Title: Teach Me
Summary: From the after effects of Grave Danger, the CSI team are faced with the past and repercussions of the lab explosion. And no one takes it harder than the victim himself; Greg. Just my own little mind trying to vent my frustration over TPTB's lack of continuance over "Play With Fire".
A/N: This was technically supposed to be the last chapter. However, my stupid brain isn't letting me do that. There's probably going to be a couple more chapters to annoy you guys with.
Disclaimer: Don't own CSI and all its characters, whoever owns them, owns them. But it's not me- though I wish.
CHAPTER 7
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The constant shift from day to night duty and then back to day again screwed up his bio clock. Captain Jim Brass couldn't decide to wish his neighbours goodnight or good morning at times, but he solved that problem by not wishing them at all. A smile and a wave suffices well. Hell, the only time he had to greet the next-door occupants were when he came home at the ungodly hours and his neighbours peeked through the windows, wondering if they should be using the 911-speed dial.
And here he was, at the crime lab this early in the morning. The good thing about being divorced and living alone is that no one cares if you don't even use the apartment you pay rent for every month. His car was parked at his usual parking slot, something that made him happy since this meant he wasn't going to have let air out from the car tires of the jerk who kept occupying Jim's favourite spot.
The keys jingled softly in his hands as he marched to the front door, his mind wondered of his first hot brew of coffee for the day. Once he had swallowed down his first cup, he'll be ready for the maniac murderers and murderesses of the Vegas insanity.
"Hey!"
So much for having his coffee before anything else. Jim found himself butt first on the parking lot floor and as he attempted to peel himself up, he searched for the cause of his fall. "Sanders…" he half sighed and muttered exasperatedly. "You want to try walking with your eyes looking in front next time?"
"Sorry," Sanders replied, already done dusting himself and was helping Jim up.
"And yes, I'm fine, thanks for asking." Jim sarcastically added, peeved for having the ex-lab rat ruin his perfectly perfect day.
Sanders shrugged, "Nice to know."
Now, this was the odd part. On any normal day, Sanders would've laughed and tried for a half thought of retort. But not today. "Something wrong?"
Jim had counted up to five before Sanders finally answered to that, and it wasn't even a proper reply. "Huh?"
"I said if you were OK?" he repeated his words in a different context.
"Yeah, I'm good."
It wasn't until Sanders was walking away and had set a few feet between themwhen Jim finally decided that something was indeed wrong. "You know what, Sanders?"
He turned behind slowly, but the look of numbness was still plastered on his face.
Jim continued with his small speech. "I've been in this enforcement business for decades and after thousands of interrogations, it's nice to know I can definitely pick out a liar."
"You saying I'm a liar now?" Sanders had eliminated the distance he made before.
"I'm saying that you shouldn't be playing poker, unless you intend to lose." He opened out his arms as if to show his surrender, but his held on to his thick face expression remain. It was a technique he mastered while trying to look indifferent; comes in handy when interrogating the lying murderers.
Shaking his head and snorting, Sanders waved his hands in the air, "Whatever," and backed up again, preparing to move off. But he didn't. Instead, he stopped somewhere in his third or fourth step. "You didn't… you know." He paused and contemplated his words over. "Never mind."
"If you meant whether I told anyone?"
Even with Sanders' head lowered, Jim could see him swallow hard and nod slowly.
"No." the detective simply answered. "That's between you and Gil." Sanders nodded again and stood still on the spot despite the sun's burning rays. Jim, however, moved behind and retreated into the shade of the building. Throwing his keys into the pocket of his slacks, Jim felt the smooth plastic of the box. Pulling it out, he drew a cigarette from the Marlboro pack and lit the nicotine stick with a lighter. "It's been more than a year since then, why are you asking me now?" Even with all he had to do, Jim was curious.
In fact, Jim had been curious about many things since he accidentally stumbled upon a secret meeting he was never meant to witness.
It was a routine search of the suspect's life and his everyday life. On the guilty man's own organiser was a number to one Dr. Cameron. Jim had traced that to a private therapist downtown. Partially his fault, he went in unannounced but as the gentleman that he was, he waited until Cameron was done with her visiting patient.
As a young child, he was told that shrinks were for the nut jobs and the whacks. And even though being a cop had sometimes strengthened and more often changed his perception on it, he would never be ready to meet the two men who had exited from Cameron's counselling chambers.
He stood up and straightened his coat, making sure his badge was in his front pocket as the door creaked open revealing a shocked Gil Grissom and Greg Sanders as their eyes locked. The short but slightly plump Cameron ushered them out and asked who Jim was and his business for being there.
