We are witches
Paige awoke when she heard a constant knocking on her door. "Paige, get up and get dressed. We have an hour before we have to leave for the forensics lab." Phoebe called out. Groggily Paige got up and opened the door, on the other side was an already fully dressed and sickenly cheerful Phoebe. "Phoebe, what do you want?!" Paige was a slow riser and didn't like to be awoken, plus with the time difference and the late hour, Paige felt slightly jet lagged, if that is even possible with orbing.
"Like I said, we have to get going in an hour. Aelithe is already downstairs in the kitchen, you can get some breakfast or dinner or whatever, man this schedule is messing with my perception of time, down there. Piper and Leo are getting dressed, there is a bathroom just across the hall. Don't look at me like you are going to kill me. We didn't know that dr. Grissom worked the nightshift." Phoebe said, sounding way to cheerful according to Paige.
"Fine, I'll get dressed, see you downstairs." With that Paige slammed the door shut and started to get some clothes to throw on. Phoebe went downstairs, smiling to herself, Paige had always had trouble getting up in the morning.
"Griss, are you done feeding the bugs?" Sara called out, as she petted Hank on the top of his head, as he inspected the contents of his bowl.
"Yes I am done, lets go, shift starts in thirty minutes and I need to check some paperwork." Grissom sighed as he got his coat and Sara's coat from the hallway. He held up her coat and she slithered in. She grabbed the keys of the counter and put her bag on her shoulder. Together they walked out and Grissom locked the door, while Sara started the car. They moved in sync as they did often, not just while working a crime scene, but also in home. They neatly anticipated each others moves and completed them for each other. An outsider would think that they had practiced that for many, many years, but for Grissom and Sara it came as naturally as walking, they had been able to do it ever since the first time they had met. Even now their colleagues would be astonished at the ease with with they moved around each other, even though their colleagues had seen it now for over 7 years.
After an hour an unknown vehicle parked outside the forensic lab, four women and a man climbed out and stood for a moment looking at the building they were going to enter. After several moments they walked to the entrance. Aelithe looked around and spotted the reception desk, together with the others she walked to the woman who occupied the reception desk.
"Hello, can I help you?" she politely asked.
"Yes, we are looking for doctor Grissom. Is he in?" Aelithe asked.
"Do you have an appointment?"
"No, but captain Brass told us we could come here to talk to him." Aelithe said.
"Captain Jim Brass?"
"Yes, we met doctor Grissom yesterday, but we have some other questions."
"Ehm, right." The hesitation on her face was evident. Piper, Phoebe, Paige and Aelithe had felt it was better to try and get in without magical help. They wanted to talk to Dr. Grissom without him wandering how they got in. It would be difficult enough to explain the magical world to him, without complicating matters by using magic to get in. Patiently the women waited for the receptionist to make up her mind. "Okay, I'll bring you, just a minute." The young women spook to someone who was seated behind her and then got up. "Come on, I saw Grissom coming in. You are in luck he is early today, a year ago that would be normal, but now with Sara, he is getting in on time rather then early." They walked through the hall, the lab had an open feeling, because of the large windows everywhere. After two turns the receptionist stopped in front of a door and knocked. From inside the office an answer came: "Yes?" The receptionist opened the door slightly and poked her head around the corner: "Sorry to disturb you dr. Grissom, but there are some visitors who want to talk to you."
"It's okay Judy, who are the visitors?"
"Four women and a man, they have no appointment, but were directed here by captain Brass."
"Okay, let them in Judy. And thank you." Judy turned to face Aelithe: "Okay, you may go in. When you leave could you please come to me and say so?"
"Sure, thank you, Judy is it?"
"Yes. You are welcome." With that parting comment Judy opened the door and let them in, after that quietly closed the door and left.
