4) Don't Blow the Blow

Grissom thought of better ways to start his shift. Ways that didn't include sitting in Ecklie's neat and tidy office, where everything was arranged precisely. He wasn't really listening to Ecklie drone on about budget details. Grissom hated reviewing the budget because it was time consuming and there was evidence waiting for him in the lab.

The men looked up when the door opened and they watched Catherine slink in. Right away Grissom knew was something very wrong. Catherine was not a slinker. She just came right out and said whatever was bothering her.

"Grissom, we need to talk?"

"We're reviewing the budget," Ecklie answered for him. "Can't it wait?"

"No, Conrad, it can't. Something's happened, Grissom. Not real—"

The door was thrown open and Nick burst in. Grissom was acutely aware something was not right with Nick. He wore a crazy grin like he knew some secret that had made him go insane. He was so hyper that if it were physically possible, he would have begun ricocheting around the room. His eyes were so bloodshot that he looked eerily like a demon who had just crawled up from hell.

"GRISSOM!" Nick cried, charging forward to swallow him in a tight hug. "I love you man! I love you!"

Grissom looked over Nick's shoulder Catherine. She had her eyes closed and was scrubbing her fingers against her forehead.

"What's wrong with Nick?" Grissom asked.

The door opened again and Greg came in, starting to ask her, "You wanted to see—"

"CONRAD!" Nick cried, releasing Grissom and walking around to Ecklie.

Any other time Grissom might be amused to watch Ecklie spring from his chair and quickly put it between him and Nick.

"I love you man!" Nick said, holding his arms open for a hug.

"Catherine? What the hell is wrong with Stokes?" Ecklie demanded.

"Nothing's wrong with me!" Nick answered. "I feel great! I've never felt so great in my life! Hey, you know what we should all do? We should all go to the top of the Needle and drop water balloons. Wouldn't that be awesome!?"

"He's lost his mind," Greg commented, staring bug-eyed as his friend and co-worker.

"Not exactly. We had a little bit of an accident at the crime scene," Catherine calmly told them.

"With you people there's no such thing as little accidents."

"Well, Conrad, it was. It was at the bakery the police raided tonight. They couldn't find the drugs, just the bags. So we started testing surfaces and found drugs all over the place! Especially where there was flour. He tested a few cakes and—"

"Cake!" Nick cried, coming around toward Catherine. "I want cake! Chocolate cake, with chocolate frosting, and those little chocolate sprinkles, and—"

"Shut up, Nick!" Catherine told him.

"But I—"

"Greg, take him across the hall to the lab. Start working on the bullets from last night's shooting."

"He can't touch evidence," Grissom told her.

"He can't hurt bullets, Grissom."

Grissom started to tell her no again.

"Bullets. Now," Ecklie ordered Greg.

"I don't want to eat bullets. I want cake!" Nick told Ecklie.

"Sanders, remove him now."

Greg grabbed Nick's arm. "Come on, Nick. Let's go look at some bullets."

Nick swept Greg into a bear hug. "I LOVE YOU MAN!"

Greg made a face. "I love ya too. Let me go."

Nick didn't so Greg wiggled free. He stepped back, grabbing Nick's arm before he could wrap it around him again.

In an melodramatic, excited voice, Greg asked, "Hey, Nicky, would you like to see something really cool?"

"YEAH!"

"Come on! Let's go look at striations!"

"RIGHT ON!"

Greg led him out of the office and a moment of silence followed.

"And?" Grissom asked Catherine. "How did he get like this?"

"The police thought they cleared the place, but there was one pusher was hiding in a closet. I opened it and he sprung out, making a break for the door. Nick ran after him. At the door there was this box fan still turned on. The suspect grabbed it and threw it at Nick. The fan landed on a pile of cocaine laced flour and blew it in his face. So… He got it in his mouth, nose, eyes… He's going to be going for at least an hour, maybe two."

"He can't stay in the lab," Grissom said. "Even if it's just bullets. And when he crashes…"

"It's going to be hard. I know. That's why I brought him back here. I can't leave him at home alone. Nick's never done drugs, to my knowledge. I don't know what to do with him."

