Once again, we do not own CSI. Or Rent, for that matter.
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Greg and Nick had been reassigned to what appeared to have been a murder-suicide in Henderson. They had gathered the evidence and Nick was taking the gun to ballistics to be analyzed. Walking down the hall, he could see Gavin through the glass, inspecting something and talking to Lara simultaneously. As Nick came in, Lara shook her head and laughed before leaving. "Hey Nick," she called as she passed him in the doorway."Hey," he said before turning to Gavin. "Can you cross-reference this gun with the bullets found in the girl at the crime scene?"
"Sure thing," Gavin agreed without looking up. "It's going to be a little bit though. I'm completely swamped." He grinned. "Why does everyone have to use guns? What happened to a good, old-fashioned sword fight?"
Nick laughed too, but didn't leave straight away. "So are you and Lara, you know… dating?"
Gavin did look up then. "Yes. Why?"
"Oh, no reason. I was just wondering, that's all." He started to go.
"Oh, no way," Gavin said, staring at Nick steadily, and looking slightly dangerous. "Why do you ask?"
"Um…" Nick scratched the back of his head quickly. "Well, it's just, um… Greg talks about her a lot, so I thought I'd just, you know… find out if she was available." He ran out the door.
He saw Tempeste walking down the hall next to Sara and Catherine, the three deep in conversation. He grabbed Tempeste's arm as she passed, pulling her backwards a few steps. She raised an eyebrow quizzically.
"This'll just take a sec," Nick promised his other two coworkers, glancing around before forcing Tempeste into the supply closet.
"Only a sec?" She asked him. "That's no fun; it took much longer this morning."
He shook his head, "It sounds great, but no, not what I wanted to ask. Is Gavin really a jealous guy?"
"Why? Did you want to join him and Lara? Because I'm sure Lara wouldn't say no—although Gavin might be a bit squeamish."
"Temp! Please! Concentrate here."
Tempeste threw her arms up in the air in frustration. "Why are you freaking out?"
Nick shrugged. "I may have accidentally mentioned Greg in Gavin's vicinity."
"And..."
"I may also have mentioned that he likes her."
"Nicholas! What in God's name possessed you to do that? I thought you liked Greg."
"I do."
"Well do you like him alive?" she demanded.
"Oh Jesus," Nick muttered, rubbing his hand across his forehead. "So he's really jealous?"
Tempeste bit her lip, trying to remember any particular incident that might shed some light on the situation. "I don't know, I mean Lara's really good at taking care of herself, and they've only had eyes for each other so long as I've known them."
"So where does Greg fit in?"
"I really don't know. I mean, Lara and Gavin always seemed fine, but it just feels like something's off—like they're just going through the motions. I don't know if they've even noticed anything, or if it's just from settling in here, but I'm picking up on it, and I think even Gabriel thinks something's a little odd, although he probably thinks it's the new coffee." She rolled her eyes. "Look, just don't say anything to anyone, even if you're trying to make it better. Gavin probably didn't even notice you being weird, he doesn't know you yet so really, how bad can it be?"
Nick shook his head again. "You just had to say it, didn't you?"
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Greg headed into ballistics to see what Gavin had to tell them. It had been three hours since Nick had dropped off the evidence, so it should have been ready by now. He popped in the doorway. "Hey, have you finished the analysis?"
"Yes," Gavin answered shortly, not even bothering to turn toward him. He busied himself with other work.
Greg waited for nearly two minutes. "Um… can I have it?"
Without a word, Gavin got to his feet. He picked up a small file and slammed it at Greg before turning back to what he'd been doing.
"Uh… thanks." Greg started to turn away, and then turned back. "Are you alright?"
Gavin looked up at him, blinking once. "Am I alright?" he repeated, his voice low. "Oh yeah, I'm fucking fantastic." Greg was suddenly sorry he'd asked. Gavin got to his feet, coming to stand before Greg. He was about an inch shorter, but he certainly didn't seem it. "Listen, I don't know exactly what sort of deluded fantasy you have about you and Lara, but stay away from my girl, yeah?"
Greg stared at him, knowing he should just agree and back away quickly. But he didn't. "You know what? Maybe you should screw off and let your girl make her own decisions." Glaring at Gavin, he walked away.
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Catherine glanced up as Tempeste joined her partners, noticing she didn't look more rumpled than she had going into the closet. "What was that all about?"
The young CSI shrugged. "I really don't know—probably nothing. Nick just might have stirred up a bit of trouble with Gavin."
"Because of Greg and Lara?"
Tempeste whipped around to face Sara. "How…what…huh?"
"Not your most eloquent statement ever," Grissom said from the doorway. "Catherine, there's a phone call for you at the front."
Catherine left the duo, her mind already concocting the worst possible scenarios involving her rebellious daughter. Sara and Tempeste ignored the earlier conversation, reviewing the information as if the answer would suddenly appear.
"Hey," Sara said suddenly. "Didn't the boyfriend say he was out of town the night of the murder?"
Tempeste flipped open the folder. "Yep; says that he left at four-thirty and didn't get back until the next day."
"Well he has a parking ticket for his car placing him at The Cat Scratch Club at nine that night."
