I finally managed to find some time out of my already hectic schedule to write! Whoo! Well, enough chit chat. Here's the next chappie of Unlikely Beginnings!
P.S. I know I made some allusion (?) to a traumatic night happening in Josie's childhood, but it was supposed to be when she was sixteen, not fourteen. I don't know how my fingers typed fourteen… Weird.
Disclaimer: You didn't think, I'd forget this, did you? I don't own CSI or anything affiliated with it. I only own the Pacelli family, Jenna and the sick, twisted serial killer that came from my sick, twisted mind… I'm pretty sure I got all my friends worried.
CSI
Josie slammed the door of her car, getting her kit out of the passenger seat. She stretched, trying to keep herself awake. Almost three months into the job and she still wasn't used to the hours. She contemplated switching to the day shift, but where was the fun in that? As her cousin used to say, all the crazies came out after the sun went down, except in New York.
Besides, she was comfortable working with everyone from the graveyard shift. She rolled her eyes. Well, everyone except for Stokes.
She made her way to the crime scene, this time an alleyway. She ducked under the crime scene tape after flashing her badge. She looked at the victim, once again a female in her early to late twenties. The vic had blonde hair and was covered with a blanket. She looked so peaceful that for a moment, Josie thought she was sleeping, until she saw the blood. She smiled at the CSI working with her tonight, Sara Sidle.
"Marissa Kane, 25. A couple of teenagers were playing around here and one of them tripped over her. Thought she was asleep, until they saw the blood," Sara said, answering Josie's unspoken question. They both studied the victim for a moment.
"She's so young," Josie sighed. Sara smirked at her.
"She can't be any older than you," Sara pointed out.
Josie shrugged. "True, but she's still too young to die, let alone in such a violent way." She looked at the vic sadly.
"Well, let's start processing the body," Sara said, breaking the silence. Josie nodded and pulled on a pair of gloves.
Just as she was about to uncover the body, she heard an unfortunately familiar voice greet, "Good evening, ladies."
She groaned. Of all the CSIs that were available, it just had to be Stokes. She stared up into the sky, thinking, what did I do to deserve this punishment?
Spending time with Nick Stokes was just about appealing to Josie as getting shot in the gut then being run over by a truck, twice. She closed her eyes, praying that it was just a nightmare. That hope was dashed when she heard Stokes call out irritatingly, "Oh, Pacelli, I didn't see you there. What are you doing out from your cage?"
Josie gritted her teeth, telling herself that it wouldn't be worth it to punch Stokes, no matter how satisfying it would feel. She didn't want to lose her job. Still, Stokes made it hard to remember that whenever he opened his mouth. She didn't care if he was attractive.
Her eyes shot open. Did she honestly just think Stokes was attractive? Stokes, of all people. She shook her head. Perhaps she was a little bit more sleep deprived than she thought.
She scowled at Stokes before smiling sweetly at him. "I could ask you the same question," she replied in a sugary sweet voice. "In fact, I can't believe you're even let out of the house most days."
Sara stifled a snicker, keeping her eyes trained on the photographs she was capturing. She found it amazing that two people could hate each other so much yet be able to work together so well. She smiled secretly to herself, remembering the bet that was running against the both of them.
"That's something coming from you," he retorted. "Have you looked in the mirror lately?"
"Yes, I have. Have you?" Josie shot back. "I have seen Chihuahuas with prettier faces than you."
"Really now? I have a few people who would disagree with you."
"Guys don't count, Stokes."
His cheeks coloured slightly. "They weren't guys, Pacelli. They were perfectly sane females."
"Girls, then?" she snorted. "How old were they? Sixteen? I think I can excuse them for their inexperience." She smirked. "I knew you couldn't handle women, let alone a real woman."
"And who would you consider a real woman? You?"
"Not necessarily, although you wouldn't even be able to handle me."
"You wanna bet?"
"If you two children are done," Sara interrupted loudly, trying to suppress a smirk. "We have a body to process."
They glared at each other, communicating to each other with their eyes that it wasn't the last of it. Sara snorted softly. It was amusing to listen to those two bicker, but it did get irritating after a while. After all this time, she still didn't understand why Grissom insisted on putting those two on the same case together.
Josie's eyes shot to the vic and she knelt down next to her, removing the blanket. Her lips thinned. "Long gash across the jugular. Deep enough to cause death, but shallow enough for it to be slow," she stated. Her eyes made their way down the body. "Multiple lacerations on the arms and legs." Her lip curled when she saw the huge Greek beta carved onto the woman's abdomen. "Carving was probably made post-mortem."
Her blue eyes shot to Sara, darkened to a navy blue. "Serial killer?" she asked.
Sara's grip tightened on her camera slightly. She shook her head, her shoulder length hair whipping into her face. "It's too early to tell."
