Title: Manufactured Catalyst
Author: FatesFolly
Summary: When a complicated case forces the CSI team to call in a criminalist with a speciality in criminal psychology, this stranger uncovers just as much about the team as the crime and forces them to re-evaluate relationships. (Casefile with eventual romance.)
Disclaimer: I own nothing (aside from Charlie and this plot). I just innocently borrow with good intent to return physically unharmed. (Mentally unharmed I can't guarantee.)
A/N: Since this plot is a bit AU, I'm going to say that it takes place between "What's Eating Gilbert Grissom" and "Formalities", leaving the team still together, Greg still needing to pass his final proficiency and Grissom's "guys who got away but I eventually caught" tally at two for two.
Chapter 4 - More Sweet Soul
"So, we're looking for a blond female about 5'8" in height? Shouldn't be hard to find here in Vegas, land of the blond and leggy showgirls." Sara rolled her eyes, heaving a frustrated sigh as she walked down the halls on her way to the lab.
"Actually, if the hair is natural and not dyed, that narrows it down a lot. Trust me, I know." Catherine offered a comforting smile to the younger woman, trying to lighten the mood.
"Even if it is natural, there was no skin tag, so how useful is it going to be?" Sara continued to scowl angrily, jaw clenched tight.
"Hey, Sara, chill. It's not like you to be this negative about a case." Catherine paused, a look of concern crossing her face. "Is something else bothering you?"
"It's this CASE that's bothering me!" Sara stopping in her tracks, turning around to face the other woman. "I mean, this pig is running around butchering women and we're clueless as to how to stop him! We have millions of dollars in equipment and absolutely no clue where to turn next. All we can do is sit here and wait for him to kill again. I just feel so . . . "
"Utterly superfluous?" Grissom walked up behind Sara, raising an eyebrow quizzically. "There is no perfect crime and no flawless criminal. We are all somehow defective by nature, and it's our job to uncover the mistakes criminals make due to human error." He adjusted his glasses so that they sat a little higher on the bridge of his nose, "Oh, and remember, our killer is a 'her'."
"Says who? Charlie Kennard? What's she going on, just some hints that she found in the files? OUR files. She hasn't even BEEN here for this entire case.", Sara fumed.
"Well, it's her job." Grissom shrugged and walked away toward his office.
"If it makes you feel any better Sara, I see it the same way you do. It was our case first, and I trust the evidence, not just theories and hunches." Catherine sighed softly as she walked into the lab, only to find Greg already there. "Greg, what are you doing here? I thought that you were only doing fieldwork now?"
"Well, you can take the rat out of the lab, but you can't take the lab out of the rat." Greg grinned cheekily, holding a few computer printouts.
"So all of these chemicals do stay in your bloodstream. Good to know." Catherine smiled at Greg, eyeing the papers. "So whatcha got there."
"Well, there may not have been a skin tag, but there was some evidence in that hair found by yours truly." Handing the paper over to Catherine, Greg was obviously trying his best not to gloat. "Remember that hair stores all of the chemicals ingested by the body. And, luckily, the owner of this hair was a natural towhead."
"Unlike you?" Gesturing to Greg's blond highlights, Catherine smirked. Looking down at the paper, her expression turned serious once more. "Klonopine? What exactly is that?" She furrowed her brow as she read the results.
"It's an anti anxiety drug. Pretty potent too." Sara pushed her hair behind her ears, looking at the paper over Catherine's shoulder.
"Indeed it is. Somebody's been studying up on drugs for head-cases." Greg turned to look at Sara, expecting at least a small smile for the compliment, but getting a different response.
"Anxiety doesn't make you a head-case Greg." Sara snapped, narrowing her eyes.
"No offense Sara . . . I just meant that you knew what you were talking about." Greg winced visibly, "I mean, what I was trying to say is . . . You're smart and sexy?" Grinning apologetically, he searched for any signs of avoiding his co-worker's wrath.
"I'm sorry Greg. This case is just getting to me." Sara shook her head, trying to clear it. "Anyway, what were you saying?"
Letting out a small sigh of relief, Greg tentatively continued. "It's like this: Klonopine is a controlled substance, and as such, only a select few drugstores stock it and fill prescriptions for it. So, you might be able to track our lady killer, no pun intended, using that." Nodding in satisfaction, he grinned again.
"All right, you know what, I'm going to go look those up now. Good work Greg." Catherine flashed a smile to the young man, walking out of the lab.
"And I still have evidence to process from the case me and Nick were working on before the last 'ripper' murder." Crossing her arms over her chest, Sara waited until Catherine was out of sight before leaving the lab as well.
