depressed. He hadn't been able to save her - what was wrong with him?
"Could it be the fact that I had no medical tools to aid me in performing a split-second life-saving operation?" Gil asked the computer. Neither the machine nor his co-workers responded.
He picked up the phone and called Catherine. She was probably out with her husband, Hank. After Sara dumped him, he had seduced Catherine and impregnated her with his child. Now at least Lindsey had a friend her age to play with! But anyway, the answering machine came on.
"So, uh, let me try to get this straight." Catherine had recovered and was back to her plot-picking ways. "Sara dumped Hank - the EMT - who, in the time span of one year, got me pregnant and made me give birth to an eight-year-old kid?"
"The only thing he would have impregnated you - or anyone - with would be the Demon Seed." Sara glared at the screen, her eyes giving the impression that if Hank was actually somewhere in that box, she would smash it to pieces with a sledgehammer in a nanosecond. "Your child would be the spawn of Satan."
"Whoa there." Nick said, raising his eyebrows.
"Hi, it's Gil." He took a deep breath. "Sara wanted me to tell you, before she died, that she loved you. It's all my fault. I loved her too, but I couldn't be with her. I deserve to die, too."
And with that he slammed down the phone and walked to the window. He opened it and jumped out.
"I, uh," Warrick began, tears welling up in his eyes, "I thought only one person was going to die in this story."
Nick helped himself to a tissue, blowing his nose loudly. "So did I. Grissom and Sara both?"
Sara shrugged. "It's not that sad, guys." She said, her voice slightly cracking.
Catherine got the message when she came home from work. Grissom had died, and it was tough on the team trying to figure out who did it. Then they realized it was suicide. First her true love, Sara, and now Grissom? Quickly she grabbed a butcher knife and stabbed Hank, who was sleeping happily. It was his fault for stealing her away from Sara!
Then she entered the bathroom and swallowed the two full bottles of sleeping pills that had been sitting on the counter.
A tear slid down Sara's cheek. "You killed yourself for me, Cath?"
Her co-worker smiled wanly, fighting back tears herself. "Hey, you're one of my best friends. Without you and Griss I don't know what I'd do." The two women hugged each other briefly, much to the amusement of a handful of employees in the hall.
Warrick and Nick were assigned to Catherine's case. "It was suicide." Nick said. "And we didn't realize she was so sad all along - it's our fault, man." Warrick added. Quickly Nick grabbed the butcher knife
"Hey! I wouldn't do that! It's evidence!" Protested Nick.
And stabbed himself. Warrick then did the same.
"Aww, damn." Warrick said, tears streaming down his face. "I love you, man!" He and Nick hugged each other before each grabbing a few handfuls of tissues. "Platonic love, of - gasp - course." He added, remembering their slash-fanfiction experience.
"Yeah, me - hic - too." Nick said in between Kleenexes.
Catherine snatched the box away from them and used it to dab away the tears on her face. "You OK, Gil?" She asked, noting the pained expression on the supervisor's face.
"I'm going to go check on my bugs." Grissom quickly said, his voice beginning to crack. Sara watched him leave as she wiped the tears off her cheek with the back of her hand. No one noticed the small crowd of lab technicians and crime scene investigators that had gathered outside the breakroom and were watching the CSI's at the computer blow their noses and hug each other.
Greg slid into the room, looking first at the empty box of tissues on the floor, then at the group of sobbing, hugging CSI's. "Angst?" He ventured a guess.
Sara nodded. "Hey," she pointed at the screen. "Greg's - sniffle - in this too."
Everyone else he had ever known and loved was dead. Greg, sitting in the lab, quickly finished stirring the mixture of hydrogen sulfate and Drano before drinking it.
"Not you too, Greg!" Catherine said, hugging the lab rat and wiping her nose on his shirt. Even Greg's eyes were beginning to tear, and he finally let one tear slide down his face after Nick abruptly hugged him.
"I've, uh, - hic - gotta go." Greg said, rushing out of the breakroom before he could let his tears flow even more freely.
"Don't commit suicide in the lab, Greggo!" Warrick called after him as Greg left. "I'm sorry I pushed you around at the crime scene the other day! You can wear whatever you want next time, as long as you're alive!"
