DISCLAIMER: I DON'T OWN CSI OR ANY OF ITS CHARACTERS; THEY BELONG TO CBS OR ANTHONY ZUIKER
RATED: K+
SPOILERS: NONE I AM AWARE OF.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS: "SOMEBODY LIKE YOU" BY KEITH URBAN & JOHN SHANKS. Special thanks to my beta ladies – Kacee and Mel. Your insight and support are so appreciated.
EPISODE INFLUENCES: "Ellie". "Hollywood Brass". "Bang, Bang". "Way to Go".
TIMELINE: Three to four months after "Second Chances".
A/N: The vicious murder of a young woman begins a ripple effect in Brass' personal life.
"Port in the Storm"
CHAPTER ONE
Another night shift was ending at the CSI lab, as the early morning rays of sunlight poked holes in the dark curtain receding before it. Iris stretched and yawned, as she made her way out to her Jeep. Her eyes were red and irritated from her working her shift away in Trace as she sifted through the vacuum cleaner bags of a crime scene, gleaning for miscellaneous bits of material she thought that would aid in its solution. She debated going with the rest of the crew for breakfast; her body said rest but her mind desired the opportunity to spend a little downtime with the rest of the team. She had come to feel like she had always been at the Vegas CSI lab, in spite of it only being a little over six months.
"Hey, Iris, come on and join us," called out Sara.
"Yeah, tag along!" chimed in Catherine, who had come in early for her day shift.
"I'll treat you, Iris, and you can be my breakfast date," Nick said with a grin.
"Okay, okay, you win, how could I turn down such a great invite," laughed Iris, "go ahead; I'll be right behind you!" She blushed crimson; a reaction that Nick thought was cute. The others went to their respective vehicles and left the parking lot.
Iris climbed into her Jeep and started it up…nothing happened…no click, just silence.
She then saw that she'd left her parking lights on overnight as she'd come to work a little early at dusk. "Great," muttered Iris, "everyone's gone on ahead and I'm stranded."
"Need some help?" a bass voice rumbled beside her driver's door. Iris startled at the voice and turned in her seat to be face-to-face with Captain Jim Brass.
"Looks like I do, Detective," replied Iris with a sigh.
Of all the crime lab members she had become slowly acquainted with and gone on to develop genuine friendships with, especially Sara and Catherine as fellow female coworkers, it was Brass that she had the least contact. However, he was a fixture at the lab as well as crime scenes and though she had frequent short interactions with him, they were always of a work nature. She had not applied herself at attempting more than just brief conversations involving him. She was always polite and respectful of him. The most they had really ever spoken outside of work was after the convenience store robbery where she and Sara had been held hostage. She had been with the CSI team only two months at that time. Brass had driven her home while the crime scene investigation ensued but had also been present when she gave statement back at the LVPD later that same day.
"Well, I'm no mechanic but my guess is you have a dead battery, so I'll need to jump you," Brass said deadpan, before breaking into a smile, "just a joke, there."
"My knight in shining armor," Iris chuckled.
"I've got some jumper cables in my car, milady, be back in a jiff," Brass replied. He was back in just moments maneuvering his car so it was right by her. She had already gotten out and put up the hood.
After getting the jumper cables in place, Brass had the Jeep starting up in no time it seemed. He lowered the hood after removing the jumper cables and after putting them in his trunk returned to Iris.
"I recommend you drive straight home. Since its daylight you should be fine. Have a good one," Brass said, as he got into his car.
Iris believed in doing a good turn for someone, so she piped up, "Captain Brass, would you like to have coffee with me? I'm pretty sure the rest of the CSIs have left the restaurant by now. It'll be my treat and then I'm heading straight home, Scout's honor."
Brass, who was off-duty himself now, considered her request. He didn't have anything pressing right then and he could do with some coffee to perk up with before heading home.
"You've made me an offer I cannot refuse," he said in his best Marlon Brando ala Godfather. "I'd welcome a cup of coffee, plus I'll follow you home to make sure you get there okay."
It became the first of several coffee meetings for the police detective and the newest CSI on Grissom's team, but the rest of those times were in the company of CSI teammates. Iris was quick to notice how Brass interacted with Catherine especially. They obviously shared a warm mutual friendship that was hard to gauge the level of to Iris. That the team was tight and supportive of one another was clear and one its great strengths to Iris. The Dallas crime lab she had left, while well run, did not have the same atmosphere of camaraderie. Iris found that she thrived much better in this environment.
The interpersonal relationships intrigued her most of all with this working group of men and women who she was fast coming to regard as family. She found them to be passionate about their work, generally steadfast in their support of one another, varied in their degrees of friendship between each other, and beneath the surface crackled attraction between some, such as Gil and Sara, probably the most long-term. She quickly came to understand that between Gil and Catherine was a relationship of regard for each other's talents and the security that they could sound off one another's concerns. Again though with Captain Brass, who interacted so closely with the team, Iris felt, she had difficulty assessing to what degree the friendship between Catherine and the detective went.
'I've got not no business assessing others when I should be doing that to my own self', she thought as she drove toward home. She pulled into the driveway of her town home where she'd lived these last few months since transferring to Vegas from Dallas. Brass pulled on by and waved to her as he drove past. She waved back and parked the Jeep, which restarted just as Brass said it would. Suddenly the deep baying of dogs was heard from her place and Iris chuckled at their impatience. "Hello, kids, I'm home!" she announced to her four-footed welcoming committee as she went through her front door. She was ready to get some sleep.