37) Yule Tide Pony

Hodges snuck around the back of the building, through the door with the broken alarm, down the stairs, and into records. Then he stopped sneaking and hummed as he walked down the long room to the last role, turned right, and headed back to The Wall. He hesitated when he noticed the door wasn't shut all the way and he could see the blue light of the television. Hodges slipped between the wall and filing cabinet, and entered.

He found Greg asleep on the couch, covered only by the thin blanket that draped over the back of the couch. He had his cell phone clutched in one hand near his ear. Hodges walked up and poked him. Greg stirred. He poked him again and got a little more of a response. He lightly smacked his face, waking Greg up. Greg glared up at him.

"What the hell?" Greg demanded.

"Yes. My question exactly. Why are you here?"

"I can be here."

"It's Christmas. Why are you still in the state of Nevada? Shouldn't you be home in California? Isn't that where you were headed?"

"Mind your own damn business," Greg snarled and closed his eyes with plans to go back to sleep.

"You made a big scene about wanting time off to go home and have Christmas with your cousin and parents because this was your cousins first Christmas without any of his family. Remember? And now you're here."

"Hodges, did you come down here to give me grief or was there some other reason you came?"'

"I was going to add some rules."

"Oh good. Then there is something else for you to do. Go add rules. Run away."

"I want to know why you're here still."

"Why? What are you going to do about it? Report me to Santa? It's my vacation. I can do whatever I want on it."

"You told Catherine—"

"Good God! You're like that whiny little brother I'm glad I never had!" Greg rolled over with his face against the cushion. He pulled the pillow over his head.

Hodges did not like how that conversation ended in the least. He shook Greg's arm and he ignored him. He poked him several times and still, ignored.

"I didn't want to resort to this, but you're making me," Hodges warned.

Greg didn't move.

Hodges grabbed a piece of skin between his thumb and forefinger and squeezed while he twisted.

"OW!" Greg bellowed, coming off the couch onto his feet.

Hodges stepped back, watching him. Greg glared at him as he rubbed the spot he'd just been pinched.

"What the hell is wrong with you?"

"You haven't answered my question."

"It's none of your damned business." Greg turned, grabbed the pillow, and smacked Hodges in the face with it. "And that's for pinching me douche bag!"

Hodges grabbed the pillow and they tugged on it until Hodges finally pulled it away. He smacked Greg in the face with it. Greg looked like he was about to pounce on him.

"Fine! You want to know why? Fine! Because my horse is really, really sick with a broken leg. I didn't want to leave because…" Greg looked down, getting teary eyed. "Because Belle's sick."

Hodges let the pillow drop to the floor.

"You hate horses."

"Belle's different."

"How? She's a horse?"

Greg glared at him again. "Of course that's something you can't understand. I don't know what the hell I was thinking." Greg fell back down on the couch, staring at the floor.

Hodges picked up the pillow, sat it next to him, and then sat down in the recliner. He thought for a moment.

"Is she that horse you rode from the crime scene?"

Greg nodded.

"I didn't know you bought her."

"Almost wasn't able to, but Nick and a friend of his with the mounted deputies helped out. She's a really good horse." Greg made a face to force back his tears.

"How'd she get sick and break her leg?"

Greg heaved a sigh. "She was out in a pasture with some other horses and something spooked them. They went through the fence and we couldn't find her for three days. When we did she was dehydrated, had pneumonia, and a broken leg. She'd been down for a day, at least. Horses shouldn't lay down that long, I guess. At least that's what Nick said."

Hodges thought about it. Then he nodded. "So you're kid's sick and you didn't want to leave her alone. I get that."

Greg looked at him, surprised by the statement. "Yeah… That's one way to look at it."

"All you had to do was tell me that. You didn't have to be such a cranky baby about it, you know."

Greg smiled a little. "It's my first horse. I'm allowed to be a little crazy."

"Says you." Hodges stood up and stretched. "Okay. Now it's time for some rules."

Greg looked up at the wall. "Wow. It's been almost a year since I've been down here. Where did that time disappear to?"

Hodges nodded. "Don't know, but I'm here to chew bubble gum and write rules, and I'm all out of bubble gum."

Greg rolled his eyes, but smiled anywa. "I remember that one."

Hodges looked at rule 595.

596. When processing any scene of height, there is no need to climb to the top and yell, "I am king of the world." You aren't, and if you were, we wouldn't care. (Inspired by BobbyandLindsay4Ever)

"Who did that?"

"Sara. On Nick's dare."

Hodges smiled. "Sara? Our Sara?"

"There are moments in the field where she takes over as Nick's alter-ego and pulls something we never saw coming."

"And where was this?"

"A warehouse. At three in the morning. Got all the alarms with fur coats barking. I guess Ecklie got a complaint that next day and suggested that whoever did it, not do it again."

"Hence the rule. That would be Catherine's handwriting."

597. More things C.S.I. does not stand for: Can't Stand Idiots, Cinderella's Slipper Investigators, Cynical and Stoic Idiots, Complete Studdly Interlopers, Critical Scrubber Item; Confused and Stolid Infidels, Chemical Sampling Idiots, Compassionate and Squishy Infantry, Coalition of Squinty Investigators, Crazy Scrumptious Injera, Channel of Serious Injunctions, Common Sense Initiative, Complacent Sociable Internists, Crystal Snow Injectables, College of Simpleton Imbeciles, Coalition of Suggestive Idjits.

"That's okay. We have millions of words to still choose from. She can't list them all."

Hodges stared at him. "Going for the gold, are we?"

"Naw. Just the longest list I can until I quit or die – whichever happens first."