"And I'll, uh, just sit here." Greg said to himself, sitting down in a chair and spinning around in it a few times. The chair stopped its revolution facing away from the door, which was why Greg nearly jumped out of his chair when he heard the soft clearing of a throat behind him. Spinning back around as he nearly leapt out of the chair, he straightened slightly, "I'm getting right on it Griss . . . Oh, hey Charlie."
Greg didn't really know much about the new criminalist, other than the fact that she was always there when he got into work at night, and was still working when he left in the morning. From what he'd heard from some of the friendlier members of the Day-Shift, few of them that there were, she always seemed to be there when their shifts began and ended too. Now, Greg had seen some obsessive behavior from his fellow CSI's in the past (it still felt weird to be able to say 'fellow CSI's'), but Charlie's dedication was past obsessive. It was bordering on Grissom. Yet, somehow, she still managed to have a new an interesting outfit each day. "So, what brings you into my former humble abode?"
Ignoring the question in her usual blasé manner, Charlie stared curiously at Greg for a moment. "What made you want to go into the field?"
"Well, this room can get pretty small after a while. And while I was planning on using it to jumpstart my career as a world renowned chemist by discovering a new element and winning a Nobel Prize, I suppose that it can wait until after I retire." Greg grinned, pushing the chair back into place.
"Delusions of grandeur, even when discussed jokingly, are highly overrated. And to answer your question, I heard that there was some toxicology information on the hair you located on the scene." Charlie blinked slowly, glancing toward the empty printer tray.
Choosing to take a page from Charlie's book, Greg ignored her thinly veiled insult and focused instead on the case. "Indeed there were. I just handed them over to Catherine. Apparently, the owner of the hair was taking . . . "
"Klonopine. I know." Charlie threw Greg a look that blatantly stated, 'Of course I know.'
Raising a brow in surprise, Greg looked down at his pager. "Did someone page you?"
"No. I have ears. My office is only three doors away." Looking Greg up and down with a sweeping gaze, Charlie frowned slightly. "What happened to scare you out of here?"
"Nothing scared me out. Like I said, it's a small room with small walls. It's only so long before you begin to feel like a fish in a bowl, just swimming in little circles as you titrate." Grin still plastered into place. Greg's voice had become slightly detached, his eyes darting quickly to stare determinedly out the window.
"Mmm Hmm. Then why have your hands been shaking for the last . . . ", Charlie paused to look down at her watch, "Thirty-four seconds? Your posture has also changed, your shoulders slumping slightly and your focus becoming detached so as to remove yourself from being mentally present in this space. So, what scared you?"
Heaving a sigh, Greg laughed nervously, "There's not getting anything past you, huh? There was an explosion. Some chemicals were left too close to a fume hood and, well, ka-boom." He added hand gestures to emphasize the experience. "But I was ready to be released back into the wild before that."
"Do you always diffuse every situation with humor? While I'll admit that it's amusing, almost bordering on charming at first, the general sense that it gives to a conversation is a distinct inability for you to be approached with a serious subject." Giving Greg a bemused look, Charlie waited patiently for an answer.
"So, then, you find me charming?" Raising his eyebrows and slapping on a mock-hopeful expression, Greg leaned a hand on the chair.
"I believe my point is made. Now, if I can just have a copy of the toxicology report from the hair, I'll be going back to my office." Tucking her hands patiently into the pockets of her navy blue pinstriped blazer, Charlie looked at the chair for a minute before adding, "And you might not want to rest all of your weight on a rolling object placed on a surface such a tile floor which provides little friction."
"Hey, I know physics. And I do this all the . . . Woah!" Greg managed to catch himself as the chair rolled from under his grasp, throwing off his center of balance. Straightening himself as a slight blush rose on his cheeks, Greg muttered, "And don't say . . . "
"Told you." Charlie's voice remained even, though her eyes held a slight glimmer of superiority.
Turning to the computer, Greg shakily typed in the order to print out another copy of the report. "Yeah, that." As he waited for the commands to process, he turned back around, still trying to force normal conversation. " So, what made you go into criminology rather than sitting in an office charging people 100 an hour to chat about their problems?"
"I was never interested in being part of a phone sex chat line." Charlie smirked, eyes still glued on the man in front of her. "So if you don't work in the lab anymore, who's suppose to be in here?"
"I knew you had a sense of humor! See, doesn't that feel good?" Greg's infectious grin returned to his face, lighting up his features. "And Mia is supposed to be in here, but she's out to lunch. Well, not out, probably in the break room sanitizing her sandwich. Speaking of which, when do you eat?"
"That's not humor, that's truth that holds comedic value. Why are my eating habits of concern to you anyway?" Charlie collected the papers neatly as the printer spat them out.
"Well, it's just that nobody's ever seen you eat." Greg looked down sheepishly, "It's the same principle as students wondering where their teachers go in the summer."
