Putting the Past Behind Us

After a long two weeks of writing this I finally finished the first chapter and I feel very accomplished. LOL. Anyways I really hope you like this, enough said.

Disclaimer: I do NOT own CSI, or the characters you recognize. I give all the credit to the brilliant people at CBS and anyone else involved with the series.

Spoilers for 1x04 Pledging Mr. Johnson.

"Gil? I said after knocking on the side of his door and putting me red hair behind my ears.

The man looked up from the paper he was reading and smiled. "Katie." He stood up and hugged me. "I haven't seen you in a long time. You look good, and grown up might I add." I put my hand on the small hump on my stomach, which didn't go unnoticed by Gil. "You're pregnant?"

"Three months." I said biting my lip.

"You never told me about this on the phone." He accused.

"I was going through a hard time." I started, "The father, who was my husband, decided to leave me when he found out." That wasn't all he did, but I decided to leave that part out. I looked down at my feet, ashamed, "I guess I didn't want another person to leave me in the dust."

"When you told me you lost your job in Dallas it wasn't because of budget cuts, huh?"

"Yeah," I admitted. It was because of the baby. They didn't like me to begin with, they were always looking for a reason to fire me and then they got it." I shrugged.

Gil arched his eyebrows, "You won't be a problem here, right?"

"I was never a problem there." I stated. "They just had something against me from the beginning." I always suspected it was because they thought I had something to do with their best crime lab employee leaving Dallas. I chose to never tell anyone about my theory though. Even if I did have something to do with it I wouldn't have known, he left without telling me goodbye even though we'd been engaged.

"My employees will treat you with respect, and if they don't they'll be answering to me." He promised.

I chuckled a little before turning serious. "Thank you, Gil, for everything. This job is a life saver."

"This job," He paused and looked at me seriously, "Will not get done on its own. Sara!" He yelled at a woman walking by in the hallway. "Just the girl I was looking for."

The brunette frowned and walked into his office. "You could have just paged me." She said.

"This is Katie; she's CSI level three, transferred in from Dallas. She'll be working with you on that 419 at the frat house."

She looked a little unsure but nodded anyway taking orders from her boss. "I'll take you to the garage. My partner will meet us on the way there."

I nodded; "I'll talk to you later, Gil" I walked alongside Sara down the halls of the crime lab. There was something eerie about this place but I couldn't put my finger on it. Maybe it was the way it was lit. The one in Dallas was always bright but this one was quite dim.

"Hey, you changed shirts." Sara said pulling me out of my thoughts.

"I wasn't about to go to Greek row looking like a grandpa." I knew that voice anywhere and when I heard it I froze, stopping dead in my tracks. Both CSIs turned around and looked at me, Sara's expression was one of confusion and the man's was just pure shock.

"Nick?" I almost screamed.

"Katie." He said quietly. I tried to wrap my head around the situation but found that I couldn't.

"You two know each other?" Sara asked.

"Sara, whatever you do, don't date him. Promise me that, alright." I warned and then stalked off heading to the women's restroom, Sara right on my heals.

"Are you going to tell me what's going on here? Or are you going to make me pull it out of Nick?" She asked, once inside.

"Can we just focus on the case, and then I'll deal with this." I said looking at myself in the mirror trying to figure out just how to deal with it.

She nodded hesitantly, "Just don't let your emotions compromise the case."

We walked out of the bathroom and headed towards the garage where apparently Nick was waiting in the car. He had a troubled look on his face but she couldn't figure out why. He'd been the one that left me, not the other way around. I would think that him seeing me wouldn't be troubling but maybe it was for Nick. After all he wasn't very predictable.

I got into the back seat not speaking to or looking at Nick. No one spoke a word as we drove down the road to the scene, which I then realized I knew nothing about. I was hoping Sara would bring it up to break the awkward silence but I decided to do it on my own. "So what's this case about?"

"Murder at a frat house," Nick answered quickly.

"I'm thinking hazing gone wrong." Sara added.

"Ah Nick, you'd know a lot about that wouldn't you?"

