Disclaimer: If I owned CSI, I'd be giving TPTB a good kick in the ass right now. Since I'm writing this instead, I think it's obvious who has the upper hand here.
A/N: Thanks again to my much-needed reviewers.
Chapter 3.
Having dropped her coffee over her supervisor probably would have been much more entertaining had it not required him to change his shirt. That actually wouldn't have been so bad (considering Grissom looked amazing in the blue shirt instead of the dark sweater) if he hadn't had to go all the way to the locker room- where more pictures had been posted down the hallway walls and on each individual locker door. All that was left was to sit and wait for Grissom's silent fuming and the photos on the table in front of her to tell her something good before he got back.
New leads meant topic change.
Topic change meant no pictures whatsoever.
Almost.
"Well, hello there, little lady!" Nick said as he strode into the room. Chipper as usual, Sara thought bitterly. She merely grunted to acknowledge his presence. He sat on the stool on the other side of the layout table and watched her examine one spot on one picture.
"Uh, anything I can help you with?"
"Huh? Oh, yeah, if you could shoot me and find some way to frame Ecklie, that'd be nice."
"I take it you had a bad day?"
"Understatement." Sara looked up at Nick. "You mean you haven't seen them?"
"What, the pictures? Yeah, I've seen them. Posted everywhere in the locker room. Why?" Sara sighed and looked down at the photos again. She began mumbling something, but Nick couldn't understand her. "I'm sorry, what?"
"I said, an EMT created those pictures and sent them to everyone in the lab through email. Ecklie saw it on Greg's computer yesterday, and a little while ago I spilled cold coffee on Grissom."
Nick gave a sympathetic smile to cover his obvious amusement.
"Well, uh ..." Nicky seemed lost for words. "How bad can it be? I mean, they're all gonna find out sooner or later."
"If I have to get publicly humiliated, I'm taking an EMT- and their job- down with me." Sara pulled a piece of paper from her pocket. On it were listed the names of three EMT's. "And since you seem to care so much, Nicky, I'm recruiting both you and Catherine to talk to these guys-" She waved the paper in front of his face. "-about their knowledge of this humiliating email."
"But- hey!" Sara had already gathered her pictures into a folder and was heading out. She stopped and turned.
"Yeah?"
"Why can't you do it?"
"Nick, I'm hurt and embarrassed as it is. Going over there and getting laughed at isn't going to make my day any better. To them, you'll seem like the caring friend of the poor, humiliated CSI. They'll be scared both you and Catherine would kick their asses, anyway. What's wrong with that?"
"Well, nothing, but ... do you know how out of character you just placed yourself?"
"Yeah, but they don't."
Grissom pulled the shirt away from his chest as he walked toward the locker room. The cold coffee smelled bad, but having the feeling of it soaking through his cotton sweater was almost unbearable.
He turned down the hallway to trek towards the locker room when he noticed two women standing near the door. They looked up when he stopped and began to giggle, turning and walking in the opposite direction as quickly as possible.
His look of curiosity turned to that of annoyance as he saw what the source of amusement had been. A few papers with the picture of him and Sara littered the floor, and the walls were covered with them. He picked the papers off the floor and walked into the locker room to change, stuffing the ones in his hand into the trash.
That morning when he had found the one picture in the break room, he figured he could throw it away, go home, and everything would be back to normal when he returned in the evening. He had never expected the situation of having one picture hanging to morph into fifty pictures in every hallway. He had seen them next to the break room that morning, of course, but none near his own office. Seeing them now wasn't so much a shock as it had been before, but rather had become a source of constant irritation.
He attracted stares and grins, even from the secretary when he asked if he had messages.
When Grissom found that he was fumbling with the lock, he calmed himself down to finally open it. Folded neatly on the shelf was his extra pair of black pants and two shirts. Slipping the wet sweater over his head, he put it in a plastic bag from the bottom of his locker. He picked up the blue shirt to reach for the one beneath it, but Sara's words came to his mind. "Wear the blue shirt, if you have it," she had said. Grissom left the second sweater in his locker, unbuttoning the blue one to slip it on.
If it's the blue she wants, it's the blue she gets.
Grissom had only just finished buttoning the shirt when his pager went off. Peering at the screen, he gave a sigh of relief. It was only Jacqui with the fingerprints he sent in. He feared it may have been someone like Hodges or Greg, and he really wasn't in the mood to talk to either of them.
Rolling up his sleeves, Grissom left the locker room, attempted to ignore the pictures that surrounded him.
"What do you mean, they all took today off?!" Nick said, looking from the EMT to Catherine and back again.
"You heard me. They all took their vacation today."
Since when does saving lives need a vacation?
"They were permitted leave for three days. Try back then."
Nick eyed the man with a disapproving eye and turned to walk away. After Catherine thanked the EMT, she followed.
"Well, Sara won't be happy, to say the least."
Nick scoffed.
"Well, I don't think understatements can get any bigger after saying that." Catherine looked sideways at Nick.
"I think you're more broken up about this than they are." Nick looked at Catherine.
"They?" Nick said, stopping dead in his tracks. Catherine realized her mistake quickly and covered it up almost seamlessly.
"I mean she ... More broken up than Sara is."
"That's not what you said," Nick said stubbornly, catching up with her. "You said 'they,' implying you mean more than one person, or more than just Sara. Cath, what's goin' on?"
