Sorry for the insanely long hiatus. I was stuck with no inspiration and a slightly depressive month. So I went and wrote an angsty House, MD fic. (Check it out if you know that fandom, the story itself actually doesn't suck too terrible, so I've been told.)

This chapter was a little easier on the old word-maker, and as promised, it is not as insanely short as last chapter. Very angsty, though, borne of almost a month of exams and other stress related issues. But we all love our doses of Hodges-angst, am I right? 

My usual thxies go out to all my friends who have taken a surprising (and quite frankly, embarrassing) interest in my little Hodges drabble-fic. LoAnne especially.

And reviews continue to make my day. As this was my first story, I was half-expecting to get flamed; it was amazing to be encouraged instead. So remember, reviews make the world go round 

P.S. – It has been pointed out to me that my characterization of certain people has been a little off, please tell me if this is still the case. Or if anything else seems off to you. Muchly appreciated.

Warning- Things start to get a little more rated-T this chapter, for mentions of abuse and autopsies and angst. (Wow, did you catch that? The whole A-thing I had going there?)

Disclaimer- I own exactly as much as I did last chapter, and the two chapters before that. If you need a refresher on how much that is, check back there. The chapter will still be here when you get back.

(My new year's resolution? Write shorter chapter intros.)

Looking straight at the autopsy table that held his worst fears on its stainless steel surface, Hodges did not feel his world folding on in itself as he expected he might. He did not experience a great epiphany about life and morality; he did not sink to the floor and scream to the heavens. He merely cocked his head to the left and focused his attention on the rather curious sensation coursing through his body. He felt numbness surge through his veins, like a sort of anti-adrenaline. He thought of anesthesia and hoped he wouldn't loose control of his lower extremities and collapse on the cold floor of the morgue in front of Dave and Doc Robbins, who were looking thoroughly confused as it was.

He looked at the table once more and said, simply, flatly, "Okay."

He spun on his heels and walked out through the exit doors, the image of composure and control. He didn't even have to turn around to feel the two men's stares on his back, looking at each other with the same question reflected in both their eyes: What in hell was that about?

Hodges was sure he should be feeling anguish and despair right now, or at least he was pretty sure he should be feeling something. Instead, he still felt as if he was on some sort of general anesthesia. It would have worried him slightly if he had been able to assess what was happening, but all he felt for the moment was the feeling that he was on autopilot mode.

He made his way back upstairs to the break room and grabbed a lukewarm cup of coffee from the counter, which he was reasonably sure was his from the end of his last shift. He sipped at it and tried to savor both its bitter taste and the numb tingling feeling still holding his body captive.

He had a sense he would need both of them to get through whatever else the universe decided to lob at him within the next few hours.

She barely even noticed when the words started to dance across the screen this time.

Catherine forced her eyes to uncross and shoved away the little demon inside her head that kept screaming little words of 'encouragement' to her. Just think how easy it would be to fall asleep right here in this inhumanly hard lab chair, think of all the hours of sleep you could be catching up on, think…

About this poor woman, who needed Catherine to speak for her now, as she couldn't. She rubbed her eyes with closed fists as she had back in her collage days, when she was trying to make biophysics or something equally mind numbing click in her head. She read over (for what seemed like the thousandth time) Megan Gilesby's personal information. She had what looked like an ideal life in the suburbs of L.A. with a photography career, and a husband of 6 months. Add near-perfect credit and no children (thank God for small favors) to the list, and Megan's life seemed absolutely normal. Catherine kept a jaded attitude toward the whole thing, though. She, of all people, knew what looked good on paper wasn't always rainbows and butterflies in real-time.

Before her mind could travel further into all the times she had seen a victim's 'perfect life' interrupted by a hidden debt or an abusive spouse or something equally morbid, she cast around her brain for a different topic.

What she came up with was Hodges.

His behavior in Grissom's office earlier had put the CSIs in a state of unease and slight trepidation, especially after Catherine and Warrick informed the others of Megan's dying wish to see David. The use of Hodges' first name and the possible implications had not escaped anyone.

Catherine tilted her head back and rolled her shoulders in an effort to loosen some of the knots that had formed there. She did not need another mystery to solve right now, and she most definitely did not need the guilt that was trying to form in the pit of her stomach as she remembered how harsh she had been to Hodges beforehand.

A shrill ringing pierced through the calm serenity of the abandoned lab.

