Requital (2of?)

Notes in Ch 1.

Thanks for the feedback on chapter 1. Now, for some characters you probably recognize.

"Oh come on, intentional grounding!"

"No way bro, no way. Cleanest play all night. He had two receivers downfield."

"Yeah, maybe in the next time zone."

"They were perfectly close."

"Face it Nick, your 'Boys have been worthless ever since Aikman and Smith reached their prime and left. Texas is hurtin' for a good team these days!"

"Is that why my team is givin' yours a thorough ass-whoopin'?"

"Yeah well…"

"And speaking of past their prime, can you believe your hero Rice finally retired? How old is he, 57?"

"Just lay it on, Stokes. I'm sure you'd be doing this if you were losing."

Grissom shook his head as he neared the loudening voices. Those two were bad enough as it was with football, but when their teams played each other on the Monday Night stage, it almost became a matter of life and death. He poked his head inside the break room just in time for the two minute warning of the Cowboys-49ers game.

"Good. I thought that game would never end," he said, taking in Warrick's defeated slump and Nick's smug grin. "Since you guys are here, you might as well get an early start on this. I'll be back in five with a new assignment, so Nicky, try and hold off any impending suicide attempts on Warrick's part."

The supervisor spun on his heel and left the room before Warrick could even protest a reaction, but was pleased to hear the taller man retreat from his moping and remind Nick that the Cowboys have a date with the defending NFC champs next week.

Grissom continued down the hall and found he was suddenly longing for baseball season. Football was much too brash and impatient for his taste. He far more enjoyed the artistic intricacies of, say, a sacrifice bunt, over the brute impersonality of a fumble's mad pile-on. He supposed his Dodgers could make a run at 85 wins this year, as long as they signed a couple—

"Excuse me, Dr. Grissom?"

Just now realizing he'd actually stopped walking and was standing in the middle of the hallway pondering the Dodgers' middle relief, he turned towards the voice.

"I'm sorry to interrupt…" One of the newer receptionists was standing in front of him and hesitantly held out a pile of mail.

"No, no," he stopped her. "I was, uh… just thinking."

"Oh. Well I was just about to send someone down to your office with this. But since you're here, if you'd like to take it…"

"Oh, sure. Yeah, thanks." He quickly took the mail from her hands and moved towards his office.

Grissom mentally shook his head. His mind was wandering too much lately… probably from being holed up in his office too long. Even making small talk with the secretarial drones seemed too difficult for him today… but she was a nice enough woman. He picked up his gait a little, anticipating that the oddly soothing qualities only a fresh investigation could bring him were mere minutes away.

Heading into the dim confines of his office, he absently flipped through his mail: Discounts on beetle habitats. Information on upcoming entomology conferences. Requests for scholarly research on the uses of shrunken heads in forensic laboratories. Registration forms for cockroach racing. Blank postcard. Information on th— blank postcard?

He unconsciously swallowed before picking up the discarded piece of mail again. It was a simple, standard-sized postcard with the word Seattle scrawled across an image of a raincoat, rain boots, and a joke about the city's weather patterns. The back was addressed to him, but the message section was blank and the postmark read Las Vegas, Nevada. It was the third one he'd received in the last two weeks.

Who knows what amuses the kids these days, he thought, trying not to pay it any extra attention. Grissom placed the postcard in a drawer with the others – one, from the National Heritage Museum's Masonic Exhibit, and the other a family on the boardwalk in Santa Monica; both addressed the same way, both blank. The supervisor tried not to linger on speculative thoughts and instead grabbed the assignment sheet and moved back towards the break room to give his guys a nudge out the door.

"Alright guys, we've got a 419 just south of the Tangiers." He handed Warrick the slip. "Why don't you get up there and start processing and I'll be up as soon as I finish this paperwork."

Warrick's brow furrowed as he skimmed over the address.

"Didn't we just process this exact same spot last week?"

Nick snorted. "What, are you wallowing so hard in defeat that you're hallucinating crime scenes?"

"Oh whatever boy, you wouldn't know about that gig because you were too busy ralphin' all your Taco Casa leftovers!" Warrick laughed and stood up, stretching out his stiff back muscles.

"I don't remember it being that funny at the time," Nick huffed.

"I told ya, you eat that crap at your own risk, but then you try and give it a second go the next night? You had no chance."

Nick was looking rather green at the memory, and Warrick grinned and slapped him on the back.

"I dunno, 'Rick, maybe you left the fridge open a crack and it spoiled," Nick paused. "Hey, what was the score again, tonight?"

Warrick threw him both a glare and the assignment sheet. "Let's get to work."

Grissom resisted rolling his eyes at the familiar display. "Remember guys, Cath and Sara are still working that double uptown, so it's just us tonight. I'll be out shortly."

He left the two CSIs in the break room and headed back to his office.

Surreptitiously typing away, Juliette could only imagine Grissom's reaction to her third little gift. He had the most meticulous, investigative nature – someone who wouldn't be able to move on if he couldn't solve the riddle. After all, she'd seen him pour over those exasperatingly dull crossword puzzles til all hours of the day. The first one probably didn't register much on his radar, but she knew the wheels were turning with this one. He had to think a pattern was emerging, and God only knew how pieces of paper spoke higher volumes to that man than actual people did. She knew he wouldn't disappoint.

The receptionist glanced up from her screen as the other object of her thoughts approached, still on the receiving end of jabs by his counterpart over his bout with bad Mexican leftovers.

Oooh, if they only knew.

Nick Stokes was a good ol' boy with such a naturally idealistic disposition that, unfortunately for him, made her decision all too easy. His easygoing character allowed him to be much more trusting of those he didn't know well. And so last week's test run went over without a hitch. Nick didn't eat anything on a spicy scale less than 5-Alarm, so it's not like he'd ever notice a foreign taste. Of course, she was no scientist, but the Internet was a useful tool for becoming an instant expert in whatever the hell you want. She had a fairly good idea of how to proceed, and it's not like she couldn't just... move onto the next person if things got… carried away.

"G'night, Jules," Nick smiled and waved as they walked past.

Jules? The man just oozed affability. She'd hardly ever had a real conversation with him, yet he could make her feel like a lifelong friend with the mere utterance of a ne're-used nickname. They all seemed to fit into respective roles: Grissom the enigma, Catherine the passion, Warrick the strength, Sara the brains… but Nick… Nick was truly the heart of the team. Grissom would likely never admit it, but he admired Nick's empathy… he probably even wished he had a little for himself, if only to feel more human. No matter, she mused… when a family loses its heart, there's no going back.

Juliette rose from her desk under the guise of heading for the recycling bin. Rather, it was from there she could just make out, through the glass office window, a bearded figure illuminated by a lone desk lamp. He had almost stared a hole through the small, paper object as he turned it over and over in his hands.

She smirked. It seemed the legendarily unflappable Gil Grissom was visibly troubled.

TBC