Paige remembered the various ingredients rooms the Magic School had, when she entered the office of Dr. Gil Grissom. It was as cluttered with glass jars with contents that were to creepy to really take a good look at and several terrariums with living creatures. The walls were coated with mounted insects, spiders and butterflies, had several newspaper clippings and other paraphernalia. It seemed as if only a small portion of the office was dedicated to work as there stood a desk and two chairs. The man who was sitting behind the desk lifted his head as they invaded his privacy, he looked over the rim of his glasses, but it was unmistakably the same man they had met yesterday. Paige noticed his blue eyes which were observing the people, who entered his sanctuary. As he started to stand he spoke: "Ah, I thought it would be you, captain Brass doesn't normally direct people here, but with you I am not surprised. I am sorry, but I only have two seats here." He extended his hand and Paige who had entered first, shook it and responded: "Well, we do have to talk to you dr. Grissom."
"You may call me Grissom, I am sorry, but I seem to have forgotten your names."
"Paige Halliwell and these are my sisters Phoebe and Piper Halliwell, Pipers husband Leo Wyatt and a friend from us Aelithe."
"Do you have a family name Aelithe?"
"Salome." Aelithe said as she sat down next to Phoebe. The others remained standing. The small office seemed to get even smaller, as if it was not meant to carry more then three people.
"I am going to assume that you want to talk about the Debbie Marlin case?"
"Yes, we need to talk to you about that case."
"Why? What made you want to know something about the Debbie Marlin case?" Grissom looked at the people standing in his office, he needed to hear a good reason, before he was going to disclose any information on the Debbie Marlin case. But before the others could answer him, someone knocked on the door. Grissom focused on the door and called out: "Come in?" A woman with brown hair opened the door and started to talk, without looking up from a file she was reading in: "Gil, why is your door cl…" in the middle of her sentence she stopped, because she had looked up and found Grissom's office more crowded then it had ever been. Immediately she started to apologize, as the four women and man, turned to look at her. Piper at first meant to only briefly glance at the women, but quickly did a double take.
"I'm sorry Grissom, I thought you were free, there were no meetings scheduled. I'll come back later." Sara said, as she made to leave the office.
"No, it is okay. Is that the report you wanted to give me?" Grissom and Sara had been working together, but she had needed to print out a report.
"Yes, it only needs your signature." Sara handed Grissom the report: "By the way, I was stopped by Judy, she said that Warrick and Catherine needed to get to court today, their case has been rescheduled for today. And Ecklie called, he said that the meeting for the supervisors has been rescheduled as well, it will be tomorrow afternoon."
Grissom groaned: "He does know I am the nightshift supervisor, right? I mean that is in the middle of the day. Wait, why didn't he call me on my cell?"
Sara grinned: "He did." She said as she produced a cell-phone from her pocket, showing it to him. Grissom quickly shuffled some papers around, finally locating a similar cell-phone, closely examining it he also smiled. Sara made her way through the other people in Grissom's office and handed him the file and his cell-phone. "Could you put these in Ecklie's post and give these to the archive, please?" Grissom asked as he handed Sara several files and her cell-phone. "Oh, could you call Warrick and Catherine, to tell them about court?"
"Sure, but don't get used to me, running all your errands. If you need me, I'll be in the break room." With that Sara closed the door behind her and walked of, leaving the other women to turn around and face Grissom again.
After a short silence, in which Grissom checked his phone and placed Sara's report on his paperwork, Piper softly spoke up: "She is the one you were or are thinking about, when you become defensive in the Debbie Marlin case, isn't she?" Startled Grissom looked up: "What do you mean?"
"She is the woman you were looking at, when you exited Debbie Marlins home. And the one you met in San Fransisco, several years ago?"
"Where did you get that information from?" Grissom asked, shocked at the intimate details Piper was telling him.
"That is going to be difficult to explain to you. And you might not believe us." Aelithe said.
"I still have thirty minutes before I have to start the nightshift and as for believing you, try me." Grissom calmly said, determined to find out how these strange women were going to explain themselves.
"We would like to have her present as well, so we don't have to tell the whole story twice." Paige said, as she indicated with her head towards the door.
"What makes you think that she needs to hear this?" Grissom wondered, still not sure what to make of these women and in his business, that usually meant you had to be on guard. Add to that the fact that Sara had already experienced some trauma caused by the people he and her encountered on a daily basis and Grissom was going to make sure that Sara wasn't going to be exposed to something he didn't trust. Grissom wasn't going to get Sara to come here and listen to these women unless it was absolutely necessary.