"Or get fired. Just how patient do you think Catherine is?"

"She puts up with you."

Hodges blinked at him. "Was that an insult?"

"Did it feel like an insult?"

Hodges hesitated. "Yes."

"Huh. Don't know what to tell you."

"Was it an insult?"

"I'm not sure. Might have been."

"That one is because of you." Hodges pointed at 598.

598. Not allowed to claim there's a pot of gold in the basement of a crime scene and that's why I used excessive amounts of cordon tape on a door.

Greg sat back. "But… Gold in the basement. Gold colored tape. They go together."

"There was no gold."

"There could have been gold. He was short and wearing green."

"He was a little person in a jogging suit."

"That was green. And his name was Sherman."

"What?" What does that have to do with anything?"

"Shermon, shamrock, they sound close."

"Oh. My. God. You've lost it."

"That implies I had it at one time."

Hodges smirked. "Well, I give you that."

Greg got up, grabbed a piece of chalk and added:

599. I am not to yell 'FAIL' when equipment gives me results I don't like.

"I did it once."

"You do it all the time."

"I don't yell."

"I can hear you clear over in my office."

"I speak loudly. I don't yell."

"Your 'speak loudly' is to everyone else a yell."

Hodges jumped up, grabbed a piece of chalk from the basket on the table and wrote.

600. We do not count 'Mississippi' or sing '99 fingerprints in the room' when we're lifting fingerprints in a public area.

"Ha!"

"I did it on purpose."

"All the more reason."

"You told me to get back at Nick for rolling all your rubber gloves into a ball."

Hodges wagged his finger at Greg. "I… Didn't…" He sighed. "I did."

Greg smiled.

"But this was all you." Hodges wrote:

601. I am not allowed to accuse, detain, or arrest a cat for burglarizing anything.

"How do you know the cat didn't steal anything?"

"It was attacking the parrot and its male owner."

"It wasn't attacking the male owner. It was after the parrot."

"How does any of that have to do with the cat burglarizing anything?"

"It was a very sneaky kitty."

"Kitty? Did you really just use kitty?"

"So?"

"You're a grown man!"

"So?"

"You are impossible."

Greg turned away with a grin and added:

602. If a suspect or victim is holding a gun at me, it is bad to point over their shoulder and screech, "OH MY GOD! WHAT IS THAT!" and then punch them when they're not looking.

Together they said, "Nick."

"One day, he's going to outsmart himself and get shot," Hodges said.

"Naw. He's too smart for that."

Hodges looked at him. "What exactly do you think I'm talking about?"

"Goats?"

"I'm talking about Nick."

"Why would Nick have a goat?" Greg asked.

"I didn't say Nick had a goat. I said someday he'd outsmart himself."

"What does that have to do with goats?"

"Why are you being so damned irritating today?"

"Because you're letting me?"

Hodges narrowed his eyes for a second, almost said something, and then turned away. He added:

603. Never dismiss the crazy theory – it might be right. (Inspired by Augusta)

604. You do not work for ISIS, your female supervisor is not to be called Malory, and you are not Archer, the super spy, code name Duchess. (And if you were, we'd have to kill you.)

"Hodges… You really didn't do that, did you?" Greg asked.

"No. I didn't. Archie did."

Greg's eyes brows lifted. "Are you kidding me?"

"Noooo. And he almost got fired."

Greg sat on the arm of the recliner. "I haven't heard this one. Tell me, tell me."

"Have you even seen the show?"

"You mean, like watch TV? I haven't watched anything in months."

"Well, it's funny. Archie was pretending to be Archer, I don't remember why. Catherine came in and he called her Malory, and that when he was in the field, he was to be referred to as Duchess. She apparently saw the show and told him if he ever refers to her as an old, cranky mother who would sell her son for a trip the Cayman Islands on tax-payer dollars."

"Oo! Yeah. How'd he take it?"

"We were both so surprised she knew about it that we just stared."

Greg laughed. He added under his:

605. Move far away from the rookie that responds with, "What duck?"

"Peterson?" Hodges asked.

"No. This was Stuart Max."

"Really? I pegged as maybe passing field tests."

"He would have, if he'd just ducked instead of asking about it."

Hodges laughed. He wrote:

606. Even if it is Easter Sunday, I am not allowed to compare a bomb scene to an Easter egg hunt.

"Yeah… I don't think Langston was very impressed with you for that, Hodges."

"But it was like an Easter egg hunt."

"We really need to work on your workplace professionalism."

"What's wrong with my professionalism?"

"It's a little off kilter."

"You're off kilter!"

Greg laughed. The conversation dropped off without warning when Greg's phone beeped. He messed with it, opening the text message that arrived. Greg sat back, staring at the floor.

"Bad news?"

"No. The vet is going to check on her at seven. I won't know anything until then."

Hodges looked at a clock on the microwave. "Have you had Christmas dinner?"

"Yeah. A couple frozen burritos from the fridge." Greg glanced at the mini-fridge that the microwave sat on.

"That's not a Christmas dinner. My mother makes a really good dinner, and always too much." Hodges glanced at his watch. "The turkey should be done in the next thirty minutes."

Greg looked up at him. "Are you… Inviting me to Christmas dinner, Hodges?"

"Yes."

Greg smiled. "Okay."

Hodges stood up and headed for the door. Greg stood up and followed him. They strolled through records, up the back steps, and into the bright afternoon sun.

"Thanks," Greg said.

Hodges didn't say anything, but he smiled when Greg glanced at him. Greg didn't press it. To have Hodges take a compliment so humbly was a great gift in itself. He really did care that Greg was worried about his horse.