Nick sat down at a table and pulled out the evidence he had collected. He sat staring at the Styrofoam cup. It was obviously an important piece of evidence, and clearly needed processing first. But there was something about seeing the cup in an evidence bag that was making him feel nauseous and his hands were starting to shake again. He held them out in front of him, watching them bounce around in the air against his will. This is stupid. It's a piece of trash. What exactly was it going to do? Jump up and hit him around the side of the head? And it wasn't like anything was going to happen. Both the Gordons are dead. Dead and gone. So why was he still getting nervous about a piece of plastic?

He blinked, suddenly aware that he had been staring at his shaking hands for longer than what was necessary. He dropped them to the table and glanced up. Stood at the window, gazing in was the new girl, Cheryl. She caught him staring at her and went bright red before dashing off down the corridor. He blinked again. He was imagining things,he was sure he had seen a duck chasing after her.

Nickgroaned and pulled on a pair of gloves. The one person so far who wasn't acting strange around him was now going to think he was weird. Ah well, may as well add her to the list. Everyone still acted strange around him. Nobody ever said anything, at least not to him, but that didn't stop him from catching the worried glances. Catherine was the worst, trying to mother him all the time, whilst making it seem like nothing. He hardly had a day off go by without either Warrick or Greg, usually Greg because of Warrick's commitments to his wife, calling around. And Grissom was being clever about it. Sure, he let Nick work solo on cases, but the cases were usually straightforward and rarely involved anything more than an assault.

Nick looked up. He could have sworn he heard someone singing.

'Cause I saddle up my horse
and I ride into the city
I make a lot of noise
Cause the girls
They are so pretty
Riding up and down Broadway
on my old stud Leroy
And the girls say
Save a horse, ride a cowboy.
Everybody says
Save a horse, Ride a cowboy'

He looked around. Either he was going mad, or the evidence locker was singing at him. Of course, it was entirely possibly he was going mad – he had just seen a duck in the crime lab, but he decided that instead of simply assuming that, he would see what piece of evidence was singing. He pulled open the door and the music got louder. Good, I'm not imagining things. Well, I'm not imagining some things. He pulled out one of the front boxes. In amongst the bags of evidence was a cell phone. It stopped ringing as he picked it up.

Well, thus far, he had met only one other person who had that song as their ring tone, and as he had been the other one, it could only belong to Cheryl. He put the rest of the evidence back in the locker and set off to track the owner down.

The first person he ran into was Greg, his blonde hair wet and sticking up. Which was now an unusual sight for him. 'Changed your hairstyle again?'

Greg, who was busy reading something in a file looked up at him, 'yeah, I think the spikes look better.'

'I thought the new you was more reserved and wanted to look appropriate for your promotion?'

'Yeah, but that's boring, and makes me look old.'

Nick laughed, 'does that mean you're going to start wearing those loud t-shirts again?'

'No, I think the shirt and jacket makes me look more sophisticated.'

'Sophisticated? What has gotten in to you?' He laughed again. 'Look, have you seen Cheryl?'

'Seen her? What have you heard? I haven't seen anything!'

Nick looked at his flustered friend, 'Greg, I thought you two were working on the same case?'

'Oh, yeah. That. I mean, yeah, her.' Greg stammered.

'Why, what did you think I meant, Greggo?' He asked him, as he draped his arm around his shoulder. 'Or is there something you're not telling me? Have you hooked up with the new girl already?' Nick stopped and sniffed. 'I heard you had a decomp? How come you don't smell of lemons or… anything?'

'Cheryl's shower gel.' He muttered, turning red.

'Cheryl's shower gel?' Nick repeated looking at Greg's red face, 'what did you two do? Share a shower?'

'No!' Cried Greg, brushing Nick's arm off him. He started to hurry off down the corridor muttering as he went, 'Hodges. Hodges in a bikini. Hodges in a skimpy bikini.'

Nick watched him go. Greg was shaking his head violently as he muttered to himself. 'Okay,' he said to aloud, 'I guess it's not me who's losing their mind these days.'

He continued to walk down the corridor. Still not finding Cheryl, despite the phone going off a few more times, he decided to find Sara. Sara was easy to find, sat with Bobby in the Balistics Lab.

'Sara, have you seen Cheryl?'

Sara glanced at her watch then up at Nick. 'She's probably still cooling off.'

'Cooling off? Have you been arguing with her already?'

'No, Nick. And I meant cooling off temperature wise.'

'What did you do? Send her to a fridge?' He watched the grin on Sara's face grow, 'Oh, Sara, please tell me you didn't.'

'Relax. She's probably just lost in the Morgue.'

'Sara, you sent her to the over-flow room, didn't you.'

'Yeah, and so what?'

'So what?'

'The last new person who got sent to that room was Holly Gibbs. And look what happened to her.'

'Firstly Nick, I didn't send Holly to that room, I hadn't even transferred here yet. Secondly, Holly died because she was left unattended at a crime scene, not because she was trapped in a room. And thirdly, the lock on that door got fixed ages ago.'

'Yeah, it did,' Nick told her as he hurried out of the room, 'but me and Warrick bust the lock to lock Greg in the room ages ago,' he shouted over his shoulder to her.

