"Oh man..."
Grissom looked up and squinted until the form of Greg Saunders met his eyes. Greg was shaking his head with his mouth agape, staring at the body being loaded onto the gurney, ready for its journey to the morgue. Grissom raised a single eyebrow.
"What?" he asked. "You've seen worse." Greg looked at Grissom as if seeing him for the first time.
"No, it's not that..." He stared as the paramedics zipped the body bag closed over the corpse's face. "He just reminds me of someone from high school..." Warrick furrowed his brows. Did that mean Greg could ID the victim?
"Who?" Warrick asked. Greg looked away from the body bag, his face pale. Then, he forced a weak smile.
"Me," Greg said in a quiet voice. Despite Greg's pallid face, Warrick began to laugh.
"Wait a minute... You're telling me you were one of those nerds in high school? The ones who walked around with coke-bottle glasses and oily faces?" Warrick shook his head with laughter. Greg frowned.
"I'll have you know that there is a fine line between nerd and geek," he said with a regal air. "And I had a baby's skin, thank you very much."
"When did you get here, Greg?" Grissom asked. Greg gave him a strange look.
"I was following you the whole time, Gris," he answered. There was a break in the sound, and before anything became overly awkward, Greg sidled over to Warrick and peered over his shoulder at the evidence bag in his hands.
"I see that you have something for me."
"No," Warrick retorted, holding the bag out of Greg's grasp. "This is for Trace. That means: Keep your grubby geek paws off of it." Greg gave a heaving pseudo laugh.
"HAR har, Warrick." He circled the older man like a vulture. "But when I dig up something about your high school experience, we shall see how the tides shall turn." Warrick rolled his eyes. Grissom, despite himself, found all of this exchange amusing.
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Nick was trying his damnedest to see Catherine.
The intern he had spoken with had told him, "Ms. Willows is unable to receive visitors at this time." So he and Sara had run to see the doctor they had been directed to. He had assured them that, "We are doing everything in our power to assure Ms. Willows' safety and health, and therefore we cannot allow her the stress of visitors so soon after the accident." Nick was beginning to get very angry.
"Look here, Mr.-"
"Doctor," Sara reminded him quietly from his side.
"Dr. Rodriguez," Nick corrected himself, "we're from CSI! You can't deny us the chance to see our friend! I'm in the right mind to-"
"We believe that Catherine might have some valuable Trace evidence left over from the accident," Sara interjected again. Nick was left to hang in the air with his mouth wide open. "We're researching the possibility that this wasn't just a random drive-by but a planned attempt at murder. You'll have to let us see her as soon as possible, before valuable Trace evidence could be lost."
Dr. Rodriguez stared at the two young CSIs, and they could see conflicting messages intertwining themselves on his brow. At last, he sighed, and without a word, motioned for them to follow him. They passed down innumerable hallways, and were stuffed into a crowded elevator with a rather malodorous man. After what felt like miles on their poor feet, Dr. Rodriguez motioned them into a room which smelled of cleaning fluids and blood at the same time. It took all of Sara's strength not to throw her arms over the closest person and cry, and she was not prone to such things.
Catherine had never seen worse. The entry wound in her shoulder had been cleaned and bandaged. Equipment beeped and quivered all around her. Her face seemed as pale as the pillow she rested on, save for the enormous welts and cuts bulging from her skull. Some dried blood had failed to wipe clean from her mouth. Sara bit her bottom lip, but remained silent.
"She has two fractured ribs, along with the bullet wound. She has also broken her left arm, the same one that was shot. There is at least one fracture in her right leg, but extensive x-rays will be needed before we can tell for sure. She must be a very lucky woman to cheat death." Dr. Rodriguez recited the information like he was reading the back of a book. Just enough to catch your attention, but never everything that you were looking for. Nick shook his head, looking at the respirator tube shoved down Catherine's throat.
"Why'd this happen?" He asked himself, staring at the wreckage of a woman in front of him. Sara raised an eyebrow in his direction.
"Isn't that what we're supposed to find out?" Sara's voice was egging him on. Nick gave her a sardonic smile. Neither of them ever thought that they would work on Catherine's case some day.
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"I have officially entered Hell," Greg Saunders said in horror. Warrick was grinning from ear to ear, glancing at Greg gleefully.
"Karma is a powerful thing, Greg. You don't want to anger the Gods, or something terrible could happen." Warrick glanced around the lobby of the Excalibur, as if tiny horns would sprout from his head at any moment. "And right now, the Gods are pissed."
The sign in front of them read "Dungeons & Dragons CON!" Greg ran a hand over his face in fatigue. If he could have been anywhere- the moon, a sewer, even Canada- this would have been his last choice. Maybe one step above Satan's throne room. Warrick pushed on Greg's shoulder.
"Oh, come on, Greggo, what's so bad Dungeons and Dragons? I mean, sure, some people have thrown themselves off buildings because their character died, or named themselves after a monster or something... But really, you got something against the game?" Warrick had never played it himself, but he'd had friends in his younger days that played. Of course, they never stayed friends for very long. Greg gave an agonizing look to Warrick.
"You don't understand..." Greg looked on the verge of tears. "I ... I used to play! In high school!" He covered his eyes with a hand, as if admitting that he worshiped Satan. Their conversation was interrupted by Grissom, who walked up between them and handed a photo of the victim to each of them.
"Go around to the convention goers and ask about our John Doe. I have a feeling that he might just be missed." Grissom's face was unusually gaunt and pale, but Greg tried to ignore it.
"Especially if he was a DM." Greg said without thinking. Grissom turned to him.
"A what?"
"A Dungeon Master," Greg muttered quickly, looking at his shoes. "They're the ones that run the games." Both Warrick and Grissom seemed utterly lost at these words. Greg sighed in exasperation. "A DM creates the world that the players adventure in, and he's their eyes to the world. He describes everything to them, even which way a blade of grass is bent. It's actually a really cool..." Greg trailed off absent-mindedly, not wanting to continue his sentence. Warrick shook his head.
"I don't get how they're supposed to see this made-up world just because one guy uses two paragraphs to describe a blade of grass."
"That's because you need imagination, Warrick," Grissom said. Usually, this comment would have been followed by the trademark Grissom encouraging smile. But nothing came but pale lips that twitched every other second. Warrick growled and took Grissom by the shoulders.
"Gris, me and Greg can take this. You go see Catherine."
Grissom's lips thinned.
"Warrick," he nodded toward the convention goers. "You and Greg make your way through that mess and identify our vic, please."
"Where are you going?" Greg asked, looking from one man to the other. Grissom took his eyes to the front desk.
"To a higher authority." With that, the supervisor walked off, leaving the two of them to the role-players. Greg furrowed his brows dangerously.
"What's up with Gris? Why's he avoiding the hospital like the plague?"
"I don't know," Warrick admitted with a sigh. "It's just not like Grissom to ignore one of the team... I mean, especially Catherine..." They were silent for another moment, then they dove into the crowds like a shark into a school of wounded fish.
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AN: Okay, you may or may not have seen the D&D thing coming, but yeah. Sorry for the long wait, if I still have any readers out there. Enjoy!