Thanks to everyone who has taken the time to review my story. Really, it means a lot to me. Just to clarify, if I have offended anyone by my constant mentions of Matilda and her weight, that was not my intention. I'm just trying to point out that Matilda isn't the svelte supermodel type without a care in the world. She has a normal body, and the same insecurities as every other woman in her situation. It isn't her appearance or wealth that won over Greg: it was her personality. If anything, I want to empower curvier girls everywhere, because quite frankly, I am one myself.

Fifteen

I woke up to the sound of quiet humming, like a ceiling fan slowly turning overhead. Only, it wasn't a fan that I was hearing: it was lab equipment. High tech gear and gigantic machines, all with their own equally important duties in solving crimes. I listened a little while longer, wondering when I had installed DNA readers in my apartment. That's when I realized that I wasn't in my apartment at all. I was in the crime lab, spread out on a cot like a sick 8th grader in the school nurse's office. I tried to open my eyes, but the light burned at my retinas and blurred my vision. I felt a presence hovering over me, and the scent of a woman's unidentifiable perfume.

"Matilda?" I heard Sara's voice beckoning me back to complete consciousness. She repeated my name and lightly shook my shoulder until I opened my eyelids just enough to see her face, the light making a sort of halo around her head. "Hi," she finally said.

"What hap…?" I tried to ask Sara for an explanation, but my words became slurred. I could form the sentences in my head, but I couldn't transmit them out of my mouth. Each word made me feel even more light headed. Luckily, Sara was the lab's resident mind reader.

"You fainted, that's all," she explained, answering my unasked question. "You hit your head, but it's just a little bump. You should be fine." I didn't even realize the severity of the pain in my forehead until she mentioned it. I had felt a sort of uncomfortable throbbing on my skin, but I thought that I was just hallucinating pain, if that's possible. But the more I paid attention to it, the worse it got.

"Ice….?!" I managed to blurt out. Sara was quick to grab a chilly blue icepack that was sitting on the counter. She sat down next to me and pressed the pack against my head, the coldness sending goosebumps down my entire body. I had never been as grateful to someone as I was to Sara at that moment.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Greg come in the room, his head bobbing along with his customary gallop. I immediately recognized his scent: a mixture of woodsy cologne and his own natural smell. I let my nose take in the aroma, and felt the pain in my head slowly evaporate away. Greg had that effect on me.

"I can do that," Greg said, snatching the blue icepack out of Sara's grip and tossing it up in the air like a tennis ball. The aching came back almost instantly, and I winced just loud enough for the both of them to hear. Greg had that effect on me, too.

"Just don't make it worse, Greg," Sara warned, standing up and leaving the two of us alone. He playfully shrugged his shoulders and sat down where Sara had been, taking over her duties as nurse.

"You seem to be feeling better," I whispered, his face inches from my own as he held my icy compress in place.

"What do you mean?" he asked, looking like a confused puppy dog. "You're the one that collapsed."

"Earlier," I began to explain. "You were acting weird, like you were mad at the world or something. You weren't yourself." He thought about my comment for a moment and then let a sly smile spread across his lips.

"I was just worried," he finally replied.

"Worried about what?" I questioned him further, taking the icepack from his hand and holding it in position myself. Greg was pressing down so hard, it felt like he was trying to break through to the next dimension.

"You! First you see the Boogie man outside my apartment building, and then Grissom calls us in and drops a bomb. How am I supposed to feel?" His tone became serious. He was being completely sincere and honest, and my heart ached for him. I didn't mean to put that kind of pressure on him.

I meant to apologize, but my thoughts got the best of me. I had forgotten all about the threat on my life. I suppose that's what had made me keel over in the first place. I didn't even know where to begin, what with all of the unanswered questions I still had. Why would a serial killer come after me? What could I offer him that other women couldn't? This couldn't be about money – I had about $7 in my savings account. And it couldn't have been about looks – the guy had his pick of all the busty, botoxed blondes in Vegas. Nothing made sense anymore.

"So why are you so happy now?" I asked, turning my attention back to Greg.

"Because, despite the fact that some psycho is after you," he began, and I rolled my eyes at his choice to words. How comforting. "I am 100 percent confident in the lab's ability to hunt this guy down so that I may personally kick his ass." He finished his explanation with a cocky grin on his face and a new height to his posture.

"But Greg," I said. "The lab finds the guy after he's committed the crime." Greg's smile fell like a sack of bricks off the Empire State Building as my comment registered in his mind. He stumbled for words.

"Yeah, well, the Las Vegas police force is pretty good at their job, too."

I smiled at my dopey boyfriend, despite everything that was going on around us. My mind was plagued with worries, but I didn't think about the problems in my near future. Maybe it was the nasty injury on my head that made me so carefree, or maybe it was Greg, and how optimistic he was about finding the murderer. For a few minutes, I laid there on my cozy cot, circa 1984, stuck in the little world that Greg and I had created for ourselves. Nothing could hurt me. I was invincible as long as I had him…and his "Employee of the Month" t-shirt.