She jumped about 3 feet high, and wondered why her phone always rang in the silence, effectively elevating her heart rate every single time. It never rang while she was in the company of people she would rather have the meeting cut short

Ecklie

with. The height of her jump had absolutely nothing at all to do with the amount of caffeine her system was currently contending with.

She held the cell to her ear, and almost did a face palm as she realized pressing the talk button might help stop the ringing.

Following the appropriate steps before putting the phone back to her ear this time did indeed stop the ringing.

It was Brass, an unidentifiable emotion in his voice. Whatever news he had, it didn't sound like it was going to bode well.

"Willows".

"Cath? Brass. Uhm...Megan Gilesby. You want 3 guesses what her birth name was?"

She sighed, almost imperceptibly. She had a suspicion she knew exactly where Brass was going with his game of 20 guesses. "Lemme take a wild guess…Megan Hodges. Or am I totally off the mark with this one?" She desperately hoped she was wildly off the mark, but the analytical scientist in her knew the pieces fit too well to be pure coincidence.

There was a moment of silence on the other line that told Catherine everything she needed to know. Brass eventually said, "You have been spending way too much time with your boss, Catherine. That was much too Grissom-esque for my taste."

Brass sounded slightly put out by her spoiling the big surprise, so she quickly filled him in on Hodges' peculiar reaction to the photos.

"So, Megan was Hodges' sister, or what?" The woman in the photos was too young to be his mother, and too old to be anything other than a sister.

"Yep. I called the mother; she's coming up from Palm Beach. And the husband in L.A, he should be here by tonight. Might want to warn Hodges that his family will be having a little reunion here in Vegas. I don't think they're on the best terms with each other."

"How would you know that? He's never said anything about his family, did he?"

"It was just the way the mother didn't seem overly devastated on the phone. I mean, she wasn't happy or anything, but there wasn't any crying going on either."

Great. All we need is more tension around here, Catherine thought exasperatedly.

"Thanks, Brass. You get anything else on Megan?"

The answer was negative, only that he was headed to the lab now. She thanked him again and killed the connection.

Well, this sucks, Catherine thought dejectedly, using one of Lindsey's favorite phrases. Thinking of Lindsey jogged her memory, and she whipped out her phone to leave her a message on the home phone: She wouldn't be home tonight; there were leftovers in the fridge, call Mrs. Nicosia if she needed anything. The usual.

Another knot of guilt tried to form in her stomach, but she forced it away for further consideration later. Mourning the amount of time (or lack thereof) she had spent with her daughter lately wasn't going to change her current situation: How to tell a coworker he has just spent the afternoon processing evidence from his own sister's murder.

He ambled into Grissom's office just as calm and collected as he had left the morgue, and lowered himself gently into a chair that had been pushed up against the wall. Grissom did not look the least bit surprised to see him; Dave and Doc Robbins had probably already called him.

It never failed to amaze Hodges how his boss seemed to be able to pluck thoughts out of his head and voice them, almost as if they had been his own. "Dave and Al called me already. The team should be here any minute."

Hodges was glad Grissom had thought to call everyone together; he would rather not have to tell this story 5 different times.

It hadn't taken long for everyone to assemble in Grissom's office. Everyone was hungry for a lead on this one; it had been an uncooperative case from the get-go.

As he was about to begin, his mind made an uninvited contrast. With all of them sitting there looking at him like that, he couldn't help but be reminded of his childhood, telling Megan stories as she sat, hanging on his every word as if they were liquid gold. He took a shaky breath and closed his eyes. This was going to be harder than he thought.

While Hodges was trying hard to get his bearings, the CSIs exchanged uneasy glances. Catherine and Brass were the only ones with a real grasp on what was going on; Nick, Warrick, Sara, Greg and Grissom were still majorly in the dark.

Just as they were all wondering whether or not one of them should say something, Hodges spoke suddenly, shattering the silence.

"I want to know what happened to my sister." Everyone except Catherine, Grissom and Brass either gasped or shared wide-eyed looks. This was pretty high on the list of ways they had not expected this conversation to start.

Grissom spoke first, in his most reassuring-yet-firm tone of voice. "We don't know. We need to shed some light on who Megan Gilesby was. Hopefully, what you can tell us will give us some leads on the case." Interpreting the look on Hodges' face, he added, "Start at the beginning."

