DISCLAIMER:Don't own it... No money made... Just for fun and enjoyment.

SUMMARY: Sequel to Displacement. The CSI team and their recently hired coroner Stephanie are back to work solving cases, sharing companionship and generally making their way through the dire world of criminal investigation with humor and friendship... This one will show the development of the relationship between Grissom and Sara and there should be some other surprises down the road as well. Romance/Drama/Angst/Mature Situations

RATING: M for Mature - I'm starting this one out at "M", since we won't be waiting quite so long for the smut this time out ;) Also, there is a sprinkling of language throughout the story.

A/N: All of your reviews have been fantastic and are really helping me maintain some sanity as I trudge through another bout of insomnia... And for anyone who has been treated to a little glimpse of that insanity, you have my deepest appreciation and sympathy. For everyone, I hope you enjoy the ride that's coming with the rest of this story. :D

REVIEWS: I am always looking for ways to improve my writing, and your reviews let me know if I am hitting my mark. Thank you in advance for the time you take to read & review this story.


Chapter 28

The street lights were just starting to come to life as Warrick drove into work. The days were starting to get shorter, and soon it would be pitch black when he made it into the Crime Lab parking lot for his shift. But for the time being, he enjoyed still having a bit of daylight to accompany him on his drive to the lab every night.

He thought about his conversation with Catherine at dinner, and lamented about the status of his life. Warrick was also worried he might have offended Catherine by not talking to her himself, but he guessed that, in many ways, he had been afraid of receiving her disappointment more than anything and so he had purposely avoided discussing the dissolution of his marriage with her.

He had long admired Catherine for her strength, for her courage and for her spirit. She never seemed to let anything get her too far down, without picking herself back up, every time. He also valued her opinion, and he had known from the beginning that she did not approve of his hasty marriage. So, when it did fall apart, he was sure she would let him know he had screwed up. Instead, she seemed to be genuinely concerned for him, and in fact, she simply offered him her support.

When it came right down to it, the only person who was really disappointed in him was himself. Warrick had always believed he would never take the plunge until he knew it was right, but when the rubber hit the road, he acted from fear and a sense of desperation. After what had happened to Nick, Warrick became convinced that life was too short to be cautious, and he made what he hoped would not be the biggest mistake of his life. The worst part of the whole thing was that he had known it was a mistake from the beginning, but he tried to convince himself that he could make it work. If only our hearts listened to our heads, that might've worked. The fact was, his heart was never really in it, and his only consolation came from the fact that his grandmother was not alive to see what he had done.

As he thought about his grandmother, he tried to imagine what her reaction would have been to his marriage. And the one thing he knew for certain was that the back of his head would probably still hurt, and she would still be clucking at him as she shook her head whenever she saw him. Grandmoms never had to say much, but I always got the point. But if Warrick Brown knew anything, it was that his grandmother was probably looking down on him and doing just that anyway. She had always loved her little "work in progress," and he always knew that, without a doubt.

His car pulled into the lot and he went straight to the first line of spaces. He was the shift supervisor for the night, and that meant he got to park up front. That was the only perk to his every other week assignment. He and Sara had been trading off Saturday Night Supervisor duty for a couple of months, and at least once a month he would cover for her as well. He enjoyed the responsibility, and he knew it would be a long time coming before he was any other kind of supervisor at the lab.

Between Ecklie and having some pretty hefty competition in the form of Grissom and Catherine, he knew he was far enough down the totem pole to have a good long wait for the next open spot, but he never wanted to be anywhere else either. He learned so much working with Grissom that he never even considered going to another lab. And, although he enjoyed working with her, Warrick had to admit that Catherine, while a great administrator, was not a great supervisor. He never felt like he was learning anything, or bettering his skills as a CSI when he worked under her. But with Grissom, there was always something to learn and there were always new things to discover about himself and his skills.

