Title: Him's

Rating: R, though rating won't kick in until later chapters.

Spoilers: Without A Trace: early season one, nothing specific. CSI: 215 Burden Of Proof

Timeline: pretend that Martin joined the team on WoAT a few months before BoP on CSI.

Summary: They both had their past him's that had left them broken. But the past is gone, and the future is what is at stake.

Note: The Virginia Institute of Forensic Science and Medicine is a very real place, and has been pivitol in the furthering of forensics. the website is (triple W dot vifsm dot org). I highly recomend checking it out, especially the glossary, if you're thinking about writing a case-based story or want to understand some of the things that happen at crime scenes and afterwords.

It felt good to see Martin again. Despite how she had played it off earlier, they had been incredibly close back at Harvard and losing touch with him was one of the great regrets that plagued Sara even now, years later.

He was one of the people who she had told bits and pieces of her life to—in fact, he knew more about her than anyone else in the world—but even Martin didn't know the whole story. He had leaned on her academically while she had leaned on him emotionally, and, from time to time, they reversed rolls, though Martin was always stronger emotionally and Sara had academics pretty much under control. For a time she had thought that she might have loved him as more than a friend and confidante, but she had never acted on the feelings she had for him, and, as time and distance got in the way, her beyond-friendship feelings for Martin Fitzgerald faded away.

Which was good, Sara decided, especially since she was getting some major BACK OFF BITCH vibes from his partner, Samantha.

Sara made a mental note to make her intentions very clear to the blonde agent as soon as she got the chance.

The lab was cool, hinting at the chill outside the walls of the building, and Sara smiled, the knowledge that she would probably see the first flakes of the season soon making her happier than she had been in a while. It had been a long time since she had had a white Christmas, though she hadn't really celebrated the holiday since she was a pre-teen and still had both her parents, such as they were. Martin had dragged her to his family celebration every year while they were in school, and, though they were over-the-top deals that didn't exactly scream 'Happy Holidays' to her—too many politicians and the like sucking up to each other for it to even be called a family celebration—it had been nice to have a place to go over the holidays. After Harvard she had gone to Berkley and Martin had invited her again, but she hadn't been able to get away from school and, in a way, she was glad she didn't because it was during that brief school break that she had first met him. Gil Grissom, doctor of entomology with a focus on ciminalistics and decomposition.

Sometimes Sara wondered what her life would have ended up like if she hadn't declined Martin's invitation. She probably never would have enrolled in Grissom's course because, honestly, bugs creeped her out. She never would have gone out for coffee with him after his final lecture. She never would have been in his rolodex and he wouldn't have called her to Vegas when Warrick was screwing up and Holly Gribbs was dying, then dead. She probably would have stayed in San Francisco, though maybe she and Martin would have finally gotten their act together and she would have moved to the East Coast to work at one of the labs in Virginia, maybe even tried to get a place at the renowned Virginia Institute of Forensic Science and Medicine while Martin worked his butt off at Quantico and prayed that no one would notice that he had the same last name and the same sparkling blue eyes as a certain newly appointed Deputy Director in the Hoover Building. They probably wouldn't have lasted, though, and that thought pained her, though it was a very realistic assumption considering all the what-ifs that were floating around in her mind. They wouldn't have lasted because Martin would be moved from Virginia after graduation and she wouldn't want to leave behind her career to follow him around, hoping and praying for a job of her own in proximity to him. She might have lasted one, maybe two transfers, depending on where Martin ended up, but eventually she would find a lab that would feel like home and wouldn't want to pack up and leave again. They might do the long distance thing, but Sara was barely able to keep a relationship together when she saw the guy everyday, so she doubted that long-distance would have led to anything other than broken hearts and hurt feelings, and, probably, the end of their friendship. And, no matter how many times she wondered what would have happened if she had agreed to go to that party with him, she always ended up with them hating each other. It was much better to keep their friendship. And Sara knew that the friendship was still alive, very much so, because of how easy it had been to fall into their old patterns earlier in the day.

Sara didn't know where Martin went after Quantico. He said he'd only been with Missing Persons for a few months, and he would have graduated from the Academy over eight years ago. She figured that he probably spent the missing years doing scut work at different field stations, slowly moving up because he would never trade on his family name to get ahead in life, until he caught a break and made it to New York.

"Hey, Sidle," Pete said from the doorway to the layout room, bringing Sara's thoughts back to the present reality instead of what might have been. "Wha'cha got there?" he asked, not coming any closer to the table where she had methodically spread out everything the mother had on her that morning.

"Mother's clothes. They don't have any other angle to work at the moment so they're focusing on her," Sara said as she used a pair of oversized tweezers to pick up a hair from the mother's blazer. It was red, curly, with no skin tag but it was easy to assume that it was the daughter's. She'd get it under the scope and compare its texture and visual identification to the little girl's brush once she got permission from the mother to check the apartment. "How'd it go?" she asked, referring to his court appearance."