Grissom looked down, trying to decide. They weren't busy, but they were backed up. He needed every able body he had here.

"Send him down to The Wall," Ecklie said. "Have the Wall Crew baby-sit him and switch them every two hours. That should help him and keep work moving tonight. Will that work, Gil?"

Grissom slowly looked up at him. Ecklie wasn't mad? He wasn't going to threaten splitting up the team over this again? What had Ecklie taken before work?

"Yes," Grissom asked.

"Probably better get a bucket from the janitor closet for when he starts vomiting." Ecklie pulled out his wallet, pulling out several singles. He held them out to Catherine. "Whoever you send down with him, have them get some bottles of water before they go. It'll make it worse if he gets dehydrated."

Catherine approached, openly leery of his kindness. She took the bills.

"I will."

"Start with Greg," Grissom told her. "He seems to be able to get Nick to listen."

She nodded, leaving. Grissom watched Ecklie sit back down and pick up the spreadsheet he had been talking about.

"You're not going to report this?" Grissom asked. He was curious about Ecklie's motives. He wanted to know what this was going to cost him or Nick.

Ecklie didn't answer right away. Maybe he thought Grissom would just let it go. Then he started talking.

"I'd been a level two CSI for eight months when I was assigned to drug bust like Catherine and Nick's. They were producing heroine in this house and myself and the CSI I was working with were bagging the bags. He picked up one with a torn corner when someone called him. He turned, throwing it everywhere, including my face. My supervisor stuck me in the tank until the high wore off."

"The police chief?" Grissom asked.

Conrad nodded.

"I never knew that happened to you, Conrad. Where was I?"

"I don't know." Ecklie looked up at Grissom. "Stokes is a good CSI. He doesn't deserve to get stuck in the tank for doing his job. But, Gil, you know I'll have to demand he be drug tested every week for a while."

"How long?"

"Four months, minimum."

"That's fair. He won't think so, but I do."

"We were on supplies, weren't we?"

"Yes." Grissom focused on the budget. Ecklie's random act of kindness and opening talking about his past was actually a refreshing change. So there were layers to Conrad Ecklie… Who knew?

#

At the end of the shift, without even talking to each other, the Wall Crew headed for The Wall. They had taken turns to watch Nick through the night. As predicted, once the initial euphoria of the high wore off, he crashed hard. Between being angry at himself and snarky with his babysitters, he couldn't stop vomiting.

Grissom arrived first. Nick was standing on a chair adding a rule to the wall. He glanced at Grissom as he came in. Grissom glanced at Wendy. She was sitting on the table, watching Nick, and exchanged a smile with Grissom. Grissom read the new rule as Nick wrote it:

367. Sniffing "white flour" in a drug house is bad.

"That's a good rule, Nicky. How are you feeling?"

"Like I've been thrown from a train," Nick answered.

Catherine and Greg slipped into the room.

"I can't say I know what that feels like," Grissom said with a smile. "But I'm sorry anyway."

Nick stepped off the chair, sitting down in it. He put his head in his hands, bracing his elbows on his knees. Catherine walked over, laying her hand on his head.

"I was so stupid!" Nick growled.

She smiled, ruffling his hair. "Naw. I would have chased him, but he knocked me on my butt. It happened. We move on."

Nick sat back and closed his eyes. "My head is killing me."

"Do you want to hear stories about last night?" Greg paused. "Do you even remember last night?"

"I remember some things. I think I ate someone's cake."

"That was mine," Hodges said as he came in.

"Sorry, man."

"That's okay. I have more at home. How are you?"

"I've felt better."

The rest of the crew filtered in.

"A new rule," Robbins said. "Great. Now I can add mine."

Nick got up, handing him the chalk. He walked over to the table and sat down next to Wendy. She didn't say anything when he laid his head on her shoulder and watched the rest of the Crew.