His next thought struck him as funny, and he chuckled to himself as he got out of the car. Sara does that, too. Sara was another one of those people that challenged you to be a better CSI, even if she was also learning right there alongside you. She was always thirsting to advance her own knowledge, and she had a way of teaching someone else the same things she was learning, at the same time. He knew, without a doubt, that Greg would not be even half the CSI he was without the time he had spent working with Sara during his first training phase. And if Nick was willing to admit it, he would say the same thing about himself. Everyone learned something from Sara, including Grissom.

Especially Grissom.

Warrick walked up to the reception desk, grabbed the assignment sheets from the clerk, and started going through them. That was when he realized he had forgotten to pick up Stephanie's dinner from the passenger seat of his car. So, he turned back around to get it. As he was exiting the building he ran into Detective Sofia Curtis.

"It can't be that bad already."

Warrick regarded her with a puzzled expression, "Huh?"

"Shift hasn't even started yet… So, can it be so bad that you're already leaving?" She gave him a tempered smile and he just shook his head.

"Nah… I forgot something in my car. You get the short straw this weekend?"

She leaned her head to the side as she walked in the door, "Something like that… I'll probably see you out there. Later."

Warrick shook his head as he walked back to his car. There was a mystery that needed to be left to someone else to figure out. When the woman was on days, she had been as politic as Ecklie, on any given day. It was rumored that she had covered his ass on numerous occasions, in the hopes that it would put her in the right place at the right time to be promoted. However, when the moment finally came, she had grown a conscience and done the un-politic thing; in other words, the right thing, and that move cost her dearly. Not only was she passed over for promotion, she was actually demoted, but in the end she was unable stomach the change in stature, and she left the lab.

When she showed up a few months later as a detective, everyone was completely shocked. Everyone but Sara, that is. When Warrick had questioned her about why she was not surprised by the move, Sara simply said that she had always suspected Sofia was nothing more than a status junkie, and without being able to make supervisor as a CSI, what better way to improve her status than to be a hero cop and prove everyone wrong about her. Warrick chuckled at that thought. Leave it to the second most socially inept person in the lab to be able to peg someone so close to the mark like that.

With the restaurant bag in hand, Warrick made his way back inside and headed straight for the break room to hand out assignments. There were only two cases, and neither one was going to take long to process the scenes, so he sent the weekend guys off to the bigger of the two; a hit and run on the strip, while he was going to head out for the trick roll at the Golden Nugget. But first, he had to take the food down to Stephanie, and check up on her, as he had been so ordered by Thomas and Catherine.

Thomas had called him that afternoon, when he had not been able to call her cellphone, so he had to make sure she was okay and that she called Thomas back ASAP, lest the poor man lose his mind any further. Catherine had also been pretty worried about Stephanie, and Warrick was forced to admit that the young doctor had been acting poorly all week. Her temper had been short, and he noticed that she was not sleeping a great deal as well. When he questioned Thomas earlier in the week, he was told that she was just in a mood and he should not make anything out of it. He also knew that she was having issues with the Adler case, and after finding out that she had known the man, it made a little more sense to him, but he was still concerned.

Once he pushed through the doors of the morgue, he was surprised to find the place completely dark. That was, except for the faint light escaping through the bottom of her office door. She had shut the place down, and even the blinds and the door to her office were closed up. Stephanie never did any of those things. Even when she was changing her scrubs in her office, the door was never closed, because he learned that most everyone had happened by there as she was changing. Well, everyone but Hodges. But not for lack of trying… The little weasel.

He knocked on the door and waited for her to answer, but all he heard was the random shuffle of papers, so he was forced to assume she was wearing her headphones again, and he opened the door a crack to confirm his suspicions. There she was, seated at her desk, surrounded by papers, folders and journals and wearing her headphones. What he was not prepared for was her pallor. She was pale and flushed at the same time and there were horribly dark circles under her eyes. He could only assume that she had not left her office since some time Friday, and that was when he knew he had to say something to his friend.

He walked up to the desk, and knocked on it to get her attention out of the book she was skimming through. When her gaze slowly made its way up to his face, she nodded and removed the headphones. "Hey," was the only word that escaped her throat before she was overcome in a monumental yawn. Once finished, she rubbed her eyes and face and added, "What's up?" before she was lost in another yawn.