"Jury's deliberating but we got the drone with DNA, fingerprints, and eyewitnesses. Didn't see the point in sticking around," Pete said. He observed her for another minute. "Look, you've got the protocol down and the skills mastered. You don't need me hovering, and there are four other cases I got pulled off of for two hours of overtime pay to be your Probationary. I signed off on you, sent the paperwork up on my way down here. You need anything, page me, but I think you've got this one handled."

"It's not like I'm overrun with evidence," Sara said dryly, looking at the meagre pieces of, in all likelihood, useless evidence that lay before her. A skirt, a blazer, a silk shell that held nothing more than a powdered deodorant stain under the arms, a pair of polished pumps, a pair of pantyhose, and a purse full of normal purse things—wallet, cell phone, mints, a day planner, a pen, a keychain with seven average sized keys and a silver teddy bear medallion hanging from it, two tampons, and a permission slip saying that Elisa Hunter, mother to Sylvia Hunter, gave permission for Sylvia to go to the Museum of Natural History on December 16th with her class between the hours of ten am and two pm. Sara had never been there, and decided that, after finding an apartment, that was job one for her once she got a day off. Maybe she'd send some thank you gifts to Warrick and Nick for packing her apartment up. Maybe even find something to send for Lindsey Willows' upcoming birthday. Maybe the entire lab would get belated Christmas presents from Sara. She mentally shook her head. She was still feeling guilty for leaving without saying goodbye to anyone. It wasn't the time to think about gifts, or Las Vegas, or anything other than the evidence in front of her.

She said a distracted goodbye to Pete whose pager was making annoying noises at his hip, and then turned her focus to the items on the table.

Driving in New York, like driving in any metropolitan area, was problematic at best. Samantha knew that she wasn't making the trip any more enjoyable by refusing to talk to Martin beyond one-syllable responses to his attempts at starting a conversation, but she hadn't slept the night before and she was experiencing feelings that she couldn't describe and didn't like one bit.

"Did I do something to piss you off?" Martin asked, finally giving up with small talk and getting right to the question that he had been wanting to ask since they got in the car.

"No," Samantha said, though she knew that it was not true. He had done something to piss her off, and that was the problem. He wasn't supposed to have that kind of power over her. No one was.

"Then why are you treating me like everyone did my first day with the team?" Martin questioned.

Samantha sighed softly and decided to go for a half truth because she could at least understand that half of what was going on with her lately. "I haven't been sleeping well for the past few weeks and I think it's catching up with me," she said apologetically. "I don't mean to take it out on you," she added, though somewhere inside her she knew that was a lie, too, because she wanted to punish him for making her feel the indescribable and unwanted feelings in the first place.

Martin had the good grace to keep his eyes directed straight ahead, even though they hadn't moved in several minutes and wouldn't be moving anytime soon so taking his eyes off the road was a perfectly safe and sane thing to do. "Anything you need to talk about?" he asked gently, already pretty sure he knew the answer.

"Not particularly," Samantha said. The unspoken 'especially not with you' hung between them in the enclosed space of the heated sedan.

It was silent for a minute and, when the traffic didn't start Martin spoke again, changing the subject to something safe. "Do you really think the mother has something to do with the little girl's disappearance?"

"I really don't want to believe it, but we have nothing else to go on. The father lives out of state and his alibi is iron-clad—he's a lawyer in Florida and he was delivering an opening argument at the time of the disappearance. Both parents have money, plus there's some family money in their accounts, yet we haven't heard word one about a ransom. No one remembers the little girl being in that car this morning, and until we get the video from Transit Authority we have no proof that Sylvia was really there," Samantha said.

"What possible motive could Mrs. Hunter have, though?"

"Maybe she has mental problems. Maybe she's a drunk or an addict and we're just not reading the signs. Maybe she wants the little girl's trust fund money. Maybe she's sick of being a single mother," Samantha said, the infinite number of reasons that parents harmed or even killed their children exhausting her more than her sleepless night had. "But, on the other side of things, there are a lot of sickos out there who would want the kid, not the cash."

"If that's the alternative I hope it's the mother," Martin said gravely, and, though Samantha knew that wishing that meant that they wished the little girl was probably dead, she agreed with him because at least then Sylvia would be at peace instead of terrified and in the clutches of some pedophile or some other mentally and emotionally disturbed individual wishing for death to take her away from the mean person keeping her away from her mommy and her friends and her school and her future that was still too far off to determine but too close to ignore.

"Damn it, I hate it when it's kids," she said softly. She didn't need to hear Martin's reply to know that he was agreeing with her. No one liked investigating cases with kids involved.

Does anyone know what kind of public transportation system Vegas has? Please let me know if you can help me on this. The last time I was in Vegas was about eleven years ago, give or take a few months, and my family was basically just driving through on our way to visit... some distant relative... so my memory is kinda hazy. Any help you could give me would be greatly appreciated.

Mel