Robbins added:

368. When viewing a corpse of the same name, songs of the same name will not be permitted, eve if you are allegedly practicing for your band's gig or choir recital. Recent examples include, but are not limited to: "Mister Lee," "Janie's Gotta Gun," "Sarah," "Maria," "Billy Jean," "Come On Eileen," "Annie-dog," "Oh Sheila," "Daniel," any and all remixes of "Elanor Rigby," "Jenny Says," "Joanna," "Joey," "Joleen," "Ride On Josephine," "Last Dance with Mary Jane," "Layla," "Lucille," "Major Tom," "Mary," "Mickey," "Mr. Jones," "Mr. Wendell," "Mustang Sally," "My Michelle," "Lola," "Oh Sherry," "Psycho Joe," "Sweet Virginia," "Tommy The Cat," "Veronica," and "Wayne's World."

"Oh come on!" Greg cried. "Everyone likes to have a song with their name sung to them."

"Thank God there are no songs with Greg in them," Warrick jabbed. "We'd never heard the end of it, even if we added it to the wall. By the way, Greg, you can't sing to save your life."

Greg turned to him. "You never said anything before."

"I was hoping you'd go mute."

"We were all hoping you'd go mute," Ecklie added.

Nick sat up, reclining against the wall.

"Thanks. I feel so loved," Greg told them.

Catherine put her arm around his shoulders, telling him, "Greggo, we love you. You're adorable. We just hate your singing. Stop it."

He smiled, unleashing contagious laughter. Greg held his hand out for the chalk and added under Robbins:

369. Every human named Lee does not have the last name Adama.

Then he turned and pointed at David. "Alright?"

"What?"

"Every single man named Lee you have stuck a sticky note with the last name Adama on every file."

"Not every man."

"Every man," Warrick and Nick said.

"Who's Lee Adama?" Grissom asked.

The CSI and lab rats looked at him.

"I don't know who Lee Adama is," Catherine admitted.

"Me neither," Ecklie and Robbins said at the same time.

"You need to get cable, guys," Greg said as he stepped down. "Something with the Sci-Fi channel."

"Wait," Robbins began, "This is a show you're talking about, right?"

"Yes," they answered.

"And this show… Does it have things called Cylon's on it?"

"Yes," they answered.

Robbins took the chalk from Greg and wrote on the wall:

370. No corpse is a Cylon. He or she does not need to be taken from the crime scene to prevent downloading into another 'toaster.'

"Suddenly things are so much clearer," Catherine said. "Thank you, Doc."

"But they could be," Henry protested. "And since everyone thinks Balthzar's Cylon test doesn't work – but it does – the corpse very well could be."

"You watch far too much television, son," Ecklie told him.

"No. Not really. I record it on my DVR."

Everyone laughed, but he was confused. "What?"

"You need to get some sleep, Henry. Lots of it," Warrick told him.

"What? What did I say?"

Grissom held his hand out for the chalk, adding:

371. We do not employ the help of anyone claiming to speak to, see, sense, perceive, or be in contact with, ghosts, spirits, aliens, third world country leaders, Luke Skywalker, all deities, Borg, Gunthar Heindriksen, Pandora, or Joan of Arc.

When he turned, Greg, Nick and Warrick were pointing at one another.

"He did it," the three told him.

"You all did it."

"Nuh-uh!" Greg protested. "Nick did it."

"No way, man. It was Warrick."

"You're both wrong. It was both of them, Grissom."

"I don't even know who Gunthar Heindriksen is. Why would I listen to someone who listened to him?" Nick asked.

"He's Pinky's alter ego," Greg told him.

Nick laughed. "And since you knew that, you've just taken the fall through association."

The room laughed with him. Greg shook his head. He held his hands out, bobbing them, signaling for silence. When they finally calmed down he told the group: "Alright. Alright… If that's the way you want to be, Nick, what comes around, goes around."

Greg took the chalk from Grissom, stepping onto a chair to add his rule high up on the wall.

"Wait. What are you going to write?" Nick asked.

"You know the rules, Nick. You can't stop a rule from being written."

Greg looked slyly at him, and then continued adding:

372. When parking at a crime scene two hours from Las Vegas in the middle of August be sure to check for three things: cell phone or radio service, the vehicle is not aimed at other vehicles that are near the edge of a cliff, and the emergency brake has been engaged. Failure to do so will result in banishment from all social LVPD functions for your own safety.

