Disclaimer: I do not own CSI or its characters. They're all property of Alliance Atlantis, CBS Paramount and Anthony Zuiker.
The tall, sharp-nosed man strode down the halls of the lab as if he owned it, as if he was the be all and end all of the Las Vegas crime lab. He certainly wouldn't disagree with that assumption should someone make it. This was his lab now. Not even Grissom had a say in it anymore. A pleased smirk settled upon his thin lips.
As he turned the corner, a pack of gossiping lab techs at the other end of the hall scurried like rats in a maze quickly dispersing to their respective labs. A Cheshire-cat grin replaced the smirk, pleased with the respect his presence in the lab commanded. That was until he realized that one of those lab rats was not daunted. Rather, the annoying little man was patiently waiting for him.
"Hodges," he greeted the eager lab rat hoping to discourage him with the tone of dismissal that heavily laced his words.
However, it had absolutely no affect at all on the lab tech. If anything, Hodges' chest just seemed to puff up even more with self-importance.
"Conrad," Hodges eagerly greeted the undersheriff completely ignorant of Ecklie's disdain. "It's so wonderful to see you again. It really has been a long time since we've had a chance to chat."
"Yes, a long time," Ecklie agreed sarcastically. Unfortunately, not long enough.
As Ecklie continued down the hall, Hodges fell into step beside him.
A quick glance to his left, really confirmed Ecklie's worst fear that he had not shaken the technician.
"Did you want something, Hodges?"
"Well, now that you mention it, I thought we could have a chat like the good, old days," Hodges replied. "You know, like before you were undersheriff and you weren't so inundated with pettily concerns." Hodges eyes suddenly widened in shock as if he had just realized he had insulted the very man he was trying to impress. He quickly rushed to smooth over his faux pas. "Not to say that you aren't busy with important business. Very important I'm sure. It's just…." He paused and looked around as if checking for listening ears. "Well, I'm sure as undersheriff you're even more so on the receiving end of petty complaints and whining. But what I had really wanted to discuss with you was this article I recently read about how to improve morale…."
With a barely concealed roll of his eyes, Ecklie picked up his pace hoping to shake his undesired tail. He had had enough already today, in fact, this whole week. He was catching hell from all corners. Riley Adams had suddenly up and quit earlier in the week bestowing a blistering review of the lab as part of her exit interview and leaving a short-handed nightshift team even shorter-handed. A serial rapist was on the loose with the media dogging his every step wondering what he's doing to catch the bad guy as if it was his personal responsibility. Then, to top it all off, earlier today, the sheriff had lectured him because the employees weren't keeping up with their mandatory training. Yet another thing he could thank Riley for as he was sure that it was her review that had the sheriff all hot and bothered, insisting that every CSI and lab employee attend sensitivity training. Sensitivity training, his ass! There was too much of this two-bit molly-coddling as it was. He could only imagine the stir that announcement was going to cause in the lab.
That's why he wanted to get in, get this damn announcement posted on the employee bulletin board and get out again before the night shift made their appearance. He knew that a confrontation with Catherine over this was inevitable. She was already spitting fire about being understaffed and overworked. Once she found out about these mandatory training sessions and how her people were going to have to put in even more hours just to attend, she was going to hit the roof and he wanted to be nowhere in sight when that happened. At least if she caught him at the end of her shift after she had a few hours to cool off, he might stand a chance of getting through that conversation alive.
"…so I was thinking the way to get around …"
Ecklie realized that Hodges was still blathering on and he hadn't heard a word uttered. He didn't know whether to loathe or encourage the trace technician. On one hand, Hodges kept him well-informed of the lab gossip that he as part of management was usually not privy to. Through Hodges, he knew who was cheating on hours, who was bad-mouthing him, and who was breaking the rules. On the other hand, Hodges had to be the most annoying person in the world. If he wasn't such an excellent little informant, he would've told Hodges off ages ago. Even he could only take so much brown-nosing.
"…the perfect solution. So what do you think, Conrad?"
And today, he was perfectly irritating.
"Don't you have some work to do, Hodges? If not, I'm sure we can find some field work for you to do."
Ecklie's abrupt interruption threw Hodges off-kilter as he spluttered, "Oh, uh, well, the gas spectrometer is analyzing the paint chip from Nick's case and the …."
"Why don't you go check on that? I'm sure Nick needs the results as soon as possible."
At last, Hodges seemed to take the blatant hint. With a sputter of confusion, a miffed Hodges turned on his heel and headed back to his lab with his tail firmly tucked between his legs.
With a shake of his head and a grunt, Ecklie continued on his way. Turning another corner, he walked past the break room before coming to a halt before the employee bulletin board. Rearranging a couple items, he tacked the newest fluorescent green announcement squarely in the middle of the board where it would catch everyone's attention.
With a quick cursory glance over the rest of the board, he was about to turn away when he noticed something different in the upper left-hand corner which over the past few months had become a to the night shift's former supervisor and co-worker. When they had first started tacking those dumb postcards up, he had been stunned and quite frankly, more than a little ticked off. Even after the man had left the lab, he still had to live in Grissom's shadow. He had decided right then and there that he wasn't going to put up with that crap anymore. He had had enough when Grissom was there. And don't even get him started about Sidle. He had promptly snatched that first postcard off the bulletin board and had just about ripped it up when his conscious kicked in. Instead, he dropped it on Catherine's desk and curtly informed her that the board was strictly for employee announcements only. That was just one of the many times he had had to deal with Catherine's fiery temper since she took over the supervisor position. They had gone back and forth on the matter until finally he gave up arguing his point. At least he had the satisfaction of knowing that he never actually given his permission.