"I'm just here to ask about a possible patient of yours?" Jim never took his eyes off the two people he knew so well. Or at least he believed he knew them.
"I'm sorry, but unless you have a warrant, I'm not allowed to divulge any of my patients' information."
"Is that so?" Jim knew asking her about Gil and Sanders would be useless, so he pulled out a slip of paper and presented it to the blonde therapist. "Well, it's a good thing then that I have one right here."
Gently taking it from Jim with all the politeness of an educated lady, Cameron looked up and smiled. "Then let's talk in my room. Liz," she called out to her secretary, "hold all my calls and have the next patient wait a while, please."
Before he had followed the woman into her room, Jim received a nod from Gil signalling that he was going to get a story from the supervisor later. Sanders, on the other hand, looked like all he wanted to do was to blend in with the walls.
When he had returned to the lab, he discovered Gil in the break room, knowing that Jim was a creature of habit, alwaysfeeding his coffee addiction before proceeding anywhere else.
"Hey, Gil."
The seasoned CSI flattened the folder on the metal table and greeted him back. "Jim."
"How are things?"
"Fine. Thanks for asking. And how are you?"
Jim was done stirring the sugar into the cup and moved forward. "Not bad." He drank the brew down in one big gulp, not caring how hot it was because sipping coffee was for the artsy-fartsy kind.
"We need to talk, Jim."
"What about?" He knew what it was about, but Jim decided maybe it was better to play dumb and to humour Gil.
"Won't you take a seat?" As Jim did so, Gil sat up a little more and weaved his fingers alternately to be placed on the table. "About today at Dr. Cameron's, Greg had an appointment with her. He's regularly visiting Dr. Cameron for a few sessions."
Jim had waited for a few more moments, expecting Gil to continue with a reason and not just give some lousy halfway explanation. When nothing came out, Jim made his own conclusions. "Oh, I see. What is it this time Gil? Alcoholism like Sara had or is it like Catherine's urge to take cheques from suspects? Oh wait, maybe it's like Warrick's gambling addiction."
"It's not like that,"
"No?" Jim brushed the cup aside to his right. "Gil, you've been covering for your people too long. It's not going to make you or anyone else look good when the sheriff finds out."
"I told you about Catherine's case because I trusted you." His voice had raised a notch.
"And I haven't told a soul. But if you're going to do things behind my back; make sure I don't find out." Jim had pushed himself away from the table and headed for the glass door. "And if I do find out, whether by shear luck or on purpose; I want to know what's going on."
Only one foot had made it pass the door when Gil came to Greg's defence in full vengeance. "Greg is not an alcoholic nor is he a gambler!"
Pulling back into the break room, Jim looked out and slowly swung the door close, hoping to make their exchange less noticeable. "Then what the hell is it, Gil? Drugs?"
"For the love of God, Jim!"
If he hadn't witnessed hundreds of suspects jump up and slamming their fists into objects, Jim would've been startled by Gil's own version of such an outburst. Instead, when the CSI had smacked his open palms on the table, Jim's only response was to raise an eyebrow.
The cup of coffee he had left on the furniture rocked a bit and sloshed dark liquid on the table. Jim figured that the only way any of them could cool down was by calmly taking a seat. Gil obviously thought so as well as he sat back down.
"Dr. Cameron is an old friend of mine." Gil went on. "She agreed to see Greg with his problem."
"What problem is that?"
"Since the explosion."
It was so bluntly obvious that Jim felt like kicking himself for not thinking of that. For a small window in time, Jim felt a slight pang of guilt, but he knew that feeling guilty was never going to get him anywhere. Soon, the guilt disappeared. "Go on."
"Greg can barely work at times, mostly in fear of what might happen again. He came to me for help and I'm helping him."
"By seeing this friend of yours; Dr. Cameron?"
"Yes." Gil said. "I've been going with him since he feels uncomfortable meeting her alone."
"But why hide it? Why so secretive?" there were a thousand and one questions why Gil and Sanders would hide something so normal and expected.
"Because, Greg doesn't want the department to feel that he's a liability that they should dispose of. Is it so wrong to help a man keep his job- and his sanity?"
Jim shook his head and sighed, "No, Gil."
"Are you satisfied with this?"
"I just don't see why you couldn't tell me."
"Don't feel insulted, Jim. No one else knows, and let's keep it that way."
They let the quietness pass before anyone uttered a word, and when that happened, it was Jim to do so. "Sanders' secret is safe with me. I know what it's like to want to hide something so badly. As long as it's not killing or hurting anybody. And I didn't mean to offend." He tried hard to keep the last sentence as care free as possible, hoping to make it sound like it didn't matter if he had said it or not.