"You… Obviously…" He put the bag down on top of the cabinet beside her desk and continued, "So, when was the last time you slept?"

She squinted up at him and thought about her answer a moment before asking, "What day is it?"

Warrick shook his head and said, "That's what I thought." He put the plastic bag with her dinner into the fridge on the other side of the room and then pulled the charger out of the small duffle bag. "Here, plug in your phone and get over here." He handed her the charger and she sagged a bit.

"Oh yeah… I guess I should charge the thing before Thomas sends out the National Guard, huh?" The last word was drowned out partially by the next yawn that came over her.

"Don't forget Catherine and Grissom, too." Warrick's face showed his dislike for the situation she was in, but she seemed to be oblivious to him. When she started coughing, he was unable to hide the shock on his face. "When did that start?"

She cleared her throat and said, "It's all the dust and crap on this stuff… It's kicked up my allergies and a little of my asthma."

"There's no such thing as a little asthma. You have an inhaler?" He was genuinely concerned at that point.

Before she could answer, another yawn worked its way out, but as the phone signaled that it was plugged in with a bleat, she answered, "Yeah, and I just took some more Benadryl, so I can't seem to stop yawning." She was rubbing her hand into her face again, as though she was desperately trying to stay awake.

"And maybe 'cause you probably haven't slept a wink since Thursday." Warrick shook his head again and gestured for her to come closer to him, "Get over here, girl." Without thinking about it, she walked towards him and he moved to get out of her way so that she could sit on the couch that had been moved into her office recently. "Now, you're gonna let that Benadryl work its magic and catch some Z's for a while. And when I get back from my scene, I'm gonna take you home."

"I only have a few more journa-…" She started to cough again, and the sputtering sounds she made as she coughed seriously worried Warrick. She was breathing more heavily after the coughing, "A few more journals, to ah, go through, so I'll ah, just do that and then I'll ah, go home… Okay?"

"When I get back, you're going home… Finished or not. Thomas is gonna kill me as it is." Warrick took his jacket off and bunched it up to put behind her head and then picked up her feet and put them on the couch as well. He looked around the room searching for something, "Hey, where's that blanket Gris brought in here?"

She pointed at the file cabinet in the corner, "Bottom drawer, under 'warm'." Warrick shot her a disapproving glance and she chuckled, "Just kidding… Bottom drawer is a pain in the neck for me, so I only put crap in there I rarely us-…" Her coughing started up again, and Warrick began to think he should call someone to come and get her. As though she sensed what he was thinking, she pointed an accusatory finger at him, "You call anyone, and I'm gonna shoot you. It's just my allergies and the asthma, why do you think I'm such a Nazi about dust at the house?"

Warrick could not help himself and he chuckled at her admonition, "Yeah, well, now that I see the results, I'll be dusting too." He pulled the blanket out of the file cabinet and spread it out over her, tucking it under her chin as a final gesture. "Now, get some sleep and if you get hungry, Lindsey got you some dinner from that health food place she found."

"Aw man… I wanted to go over there with her. What's it called again?" She coughed again, but that time it was more controlled.

"The Healthy Habitrail, if you can believe it." Warrick was still laughing about that name.

"Why does that word sound familiar?"

Warrick screwed up his face into a question, "Habitrail?"

"Yeah, it sounds vaguely familiar."

"I think you just handed me my AARP card, Steph." Warrick shook his head in disgust, "Plastic hamster and gerbil habitats, kind of like Space Lab modules."

"Oh yeah! One of the professors at Stanford had one in his office. I would always stop by there to see his pets when I visited Mom at school." She snuggled down into the blanket. "So, the food is in the fridge?"

"Yeah, and this old man is gonna hurry back here to get you sorted out before he gets shipped off to the nursing home." He turned and headed for the door, "And I'm serious, now… Sleep… I'll be back to take you home later, because you obviously can't drive like that." She nodded and then closed her eyes as yet another yawn took over her face.

Warrick walked out of the office and made a promise to himself to get back to the lab as quickly as he could.