Disclaimer: I do not own them, though I gave Vartann a first name and a wife.

A/N: I have sorely missed my Vartann this second half of the season. Thanks to Anushka for suggesting a fic about him. I got stuck for a while, but now it's come along.

No worries - no romance here. I just like imagining Det. Vartann. And since we've never heard his first name, I gave him the same first name as the actor that plays him.

Alex Vartann was lonely. He could admit it. He was sitting there, after a long shift, thinking about the gold ring on Warrick Brown's finger. When he had first seen it, he had congratulated the man warmly, though he hadn't missed the look on Catherine Willows' face. There was a woman taken aback. But he had been sincere in his congratulations. He had been with Warrick the night he met the hot nurse at Desert Palms. He had noticed the way Warrick started talking about "his girl" whenever they were on cases.

He was jealous. Other men could say what they wanted about bachelorhood, but Alex knew he was a man that was meant to be married. Too bad his wife hadn't felt the same.

It was hard to be a cop's wife. He understood that, he thought. He had tried to make up for it by spending his salary on anything she wanted. In the end she had wanted everything but him. So here he sat again, in the bar that seemed to be mostly LVPD patrons.

"Great way to meet women," he told himself. How had he made it to 40 years of age with no wife and no kids? That is what he always thought he would have. That is what he always wanted. Some men might be afraid to say it, but Alex wanted the 2.5 kids, the dog and the house with a two-car garage. He drank his beer and paid his tab. Then Alex Vartann went home to his empty apartment.

He hated this apartment. Mona, the almost ex, had graciously offered him the house to live in, but he had deferred. He didn't want to live in their house without her. Now the house was empty with a "For Sale by Hidden Desert Realty" sign in the front. Evidently Mona didn't want to live in it either. He knew why. She had another place to stay, with another man, that fucking asshole Mitch.

Vartann shucked his suit coat and left his clothes in a pile in his bedroom. He had never been a sloppy guy, but this morning, he just didn't feel like making the extra effort to pick them up and fold them. Normally, that is what he would have done – folded every thing nicely and taken them to the cleaners with the other nicely folded shirts, pants, and jackets on his bedroom chair. Now standing in his boxers and a t-shirt, he surveyed his closet. He pulled out a pair of shorts and a light windbreaker for his "unwind" run, as he thought of it. He stepped into the bathroom to brush his teeth and looked at himself hard in the mirror.

He looked old, he thought. He felt old. His blue eyes stared back at him with intensity. He knew his eyes helped him in the interrogation room, but now, he didn't want to be under his own gaze. This is what he had come to – everyday was the same. Work, eat, beer, run and sleep. What the hell was he doing with his life?

Vartann didn't consider himself a religious man. Both meditation and ritual struck him as contrived. Even so, he could see that this habit was close to a daily rite. Was it a daily penance or a daily prayer? Through the morning, waking heat of the desert, he ran. Even through the sudden rainstorms that could deluge the area, as if God himself had rethought the covenant and the rainbow, and decided that at least Sin City needed to be flooded again, if not the whole world. He ran, this the only time that his mind emptied and he was allowed to be.

He was the pounding of his feet on the sidewalk and asphalt. He was his own rhythmic breathing. He was the feel of the air whistling past his skin and hair. He was a runner, nothing more.

Most cops did something to empty their heads at the end of the day; so many drank that alcoholism was a hazard of the job. Vartann welcomed the daily beer, but running was his bag, giving him a lean and hungry look. It sharpened his facial structure and framed his icy blue eyes. They were deep set eyes that seemed brighter for having stared out from beneath dark, sharp eyebrow ridges. His wife always joked that his cheekbones would slice if you weren't careful.

Ex-wife. Alex could feel himself falter a bit when she entered his mind. He pushed her away - far, far away. It's what she said he was best at anyway. He forced himself to concentrate back on the slap of his feet, and he forced the pace a little harder.

He was particularly worn out when he came back to his apartment that day. He showered with water as hot as he could stand, welcoming the red look of his skin and heat radiating off his body. He brushed his teeth, aware of how hard he was gripping the toothbrush. The dentist always commented on his receding gum line. He seemed to take a lot of frustrations out on his teeth.