He quickly counted up the colorful pieces of cardboard and came up with six. The last time he had walked past, he was pretty positive there had been only five and even though he could care less when one arrived – or at least he kept telling himself that – he usually knew as the lab would be abuzz for days afterwards. Even if he didn't hear it in his general wanderings of the lab, he could always count on Hodges to make a point of letting him know.
Glancing down the hallway first one way, then the other – he didn't want anyone to know that he, too, was reading Grissom and Sara's travel memoirs – he pulled down the postcard that seemed unfamiliar. An aerial shot of a stone wall undulating through a valley and over a hill along with the proclamation "The Great Wall of China" graced the front.
He flipped the card over and noted the postmark. May 6, 2010. Taking into consideration that it came all the way from China, it probably arrived a week or two after that – somewhere around the fifteenth to twentieth. That would explain why he hadn't heard about it. He had been at a conference in Philadelphia the entire week of the seventeenth.
The chicken scratch immediately clued him in that it wasn't written by Grissom but rather by his ….. companion. Immediately his blood began to boil. He would never, never forgive those two for putting him into the embarrassing position he found himself in when their relationship became public knowledge. Not only had he caught hell from his superiors – the lab director, Undersheriff McKeen – for allowing such a blatant disregard of the rules to occur under his nose, but he also couldn't do much about it afterwards. As a result of her desert ordeal, Sara had become a media darling. So much so that he knew if he tried to fire either Grissom or Sara or both as he should have done under normal circumstances and the media caught wind of it, the department would be caught in a public relations nightmare.
Unconsciously, his hand tightened into a clenched first until a sharp stabbing pain caused it to fly open. A thumbtack flew from his hand and landed on the floor with a crisp metallic ping as Ecklie watched a single drop of blood appear in the palm of his hand. Son of a …! Even halfway around the world, they were bringing him nothing but misery and pain.
Bringing his palm to his mouth, he sucked at the blood droplet and bent to pick up the thumbtack, then began reading.
Hey gang,
Sorry for not keeping in better touch these last few months but Gris was rushed to complete his research before the grant money ran out and I had been busy with the panda rescue organization. We left the research station a couple weeks ago. We spent nearly a week in and around Beijing then went further north for a while. We recently heard that last year's Costa Rican study will be starting up again in another 3 months and we've agreed to assist again so we are heading back west in a couple months. Until then, we're going to spend some time traveling taking in places we've always wanted to see. Tomorrow, we're taking a train into India. From there we plan on heading to Europe and maybe even northern Africa before heading back to Costa Rica. Keep sending those e-mails. We're reading them and enjoying them even if we don't always respond.
Sara
Well, those two sure were getting around, traipsing all over the world. South America. Australia. Asia. Now India , Europe and possibly even Africa. About the only place those two hadn't already been or weren't going to be in the next few months was Antarctica, although he wouldn't put it past them if they didn't head down there yet, too. They were such geeks. They'd probably end up signing on to study some dumb ice beetle down there or something stupid like that.
But beneath the disdain and irritation, ran a vein of something else. Something that if Ecklie had to put a name to it, shockingly, he'd have to call it….jealousy.
How the hell had this all come to pass? He just didn't understand that.
When he had started at the lab nearly two decades ago, he was newly married to his college sweetheart, a baby on the way and everywhere he went, he was recognized as the star basketball center for the UNLV Rebels. He got along great with his colleagues, spent many a night out at the bars with his friends and co-workers and it wasn't long before he had his first promotion.
Grissom, on the other hand, was none of those. Sure, he had a nationally renowned reputation in the scientific community but no one knew him walking down the streets. He was the geeky science boy who never had a girlfriend, who worked all hours of the day and night and could count his number of friends on a single hand.
Now, here he was. Divorced, kids barely spoke to him, receiving respect only because his title demanded it. And there was Grissom. Traipsing around the world with some hot chic – yeah, he had to admit Sidle was pretty hot even if she was pricklier than a cactus and had a temper quicker than a firecracker – at his side and able to get access to almost any research project in the world. People here at the lab still worshipped him and the phrase 'Grissom would have' could be heard nearly any day of the week.
He just couldn't catch a break. No matter what he did, Grissom won. He always won.
With a frustrated growl, Ecklie slammed the postcard back up on the bulletin board and jabbed the thumbtack back in place with enough force to shake the bulletin board.
Spinning around, he stomped down the hall with furrowed brows and a malicious glint in his eye.
When Hodges saw Ecklie returning, he quickly rejoined him in the hall.
"Conrad, if you want to discuss those ideas….."
"Go to hell, Hodges!" he barked as he continued on his way. Maybe the lab rat didn't deserve it, but at least he felt better!
TBC
A/N: Wow. I shocked myself by getting this out today. Sorry for the terribly long delay but I found this last season of CSI rather uninspiring. The last 3 or 4 summers, I have re-watched the entire series from the start so I'm doing that again. I started watching Season 1 earlier this week and have fallen in love with both CSI and GSR all over again so now the inspiration is flowing once again. Hopefully I can find the time to turn that inspiration into actual writing. Thanks for hanging in there. I would love to hear what you think so please R&R.