"So he was in town. Not solid enough to make him our guy."
"There's got to be something else."
They went back to their work in silence, eventually giving up hope of Catherine's return and making their way to the break room for a snack. Leaning back in the couch waiting for her tea to steep Tempeste tried to remember if there had been anything out of place at the crime scene that they hadn't already caught.
"Hey Sara!"
"Yeah."
"Would you say the vic was a feather boa, rhinestone type of girl?"
Sara shook her head. "No, there wasn't anything like that in her bedroom or her jewelry box. Why?"
"Catherine found a bit of black plastic feathers on the corner of the coffee table next to the body; there was a rhinestone letter 'I' caught in it, like one of those personalized necklaces."
"We need to go to the Cat Scratch Club."
"Hey," Tempeste said with a grin. "Take me out tonight."
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Catherine hung up the phone, tears of frustration gathering in the corners of her eyes. She stood by the desk for a moment, gathering her wits about her, and when she turned she walked straight into Warrick. "Hi," she said to him, hoping he didn't notice her distress.
No such luck. "Hey, what's wrong?"
She wouldn't have admitted it to anyone but Warrick. "It's Lindsey. I thought we were working though everything and that she was getting better, and getting back on the straight and narrow."
"And…"
She gestured toward the phone, shrugging her shoulders. "That was Lindsey's homeroom teacher. Apparently she hasn't been handing in work, or showing up to class on time, and she's been ignoring her old friends and hanging out with a group of older kids who are known to cause trouble, and I…I don't know how to reach her."
Warrick pulled her against him without thinking, wrapping her in a hug. "It'll work out Cath, I know it. Lindsey's a good kid; she just needs to remember it."
Sara and Tempeste ran by. "Hey Cath," Sara called. "We got a lead; we're heading out to the Cat Scratch Club to check it out."
"Do you need me?" Catherine asked, extracting herself from her coworker's arms.
"No! We can handle it." The pair was already out the door, waving goodbye and talking a mile a minute.
"You wanna talk for a bit?"
Catherine shook her head. "No, I'm just going to go over the evidence until they get back. I'll be fine."
Warrick nodded and turned to walk away, glancing back when Catherine called his name. "'Rick! Thanks."
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The team was gathered for their debriefing, Tempeste and Sara congratulating themselves on another case closed. Quickly enough the team had split up, to breakfast, to bed, to the coffee pot.
Only Lara and Gavin remained, collecting their things as they got ready to leave. "So." Gavin turned to Lara, who was leaning over the table with her back to him. He grinned; after the difficulties with Greg, he felt the need to assert his claim over her. "I was thinking. We could head back to my place, you know, maybe put in a movie…" He stood behind her, trailing her fingers up her side.
Lara inhaled sharply, turning to face him. "Are you kidding me?"
Gavin looked taken aback, but he recovered quickly. "Darling, I joke about a lot of things, but sex isn't one of them."
"You want to have sex?" She stared at him. "Gavin, I have a day job, I have a night job. But my night job is during the day and my day job is during the night, and sometimes I even have jobs on my lunch break, but since my day job is at night, they're really more like midnight snack breaks, but my shift starts at midnight, so they're really 4am breaks, and I don't even know what day it is, and you want to have sex?"
She stared at him incredulously for a moment longer before brushing past him and out the door. Gavin was left looking after her, wondering what had just happened.
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Lara stared blankly at the television, eating her orange sorbet straight from the container. Tempeste was out with Nick again, and she was left alone. The phone rang and she picked it up mechanically. "Huh-woo?" she answered with a mouth full of ice cream.
"Hi?"
Lara swallowed. "Greg?"
"Yeah… are you okay? I can call back later, if you like."
"No, it's okay!" she said quickly. "I just… ice cream."
"Right."
There was moment of silence.
"Sorry," Greg said. "I couldn't sleep."
"So you decided to call and wake me up?"
"But you were eating ice cream, how could you have been asleep?"
Lara laughed, not even noticing that within a minute of talking to Greg, her inexplicable anger had melted away. "Fine, you win."
"So, why are you still up?"
"Trust me, you don't want to know."
"Try me. I could use something to put me to sleep."
"Funny." Lara sighed. "Um, I think I'm losing my mind, so I guess that could be what's keeping me awake."
"Really? What's up?"
"Well… I turned down sex with Gavin today, which has happened, um, oh gee… never."
"Really? Well, that's… weird." Greg wasn't quite sure how to respond to this, and was starting to wonder if maybe he shouldn't have asked. He wandered into the kitchen, pouring a glass of water. "You must have some deep psychological problem. That's generally a turn-off, for me anyway."
"I don't know… I feel like Gavin's changed. Or maybe I've changed. Who knows?"
"He threatened me today!" Greg volunteered cheerfully, before wishing he'd kept his mouth shut.
"What?" Lara sat up on her sofa, switching the phone to her other ear. "This is Gavin we're talking about, yeah? Gavin threatened you?"
"Yeah… well, no. I mean, yeah, but it wasn't anything major."
Lara still sounded shocked. "What about?"
Greg winced, even as he said the word. "You."