"Zip it, Katie."

"What'll you do about it?" I asked.

He turned to face me with an expression that would scare anyone. Thank God we were at a red light. "I will-"

"Okay!" Sara yelled, saving my ass. "Number one, Nick the light is green, you need to go. And two, can we just talk this out later like the adults we are. Someone's gonna compromise the case and I will be really angry." She had a point so me and Nick shut up. He grumbled something that I couldn't quite make-out. The rest of the ride was silent and it was just like the silence from before, awkward.

I could see the campus from where we were on the road and the frat houses were not far if I remembered correctly.

I've been to Vegas once. That's when I met Gil. Ever since that trip I've talked to him on the phone at least once a week and he always seemed to be at his office, never at home.

"Let's unload." Nick said once at the house. I grabbed my kit and jumped out the door, looking at the house, reminding me of old times. "I can't believe I used to live in a place like this. It seems like a hundred years ago." He said.

"And here I had all this respect for you." Sara teased.

I sniggered at her comment, "I can believe you lived here. You were just like all of them. What I can't believe is how I fell for all of you. Looking back now it makes no sense."

"You two went to college together?" Sara asked in disbelief.

"Yeah," Nick said shortly. We walked into the house to see a group of guys waiting for us. "Guys, Nick Stokes. This is Sara Sidle and Katie Andrews. We're with the crime lab."

A man stood up to greet us "How you doing? I'm Matt Daniels."

"Hey, Matt," Nick greeted.

"James is upstairs if you guys want to follow me." Matt said. Soon he turned and left the group of men. We walked up a staircase and down a hall into the room where a body was hanging from the ceiling.

Another detective was already in the room. He and Sara greeted each other warmly and in my opinion I'd say that they knew each other.

"Good God," Nick said looking at the body. I could tell this case was going to get to him. Anything that reminded him of old times would have.

"Did you find a suicide note, Detective-?" I asked, wanting to know his name.

"Detective Kane," He replied brightly, "And no, we didn't find one."

"Don't release anyone downstairs. We want to talk to them. All of them." Sara said.

"Coroner pronounce?" Nick asked.

"Twenty minutes ago." Detective Kane answered.

"Let's get him down." He said turning away. Knowing Nick he was probably thinking about how that could have been him eleven years ago if he hadn't gotten into his frat house.

The body would have been heavy but since there were three of us it was easy and we were onto the next thing in minutes. "Sara can you start processing? Me and Katie are going to go talk to the brothers." Both Sara and I looked at him, unsure. I knew what kind of problems this could cause, and truth is we would probably start fighting, but eventually we both agreed.

"So I saw the baby bump." Nick said once we were walking down the hallway.

"Three months in." I said confirming.

"What ever happened to your no sex before marriage rule?"

I could have told him that I had been married before I came here but I decided to let him sweat it out, maybe put him on a guilt trip. "When you left, I did some things I regret."

"What are you gonna blame everything on me?"

"Yeah I am, because you know that it's all your fault." I told him flat out. I got no response from him as he kept walking forward. "Nick?"

"Let's interrogate these boys." I rolled my eyes and shook my head annoyed.

"Fine, but I won't drop this." I said.

We approached two boys "Was James depressed?" Nick asked.

"You could say that." One of the boys, who introduced himself to be Kyle Travis, said.

"Could you say that? I mean, the kid's 18 years old, he's got his whole life in front of him. Why would he want to hang himself?" I asked, a little suspicious.

"I don't know. He didn't get in?"

"Get in…?" I asked, knowing full well what they meant.

"The fraternity. Pledging. I mean, it's not easy."

"Apparently not," I said under my breath.

"So, you guys let James know he wasn't getting in, right?" Nick said over me.

"Yeah. I told him last night. I'm the one in charge of dinging pledges." Matt spoke up.

"That's a big job. How'd he take it?" I asked.

"I think you know." My eyes narrowed as I glared at him.

"We'll be in touch," Nick said before directing me back to the stairs. "Next time could you at least pretend that you don't want to murder him?"