Catherine hesitated before replying. She stopped and turned to Nick. "The other day I saw Grissom in the break room with a copy of the infamous fake photo in his hand. Now, we know normally Grissom would have been all over it, but he wouldn't have shown it as much as anyone else in the same situation. We know Grissom doesn't get unhinged about stuff like the rest of us. He seemed calm when I saw him, though, and if I wouldn't have known better I would've said he didn't care about a portion of Las Vegas seeing it. And Sara ... you know her. She should have - normally would have - exploded all over this little prank those asshole EMT's are pulling, but she didn't, did she?"
Catherine watched a silent Nick and continued walking.
"So what I meant was, you more surprised and angry by the pictures than either of them."
"Well, yeah, but ... I mean, Sara's my friend. What kind of friend would I be if I didn't try to show my emotional support?"
"Grissom's my friend, but you don't see me getting that much involved."
"Yeah," Nick said, "like Griss would really let you get involved." Catherine, with her arms folded across her chest, looked at Nick in mock surprise.
"You'd be surprised how persuasive I can be." Nick stopped again and Catherine turned, a look of confusion on her face. "What now?" she asked.
"I'm sorry, I just imagined you as a show girl showing off your 'persuasive' ways by giving Grissom a lap dance in his office ..."
Catherine glared. "I wouldn't take the risk of dancing around his bugs. They have eyes, too."
Sara tapped her pen nervously on the table top, examining photo after photo of tread marks. She saw them, but she didn't see them.
"You know, I'm beginning to think you're right." Sara looked up to see Grissom walking into the room. A folder in hand, he was looking down at the papers within.
"That's something I sure don't hear every day." Grissom looked over his glasses at Sara.
"What are you doing?"
"Examining the tire treads." Sara picked up a photo and looked at it closely. "The treads lead up to a crash that looks like your standard, every-day, guy-falls-asleep-behind-the-wheel-at-two-in-the-morning car crash. Guy dozes off with his kid in the back seat, realizes with a jerk of the car that he's swerving, breaks, and runs right through an over-pass rail and onto a low-traffic road below that. Not unique. 'Sides, I didn't see anything of a motive, seeing as he was still in the car when it crashed and I don't think he wanted to kill himself with his child in the back. The guy was pretty shaken up."
"The actual criminals are often the most believable."
Sara yawned. "Yeah, I hear you."
There was a sort of awkward pause between the two, broken by Grissom's invitation. "Wanna go grab some breakfast? My treat."
Sara laughed. "I think I'll pass for today, but thanks anyway. Make it a rain check. Maybe my grace and coffee skills will be improved by then." She began to gather up her photos, realizing for the first time that her request hadn't gone denied.
"You're wearing the blue."
"It's what you wanted." Sara looked up at him for a moment.
"Good. It brings out the, uh, color of your eyes." Grissom watched as Sara walked from the room.
Sara had rounded the corner and was about to exhale the breath she'd been holding when she noticed Nick and Catherine coming in her direction. From Nick's disappointed look, things hadn't run well.
"So, guys, how'd it go?" she said hopefully. Nick gave a sideways glance at Catherine before shifting his eyes to Sara's feet.
"Well, not good, actually. Coincidentally, the three EMT's thought to have had a part in the sending of the email requested a three-day vacation last night. They were off today and won't return until Monday."
When Nick didn't continue, Catherine folded her arms once more.
"We think that, since they took this chance to request vacation time, they know that we have been investigating this ordeal somewhat, and know we're on their tail."
"Well, we already know who did it. What? You think someone's leaking information?"
Sara looked at Catherine, who had an eyebrow lifted.
"Well, it is a definite possibility."
Sara groaned. "Very few people know we're looking into this. I mean, it's just you two, me, and Greg."
"And Grissom," Catherine said. Sara looked at her.
"Griss ... um, h-he knows?" Catherine nodded.
"Someone had taped a copy in the break room and he happened to come across it when he poured himself some coffee." Sara gave a louder, frustrated groan.
"I don't even know why I'm reacting like this," she said, leaning her back against the wall. "I knew he'd see them eventually. I mean, he did go to the locker room earlier."
"Why would it be such a bad thing?" Nick asked. "F-for him to see them, I mean?" Sara glared.
"Nick, if I didn't think Grissom would have a cow if he saw them, I wouldn't be so aggravated. You guys know him. He'd be super-pissed, but you'd never guess until he talked about it to you, which he hardly ever does."
"So, what, you want us to take the pics down?" Sara was silent. Catherine eyed her and then Nick.
"That'd look a little desperate, wouldn't it? In any case, the damage has already been done. If someone important were to walk in, they'd get the picture whether or not they noticed the pictures on the walls.
"What really makes me angry is Ecklie saw the pictures, threatened to report Greg, and has the ability to get so far under Grissom's skin it's hard to get him out."
"You're not drinking coffee, are you?" called a voice from down the hall. Realizing what Grissom meant, Sara forced a weak smile.
"I'm all coffeed out for another few hours, thanks." Grissom gave a small chuckle as he walked toward them.
"Catherine? What are you doing here? I thought I had you on a case with Warrick?"
"Uh, yeah, we finished up. The report's on your desk." Taking Catherine's stomp on the foot and the jerk of her head in the opposite direction as a subtle hint, Nick followed the older CSI away from Sara and Grissom.
"Yeeeah ..." Grissom muttered, watching them go. He turned to Sara. "I may have solved our case, and I'd like to say that we were heading in the wrong direction the whole time." He held out his hand. "If you'd follow me-?" Sara looked at his outstretched hand and back at him, a small smile on her face. She nodded, her hands in her pockets. Grissom slowly put his hand back by his side and lead Sara through the halls.
TBC ...
A/N: Ya'll know the blue shirt I was talking about, right? Right. sigh For fifty, ya know ... :) :D XD