"I washed it for you."
"Huh?"
Nick Stokes was sitting on the bench in the locker room, changing his boots. He'd been out in the rain, it seemed, for his shoes came off with a wet sucking sound. The rain hadn't let up for two days. I was getting sick of it. Vegas was supposed to be the home of hot days and hotter nights, was it not? What was with all this damn rain? I'd lived here seven years and I'd never seen rain quite like this. It acted as if it had a personal grudge against the ground, pummelling it and anything that got in the way.
Thankfully, my car had been towed off and fixed the previous day, so I didn't need to take a cab to work. My paycheck had cleared but most of it had been instantly blown on groceries and bills. So much for living the high life.
Water was dripping off Nick's hair. I smirked. He definitely looked like he needed a towel. I took a few steps forward and held it out to him.
"Oh." He smiled, but he seemed to be too tired to give a grin. He took the towel and pressed it to his face a moment. "Nice detergent."
I ignored him and sat next to him on the bench. "Outdoor crime scene?"
"Yeah," Nick said, towelling off his hair. It stuck up in a way quite reminiscent of Greg Sanders'. "What is it?" he asked, noticing my lopsided look and smile.
"You're cute with your hair all messed up like that," I teased, mimicking his Texan drawl.
"Honey, that was the sorriest excuse for a Texan accent I have ever heard," laughed Nick.
I wondered why I'd come here. Sure, to return the towel, but he'd said to keep it. I guess...maybe Nick Stokes was growing on me. Maybe I wanted to find out if he really was a Texan jock or the nice guy I'd seen a glimpse of the other night. I'd asked the cluey Greg where Nick was likely to be at, and he'd given me a funny look and said, "He and Warrick have just returned from a CS. He's probably in the locker room." And so, off I went.
"I guess you don't hate me that much after all," said Nick unexpectedly, jerking me out of my reverie. I stared at him, wide-eyed. He smiled mirthlessly. "Greg told me what you said," he continued. "He's the biggest gossip in the whole lab. I'd be careful what you tell him from now on."
"I don't hate you," I sputtered as Nick stood up and strode to his locker. "I was...I was just having a bad day."
Nick shrugged and said nothing. He opened his locker and withdrew a clean, rather disgusting paisley green shirt. I gaped wordlessly as he, apparently not noticing I was still there, took off his soaking shirt.
Oh my goodness, I thought rather faintly, wondering if I should leave. I didn't. Instead I stared at Nick's naked chest as if I had never seen one before. He started to put on the shirt and I felt compelled to speak. I'd be betraying every hormone in my body if I didn't, after all.
"That shirt is really ugly," I said, after clearing my throat a couple of times. Nick stopped putting it on and looked at it.
"My sister bought it for me." Oops! I thought. "It is pretty gross, though." He smiled slightly over at me and then rooted around in his locker looking for another shirt, giving me a few more moments to ogle him.
I don't actually remember, before then, thinking Nick was very attractive. Truthfully, I don't think I ever noticed. I was sure as hell noticing now.
"How's this one?" Nick held up a shirt that was, if possible, even uglier than the last one. I nodded wordlessly, temporarily incapable of speech. Nick seemed to notice this and stared at me a moment before grinning that famous damn grin of his. Somehow I managed to regain enough control over my facial muscles to raise an eyebrow at him and closed my mouth.
He pulled on the shirt, keeping it unbuttoned, and draped the towel around his neck. I cleared my throat again as he reached in his locker and withdrew a pair of sneakers, walking back towards me and sitting on the bench.
"Damn. I forgot spare socks," he said as he pulled on the sneakers. "I hate wearing shoes without socks."
"Er," I said. I sounded like a frog. "You...you should try wearing heels for seven hours a day."
"Can't say I've done that before," said Nick, smiling. "How's your car?" He began to button up his shirt. Part of me was disappointed, another relieved. I coughed and brushed some hair back from my face.
"Towed and fixed," I said. "Hopefully it won't give me any more trouble."
"Aw, I don't know," Nick said, his dark eyes twinkling as he looked at me. "I kinda liked you soaking wet like that."
I felt heat rising in my face. "Do you make it a habit of flirting with the new lab techs, Stokes?"
Nick grinned then, looking away from me as he laced up his sneakers. He struck me more of a boot-man, really. I wonder how big his feet are? "Nah," he said. "I guess I'm just giving you a hard time since you're the newbie."
