Time seemed to pass excruciatingly slowly that night. I was stuck doing paperwork Greg Sanders had fallen behind on, something I wasn't too happy about. I wrote with my left hand in a messy chicken-scratch, planning to blame Greg for the mess later.
"I thought you were right-handed," he said to me as an aside, looking up from some specimen or another he was examining down a microscope.
"I am," I said. "I can write with both hands."
"Woah," said Greg, impressed. "What are you, like, a robot?"
"I can stand on my head and whistle Dixie, too," I continued, ignoring his comment. "Want me to?"
"Probably not appropriate for the workplace, Ms. Turner," grinned Greg sarcastically. He'd once told me about an incident he'd been involved in with a showgirl's headdress. He could talk about professionalism!
"Yeah, right."
Greg, having taken up his spot in a wheelie chair, sidled over to the computer as it started to beep urgently. He grinned, tapping a key, a moment later grabbing a document the printer spat out.
"We got a hit," he said, rolling over to me and dropping the piece of paper onto the desk in front of me.
"On what?" I yawned, sleepily. My mind was awake but my body wanted to be in bed. Sighing, I picked up the piece of paper and scanned it over. "Candice Johnson. Arrested for DUI in '97. Missing for eight months." I grinned. "God, don't you love compulsory on-arrest DNA and fingerprinting?"
"It's saved my ass many times," said Greg loftily. "Well, not exactly my ass. More like thrown some other asses in jail, where they belong."
"And I'm sure someone there will like those asses," I said. "Um...do you know Nick Stokes' pager number? He told me to page him if I got anything." It had been little over an hour since Stokes had left DNA. It was really quite good of CODIS to kick out a match so fast; according to Greg sometimes searching the database took forever.
"Oh, don't bother paging him," said Nick. "He should be on his break right now. In the Break Room."
"Where else?" I muttered sarcastically. "I'll be back."
"I'll hold down the fort while you're gone, partner," said Greg, saluting as I got up rather stiffly and moved to the door. Chuckling, I returned the salute and emerged into the corridor, rap sheet clutched between my gloved fingers.
I felt less out-of-place as I made my way towards the Break Room. People didn't look at me as if I didn't belong – I was just another person in a lab coat in a sea of, well, people in lab coats. I felt like 'baa'ing sarcastically but I refrained from doing so, concentrating on not getting hopelessly lost – again.
Thankfully, the break room was almost directly across from the DNA lab, so it only took me thirty seconds or so to reach it. Through the glass-panelled walls, I could see none other than Nick Stokes himself sitting on the couch, drinking coffee. I assumed it was coffee, anyway.
He looked up as I entered, grinning his shit-eating grin. I was growing to dislike that grin. "Yo," he greeted me quite informally, "What's up, rookie?"
I closed my eyes in exasperation for a moment before replying. "CODIS kicked out a hit," I said from between clenched teeth. "You have yourself a victim. Or a suspect – I don't know since you, kindly, did not provide me any information about the sample."
Nick laughed, setting aside his mug. He got up and walked to me, taking the paper from my hands and looking down at it. "Good work," he said, and I tried to smile, but it ended up looking more like a grimace. Nick glanced up at me. "Hey," he said, his cockiness suddenly vanishing. "Us CSIs are supposed to give the techs a hard time, you know? Especially new ones. It's nothing personal."
"I never noticed you giving me a hard time," I said sweetly, smiling coldly at him.
"Well, let me make it up to you," he grinned. "How about I take you out for coffee?"
I jerked my head towards the percolator on the bench. "There's a coffee-maker right here. Why go out?"
"Is that a yes?" I had a shrewd suspicion Nick Stokes was flirting with me, but I was having none of it. Even in college, during which I had a job on the side as a video store clerk (pretty far from a forensic scientist), I had a strict Do-Not-Date-Co-workers policy. In my experience, those never ended well.
"No."
"Why not?" Nick frowned. "I could tell you all about the tricks of the trade. I know a few things about Greg, too, that you'd be able to blackmail him with if he ever does anything annoying." He smirked.
