A/N - hey there fellow CSI fic reading/writing people and welcome to my first ever CSI fan fic. It is complete because I wrote it for my own amusement and then decided to post it on here in case anyone else was interested :). I realise this probably isn't a very original idea and is no where near as good as some of the fic's on here but please read and enjoy (hopefully) anyway. I may add author's notes to the other chapters later.

P.S - as usual, I only own the characterI created for this story. I didn't create CSI or anyone to do with it (i'm not that clever!)

Chapter One – First Impressions

She walked into the building, straight up to the reception desk and announced herself. The woman behind the desk nearly fell off her chair, her approach had been silent and the woman had been reading a magazine so hadn't seen her coming. After recovering from the shock, the receptionist directed her down the corridor where there was an office at the end. Thanking the receptionist, she walked confidently down the corridor towards the aforementioned office, passing rooms that looked all too familiar despite never having been in the building before.

When she reached the office, the occupant was sat in a chair with his back to her, examining something. He held it up to the light and she could see that it was a cockroach in a jar.

'Ah, the Periplaneta Americana' she said, which gained the attention of the man in the chair.

He spun around and looked at her, wearing a mixed expression of curiosity and wonderment, probably both wondering who she was and how she knew the scientific name for the insect.

'Mr Grissom, I presume?' she said, with a small smile.

That got his attention even more; he raised an eyebrow and placed the specimen jar on the desk. She offered her hand, which he shook, and introduced herself.

'Harriet Charles, your reputation precedes you,' she explained by way of knowing who he was without a formal introduction 'That and your name is on the desk.'

'Very observant,' he said, wryly. 'Good to finally meet you, I've heard a lot about you.'

'All good I hope,' replied Harriet.

Grissom nodded his head slightly in reply 'Please, take a seat'

'Thank you,' she said and sat down in the chair opposite him.

'Evening Greg!' Grissom suddenly called out.

Harriet turned and saw a younger man stop in the middle of the corridor at hearing his name; he had clearly been trying to get as far away from the office as quickly as possible. He turned around and smiled warily like a child preparing to get a telling off.

'Hi boss,' he said, unenthusiastically.

'What time does shift start?' Grissom called to him, with a hint of sarcasm.

'Yeah I know ten minutes ago, sorry boss, my car wouldn't start,' he said, with hope, probably for his excuse to be accepted.

'You do realise I'm not late don't you?' Harriet said, quickly 'I was on a plane until a half hour ago'

'Yes, your supervisor did inform me that you would be arriving late, a far more concrete excuse than our Mr Sanders over there,' he said, with a wave of his hand to indicate that he had finished tormenting the man.

Greg turned and hastily carried on down the corridor.

Harriet turned back to face Grissom again. He had a small smile etched on his face, which could only be a good thing she hoped although she didn't know having never worked with the man before.

'So, how do you know so much about our little friend here?' he asked, tapping on the top of the cockroach jar, making the insect move.

'It's more of a hobby which I tried extremely hard to inflict on everyone I knew at university. Needless to say, the entomology society I set up only had five members including myself but we had a lot of fun,' Harriet explained.

Grissom looked impressed. He took the jar with the cockroach and put it on one of the shelves behind him.

'Interesting,' he said, standing up 'I think it's about time I introduced you to the rest of the team'

Harriet stood and allowed him to leave the office first so that he could lead her to their destination.

They walked down the corridor and she could hear some voices talking loudly and the smell of coffee as they approached what looked like a staff room. Grissom stopped at the open door; no one seemed to have noticed that he was there. I'm not the only one who walks quietly, she thought.

'So what excuse did you give him, Greggo?' a man with a southern American accent asked.

'I told the truth,' came Greg's playful reply 'My car wouldn't start'

'Yeah right,' laughed the man 'How many times did you use that excuse in college Warrick?'

'More than I can remember Nicky my friend,' came the reply.

'Give me a break!' Greg said 'She was hot.'

'And Grissom didn't break your neck?' asked a woman with shoulder length brown hair.

'Nah, he was too busy talking to the new girl.'

'Oh what's she like?' the first man asked, interested 'She hot too?'

'Nah, not my kind of girl,' Greg said 'Think she might be Hodges type though with all the brown nosing she was doing. Mr Grissom your reputation precedes you' he mimicked.

Greg laughed and turned away from the coffee pot where he had been standing and stopped dead as he saw that Grissom and Harriet were in the doorway.

'Thank you for that wonderful display of maturity Greg,' Grissom said, walking into the room.

Harriet tried to ignore what the young CSI had said and followed Grissom into the room. She saw another woman, older, with fair hair that was sitting on a sofa reading something.

'Everyone, this is Harriet Charles, she's going to be our new DNA specialist whilst Mia is on her sabbatical,' Grissom introduced her. 'Harriet, you've already met Greg, an experience I'm sure you'll want to forget soon. This is Nick Stokes, Warrick Brown, Sara Sidle and Catherine Willows.'

He indicated each of the CSI's and she shook hands with them, maintaining her professionalism whilst ignoring Greg at the same time. What an ass, she thought; he's just standing there nursing his coffee cup, what a dork!

'You brought a lot of stuff with you,' said Sara, indicating the suitcase, holdall and laptop bag that Harriet was holding.

'Oh yeah, I came straight from the airport,' she explained.

'You flew all the way from England?' Greg asked, finally speaking.

'No, I swam to New York and then got a flight down here,' Harriet said seriously, trying to suppress a smile at being able to humiliate him back.

'I meant, you flew all the way here and then came straight to work?' he said quickly, defending himself.

'Yeah, so?' Harriet said.

'Nothing,' Greg said hastily and returned to nursing his coffee

'You can stash your stuff in the locker room, no problem,' Sara said, smiling at Harriet, appearing to be amused by the verbal war that Greg had just lost.

'Thanks, but I think I'll keep my laptop with me,' Harriet said ' I have a computerised entomological database I...'

'Really?' Grissom interrupted, looking very interested.

'Yeah, I know you have a lot of stuff in your office already, probably more than I have on the database but you never know you might find it comes in useful. There are lots of British varieties on it. You can have a look at it sometime if you like'

'Well thank you Harriet I'll hold you to that,' Grissom smiled and turned to the team.

Harriet looked back at the other CSI's in time to see Greg grinning at Nick whilst tapping his finger on the end of his nose, referring to his brown nosing comment a couple of minutes earlier. What an asshole!

A/N - Thankyou for reading the first chapter of my story. Hope you liked it. If you did there are twenty eight more where that came from (i know i got carried away!)

If i got the latin name of the cockraoch wrong, don't sue me. I asked jeeves and he told me that was right so blame him.