"You know I hate being talked back to." I shot at him. He rolled his eyes. "So why didn't you ever call?"

"I was looking forward to forgetting." He paused, "Everything."

"You gonna leave Vegas now that I showed up?" I said trying to keep my voice even and show that I wasn't as mad as I really was.

"I can't do that," He said. "I have found a true family here."

"I wasn't true family?"

"That's not what I said-"

"Are you gonna come in and help me or am I going to do this all by myself while you bicker like little kids." Sara said. We hadn't realized we'd been standing in the middle of the hallway in front of the door. And we really weren't sure how much Sara had heard. I breezed by Nick hitting him with my shoulder as I walked by.

"What do you need help with Sara?"

"Actually there is nothing in the room that proves murder, but I still think one of those kids had something to do with it."

"You're thinking they forced him to hang himself as part of his initiation." Nick concluded as he walked in behind me. "And then promised to get him down but never did."

"It's a possibility." Sara said. "But I'm done here so we can head back anytime." We loaded what little evidence that we had and headed back to the lab. The whole ride was silent with occasional humming coming from Nick.

"If you want to go down to autopsy I can stay here and process." I said once we were in the lab.

"Here's the trash I collected at the scene, it's mostly just beer cans." Sara said.

I gratefully took it trying to get away from the awkwardness as the two of them headed off. When I dumped the evidence on the table to get a better look at it I noticed that Sara was right, it was all beer cans.

"Is this the evidence from the frat house murder?" A man with the tips of his hair bleached asked.

"Yeah," I said.

"I'm Greg by the way." He said extending his hand.

"Katie Andrews." I said, "Are you here to help me?"

"Yeah, Nick sent me."

"Of course," I was irritated with Nick; it was like he was watching me to make sure I didn't screw up.

"So, where do you want me to start?" Greg said snapping on his gloves.

"I'll swab, you run it through CODIS and against the frat boys DNA. We'll see who drank from what beer can." It was silent while I ran the first couple of beer cans but I hated silence and something told me that Greg did too. "Do you know Nick well?"

"We're friends, been out a few times, why?"

"Does he ever talk about his life in Dallas?"

"I know he worked at the crime lab there and that he went to Texas A&M," He was thoughtful, "He did say that he had a girlfriend that he left, or fiancée, I don't know."

"Did he ever say her name?"

"Nah, he said he just wanted to forget," He paused, "I think that's also why he left." I nodded trying not show that I was upset. "I would hate to be that poor woman, you know?"

"Trust me, I do." I said trying not to give anything away.

"Why all the questions?"

"I don't know, just wondering, I guess."

Suddenly his eyes got wide, "You have a crush on him." He said.

"Oh, no, nothing like that."

"Whatever you say," I knew this would come up again and eventually I would have to tell Greg the truth but I was starting to like him, and I knew he could keep a secret.

"So, Katie, our frat boy was signed." Nick said coming up behind me. I started laughing hysterically, not being able to keep it in. Nick rolled his eyes and Sara, who was standing next to him, looked confused.

"What's so funny?" She asked.

"Katie-"Nick warned, but I had to tell her.

"When we were in college and Nick was trying to get into his frat house, he had that initiation." I paused laughing some more. "And guess who signed him?" I could see Nick turning red with embarrassment.

"You did not." Sara said in disbelief. I nodded, "Oh I did not need to know that." She said, shaking her head.

"Wait you two went to college together?" Greg asked. I forgot he'd been standing there.

"Yeah they did, and it sounds to me like they had a little bit of fun." Sara remarked.

"She wouldn't let me have any fun," Nick mumbled. I smirked remembering how many times Nick came onto me. "We're going to go back to the frat house and ask about hazing. Katie, can you finish up these cans?"

"Sure thing. Good luck!" I yelled at their retreating backs.

"You are the girlfriend that Nick left, huh?" Greg asked me.

"Fiancée," I confirmed.

"I am so sorry." He said.