"Like the showgirl headdress incident?" I smiled. "What's this, Stokes, kindness to rookies?" I inquired, clasping my hands behind my back, something I'd done since high school. It seemed to annoy people. Body language – a lovely thing, when used properly.
"I'm not flirting with you, if that's what you were hoping – I mean, wondering," grinned Nick. I felt like smacking him. Again.
"I wasn't. Excuse me, Mr. Stokes," I said, "But I have to get back to work." I breezed past him, leaving the Break Room and walking briskly down the corridor.
Greg Sanders noticed my agitation when I entered the DNA lab. "What's wrong with you?" he asked, looking away from the computer. It looked as if he had been playing Ping-Pong, but had minimized it quickly as I approached.
"Nick Stokes, that's what," I said, taking my seat and resuming paperwork angrily. "I hate that guy."
"Nick? Aw, he's harmless," said Greg, exiting Ping-Pong discreetly and pretending he was running a print through AFIS. "He likes you, you know. I spoke to him when I came in. Said he thought you were 'cute'."
"Liar," I snorted, turning a page. Evidence Number: 4601xC.
"I'm not, I swear," said Greg. "And you are cute."
Bite me. I realized I'd written it instead of saying it aloud. Sighing, I erased the mistake and continued to write; glad I was doing so in pencil.
Cute, huh? Despite my dismissive attitude towards Nick Stokes 'alleged' words, I felt a little swelling in my ego region. Cute. I'd never been called 'cute' before. Except in high school, and that seemed like centuries ago. Plus it had been my Biology teacher who'd called me 'cute' when I brought in my great-uncle's skull. (My uncle had been a weird type. When he died, he'd left his skull to my family in his will. We ended up keeping it on the mantelpiece. My family wasn't too surprised when I got into forensics.)
I gloated to myself for a few moments before snapping out of it to make sure I hadn't started to draw little hearts on the paper with "I LUV PROFESSOR M." in the middles. I hadn't. Good.
"Sadie," said a quiet voice from over my shoulder, one I recognized instantly. I spun around to look up into the bespectacled face of Gil Grissom. "Are you busy?"
"No," I said, glancing over at Greg who had a pleading look on his face. "I was just...er..."
"Doing Greg's paperwork," Grissom finished, glancing over at Greg, who cringed. "Greg, I've told you about getting the new staff to do your forms," he said sternly, and I was secretly grateful he did not refer to me as a 'rookie'. "Next time I catch you slacking off, I'll-"
Greg held up his gloved hands in defeat. "Okay, boss, I know," he sighed. "You'll make me work with Disposal for six months. I got it. But there's really nothing for Mizz Turner to do here!" He drawled my name in a faux-Bronx accent, and I smiled a little.
I nodded agreement as Grissom looked at me, wiping away the smile, not wanting to get Greg into any more trouble – even though I already had the feeling he got chewed out by Grissom every other week.
"Good, because we need her over in QD," said Grissom, leaving the room and beckoning for me to follow. I did, glancing back at Greg with some trepidation. The lab tech shrugged at me as if to say, "Hey, don't look at me, I dunno what Grissom's up to." Problem was, neither did I.
"Questioned Documents?" I asked Grissom as he led me through the lab.
"Yes," he replied over his shoulder. "We've had an influx of letters threatening one of our CSIs. Brass has located the suspect's home, and among his things we found a pad of paper. We think it's the paper he's been using to write the letters. I need you to lift the latent writing off the pad."
"Chemistry is my forte, Mr. Grissom," I said worriedly. "I'm a bit shaky in the other areas."
"Well, now's the time to get in some practice, isn't it?" Grissom smiled at me, stopping outside a dimly lit room. Beyond the glass-panelled door, I could see a man examining a blown up image of some writing stuck to a corkboard.
"Good luck," Grissom said, leaving me standing there.
Taking a deep breath, I squared my shoulders and went inside.