DISCLAIMER: Don't Own It, No Money Made... Just for fun & enjoyment.
RATING: M for Mature. For language and mature situations in later chapters.
A/N: How long did you guys think she would be able to keep her identity a secret in a building full of top notch investigators? Seemed like a lost cause from the beginning, didn't it? LOL Time for someone else to figure it out and join the inner circle.
REVIEWS: Thanks to all who have reviewed. Many thanks to Manigault for having been there from the start. Feedback has a way of working its way into an WIP... And your last comment reminded me of something to I needed to do in the writing phase (which included Chapters 18 & 19).
Chapter 14
It was just after ten o'clock in the morning when Stephanie submitted her last final report for the shift. "Thank God!" She had said as she was shutting down her computer.
David, upon hearing her exclamation, poked his head inside her office door, "Finished?"
She looked up to find David standing in her doorway with his jacket and briefcase, "Oh yeah… And only a few hours overdue."
David chuckled, "Great first week, huh?" She huffed her answer, "Hey, I do have some good news…" She perked up a little at his tone, "With that last case, you set the county record for most posts by a single person in a week."
Stephanie gave him a blank look before answering, "You have got to be kidding me?"
"Nope, Dr. Robbins was just commenting about it to the County Coroner. Busiest week ever in our shop, and you handled twenty eight out of fourty one cases." David actually looked proud of those numbers, and Stephanie realized that he probably was proud, since he had assisted on at least twenty of those autopsies.
About midway through the week, he had commented to her that it was unusual for him to get to assist quite that much, and she understood he was also proud that she had placed so much trust in his abilities. The fact of it was, she had just assumed that things worked the same way here as they would in Los Angeles, where the assistants were on the same level as O.R. nurses and that was what they did. The only thing she thought was different here, was that they did not have a budget for the pickup men they had in L.A. County.
After hearing that from David, she had questioned Dr. Robbins about letting him assist so much, but Al thought it was a great idea and that it would also be good for David to get that kind of experience. After all, David was still in school and was looking to become a full-blown medical examiner, he just had not decided about the medical school angle yet. Stephanie had decided it was going to be her job to convince him that it was the way to go.
"So, you mean it's not like that around here all the time?" David shook his head and laughed, "Well, that's at least something to look forward to… A quiet week."
"You're going to regret saying that." David was obviously feeling comfortable with Stephanie after their intense week, because at the start of their week he still had the appearance of a timid rabbit around her. Stephanie decided that if this was a result of their surviving a week like that, then maybe all the hell was worth it.
"You're probably right…" She sat back in her chair contemplating something, 'I shouldn't have shut that down so soon… You don't happen to know a good cab company?"
David looked confused, but tried to come up with an answer, "Well, Midtown is good, but why do you need a cab?"
"Oh, I forgot to tell you… The Thing became the Undead this morning." She looked down at her watch, "And my fiancé has been in bed for about two hours, and my last chance for a ride left here about an hour ago." She was resigned to her plight, and she had calmed down quite a bit from her earlier fireworks shows. She guessed that exhaustion did have some perks.
David looked around and at his own watch, "Well, I have some time before I pick up Sandy for lunch over at UNLV, so I could drop you off… If you don't mind squeezing into a Honda, that is."
She leaned forward, "Are you sure?"
David just shrugged, "Yeah, I don't see why not… Didn't you say your place is close to Desert Palms?"
She stood up and grabbed her bag, "Yeah, just a few blocks from the ER entrance."
"Then let's go, I always take the back way over there anyway, to avoid the traffic, and it takes me right past the hospital." David smiled as she walked towards him.
"David, you have just made my day… It is a new day, isn't it?" He nodded and they both laughed as they walked out of the morgue.
David was right, Stephanie had fun squeezing into the Honda, but once inside the car she was fine, and they enjoyed the short ride over to her neighborhood. She had learned about David's interest in the SETI project, and she had to admit, even though the topic was foreign to her, his enthusiasm was refreshing. She also had a chance to inject the seeds of encouragement for him to attend medical school and become a real pathologist. She truly believed he had what it took and medical school would be the ideal environment for his confidence and his skills to build.
When they pulled up in front of her home, she thanked him again, "David, you've been a huge help, and I hope your fiancé knows what a lucky girl she is." He blushed at her compliment, "You have a great weekend, and I'll be back in the trenches Sunday night."
"Thanks, Dr, MacInnerney… And you have a good weekend, too." She waved him off as he pulled away from the front of the townhouse. Once he was down the block, she could hear the sound of her baby's engine revving up coming from the other side of the house, and she wondered how in the world Thomas had pulled that off.
She quickly unlocked the front door, went inside and dropped her things in the chair, making her way to the garage at the back of the house. She threw open the door and called out to him, as he was hidden behind the hood of the engine compartment, "Hey! Since when did you learn how to fix a c-." She was stopped cold when the head that popped up over the top of the hood was not that of her fiancé. Instead, she found the smiling face of Warrick Brown. "Where in the hell did you come from?"