"You have nothing to be sorry about. You didn't make Nick come here." Just then Greg's pager went off.

He sighed, "Grissom has some evidence that he wants me to go over, think you can handle the rest of these?"

"Yeah, there are only three left." I said laughing. He left the room and I went back to processing. It turned out that the beer cans all had different DNA from a different frat boy, just proving that there was a party.

I had nothing else to do until Nick and Sara came back so I decided to sit in the break room and wait. I flipped through channels on TV landing on one that interested me and decided to take a lunch break early.

"Oh, you're in here," Nick said as he walked in.

"You're back, did you find out anything?"

"Well we got them for hazing, and Sara is getting the results from autopsy. Anything weird with those beer cans?"

"All of them had different DNA samples."

"Could have been the stuff they used to shower him with." Nick said thoughtfully.

"What?" I asked, confused.

"They caught him signing himself in the bathroom, and then they showered him in beer." He said, "I'm so glad it never came down to that."

"Nah, you're just lucky I was there to do it." I teased. "What are you making?" I asked when I saw him putting something in the microwave.

"The coroner's prelim on the frat hanging." Sara said walking into the room, waving a folder around.

"Bust it out." Nick said.

"What is that smell?" Sara asked sniffing the air.

"I was just trying to figure that out." I said.

"I'm nuking a burrito." He answered simply.

"Mmm, junk food and radiation-good combo." Sara said. I sniggered at her comment.

She put the folder down on the table and began reading, "A strip of raw calf's liver was found lodged inside the cleft of victim's throat. Cause of death: Choking."

"That's weird." I said.

"Mm-hmm. That's interesting." Nick agreed.

"Microscopic threads of fabric were found embedded in the liver." Sara added.

"We need to talk to those two boys." Nick concluded, "Me and Sara will bring them in, Katie, sit tight."

"Why is it always Sara that gets to do everything?" I said before thinking, "I mean I don't have anything against you I-"

"I get it." She nodded.

"Look, Katie, next time…" Nick started.

"Go! Before you forget all this stuff or something." They walked away. "I'll be here when you get back." I mumbled to their backs.

Thirty minutes passed before one of them finally came back. It was Nick, "We went back down to autopsy after the suspects said they did CPR-"

"When were you going to tell me you were doing this?" I asked, annoyed.

"We probably should have told you, but you were out of our way and we went straight there, but I'm telling you now." I shrugged urging him to continue, "We also have the name of who signed him and you're coming back to sorority row with me."

"Ah, great. I finally get to get off my ass and do something." I said getting up from the chair.

"Look, what you said to Sara earlier-." He started.

"I know, it was wrong. I'm gonna apologize later." I said. "And I wasn't really saying it to her."

"You were saying it to me." He completed.

"Yeah, I was. Because I swear there's something going on between you two."

"Whoa, whoa, whoa. Me and Sara! You've gotta be kidding." I shook my head, "We are just really good friends, I swear."

"Alright, I don't buy it." I said getting into his car.

"Why? Are you jealous?"

"If there's one thing I would never do, it would be being jealous of you." I said. I could tell that that struck a nerve because he visibly winced when I said it. I don't think he knew how to react to that because he never replied to me. I didn't know what else to say so I didn't say anything, and we just sat in silence.

"Alright, sorority row." Nick said, "This must bring back memories."

I laughed, "Way too many. It's funny how all of them look the same."

"The streets?"

"Yeah,"

"Well I guess if you've lived here for four years that maybe they would." He paused, thinking. "I have a question."

"Shoot."

"Well actually it's more like a thought."

I was a little nervous about what he had to say, but carefully I urged him to go on by nodding, "Okay."

"I want to know who the father of the baby is, but-" He said sharply, "Then again I don't, because if it's someone I know I don't think I'd be able to resist the temptation to go back to Texas and murder them."

"If you knew, I promise you wouldn't murder him." We were standing outside the door to the sorority now. "Why don't we go in there and talk to this girl?" I said, changing the subject. Thankfully he agreed and we walked in.

