Author's Note: Thanks to everyone for the reviews! I apologize for taking so long to put up this next chapter, and I also apologize for it being horrible. It's pretty much just filler. Chapter four should be up soon (and will be better than this one, I hope).

Uphill Battle
Chapter 3

It had definitely been a long night at the Boa Vista residence. Natalia had fallen asleep around 3:30 in the morning and was just waking up at 10 a.m. She spent about twenty minutes lying in bed, the events of yesterday playing through her head again, before she actually got up. It wasn't until she had finished stretching and stood up that she realized she had fallen asleep in her clothes.

It took her a while to walk down the hall, down the stairs, across the foyer, and into the kitchen, but she eventually made it. She immediately made her way over to the refrigerator, where she took out a can of coffee grinds. She grabbed onto the fridge door to close it, but she paused as her eyes fell on the cans of Starbucks DoubleShots that sat on the second shelf. The espresso drink would be much more effective than coffee would, so she put the coffee back in the fridge and took out a DoubleShot instead.

Before she did anything more, Natalia put the espresso down on the kitchen table and stepped outside to get the newspaper. She was still outside when she noticed a picture of Aaron Jessop at the bottom of the main page, accompanied by a lengthy article. Of what, she'd find out once she was seated at the table.

When she was comfortable at her kitchen table and had already had several sips of her espresso, she unfolded the newspaper to get a good look at the article accompanied by the picture of Aaron. It was a lengthy article that included several paragraphs on him, but many more paragraphs on what had gone down at the lab.

Natalia scanned quickly through the article, hoping and praying that she wouldn't be mentioned. To her relief, she didn't find her name anywhere in the article. However, it did mention that the lab had been under federal investigation, and that there had been a mole planted there. It went on a little bit to say that the mole had been spying on the CSIs and reporting their every move back to the feds.

This annoyed Natalia and brought back the miserable mood she was in yesterday. Yes, she was the mole, but she never told the feds anything that would make the lab look bad! Why didn't anyone believe her!

Furious, Natalia threw the newspaper off of the table and knocked her cup of coffee over in the process. The hot coffee fell into her lap and she jumped up out of the chair. "God damnit!" she yelled.

She raced over to the counter where she kept a roll of paper towels, grabbed a handful, and made her way back over to the mess to clean it up.

When the paper towels had absorbed everything, Natalia abandoned them on the kitchen floor and went back upstairs.

She went into the bathroom, slammed the door behind her, and turned on the water for the shower. She quickly removed her clothes and then stepped into the shower, not caring that the water wasn't at the right temperature yet.

For a few moments she stood completely motionless under the showerhead, letting the warm water run down her body. She tried her best to clear her mind and relax, but the anxiety was almost too much to bear. Her bottom lip quivered and her hands shook as she fought with herself to stay calm. She had done enough crying last night to last a lifetime and then some. Not to mention that her eyes stung badly.

She somehow managed to keep herself together as she bathed, but memories of the day before and thoughts on what might happen in the near future was all she could think about.

By one o'clock, Natalia had composed herself enough to leave the house. Dressed in shorts and a t-shirt, wearing no makeup, and her hair in a very messy ponytail, she set out in her car to the local gym. She couldn't stay in her house all day and instead decided to take all of her negative emotions and channel them into physical activity.

Natalia spent two hours at the gym using the bicycles, the elliptical, the weight machines, and running on a treadmill. She could have kept going for at least another hour, but she was interrupted by one of the trainers.

She had been not jogging, but running, at a pretty fast speed for about forty minutes when the trainer came up to her. He was very built and looked to be in his late 20's.

"Excuse me, ma'am, but… You're gonna wear yourself out if you keep going."

Natalia didn't want to talk to this man, but it looked like she had no choice. "That's the whole point," she answered back, between gasps of air.

The man seemed to be amused with her response. He crossed his arms over his chest and his lips curled up into a smile. "But you don't want to pass out and wake up in a hospital bed."

Some time passed before Natalia decided to stop, turning down the speed of the treadmill slowly so she didn't go flying off of it. Then she grabbed her water bottle that was sitting on top of the treadmill and took a drink. The man—whose name was John, according to his nametag—was still standing in front of her, but she didn't respond back to him. Instead she shot him a look that said: "happy?"

John chuckled, shook his head, and then turned to walk away. Natalia glared as she watched him disappear into another room, and then resumed chugging whatever amount of water that was left in her water bottle.

On her drive home, Natalia couldn't shake the feeling that she had seen John somewhere before. It was someplace else besides the gym, but she couldn't remember where. He looked awfully familiar, but she just couldn't place him…

Her mind was taken off of John when her cell phone began to ring. She had just pulled into the driveway and was now searching through her purse to retrieve her cell. When she found it, which didn't take very long to do, she was surprised to see the name that popped up on the Caller ID—Ryan Wolfe.

Natalia watched her phone for a minute, staring at Ryan's name. Why would he be calling her? Why would anyone at Miami-Dade be calling her?

With reluctance, Natalia flipped open her phone and held it up to her ear. "Ryan?" she asked in disbelief. What he said next left her surprised and clueless:

"Boa Vista. We need you at a crime scene."