He turned, smiling as everyone laughed.

"I am telling you people the emergency break was engaged!" Nick argued.

"The sad thing is, Nick, we'll never know for sure," Ecklie told him, "because you managed to destroy it and three patrol cars."

"I didn't think cars exploded when they hit the bottom of a cliff," Henry said.

"They wouldn't have. Except one of the police cruisers had the ether from the meth lab Nick had come to investigate," Grissom told him.

Henry turned to Nick. "You always seem to do the stupid stuff. You and Greg."

"What?" Greg asked as Nick asked, "We do the stupid stuff?"

Greg added:

373. We do not tell out of town visitors that 'Nessie' lives in Lake Mead.

Everyone looked at Henry when Greg turned to stare at him.

"They… Uhm…" Henry rolled his lips in, trying to think of a really good way out of this.

"They, uhm, what?" Catherine asked. "I haven't heard this story. Is it any good?"

"No." Henry begged. "We don't have to tell it."

"Nick and I were out front on a break and Henry came out to go over some trace results," Greg began. "The three of us are talking and this couple walks up. They had German accents and were looking for the Stardust. Henry gets to talking to them about the local attractions, and said we had a Nessie living in Lake Mead. Turns out, these two are Nessie freaks. Totally into the whole myth and they, of course, have never heard of Nessie of Lake Mead—"

"Because there isn't one," Catherine added, looking at Henry.

He blushed three shades of red.

"Then he tells them the place he supposedly saw Nessie and away they went. In search of Nessie."

"Henry, you surprise me." Ecklie told him. "And not in good ways."

"Now hold on one minute!" Henry told him. "I'm not the one that had a surveillance camera taken on a joy ride."

Ecklie turned a hard stare on Warrick.

"For the love of Pete! It was an accident!" Warrick cried out.

Ecklie held his hand out for the chalk and added:

374. I will not set up the surveillance cam so that it looks like a surveillance cam and a lure for bored teenagers on a Saturday night.

He turned to Warrick. "It was supposed to be hidden by the bushes."

"It was! The kid went over to the bushes to urinate. How was I supposed to predict that?"

"Maybe by camouflaging the box?" Catherine asked.

Warrick sat on the edge of the table. "I make one small mistake, and the entire crew is out for my blood."

"I'm not out for your blood," Gina said, putting her arm around him.

"Me neither," Wendy added.

Warrick grinned smugly at the others. "The Warrick mojo still works."

"I don't want to know anything about your mojo," Catherine told him.

"I am not putting my arm around you," Ecklie told him. "Not even dead. Sorry. Not happening."

"Yeah, I'm out on that too," Brass said.

"Unfortunately, I'd have to if you were dead," David told him. "So try not to get dismembered. That's more Warrick than I could stand."

They laughed.

"Speaking of things that shouldn't be touched." Wendy slid off the table said as she walked toward Ecklie with her hand held out.

He drew back. "I don't think so!"

She smacked his arm. "Give me the chalk, Conrad!"

He laughed, tossing it to her. She caught it and wrote:

375. Wendy's slides, Wendy touches. Wendy's slide, you touch, come away with missing digits.

With a smug smile, she turned and pointed right at Hodges. "Got that?"

"What?"

"Do not touch my slides, Hodges."

"I never touched your stinking slides!"

"You put them on the very top shelf where I couldn't see them and tried to convince me that Warrick took them."

"He did!"

Warrick smirked, looking at the wall. Wendy's eyes narrowed. She walked up to him and stared him down when he smiled. He held his arms open.

"Warrick mojo!"

"Bite me!" she told him with a smile, then spun around. "Who's next?"