There sat a girl, which I assumed was Jill, on a couch. She was playing with her hair, which always raised suspicion for me. Nick got out the picture of her signature and showed it to her. "Jill, we need to ask you a question. Is this your signature?"

Much to my surprise she started laughing and covered her eyes in embarrassment. "Oh, my god. Oh, where did you get that?" She asked.

"Where do you think?" I mumbled.

She turned serious, "You don't think that has something to do with what happened?"

"We don't know yet. That's what we're trying to find out. How well did you know James?" Nick asked.

"Uh, he was pledging my boyfriend's house. We're Greek; I mean... we sign them. They sign us..."

"Ah, we know how that goes. You would not believe how many signatures I had." I said. Nick glared at me. "Did he sign you? Someone could have gotten jealous when they saw other pledges signatures."

"The only one I could think of that would be jealous is my boyfriend."

"Who's your boyfriend?" Nick asked quickly.

"Kyle Travis." She said.

"Thank you, Jill." I said. Me and Nick walked out the front door and back to the car. "I don't think she did it."

"Really? What made you think that?" He asked sarcastically.

I ignored him. "We need to find a way to prove that Kyle Travis is guilty."

"Back to the dorm?"

"Yeah, definitely."

We walked across the campus and seeing all of those college kids reminded me of the good old days. It was hard, especially walking through it with Nick. I knew we'd have to talk about what we we're going to do now, but that could wait. "So, Katie, about the father…"

"Nick you already said you didn't want to know."

"Yeah but now I'm curious."

I decided that telling him I divorced his best friend was not the best idea, but I would tell him who the father was. "Cal Marcus." I said quickly.

Nick didn't speak for about ten steps, and I didn't blame him. This was a lot to drop on a guy, and, as tough as he was, I knew Nick would have a hard time with it. "You mean my frat brother Cal?" He said angrily, "My best friend?" He shouted. We stopped walking now and people were starting to look at us.

"I told you that you didn't want to know." I said quietly, ashamed.

"Is that why you left Texas?" He asked.

"Part of it," I said and continued walking.

He nodded, "Did he hurt you, Katie?"

"Let's just go process this dorm room, alright?" I said pushing past him and through the doors, ignoring his question. The dorm room wasn't far away so I hurried down the hall and waited for Nick to break the seal, not talking to him. "We're looking for fibers right?"

"Yeah, fibers, liver-anything to implicate these guys." Nick said. He walked across the room to a trash can.

"Sara already emptied the trash." I told him.

"Then why is this full?"

I looked the opposite direction to where another can was sitting. "Why would someone have two trashcans?" I asked.

"That's not exactly relevant. But this," Nick held up a bloody string with a loop on the end, "is."

"What the heck is that?"

"The murder weapon."

I raised an eyebrow. "Okay so those boys need to be talked to again. Do you and Sara want to do it?"

He frowned but agreed. "I'm gonna need to know the answer to that sooner or later, Katie. You can't hide that for long."

I nodded and started to walk back to the car while Nick packed the string in an evidence bag.

It took him awhile to catch up, although, I didn't know why. Maybe he was trying to gather his thoughts. "So who looks good for this to you?" He asked.

"Who do you think?"

"Kyle Travis. But I think we should talk to Matt first, get him to crack." We were in the car by now, the walk back from the dorm seemed a lot shorter than the walk to. "We'll make a deal with him or something. We'll say if he gives up Kyle his frat house can be saved, seems logical to me."

I nodded, agreeing. "I was never one for deals, but that sounds like a good idea."

"You know, we've gotta tell Grissom about the situation we're in eventually." He said.

"Yeah, Gil should know."

"Gil?" Nick asked. "Everyone calls him Grissom, well Catherine doesn't sometimes."

"Catherine?" I hadn't met a Catherine yet.

"Just be nice to her and you'll get along." Nick said. "Don't get on her bad side."

I wanted to ask why but I figured I would see for myself. "We should tell Gil," He eyed me from the driver's seat, "Grissom, about us as soon as the case is solved and we have those kids behind bars." I got out of the car and walked into the gloomy crime lab.