"Mmm hmm. Well, I suppose that I can take comfort in the fact that people around here are attentive to details. Although I wouldn't expect any less from the number two crime-lab in the country. And if it's of such importance to you, I eat while I work. It's more efficient." Breaking her steady gaze away from Greg, Charlie looked down at the paper, nodding slowly as she read the information.
Sensing the hawk-like stare of his fellow criminalist peeling away from him, Greg exhaled softly. "You know, interacting with people is good for your mental health. There's a great diner near here where some of us got for breakfast after the shift is over . . . "
"I don't eat breakfast food." Her eyes never leaving the papers in her hands as she spoke, Charlie's voice was firm.
"Let me guess. You don't like expectorant? Weird food allergy? Germaphobic? I've heard them all.", Greg stated, giving an almost proud nod of his head.
"I just don't eat breakfast food. I don't like it. Simple." Glancing up as she turned a paper over, Charlie took a pen out from behind her ear and began to scribble notes in the margins of the page.
"Okay, what about something else then? Burgers?" Giving Charlie a hopeful smile, Greg turned his head to try and see what she was writing. "When will you be done your shift anyway? That's another thing that nobody's ever seen . . . "
"Well, after I finish adding these results into my current profile, and I compare the photos from the most recent scene to the previous three, I only need to see the murderer officially convicted and I'll be done." Adding another note to the paper, Charlie punctuated her sentence by crossing a 't' with a flourish.
"Well, nobody can ever complain about your work ethic . . . " Greg began, only to be cut off.
"Nobody ever has. You tend to make an extraordinary production out of simple exchanges of information. But then I'm sure that fact has been expressed to you in the past. So who are you trying to impress?" Tapping the pen against her chin, Charlie looked at Greg once more, tilting her head to the side slightly.
Shifting his weight from one foot to the other, Greg fiddled with a nearby microscope. "If I say girls, will you accept that as an answer?" He threw Charlie the most charming smile he could muster.
"No. But I don't have time to push the issue. Especially since I doubt you know yourself. Not yet anyway." Tucking the pen behind her ear again, Charlie shuffled the papers in her hands and headed toward the door with confident strides. "And if you want to eat breakfast with someone, ask Warrick or Nick."
"Why them? Why not Sara or Catherine? Or . . . well, not Grissom." Greg raised an eyebrow, catching sight of a blank whiteboard. He smiled, softly laughing to himself. "You know, there is one thing I miss about working in here. I use to play 'Name That Chemical Compound with the others, especially Nick. See, what I'd do is . . . "
"That's nice.", Charlie interrupted dryly, pausing mid-stride but not actually turning around. "And to summarize, Catherine's maternal instincts outweigh her desire for socialization in the end. Grissom is socially inept and emotionally constipated. Sara is, well, I don't have the extra time for that one. Speaking of time, I'm about six hours and fifty-two minutes behind where I'd like to be. I wasn't expecting to be going out into the field tonight." Without another word, the slender redhead continued to make her way out of the lab and toward the makeshift office.
When she was almost out of sight, Greg sighed, pulling the chair back out and sitting down. "I do not diffuse every situation with humor.", he stated to the whiteboard. The phone ringing cut into his monologue, causing him to once more jump out of the chair. Smoothly picking up the receiver and putting it to his ear, he answered with a confident, "Las Vegas . . . "
"You do. Diffuse every situation with humor that is. Or, at least, you do from everything I've heard and seen.", came the even, almost monotonous reply from the other end of the line.
"Charlie!" Greg stepped back, almost fumbling with the receiver. "How did you? ... "
"I already stated that my office is only three doors away. And you were standing right next to the wall when you made your proclamation. I was simply pointing out the flaw in your statement."
Before Greg could speak a word in his defense, there was an audible click as the other end of the line was hung up. Biting back the urge to be childish and yell out a witty retort, he settled on placing the phone back into its cradle and silently mouthing, 'How did she do that?'. Shaking his head slowly, he almost winced as he heard footsteps announcing someone else's arrival into the lab. Half expecting it to be Charlie, Greg looked up.
"I got a hit on a pharmacy and Grissom wants us to check it out. Brass is going to meet us there with a warrant for their records." Catherine crossed her arms over her chest, eyeing Greg with a worried expression. "Something wrong Greg?"
"No. At least nothing that I know about. I think." Grinning optimistically, Greg pointed to the door. "Let's hit the road. Hey, can I drive?"
A/N: Sorry this chapter took so long, I caught the flu. I don't recommend it to anyone. I hope that this was worth the wait. Thank you for all of your comments, they make me feel all warm and fuzzy inside. To Saeo - I know who the romance is going to be between, but I don't want to state it yet since 1) Some people might stop reading and 2) My muse might lead me down a different path.