"Well, stop it," I said. "Why is it you're nice everywhere else but act like a typical chauvinistic male Texan here?"
"I don't!" exclaimed Nick. "Do I?" he looked at me, concerned. "Come on, I'm not that bad."
"I didn't think so, but now I'm not so sure." I stood up. "I don't mean to create a scene," I continued, "But...you're just not my type, and, well, I wish you wouldn't flirt with me."
"Who's flirting with you?" An all-too-familiar quiet voice piped up from right behind me. I whirled around, red-faced, to look at Gil Grissom. The guy was like a ghost! He was really good at sneaking up on people, anyway.
"Er," I said. "No one. I was just returning something to Mr. Stokes." I backed out of the room, grinning madly. But because I was an insufferable snooper, I paused just beyond the doorframe and listened.
"What was that about?" murmured Gil Grissom's voice, and I could just imagine the frown on the Night Shift Supervisor's face.
"Nothin', Gris," said Nick. "Turner-" Oh, last name basis, are we Stokes? "-just returned a towel to me. I gave her a ride home the other night when her car broke down and she borrowed it. The towel, I mean."
"I see. Anything else you want to tell me?"
"Naw." Nick's voice sounded nonchalant. "Only that I'm never working an outdoor scene in the rain again!"
I smiled a little. Yeah, Nick...you are all right. I turned away from the door and found myself looking at a rather colourful blouse attached to the body of Catherine Willows.
"Oh, hi," I said sheepishly, looking at the woman, who quirked a slender brow at me.
"Sadie, right?" Catherine said. I nodded and gulped. Boy, was I busted. "Great!" I blinked at the smile that lit up Catherine's face. "I could really do with a lab monkey right now. Come with me." She turned on her heel and strode off. Shrugging and deciding not to push my luck, I followed.
She led me to the Layout Room, a place I had passed in my whirlwind tour with Grissom on my first day. I hadn't actually been inside, though. I entered it feeling a little nervous, but it was just another room. There was a large rectangular table in the center with a bright light panel, much like an X-ray screen, presumably to illuminate whatever piece of evidence placed on the surface. There were metal tables with lab equipment on, mostly microscopes, computers and other paraphernalia. Some sheets of paper were spread out on the backlit table. Catherine walked to stand in front of it and I hovered over her shoulder.
"I know you're a DNA girl," she said, "Grissom told me about your experience in QD." I winced. "Don't worry, everyone has their own specialty and...lack of specialty," Catherine continued, smiling reassuringly at me. I relaxed a little, glad that she didn't seem to be chewing me out. Yet. "Which is why I need you now."
She pointed to one of the pieces of paper. I recognized the handwriting – it was the same as that of the paper I'd 'helped' identify in QD. It read:
I'm coming for you, NickI gasped. "The letters are for Nick?" I exclaimed in horror. Catherine looked at me.
"Yeah. Poor guy. He's had a rough time working here, I'll tell ya. We originally thought they were from a suspect Nick had helped throw in prison, but the envelope was hand-delivered, and I doubt any convict's gonna walk all the way to the Bureau mailbox and drop it in. We got a couple of partial fingerprints off one envelope, but nothing usable. However..." she pointed to a small smudge on the piece of paper. "We have an unidentified organic substance here. I was thinking you might be able to identify it."
"Sure, I'll just need to swab it-" I said, but Catherine smiled and reached over, picking up a round plastic container. Within was one of the Q-tips I'd seen so many of during my few weeks here. Johnson's & Johnson's probably made a fortune off all the buds they sold to the Lab.
"Great," I said, taking the swab. "I'll get right on it."
"You do that." I turned to go, but Catherine grabbed my arm. "Hey, Sadie – can I call you Sadie?" I nodded. "I think I speak for everyone here when I say we're pretty worried about Nick. He's like a little brother to a lot of us. I'm depending on you here. That swab could be what makes – or breaks – this case. We need to find out who's sending these letters."
I nodded again, shakily, feeling as if someone had dumped every single case in the Lab onto my shoulders. "Don't worry. I won't screw it up," I assured Catherine, who looked at me a moment before letting me go.
"Page me with the results, okay?" And she picked up a pen and wrote her pager number on a spare piece of paper.
"Okay."
I left the Layout Room in a cloud of worry, not just for my ass but for Nick Stokes' as well.
Then again, why should I be worried? Nick was a big boy. He could take care of himself. And it was none of my business.
I looked at the swab in my hand. Maybe not....