"I'll bring him in," Nick said, "You get Sara."

I walked down the hall and to the break room where I imagined Sara would be. Since this case left us with little evidence there was hardly anything to do. My first case was proving to be an easy one, although I knew not all of them would be like this. I told Sara what Nick was doing with Matt and she practically ran down the hall, not wanting to be late for the interrogation. I turned my attention back to the fridge and grabbed a bottle of water then turned quickly in attempt to not miss the interrogation, but instead I ran into a very tall man. "I am so sorry." I told him. "Not exactly the first impression I want to make."

"Nah, it's cool." He offered me his hand, "Warrick Brown, CSI."

"Katie Andrews." I said shaking his hand, "Also CSI."

A look of realization hit his face, "Oh, you're the new CSI Grissom brought in."

"Yeah, I haven't seen you at the lab at all."

"I've been busy, are you on the frat case with Nick and Sara?"

"Yeah," I said. "Look I'd love to stay and chat but I've gotta hit this interrogation. I can't really miss it."

"I was just about to go watch myself."

"It's always nice to watch with someone." I smiled. He wasn't a bad looking guy; maybe sometime I'd take him out for a drink or something. "So have you been working here long?"

"About a year longer than Nick." He said, "We've become good friends though." I guess that drink wouldn't happen after all.

He opened the door to the viewing room for me "Thanks." I said. The interrogation was well under way; I assumed I had missed the whole thing.

"Hey, Matt you know why I joined a fraternity? 'Cause I wanted to belong to something - the brotherhood. That's what it was all about for me, you know what I mean? So, I'm going to cut to the chase here, bud. You come clean, you might be able to save your house... save the brotherhood, but ... if you don't ..." He trailed off.

"This is weird, he doesn't talk about his past often and now he's just sharing it with a suspect." Warrick said.

"I could tell you so much about Nick's past that the stories would last all day."

"You and Nick know each other?"

"Oh yeah, we go back a long way."

I knew he wouldn't press any further, but I'm guessing that he could sense the tension in my voice when I spoke about Nick. "Everything you're trying to protect you'll destroy. Matty, I found the string. Now are you ready to tell us what happened after James got back to that house?" Nick asked.

"Okay," Matt agreed. "I asked him to show what he had signed. All the boys were screaming in the back ground. I just remember the look he gave to Kyle when he took them off. It was so smug. Kyle faked being impressed and asked him to go upstairs. Next thing I know I'm in that room and Johnson's dead." He said. "Kyle said his dad would bail us out. He told me to stay quiet, and that was that." Sara looked at Nick and he nodded as the guard took Matt away.

"I'm glad that's over."

"I have somewhere I have to be, I'll see you later." Warrick waved and left the room. I followed and met Nick and Sara in the hall.

"Well we got 'em." I said. "I wanna talk to Kyle; tell him what's going on."

"I'm with you on that one." Sara agreed. The three of us went to holding and found Kyle Travis in a cage. The sight made me smirk and knowing he would be there for the rest of his life made me feel triumphant.

"Is my dad here yet?" Kyle said as he lay on his bed.

"No, but when he gets here, you can tell him. New charge: First degree murder." I said.

He shot up quickly, now sitting on the bed. "No way, come on. That's ridiculous."

"You're boy rolled over on you, slick." Nick said.

"One thing about the fraternity upstate, the brotherhood's fantastic."

I laughed at Sara's joke. "Oh yeah, they're gonna love you." We walked out and much to my surprise, Nick asked Sara for some alone time with me.

"You ready to see Grissom?" He asked.

"Ready as I'll ever be." The two of us, together, walked down the hall to Grissom's office, not sure what to expect. But there was one thing we both knew, somehow we were going to have to put the past behind us if we wanted to work this out, and it was going to be hard.

Like? Love? Hate? Review it! They mean a LOT :)

-Emily :)~

P.S. Ahhhh!!! The premier is this week!!! The summer suspense has been killing me!!! LOL.