----------------------------------

Cheryl sat down on one of the gurneys and sighed. It was going to be a long day. She had been expecting a prank of some description: back in Miami it had happened a little later, being as she had been shot on her first day. Delko had sent her into the garage for a 'long stand'… she'd been in there for over an hour looking for it, until Calleigh had come in and taken pity on her. Admittedly, she had gotten her revenge, when she asked him to nip to the store and buy her a left handed biro.

She had thought that the trick Sara had pulled on her about the locker room would have been enough, but clearly not. This however, was not funny. In fact, it was cruel. If she was claustrophobic, she would have been hysterical.

She was beginning to think that Sara was, well, a bit of a bitch. Sure, Greg had said she used to be fun, but this wasn't fun. She was trapped in a room, with a door that wouldn't open, with several dead bodies, and, no phone. Because, again she had done something with it. Like clothes, she went through cell phones on a regular basis too.

After drumming her fingers against the cold steel, she decided that she wasn't going to let Sara win, this was war. She glanced down at Eddie. He was curled up at her feet, asleep again. She wrinkled up her nose. The smell of death that was following her around was Eddie. Served her right for letting him curl up in her dirty clothes. She looked down at the bar of soap. There was only one thing to do in this situation. Give him a bath.

Several minutes later, Eddie was splashing around in one of the sinks, covered in suds, loving it. She rinsed him off and then let him continue to splash around in the water. She was soaked again, but she wasn't bothered. Although it was pretty cold in there. She sighed, wondering what she could do to occupy her time now.

So she did the only thing she could do; she started singing the first song that came to mind, which was Eye of the Tiger. She was getting quite into it, dancing along, pretending she was Rocky, that she didn't notice someone standing in the doorway, a large grin emerging across his face, until she had finished the song.

'Nice voice,' he told her, amusement lining his Texan accent.

'How long have you been there?' She asked, feeling her face grow hot. It shouldn't really, considering she did embarrassing things like this in the Miami Crime Lab. She even done it when she was in the NYPD, and that had been a very embarrassing experience, involving paperwork, a busy precinct, and a Diana Ross song. Oh well, they would have to learn this about her at some point.

'Long enough to get some interesting video,' he told her, holding up his phone.

'Send it to the papers in Miami,' she said, darkly, 'they'll pay a fortune for it.' She started to walk past him and out into the corridor.

'Hey, I mean nothing by it,' he said, hurrying after her.

Cheryl sighed, 'sorry, I'm not having the best of first days.'

'Yeah, sorry about that earlier,' he apologised, 'we weren't expecting a new person on the team, and then I heard you had a decomp.'

'Yeah, a decomp at my own house! I only found out because I was trying to drop Eddie off.' She told him.

'Eddie?' Exclaimed Nick, with a look of surprise on his face. 'You're married?' Cheryl smiled and shook her head, holding up her hand to show the lack of ring. 'Oh,' he continued, 'is Eddie your son?'

Cheryl smiled and shook her head again before heading for the door. 'This is Eddie.'

'I wasn't seeing things.' He glanced at her, 'do you normally bring a pet to work?'

'Yes. I have attachment issues.' She replied, deadpan.She pulled a face, 'he's here because my house is a crime scene.'

'Hang on, did you just say that your house had a dead, decomposing body in it.'

Cheryl nodded, 'I'd invite you around, but it's so hard to get the smell of death out of the woodwork.'

He stopped and sniffed her, 'how is it you and Greg don't smell of death, but Sara does? Greg mentioned something about shower gel.'

Cheryl grinned, 'what can I say? I have the best body wash.' She looked at Nick's raised eyebrow, 'oh, no, I lent him the body wash,' she quickly added, 'we took separate showers.'

'Uh huh,' he said, a grin reappearing on his face, 'and why did you and Greg both go bright red at that comment?'

'Because someone neglected to mention that they were mixed changing rooms,' she told him, her face screwed up in embarrassment.

Nick laughed, 'so that's why Greggo has a strange grin on his face.'

Cheryl shoved him, playfully, 'hey!' She poked her tongue out at him.

'Or maybe it's because he's finally met someone with the same mental age as him. So how come you were locked in there, then?'

'Probably because Sara smells like death, and me and Greg don't. I offered the body wash to her too, and she refused. How did you know I was in there?'

'Save a horse, ride a cowboy,' his eyes twinkled at her.

'Hold your horses, there, cowboy!' Exclaimed Cheryl.

Nick held up her Nokia, 'it was ringing for ages. I thought I would return this to you, but you weren't about. Sara said to try down here.'

'Oh,' blushed Cheryl, 'sorry.' She took the phone off him, 'thank you.' She looked at the missed calls and laughed, 'looks like Horatio still can't find his shades.' She chuckled, 'could you do me a favour and send me in the direction of the Sara?'

'She's in the Ballistics lab.'

'And where would I find that?'

'It's through those doors down there, and on your left.' He told her, pointing down a corridor.

'Right, and if I actually follow those directions, will they get me there?'

'Come on, if I was going to pull a prank on you, I'm not going to do the same one minutes after it was played on you the first time round.'

'So does that mean I should expect an initiation prank off you too?' She asked him, grabbing the wet goose and putting him down by here feet.

Nick grinned at her. 'Through those doors and on your left.' He repeated instead.

'Cheers,' she started off down the corridor.

'Hey, Rocky,' Nick shouted after her.

Cheryl turned and looked back at him, 'yeah?'

'Take it easy on those horses.'

Cheryl rolled her eyes at him, before heading off in the direction he had pointed, Eddie following her, like the faithfully puppy.