Suddenly, Thomas was walking up behind her with a couple of beers in his hands, "Is that anyway to greet the man who just resurrected that beast from the dead, sweetheart?" She turned to find the smiling face of her fiancé as he passed her to hand Warrick one of the beers in his hands, as the other man made his way around the car. "Here ya go, man…" He turned back to Stephanie, "Take this one, I'll grab another… I hear you need it more than me." She felt the warmth of his lips on her cheek as he passed by her, going back into the house.
Warrick took a drag off of the bottle, and wiped the sweat off of his forehead with a rag before speaking, "Hey, girl… Catherine told me you were havin' some car trouble. Figured I'd swing by and see if I could at least diagnose the problem…. Hope you don't mind." While he waited for her to respond, he took another pull from the bottle.
She finally got over the shock of finding a CSI in her garage and spoke, "Talk about having the worst and the best week of my life." She shook her head, and Warrick laughed.
"Yeah, that seems to be a problem with our group. Must mean you belong." They both laughed that time and that was when the tall, brown-haired doctor returned with another beer.
"What's the joke?" He asked just before he took his own drink and put an arm around Stephanie's waist.
"Other than my week, and my car?" She leaned against him when she responded, and when he pulled her a little closer, she put her head on his shoulder.
"That's okay, babe… Weeks get better, and Warrick here has that thing sounding better than I've ever heard it sound in the seven years I've known you." Thomas tipped his beer in Warrick's direction.
She stood straighter at his mention of the car, "Yeah, I heard it when David dropped me off out front… What in the world did you do to my baby?"
Warrick shied away from her compliment and brushed it off with his hand, "Not much at all… Your carburetor was just clogged and I tweaked it a little, too. Other than that, I was actually surprised it wasn't something big. You've kept that thing running top, girl. Where'd you learn that stuff?" Warrick was duly impressed with the condition of the over thirty year old car.
She just shrugged it off, "Mom came of age before Women's Lib, but she liked to hold her own, so she took some auto maintenance classes. She passed it on to me." She looked at Thomas before continuing, "And it's a good thing, because this one barely knows how to pump gas, let alone change a tire."
"Hey now… I am a surgeon, you know." The two had a private communication between them with their eyes, but they all laughed at her taunting. "Well, now that you're here to entertain our automotive saviour, I'm gonna head off to bed..." He kissed her quickly on the lips and turned to go back into the house, "I have to make rounds at five o'clock, and check in on a patient who had bypass this morning, but after that, I'm yours."
She watched him go back into the house and called after him, "Just as long as you don't wake me up when you leave… Again." They could faintly hear his acknowledgement of her jibe, but just barely. She turned back to Warrick, who was shutting off the car and closing the engine compartment. "Hey, Warrick… Thanks, man… This really means a lot to me; you have no idea."
"Don't sweat it… I figured it was the least I could do." He was wiping his hands with the rag with no luck in getting all the grease and grime off.
Noticing what he was doing, she slapped her forehead, "Where are my manners? Why don't you come inside to get cleaned up while I fix you something to eat?" She walked back into the house and gestured for him to follow.
"Hey, don't go to any trouble or nothin'." He looked from side to side once he stepped inside the house.
"No trouble at all… I'm keeping you from your wife, and you just fixed my baby" She pointed over to his left, "Bathroom is there on your left. Hand cleaner, towels and such are under the sink." Once she recognized that he saw which way to go, she turned and went into the kitchen, calling behind her, "I'll have something ready for us by the time you're done in there."
She took out everything she needed to make them a couple of sandwiches and set to work. By the time she heard the bathroom door open, she was cutting the sandwiches in half and putting them on plates. Warrick walked in just as she was returning the last of the fixings to the refrigerator, "Hey, you made quick work of that."
He smirked a little, and looked at his hands, "Well, I make my living figuring out the dirty details of people's lives, so you learn a few things about getting the grime off at the end of the day."
She sighed at his remark and looked inward for a moment, "Yep, everyday, you meet people on their worst day." She looked back at him and into his eyes, "Kind of helps you keep things in perspective, huh?"
Warrick thought about it a moment, and it was in that moment he realized this was a woman who looked at life in a way that few ever understood. The second thought he had was; she reminded him of what Grissom must have been like before whatever made him so closed off had happened. She was smart; genius even. He knew she was young, and had finished school early, but she was not just book smart, she had some wisdom, too.
Before he had more time to think about it, Stephanie was inviting him to sit down and eat, "Come on, it's more comfortable in the other room…" She looked back at the rustic table set up in the kitchen, "That's the first thing I need to get rid of around here. That man has no taste in tables or chairs." She ushered him into the living room and set their food down on the coffee table, "Thankfully, he at least knows living room furniture."
Warrick had to stifle a laugh, "Yeah, well, guys only worry about the important stuff."
"Men…" She noticed that his beer was empty and took the bottle from him before she asked, "So, you want another beer or something else?"
Warrick looked at his watch and then at her as he contemplated sitting down on the couch, "Ah, what'cha got?"