"If anything, I feel somewhat touched."
"Touched? For making it sound like you were an overbearing, selfish boss who was trying to cover up his team's mistakes?" Jim scoffed.
"No. For being a friend who cares."
"You must've misinterpreted what I meant, then."
Gil smiled and stood up, "I'm sure you meant what you meant. It takes a good friend to find out the truth but a true friend to act as if nothing happened."
"Who said that?"
Jim could see Gil enjoying the moment as he replied to that question. "You did, Jim. A long time ago."
Moving down the corridors after being left by Gil, Jim hovered at the DNA lab for a while. Looking in, he saw Sanders concentrating hard on his work. No loud music was playing or any funny antics. Just the plain sterile silence of the place. Indeed, Jim knew how he had to hide his demons of his own drinking problem, covering up his depression from his divorce. The only regret he had was not having someone like Gil to help him through it. Sanders was lucky, and blessed for having someone who cared.
Jim left Sanders to be, just poking fun at him occasionally hoping to get back the humour. But the meeting at the therapist was well hidden as he promised, so it was a slight surprise when Sanders asked him whether he had opened his trap to anyone. And he hadn't. There was no way in hell he was going to betray Gil's trust even if the two men had had their differences.
The heated conversation between him and Gil felt so long ago, and now here he was standing at the corner of the building, under the porch and being questioned about his promise. The man that stood in the parking lot with Jim now, was a far cry from the one who had been sheepishly avoiding his gaze at Dr. Cameron's office. The question he asked still lingered in his ears: 'It's been more than a year since then, why are you asking me now?'
After the long silence, Sanders finally decided to follow Jim into the cooling shade and answered, "I guess my conscience is getting me." He shrugged again and eyed Jim's cigarette. "I thought you quit?"
Taking in a long drag, Jim savoured the burnt aroma of tobacco and paper. "You're not the only one who's changing things after Nick's ordeal. I figured life's too short to not enjoy it with a few sinful pleasures."
"Yeah."
"Look, Sanders. In my line of business, we're faced with plenty of questions. Like maybe if I had ducked instead of swerved? Or if I had taken the right and not the left, someone could still be alive or another could've died. The thing is, it's in the past. You gotta live beyond it and not in it."
"Funny, you should say that."
Tapping his smoke to free some of the ashes, Jim questioned him silently and waited for a response.
"I sort of said the same thing to someone else."
"Then do me a favour?" The stick was almost at its end of life. "Take your own advice."
"Maybe my advice is flawed." He flatly stated.
"Well then do me another favour. Go talk to someone other than Gil. Don't get me wrong, I mean, he's a great guy but you're going to get more by sharing with someone else than with a person who sits in an office filled with insects and instant preserved body parts in a jar."
"I was talking to someone abou-."
"And I'm not talking about Dr. Cameron either." Jim anticipated whom Sanders was going to mention. "I mean someone who understands your line of work and that can tell the difference between fingerprint dust and mascara. Get what I'm saying?"
A weak grin fluttered across Sanders' lips. "Think so."
"Good."
"I'm going to go now. I'll see you around, cap."
Jim sucked in the last of the cigarette and finished it off by putting it out with his shoe. Knowing how the janitors hated litter, the captain made sure he swept it in between the blades of grass and hidden from plain sight.
The rich tones of a ringing mobile phone went off and Jim's head dove for his phone only to realise it wasn't his. Looking up and scanning around, he noticed Sanders had his cell to his ear. He could've sworn he caught Sanders saying 'Hey, Grissom' into his phone.
"You heading in or out?"
Jim turned and smiled at the pretty CSI, "Clocking in."
"Too bad." Sara grinned back, "I was going to ask you if you'd like to have breakfast with Greg and I."
"You having breakfast with Greg Sanders?"
"Why? Is that wrong?"
"No," Jim shook his head in disagreement, "Just that I had a chat with him and sounded like he didn't have any breakfast plans."
"Well, I haven't asked him yet." She chuckled, but Jim could see her eyes sparkle even behind her sunglasses. "Guess I should go ask him now before he leaves. Bye, captain."
He lifted his hand to wave at her even though she hadn't bothered to turn behind to acknowledge it. Standing there to watch her walk up to Sanders, the younger man held up his hand, silently telling Sara that he was on the phone.
Hopefully, the two would get a good meal because allJim needed now was a mug of coffee that he'll take down in a gulp. And not sip it in the artsy-fartsy manner.
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TBC...
Like to thank Krazykid197and Hyperactive Forever for the reviews.
Thanks to everyone else for reading.
-Cheers
Jo