Chapter Two

"Nothing upsets me more than kids getting hurt. No one's really sure why, but I figure it's bland enough to earn audience sympathy. I also hate men who beat their wives… and those damn sexy green M&M's."

"I don't get it," says Brass as the Who start playing.

All the CSI's are now assembled.

"Dead child stripper. Stabbed several times and her Mother has a gambling problem. You might all want to enrage yourselves individually about this," says Grissom, his face emoting a look that could be pondering… or angry. "I can tell she was deaf."

"How?" asks Sara, stooping beside him.

"Because it's part of my mysterious back-story that never gets fully explained."

"Why?"

"Because I'm the producer as well as the star and I feel explaining my history might require me to act instead of coasting on the script."

Sara stares at the young girl's face, trying to hold back her own personal story-related anger. "How does this happen to someone so young?"

Catherine comes up beside her. "You can only imagine. This is why I signed Lindsay up for little league after Eddie died…"

Sara immediately tries to find a way to leave without Catherine noticing.

Nick and Greg help each other put on their rubber gloves a little ways off.

"Don't you love the slick, oily feeling of latex, Nick?"

"No. I always seem to get this white stuff all over my hands when I take them off. Plus it makes my fingers taste funny… y'all."

"She must have bled to death," says Catherine, still beside the body. "There's a lot of blood. It's dark out tonight. When it's light the sky is blue. Life is difficult. Reach for the stars. Stay away from drugs. Do what you feel… I've run out of obvious statements."

"That's okay, Cath," says Grissom in a tone of forced friendship establishing his human side. "I feel I need to look interested in something and find an important clue," says Grissom, spotting a small stack of gambling chips clutched in the girl's fist. "Around the 45-minute mark this will all make sense - unless we choose a B-plot. In which case we might just ignore it. I won't predict anything, because that's part of my character description. Warrick, even though you have a gambling addiction, I'm going to get you to talk to the casino."

"A plotline of my very own!" says Warrick, being black, but not overtly enough to cause unease.

"No. This will be off-camera. Come with me, Sara. We need to have another moment of sexual tension. We'll flip a coin to decide who's resisting it this week.

Nick prances over to the rest of the group. "Hey, guys, look what I found!"

Grissom glances over the new evidence and looks at the body. "It's an earpiece."

"You stole my line," says Catherine.

"I'll run it back to the lab," says Greg. "Demoted to Season 2."

Nick looks desperately around the crime scene for another piece of evidence. "Oh! I found a hair… it seems suspicious. I should test it. Greg, I'll come with you and we can process each other… others' evidence."

Greg is already waiting in the van.

"When will people learn?" asks Catherine, as the two speed away and she draws closer once more to the dead child. "Stripper polls aren't babysitters!"

Sara and Grissom depart quickly.

"I'm in love with you," says Grissom as he and Sara enter the strip club across the street.

"Let's go out, then."

"No."

"Why not?" asks Sara, picking up three stray syringes and a handgun and placing them in CSI baggies.

"You're coming on a little strong."

"But… you just said…"

"Sara, this is inappropriate."

"I'm sorry, we're supposed to believe you're a genius investigator with no social skills whatsoever yet you can get confessions out of cold-blooded killers and not land a date?"

"What do you want?" he asks, bagging two more gambling chips. "Nobody said this was HBO."

Grissom frowns. He may, however, just be hungry. "What kind of strip club would employ a child?"

"I don't know, just don't ask Catherine. She'll find some way to talk about her daughter for half an hour. And her ex-husband."

"Isn't he dead?"

"She's still angry."

"Because of the failed marriage?"

"No, because now she doesn't have anything new to bitch about."

"Is that why she's in love with Warrick?"

"Most likely."

Grissom turns and raises an eyebrow with little effort. "We better get this back to the lab."

Catherine enters and she and Sara exchange looks that mean nothing yet appear significant.

Commercial Break! Watch CSI's Miami, New York, Kentucky, Kosovo and Hiroshima.

Warrick returns to the empty crime scene, having missed everything.

"Mother fu - "

Grissom, Catherine and Sara walk down the CSI headquarters hallway. Somewhere nearby Ecklie watches and twirls his non-existent moustache. This is because he is evil.

The team hears the unmistakable sound of gay porn coming from the media review room. Archie is seated at his desk in front of his huge plasma screen TV/computer.

"Archie…" says Grissom, frowning somewhat. "Didn't we already solve the twin male hooker case?"