Josie let the blanket cover the body, feeling slightly sickened. Working in this line of work as long as she had, not a lot made her sick. However, looking at the work of this bastard made her sick to the stomach. That he could so carelessly and unfeelingly leave a body out here, probably to rot…
She shook her head, shaking those thoughts away. If she kept thinking like that, she'd go crazy in two weeks tops.
Leave work at work, she told herself firmly. You gotta leave work at work. Don't let it worm its way into your thoughts. It'll eat you alive.
Wordlessly, she started processing the scene. The other two CSIs looked at each other, a little alarmed at her mood change.
Finally, Josie sighed. "Guys, as much as you two would love standing there and looking pretty, we do have a scene to process."
The three of them worked in silence for a while. Josie rolled her shoulders, feeling a little unsettled in the quiet. She sighed to herself. She knew she was acting a little out of sorts, but the phone call she had gotten before she left for work wasn't exactly the best news.
She didn't know what her mother was thinking when she called her, but ten seconds into the call and Josie already wanted to shoot herself. As usual, she was berating her about not coming back home and visiting. Ordinarily, she would have, but her mother had grown even more distant as the years went by. She tried to act the part of the caring mother, but she wasn't fooling anyone.
If anything, she had grown more spiteful of her children, especially her youngest. She held young Mia responsible for their father leaving her. It wasn't fair of her to blame Mia for that, considering the fact that Mia had been a baby when their father left.
She shook herself out of her thoughts. The last thing she needed to be was distracted while she was on the job.
Nick studied Pacelli as she worked. He couldn't help but notice how detached she was. To be honest, it worried him a little, not that he would ever admit it out loud.
"What's up with her?" he asked, nodding in Pacelli's general direction. Sara looked over to where he was indicating.
"I don't know," she answered, snapping another picture. She paused. "You have to admit, she has only been here for three months, so we don't know her that well. It could be anything from a boyfriend to her house."
Nick felt like correcting her. He knew more about Pacelli than he let on. He knew more about her than he wanted to admit. He knew that she was very protective of her family. He definitely knew that she was single. He knew she was the eldest sister, but not the eldest sibling. He knew that she had a golden retriever she lovingly called "Cammie". He knew that she had at least two older brothers. He knew she found it irritating when people touched her without her consent. He knew that when she was frustrated, she'd run a hand through her bangs, ruffling it. He knew a lot about Pacelli from arguments and simply observing her. He knew more about her than he wanted to know.
He shook his head. He was a CSI. Of course he would notice all that. It was his job to observe and analyse. This wasn't any different. The only difference was that he was observing and analyzing a colleague instead of a body or crime scene.
Three hours later and they were finally done. "The DNA lab is going to hate us tonight," Sara muttered as they brought the many bags of evidence back to their respective vehicles and to the lab.
Josie grinned tiredly at her. "It could be worse," she said breezily. "We could have given them degraded and almost unusable DNA for them to test." She placed the evidence in the backseat of her car and stretched leisurely. She got into the driver's seat and looked at Sara. "Do you need a ride?" she asked.
Sara shook her head. "It's alright. I drove here."
"Gotcha," Josie replied, closing the door. She leaned her head against the head rest, feeling uncharacteristically drained. Shaking her head to clear the fog that descended over her thoughts, she started the engine and made her way to the crime lab.
/*\/*\/*\
Josie lay on the couch, her eyes shut. She needed a break from death, blood and essentially everything that was connected to her job. Once again, there was no evidence that could be found. It was almost exactly like the Alyssa Montague murder. No evidence, just a dead body.
"Josie!" Sara yelled as she practically ran into the break room. Josie's eyes shot open, but she didn't get up. She merely inclined her head so she was looking at Sara.
"What's up?" she asked, getting herself upright.
Sara took a deep breath to calm herself down. "We found traces of foreign DNA in the wound. I checked it and – you're never gonna believe what I found."
Josie sat upright a little more, frowning slightly. "And?"
"There were traces of Alyssa Montague's DNA found in the wound."
"What?"
They both blinked at each other for a while before bolting to find their partner. They found him in his office, frowning over some notes. He looked up to see them panting slightly from their run and raised an eyebrow. They quickly talked aver each other, making it almost impossible for Nick to understand anything.
"Whoa, whoa, slow down," he told them. They both looked at each other and took a deep breath. "What's going on?"
"There were traces of foreign DNA found in Marissa Kane's wound," Sara began. She looked at Josie, and she took it as her cue to continue.
"They ran it through the database and – you'll never believe whose it is." She paused dramatically for a moment. He rolled his eyes at her. "It's Alyssa Montague's."
That had him shooting out of his seat. "What?"
"That's what I said," she commented lightly. She glanced at Sara. "That could mean anything."