"I am," Ecklie told her, taking the chalk. He moved to a large spot of clear wall and began writing:

376. The company newsletter 'For Sale' section is not to be used for gag ads. Such as: "One parachute, mint condition, used once, never opened, small red stain on corner," "Vintage whine for sale. See Hodges," "Dis Co. platters, sell singles or by the dozen, well grooved, perfect for all occasions," "One helmet, slightly dented, some scuff marks, head makes perfect compliment," "Used boot. Genuine leather. Toe pads included. See Captain Sock or Under Sheriff Boot," or "Wanted. Tread. Last seen under microscope." Suggested and inspired by love-lulu

"But those are good for sale ads!" Gina argued.

"And everything in there is real cheap. Virtually free."

"Virtually is the problem, I think," Grissom added.

"If it's virtually free, that's got to be virtually good," Archie said.

"Except the whine part," Gina added. "It's kind of bitter. Doesn't go well with anything."

"I do to!" Hodges defensively argued. "I was standing here silent, behaving, how did I suddenly end up the target?"

"Because we love you, Hodges," Nick told him. "And… We want you to feel you're special."

Hodges shoved him away and Nick started laughing so hard he had to sit down.

"Lay off the pastries, freak!" Hodges told him.

Gina held her hand out for the chalk and Ecklie handed it over. She added:

377. Gina is the goddess of the stapler. All who fail to return the goddess' divine symbol of power will find their lunch missing.

She turned, an eyebrow lifted, tempting any of them to argue with her. The group looked anywhere but at her – they had all been guilty of accidentally permanently borrowing her stapler. When she came looking for it, it was like watching a raccoon. She would snatch it away from them, and then walk away scolding them until she was out of sight.

"Sorry," Greg said, starting off a wave of following, "Sorry," and "I'm sorry, too."

"And right you all should be! You need a stapler, requisition it. I'm sure Ecklie can afford staplers."

"But yours is really pretty," Wendy said.

"Yeah. It's red and shiny," Henry added.

Greg nodded. "And it reminds us of certain things."

"Like TPS reports," Archie said. "Every TPS report must have the new cover."

"And the radio is on at a reasonable volume,"

"And a coffee mug must be carried at all time," Wendy added.

"While asking someone if they've received the memo," Archie pointed out.

"Whatever you three are talking about, stop it!" Grissom ordered. "We don't' know what it is, we can't laugh."

They stared at him. A few blinked a couple times.

"Wow. That's the most logical illogical reason to stop talking I've heard in some time, Grissom," Gina told him.

"Thank you. I think. May I?" He held his hand out. She dropped it in his hand and he added:

378. Vintage porno is still porno.

"Now hold on!" Archie complained. "Vintage porn is pretty much clothed people and… weird. There's nothing attractive about it."

"The rule still stands."

"But it's historical," Greg added.

"The rule still stands."

"I think maybe we should get Nick home," Wendy said.

They turned. He had fallen asleep with his head on Wendy's shoulder again. Catherine reached across the table, shaking his arm. He woke up, staring at her.

"Ready to go home?"

He nodded.

"I want you to stay at my place today," Grissom said. "Just to be safe. Come on."

Nick slide off the table, trailing behind him. The room cleared leaving Ecklie and Catherine. She sat down on the table, letting her head hang to stretch her neck. Ecklie sat down on the edge with her, clasping his hands in his lap. He stared at the list.

"Catherine?"

"Yeah?"

"Was I ever a good CSI?"

She looked up at him, surprised by the question. "That's a loaded question if I've ever heard one."

"Come on, Catherine. Be honest."

She smiled. "You had your moments."

"But not like your team. Not like Grissom."

She shrugged. "Some people are scientists, some people are supervisors. A few are in between. You do supervisor better."

"And Grissom?"

"More on the scientist side. Hands down."

"And you?"

She hesitated. "I won't judge myself. I have to look myself in the mirror when I get up in five hours."

He smiled. "That's a very tactful answer. See you tonight, Catherine."

Ecklie slid off the table and left. Catherine listened to his footsteps until she couldn't hear them anymore, and then looked down at the chalk forgotten on the table. She picked it up, rolling it between her fingers, and then looked up at the wall.

With a tired sigh and slight smile, she told the wall, "What would I do without my boys?"

Catherine sat the chalk down on the table and left, shutting off the light and closing the door behind her.