He collasped into his double bed, painfully aware of how small it would have seemed with another person in it, and also of how big it seemed to him alone. He fell asleep with that thought on his mind.

XXXXXX

As he got ready for work the next afternoon, Alex already had his mind on a possible homicide he had started investigating the night before. He wondered what the coroner would decide, and what the CSI's might have found.

They were an odd bunch. He liked most of them, but they just worked differently than the detectives. Whereas the detectives might just read a suspect and know from experience that the guy (or girl) was guilty, the CSI's were charged with "following the evidence". He had heard Grissom say it more than once. They were supposed to work in tandem, complimenting each other, but the fundamental differences sometimes led to bruised egos and heated exchanges. Ed Cavaliere hated them. Hated was a strong word, but Ed and Nick Stokes had gotten into it over a case the year before, and that had only increased Cav's disdain for the group. Vartann himself wondered how anyone could get into with Stokes. Nick was as easy-going of a guy as could be. After the kidnapping incident with Nick several months back, Cav had gotten a little easier on the CSI's, but he had not been happy when Brass had introduced Sofia Curtis as their new detective.

Vartann had never worked much with Sofia when she was a CSI. Most of her time had been spent on day shift, and her time on night shift had been brief before she moved to Denver for a detective position there. It had surprised Alex to hear of her departure. He hadn't known she was interested in being one of them. But she was, and now she was back.

Brass had been glad to have her. He had admired her work and had used the word "moxie" to describe her. Vartann wasn't really aware than anyone actually used that phrase outside of old movies, but Brass had used it, in a tongue in cheek sort of way. Vartann didn't care much one way or the other. Another detective would be nice to have. He appreciated any help they could get. Cavaliere, predictably, had been pissed about it.

"Great - not only do they bring in a chick, but it's a CSI chick. Those girls are nothing but ball busters," Cav had said. Vartann had looked around to see if Brass had heard, but he should have known that Ed wasn't that stupid.

"What do you care, Ed? What's with all the chauvinism?" Alex had asked. Ed Cavaliere had skewered him with a glare.

"Chauvinism? What - your wife got you reading Cosmo now?" Ed had asked. Vartann hadn't said anything about his separation to Cav. Sam Vega, who did know, had given Alex a sympathetic look.

"Give a rest, Cav," Vega said. "With her background, she could be an asset. Besides, she's with us now, so you might as well get used to it." Sam took a sip of his coffee, ignoring Cavaliere seething looks.

"Well, when she starts pulling that CSI bull out of her ass, I don't want to hear any whining from you two," Ed said. He stood up and grabbed his coffee, stalking off to his desk. He turned back and said, "When you girls are finished with the Equal Rights meeting, let me know."

"What the hell is Cav's problem?" Alex had said to Sam, rolling his eyes. Sam and smiled over the top of his coffee cup.

"Maybe his boyfriend quit giving him some," Vega had said in his lyrical accent. Alex laughed, thinking of how pissed that comment would have made Cavaliere.

"Maybe so," Vartann had answered.

XXXXXXXXXX

Vartann reached the station thinking of the day Sofia had been brought back to Vegas. She had mostly worked with Brass since then. It was customary for a new detective to work with a veteran for several weeks as a probationary period, but since Sofia had a history in the city, Brass had been letting her run solo a good bit. Cav had been pissed about that too, but Vartann didn't care. If it took pressure off him and allowed him to concentrate on the cases he had open, he was fine with it.

But that evening, he almost changed his mind. They were going to be on stakeout and Brass had paired him and Sofia together. Vartann had a mildly panicked feeling.

It wasn't that he was uncomfortable with Sofia - it was just that being around women in general was alarming since going through the divorce. The on-going, extremely amicable divorce that was driving him crazy in all it's super friendliness.

He felt like a heel, but he couldn't contain his apprehensiveness about sitting in a car with the lady for hours on end. And then he had found out that he wouldn't be sitting in a car with her. He would be staying in an apartment with her.

A/N: And so ends Chap 1. Yes,I included Sofia - hey, TPTB should know that they could put her and Vartann together in an ep. It's not going to hurt, I swear.

Now, please review!