Several passing employees stopped in their tracks and exchanged confused glances with each other, joining the already-large crowd gathered there. Something strange was going on in the breakroom today - it was probably that new coffee blend Hodges had insisted they start brewing in there. That lab rat was nothing but trouble, anyway.
The CSI's were all buried next to each other. Their service was short but beautiful, and their souls were now free together in heaven.
The group around the computer broke into full-blown sobs.
"Don't ever kill yourself, OK?" Sara said after breaking away from a hug with Nick.
Nick sniffled and hiccupped in reply. "You too, you hear? Don't just randomly die on us and drive us all insane and make us suicidal."
"Can I ask what exactly is going on in here?" Hodges cautiously asked, entering the breakroom for the second time that afternoon. All he wanted was his coffee, and in order to get it he had to walk within a ten-foot radius of the sobbing CSI's at the computer. But for some reason he couldn't quite put his finger on, he really didn't want to do that.
Sara got up and Hodge's life flashed before his eyes. That's it, he thought. She's finally going to get me back for all the times I was rude to her in the lab -
Instead, Sara enveloped him in a hug. "Don't die, Hodges!" She choked out.
He was wondering why he hadn't joined in earlier when he asked, "So, uh . . . do you want to celebrate my alive-ness with me? Maybe go out to dinner with me tomorrow night? We could, uh, go to the movies or something."
"Not a - hic - chance." Sara said as she wiped her nose on her sleeve and headed back to her seat.
Humiliated at being rejected by Sara in front of half the Crime Lab's current occupants (including several criminal suspects and their lawyers who had stopped on their way out of the building in order to see what was going on), he sputtered, "Yeah? Well - well - I don't like your stupid straight hair anyway!"
Hoping to make it through the rest of the day with at least a tiny shred of dignity, he turned on his heel and angrily walked back to the lab.
Grissom entered just as Hodges was leaving, wiping his nose on a Kleenex. Sara could see he had been crying but had tried to cover it up, and she smiled at him as he sat down.
"Well?" He asked, pointing towards the screen. "Is that the end of it?"
"I think so." Nick said, regaining his composure and glancing at Warrick and Catherine, who were slowly doing the same. "I'm still confused as to why it's called 'Sunshine', though."
Warrick straightened up and shrugged. "Who knows? Maybe the Author's Note was the actual story, and the story was the Author's Note - the note was way longer than the story, anyway."
"Um, guys?" Sara said, drying off the last of her tears. "There's a really big group of people outside pointing at us."
Upon noticing the crowd of scientists staring at them, the group clustered around the computer smiled wanly and waved slightly back. Disappointed that there was to be no more soap-opera-esque sobbing for the time being, the crowd dispersed, returning to their work.
Catherine brushed a strand of hair out of her face and struggled to recollect what had just happened. "Well, that was a good twenty minutes we just wasted hugging each other." She said cynically.
"No more angst, please." Warrick said, and Nick nodded in agreement. "I would ask for something funny, but - "
"No." Grissom interrupted. "I think that humor story we read was probably one of the higher-quality stories on the site, which is why we're going to stay very far away from that genre for the time being."
Relieved, Sara clicked on the 'back' button. "Hey," she said, "this looks promising."
"That's what's been said about everything we've picked so far." Catherine pointed out. "Well, what is it?" She added after receiving a glare from Sara rather than a reply.
"A 'crossover'. It says 'The CSI team gets paid a visit by the team in Miami, as well as a few other friends'. It can't be that bad - well, actually, I guess it can." Blushing slightly, she quickly continued with, "Well, we won't know how it is until we read it, right?"
Nick shrugged. "Sure, why not? It's not slash, is it?" Sara shook her head, and he clicked on the link. "Hey, anything that's not slash can't be too bad."
"Or humor." Warrick reminded him.
"Or romance." Grissom added.
"Or angst!" Catherine exclaimed.
"So, the real question is . . . " Grissom furrowed his brow. "Is there anything good at all on this site?"
Will they be able to survive the horror of a fictional - or possibly even real-life - encounter with Miami's very own crime scene team? Who else might pop in for a surprise visit? All that and much more in Chapter 5 . . .