"Iced Tea, Lemonade, Apple Juice, Milk and I think I have ginger ale, too." She called out from the kitchen behind her.
"Iced Tea would be great," he called back. He was just about to sit down when something on the opposite wall caught his eye, so he crossed over to get a better look. There were a bunch of pictures on the wall, and he could trace the last several years of their lives in those pictures, but there was one picture in particular that stood out. She was smiling broadly, wearing a cap and gown with her arms around two men. One of the men was the one he had just met this morning (also in cap and gown), but it was the other one that had him reaching a hand up to his face in shock. Standing there, with an uncommon smile on his beardless face was Grissom. That was how Stephanie found him when she walked back into the living room and had to scan the room to find him.
"Oh crap!" Warrick turned to find her standing there in the entryway with her head hung down, "I completely forgot about the pictures." She walked over to the couch to set the drinks down and then turned to face the music.
Warrick just shook his head in disbelief, but at the same, it just made sense, "I shoulda guessed that." He met her eyes and they were filled with shock from his statement, "I mean, you two don't look nothin' alike and all, but you got the same brain. I guess I just never pictured him for a Daddy."
She could not contain the laughter, and it burst from her like an explosion. Warrick was totally confused by her outburst, but he waited until she said something before he said another word. After a few moments, she appeared to have caught her breath and put a hand on his shoulder, "Gil is NOT my Daddy! Oh man, that really is funny." She pointed to another picture of herself and an older couple, "THOSE are my parents. Gil was a co-worker and friend of my Pop's, and he just became a part of our family. Heck, he's been around so long, I'm not sure I have any memories without Uncle Gil in them." She walked over to the bookcase on the next wall and grabbed another photograph, "This is one of my favorite pictures."
She handed him a picture of a fresh faced Grissom in a black suit and a much older man in a police uniform. "They had just gotten back from a patrolman's funeral and I was testing the camera Gil had given me for my fifth birthday. Notice how the angle is a little off?" He did notice that he felt almost like he was looking up at them from the photograph.
"Uncle Gil made me re-take it from a better perspective, because he said their height would be distorted and crime scene photos should always have proper proportions." She held the picture again, "But that was how I saw them, and it was the picture I kept all these years. When my Pop passed away a while back, I gave Uncle Gil a copy of both pictures in a frame; one to see how they really were, and one to see how I always viewed them… They have always been bigger than life to me." She carefully returned the prized photograph to the bookcase.
Warrick was still in a bit of shock, but now his curiosity was taking over, "So, why're you two keeping your relationship on the down-low?"
She tilted her head to the side and gestured for him to have a seat on the couch, once he did she passed his glass of tea over and took a sip from hers, "Well, I got the job without him knowing, and I wanted to prove myself without anyone else knowing." She took another sip from her glass, "See, people treat you differently if they find out you have connections. And it's even worse when you work in the same field as your connections."
Warrick looked out across the room, trying to process all the information, "So, I can see how you got the job solo: your work speaks for that one. But I don't get why you'd hide bein' related to Gris?"
She let out a breath quickly, "Well, it's one of those double-edged swords, being his protégé opens some doors and slams other ones shut. Some people are going to accept me, simply because I was his 'prize pupil.' And other people, they're either going to expect me to be him, or they are going to want to put me down because of him." She looked him in the eye for her final statement on the matter, "Sucks either way, and I prefer to make my mark BEFORE anyone finds out the truth. Then, I get what you just did; 'shoulda guessed that.'"
He had to admit, he would have been biased if he had known she was related to Grissom, and figured that people would base that bias depending on their general feelings towards the man. Warrick tried to imagine how he would have felt if everywhere he went in his profession, there was, not one, but two people for him to live up to or to live down for the rest of his life, and what he could imagine was not a pretty thought. "I think I can picture that. But you know it ain't gonna last forever, right?"
"Oh yeah, I already blew it with Catherine the first day."
Warrick had to laugh at that one. Leave it to Cath to sniff out the rat. "That figures."
She was shaking her head, "I should've been more prepared for her, I mean, she is his best friend and all." Warrick gave her a puzzled look, "Oh, Uncle Gil told my Pop and me all about Catherine when he first started working with her. Told us she was super sharp and came from a whole different perspective. Said she was teaching him more about the human element of things." She chuckled to herself a bit, "Pop tried to tell us that he thought maybe Gil had finally found someone to make him happy, but Mom and I both looked at each other and went; 'Nah!'"
Warrick had to laugh about that one, too. He had always wondered if Catherine and Grissom ever had a thing, but he had never gotten up the nerve to ask either of them about it.
"Mom and I both knew that the only way Uncle Gil would EVER settle into a relationship, was if he could find his intellectual and social equal, and she would also have to get his twisted sense of humor, and not have a problem with bugs. And Pop would always add, 'She'd have to work with him, too… If she ever expected to see him, that is.'"
Warrick pinched his smile, and looked over to the side to think about that one before he responded, "Yeah, that sounds about right."