"Like?"
"Alyssa came back from the dead and went on a killing spree?" Josie answered cheekily.
"Funny," Nick snapped.
She held her hands up defensively. "Hey, I didn't know your sense of humor decided to take a vacation. Sorry for trying to lighten the atmosphere."
"There's a time and place for it, Pacelli."
"Well, with you, there never is a time or place, is there?"
"That's because – "
"You have no idea how wrong the tail end of your conversation sounds like," Sara interjected. "Guys, case!"
"Ass," Josie snapped.
"Bitch," Nick snarled back.
"Bastard!"
"GUYS!" Sara shouted, getting their attention. "Do you need a time out?"
They both scrunched up their faces, but kept quiet. The last thing they wanted was to spend more time in each others' company than necessary. Sara would probably lock the both of them into a broom closet for five minutes.
"Now, joking aside," Sara looked sternly at Josie, "what could be the reason for Alyssa Montague's DNA to be on Marissa Kane?"
Josie immediately went into professional mode. "From our records, aside from the fact that they're both blonde and have blue eyes, there is nothing that could link them together. They went to different colleges, had completely different jobs that couldn't possibly cross, didn't live in the same neighbourhood and didn't even take the same transport! Alyssa rode her bike to work and Marissa walked." Irritation flashed through her crystal blue eyes. "They couldn't possibly be connected. At all."
"Well, there is one way," Sara piped up. Nick's and Josie's eyes shot to her.
Despair flooded into Josie's eyes. She hated serial killers. She hadn't forgotten what the last one had nearly done to her. Twelve bodies. That was how long it took before they managed to catch the bastard. Even then, it wasn't as sweet as she had hoped. She had still felt the emptiness inside, as if she was still waiting for another body to show up.
"It's too early to tell," Stokes finally said. "We won't until – if another body appears."
Another body. It was one thing to see death every day, but there was something about serial killers that ate away at her soul and truly brought out the perversity and cruelty of the human mind. She sighed. It was her job to stop people like that so they wouldn't hurt innocent people.
"I gotta, go do something," Josie said suddenly. Her two partners glanced at each other as she exited Nick's office.
"Something's not right with her," Nick muttered, staring at her retreating back.
Sara chewed on her lip. "I'm sure it's just some family matters or something. Probably nothing big."
"Mm."
"What are you thinking?" Sara asked, leaning against his desk.
He looked up at her and sat back down. "Oh, nothing."
*flashback*
Nick sighed. It had been a long day and the only thing he wanted was to go home and crash for the next few hours. He had been on for the last twenty eight hours and couldn't think of anything but his soft bed.
As he neared the locker room, an angry voice penetrated the exhausted haze in his mind.
"I said leave me alone, woman," a familiar voice snarled. Her New York accent thickened the angrier she got, he realised. "You? My mother? You haven't been my mother for eleven years! You haven't been a mother to any of us. Goodbye."
He stood in the doorway of the locker room, watching her silently. She hung up, punching the button so forcefully that the phone squealed in protest. With a growl, she threw it into her bag, her right hand ruffling her bangs. She slung her bag on her shoulder, kicking her locker shut. She wasn't appeased, so she kicked it again. The metal groaned in protest.
"I'm pretty sure we've been in a similar position before," he commented lightly. Her crystal blue eyes and darkened to navy. He couldn't be sure, but he thought he saw a film of tears on those angry eyes. She wiped her eyes angrily.
"What do you want, Stokes?" she asked in hard voice. The hand gripping her bag tightened. Her knuckles turned white.
"I wanted to get my things and go home," he replied.
"So go," she shot back, brushing past him. She walked away a few stops before Nick called her name. She paused, before turning back almost wearily. Her hand made its way to her bangs.
"What's wrong with you?" he asked with a note of concern in his voice. She looked like she wanted to scowl, but couldn't seem to find the energy to do so.
"If I won't tell anyone else," she said in a tired voice, "why should I tell you?"
"Because I already don't say anything you want to hear," he shrugged.
She snorted. "I'm not telling you anything."
She turned to leave, but his voice stopped her once again. "Mom problems?"
Her back stiffened. He knew he had hit a nerve. A muscle in her back twitched, as if she wanted to turn back and hit him, but she didn't.
"It's none of your business, Stokes," she hissed to him before walking away.
This time, he let her leave.
*flashback*
"Nick?" Sara asked, waving a hand in front of his face.
He blinked at her, bringing himself out of that memory. Sara was right. There was still so much about Pacelli that they didn't know. There was a lot she didn't want them to know. It didn't mean he couldn't try.
CSI
Another longer than usual chapter, cuz once again, hectic schedule. No jumping back to the present this chapter, but I hope you like it anyway. As usual, review please!
~Alex