Phoebe started to talk: "Because you two are connected. I want to bet that anything odd that happens to you during the night, you tell her and vice versa. And she won't believe our story until she hears it from us, or better yet see some proof." Although Phoebe had had a strong feeling about these two, she was completely bluffing, but after battling with demons, warlocks and men for the last eight years, she was pretty good at bluffing. Little did she know, that the man sitting across from her was a good poker player and was used to getting bluffed at.
"Nice bluff, but you don't know anything for sure, do you?" Grissom called her bluff. Paige decided to make an end to this, they were losing valuable time on this verbal game. Time they needed to figure out what was going on in the magical world. "Mister Grissom, please trust us on this. Captain Brass trust us, trusts Aelithe, why won't you trust us?"
"Because I don't know you." Grissom responded truthfully.
"That is right, but captain Brass does know Aelithe, don't you trust him?" Paige reasoned.
"Yes I trust Brass, but that doesn't automatically mean I have to trust everyone he trusts." Grissom countered.
"Fine, whatever. Listen up, we want to tell you the truth, we just want her to be here to. What would be so bad about it?" Grissom could see that Paige was getting frustrated. He had to hand it to them, they had remained calm for quite a long time, but now their patience was being sorely tested. Paige tried one more plea: "Mister Grissom, this is really important and we are willing to tell you, but we want to tell her in the same time, so we don't lose precious time further down the line. Please ask her to join us."
Aelithe said one last thing: "Call Brass, he will vouch for me." Grissom could see that she was serious. Fine Grissom thought the sooner we get this done, the sooner we can get back to work. "I'll get her." Grissom briskly rose from his chair and flipped open his cell-phone, pressing a speed dial: "Brass…" The four witches didn't hear the rest of the conversation. Paige turned to Aelithe: "So what does your magical power sensor say?"
"Yes to both. We are going to have to tell them about the magical world."
Several minutes later Grissom returned with Sara, who closed the door. "Okay, Piper, Phoebe and Paige Halliwell, Leo Wyatt from San Fransisco and Aelithe Salome from Las Vegas, this is Sara Sidle, CSI in Las Vegas. We are here, you have twenty minutes to explain yourselves, before I call the security." Grissom introduced everyone and made his way back to his desk as the women observed each other. Sara looked at the four women curiously, they were all quite tall, had dark hair and were beautiful. The name Halliwell sounded familiar, but she couldn't immediately place it. The four witches in turn took in Sara's appearance. Paige could see that Sara was curious as to why she was asked to join them here and she could see that she was trying to place something. Sara walked over to Grissom and went to stand next to him.
"I heard from Grissom that you wanted information on the Debbie Marlin case."
"That is right, but we have to explain why, before we get the information." Phoebe told her.
"Seems fair, we are not allowed to hand out information on cases to anyone without a good reason." Suddenly something seemed to connect in Sara's head as she swiftly turned her head to Piper, whom she had correctly taken for the eldest of the sisters. "Wait a minute, the Halliwell sisters from San Fransisco. I know you." To say that the others in the office were surprised would be something of an understatement. All heads swivelled to Sara
"You know them?" Grissom asked.
"You know us? From where?" Paige wanted to know.
"From San Fransisco. Remember I had told you about those cold cases I needed to take a look at, Grissom? Al those cases had one commonality: the Halliwell sisters were involved in all of them. But nobody could ever prove whether or not they were the perpetrators. Actually, one detective vouched for them, I can't remember his name. Anyway there was nothing we could get them for." Sara explained.
"Darryl told us that someone was going to investigate the cold cases in which we were involved, even when only in the slightest. We were not really bothered, since we were constantly being investigated, there was and still is nothing to find on us. But Darryl was worried, because they had put the best on our cases, that was a couple of years ago. But she had to leave abruptly to do another job in another city. We never met her, but that was you?" Phoebe asked, reciting the story. Grissom looked at the four women sitting in his office and with slight alarm in his eyes, but always on guard, asked: "Who are you? Or what are you?"
"What are you, is more appropriate. We are witches and we believe that you both also have magical powers." Piper said, leaving Grissom and Sara speechless.