"Beginning…" Hodges murmured under his breath, and after a moment more, his voice gained strength as he finally began.

"I haven't seen her since I moved to Vegas, but we talked on a regular basis. She would call me every month or so, just to see how things were. Neither of us have talked to our parents in…years. We spent our childhood taking care of our terminal father. He had lung cancer, and Mom thought it was our duty to be there as his body slowly suffocated itself.

"By the time I was ready to go off to college, and Megan was graduating from high school, he was practically in a vegetative state. Drastically decreased brain function from the painkiller cocktails the doctors had him on; he needed a ventilator to breathe, and constant monitoring was required. I just… we didn't want that to be our life. I took the money I had been saving and put myself through college on my own, and Megan took the full ride she had been offered. We abandoned out parents, and left Mom to deal with everything on her own. She practically disowned us after that."

The anesthesia feeling was definitely starting to wear off now; he could feel a dull ache in his chest that he was sure would only increase with time, once he had a chance to evaluate all that happened with a clear mind.

He had already said much more than he had planned to, but judging by the rapt look on the CSIs faces, he had captured their attention with his soap opera of a childhood already. " Neither of us ever called, wrote, or made any efforts to reconcile things. I guess we were still annoyed at having our lives controlled by something we had no control over, but in my mother's eyes, I'm still a disappointment for trying to make a life for myself. We both are. Were."

Everyone looked at Hodges, resident lab rat, shocked beyond words. Catherine shook her head imperceptibly, amazed at how well he had hid this. He had never shown any signs of something like this in his past. It was possible he had been a little touchy, a little more withdrawn whenever a tragic case involving tough family issues had come up, but hadn't they all? And, truthfully, during these particular cases, it was the CSIs who had been most affected by them, because of the close proximity they had to work around the broken family in question. Or, so they had thought. During these (and most) cases, they had enough trouble keeping their own emotions in check, barely noticing any irregularities in Lab Rat behavior, unless it was blatantly obvious. And usually, it wasn't.

Hodges continued in a rushed tone, his own emotions catching up with him fast. " So, we went on with our lives and tried hard not to think about our family if we could help it. She lived in L.A. Back when I lived there, we saw each other at least once a week, and she still called me regularly here in Vegas. Although…" He stopped abruptly, an odd look crossing his face.

"What? Although what, Hodges?" Greg Sanders looked concerned, and reached out a hand. It looked like he had been going to put his hand on the other man's shoulders, but thought better of it at the last minute and ended up poking him gently. "Dave?"

The use of his first name seemed to prod him out of his thoughts. "She called me a few months ago, she said she met this guy. He was smart, and funny, and the usual. But ever since she met this guy, I've been hearing less and less from her. I had my suspicions, obviously, but it wasn't as if I could just take off to L.A., find her, and tell this guy to back off. For all I knew, she was perfectly happy, just busy." He shook his head at his own stupidity. He hadn't taken enough of an interest in his sister's life, and look what had come of it.

Before anyone could tell him it wasn't his fault, he couldn't have known, he looked at Brass. "You said you called her boyfriend? Was he at home?" He couldn't have killed Megan in Vegas, flew back to L.A, and still have had time to get back home in time for Brass's call.

"He's a prominent businessman. I got a hold of his cell number and called that, figuring he's the type of person who would carry it with him everywhere he goes." He paused, and added, "That's not the type of thing you leave on an answering machine unless you absolutely have to. He could have been anywhere when he took that call, I didn't think to trace it at the time." He shrugged and looked almost warily at Hodges, as if expecting him to take out some of the anger that was common in the families of the recently deceased out on him.

But the lab rat seemed to be disregarding the Five Stages of Grief completely, at least for the time being. He was managing to keep a check on his emotions for now, although his hands had begun to tremble slightly.

Catherine, wanting to stop this conversation before it really got going, interrupted the exchange between the two men by saying, "Hodges. You need to go home, and get an uninterrupted night's sleep. We will call you if something critical comes up, all right? You don't need to stay here."

He looked her in the eye and said, evenly, "If this were me, she wouldn't sleep." He pauses, trying to decide what he should say to follow that up, but finally just decides on, "I'm going to go do something productive. My phone'll be on if there's a new development."

With that, he started back to the Trace Lab to re-run all the evidence he had just finished processing. He wasn't taking any chances with this one.