"This… this is different."

"No. That is the same tape," says Catherine obviously.

"Hey, look!" says Archie, diverting their attention. "I'm Asian– isn't that novel? And I have a hilariously outdated name like Archie, proving my parents didn't speak English before moving here. And it's even funnier because that's my name in real life – no, seriously – check the credits."

"So what's with the porn?" asks Sara suicidally.

"I'm trying to see if I can be aroused by anything. But after years of looking at this crap, nothing surprises me."

"That's sad," says Catherine.

"Duh," says Archie. "I'll just leave conveniently for the next seven episodes. See ya guys!"

Hastily leaving Archie, the three continue down the never-ending set.

"Hello," says a blonde wig with ears.

"Sofia!" says Grissom, in what we can only assume is his most charming and seductive frown.

"Let's flirt without any real chemistry or charisma!" suggests Sofia blandly.

"Certainly. But why?"

"Because I'm not actually a character. I've simply been placed here to mess with the dynamic of the team, solve the cases with the least amount of experience and most importantly delay any relationship you might have with Sara."

Sara begins slitting her wrists while drinking heavily.

"Wasn't that part of my character description?" asks Catherine.

"No," Grissom interrupts. "We're just friends with a strong underlying sexual attraction. You have that with everyone, except Warrick – the one person you were supposed to."

"Oh no!" says Sara, putting down her beer and blade. "We're focusing too much on romantic character development."

"You're right. We'll leave this scene like nothing has happened and return to it six episodes later when it will no longer have any plausible purpose," decides Grissom for everyone.

"Do any of us ever have sex?" asks Catherine, her face "naturally" immobile.

"Pretty much just you… always off-camera with people we've never seen until it all gets fucked up," says Grissom… with neither an adjective nor a noun to describe his current emotions.

Later, in the lab, Nick and Greg start cracking down on the evidence found at the scene.

"Hey Nick," says Greg, leaning forward into the microscope. "I think you should check this out."

"Don't worry, I already am…"

Greg turns around, raising a comical eyebrow. "How can you, the microscope is over…"

"Greg, I was talking about your ass."

"Oh, well then."

"Come on, you know you want it, we both do!"

Greg turns back to the lab table and starts putting the equipment away. "Yes, but… we both get off in an hour, so…"

Nick slowly walks behind him and holds him close with his ridiculously enlarged arms, resting his head on Greg's white lab coat, and whispers, "Or we could get off right now."

"I'm afraid it's against regulations to take a break early," says Ecklie, entering at this moment because he is evil, however failing to notice the outrageous homosexual subtext of the scene. "Nick, can I see you in my office shirtless?"

"Sorry?" asks Nick, looking sexy and confused.

"I said shortly. Shortly…"

"We're kind of in the middle of something," says Greg.

"I can fire you, Sanders. I can fire you all! Mwahahahahaha. Mwahahahah."

"How did you even get this job?" asks Nick. "Not only are you critically stupid and a bad CSI, but you're pointlessly mean and annoying."

"Stokes, you're on one week's leave without pants."

"What?"

"Pay! I said pay!" says Ecklie, disappearing in a cloud of pure, concentrated evil.

Nick shakes his head and turns back to Greg who looks shocked and concerned… possibly in a funny way.

"It wasn't that bad, Greg."

"What if he had caught us? We could both lose our jobs, and let's face it – what the hell would we do without our comfy government-funded positions that allow us to lazily solve a case a day without breaking a sweat?"

"That's crazy-talk! I would have told Ecklie that… your mom died."

"Nick, I think I need some space before our relationship even begins. I've been getting dating advice from Grissom. I figure that's the smartest course of action."

"Greg, please? I thought our uncomfortable yet inescapable homoerotic subtext was blossoming into something more finally… after all these years."

Greg turns around and looks back into the microscope, trying not to emote; his second set of lessons from Grissom paying off. "I think I may have something that will interest you, Nick."

Nick turns to face Greg dramatically. "You already do."

They fall into each other's arms and Greg says, his face buried in Nick's chest of steel, "I just don't want to screw up my time in the field. If I get boring, they'll probably kill me off to save more money for pointless flash-back special effects."

Nick flashes his warm Southern smile that all of the surrounding women who aren't inexplicably hitting on Grissom love. As they lean toward one-another, a vibration at Nick's thigh interrupts them.

"Damn," says Nick, checking his beeper. "It's Grissom!"