AN: This is a post-episode story for Death and the Maiden that contains spoilers for that episode. Characters: Wendy, Hodges, Nick, Greg, Mandy, Henry, and Sara.

Summary: Solving a case doesn't solve everything.

This Is So Not Me - Chapter 1

Written by Ms. Maggs

When Greg walked into the dimly lit locker room and saw Nick sitting on a bench with his head in his hands, Greg quietly asked, "You okay?"

Lost in thought, Nick jumped at the question.

"Sorry." Greg knew better than to startle the guy who still suffered from a tinge of PTSD. "I thought you heard me walk in."

"No."

"Is it the case or…"

"I can't get that image of Tommy pullin' away from Jess and just leavin' her there." The scene kept playing in his head like a movie. "The poor girl lost her parents, lived with an abusive brother, and now she doesn't have the one person she could count on." His voice flipped from empathy to anger. "The person who was left to care for Jess abused her for years and then raped the person she loved. I'm honestly sorry the bastard's dead 'cause if anyone deserved to be someone's bitch behind bars, it was Wayne Smith."

"You're not really advocating rape as punishment, are you?"

"Maybe I'm more of 'an eye for eye' guy than I thought I was."

Greg quickly retorted with a Gandhi quote, "An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind."

"You're tellin' me you never wanted to bash in the faces of the guys who bashed yours?"

"Did you ever hear me say I wanted to?"

"Just because you didn't say it when we were talkin' doesn't mean you weren't thinkin' it."

"Yes it does. Not saying what you're really thinking is you, not me." Leaning against his locker, Greg stuck to the facts. "Look…you solved the case, got Tommy help from Victim Services, and reached out personally. You already went above and beyond the call. There's nothing more you can do to help him or the girl. Some guys need time and space after being victimized and the last thing they want is someone touching them. You know that. You also know that feeling doesn't last forever, so stay positive and move on."

Still reeling from the emotions the case had invoked, Nick snapped, "Maybe I don't tell ya what I'm thinkin' because I know you'll just tell me not to think about it anymore. Ever think of that possibility, Einstein? Why waste my breath?"

"Just because I give you the answer you need to hear instead of the answer you want to hear doesn't mean I don't care or don't listen to you, and don't make this about me when it has nothing to do with me." Grabbing his jacket, the tired CSI sighed. "You know the right answer is 'you need to let it go'."

"Just like that." Nick shook his head. "That's you, and Catherine, and Grissom. Not me. It's never been me." When he saw Sara trudging into the locker room, he added, "And it's not Sara either."

"Huh?" The exhausted CSI ran her fingers through her mussed hair. "I just got back from a quad in Parhump, so yeah, not me…for whatever it is someone wants me to do. It's definitely not me doing it."

"No." Greg smiled at his disheveled and smelly friend. "Nick was saying you're not like me, you're like him. You have a hard time letting go after a case that hits too close to home." When Greg first went into the field, he internalized everything, lost his sense of humor, and stopped sleeping, but a near-death experience and three months of intense counseling had changed his perspective for the better. "If you keep taking on the burden, you get overwhelmed, and when you're overwhelmed you can't give new victims one hundred percent. It's a trap. You think you're helping by not letting go after a case, but really you're hurting the next victim's chances for justice."

Nick took offense. "Sanders, when the hell haven't I been able to give one hundred and ten percent on case?"

"Will you get offended if I don't stick around for this spat?" Sara asked, hoping a little humor would help. "I want to be a good friend to both of you, but after pulling a triple, I really need to get home and get horizontal." She hoped Greg would see the easy opportunity for a joke and run with it.

Greg laughed, "Is that code for 'I have a hot webcam date with my Parisian hubby'?"

Hearing lighthearted laughter only irritated Nick more. "Actually, I have to be somewhere too." He made a beeline for the door.

"Where do you have to be?" Greg called out.

"Away!"

When the locker room door closed a little too loudly, Sara flashed a sympathetic smile. "If it makes you feel any better, if my husband were here he would agree with you and be giving Nick the same advice. He gave me the same advice plenty of times."

"Yeah, and after hearing Grissom's advice for years, you didn't just bolt from the locker room one day, you bolted to the jungle."

"True, but I'm happy now."

"Because you bolted from Grissom again?"

"I told you, I didn't bolt from Grissom." Sara confidently stated her reasons again. "I bolted to Vegas to earn money so that my husband and I can work together completing a research project on our body farm. I swear, there's no trouble in paradise. I had a completely romantic reason for bolting this time."

"If your idea of romance is sharing a DB with the one you love."

"I'd say you should try it sometime, but…

"Been there, done that." Smiling sweetly, Greg threw his jacket over his shoulder. "Thanks for trying to make me feel better even though you suck at it."

"Making people feel better is so you, not me."

"I'm sure Nick would disagree with you," he remarked on the way to the door. "See ya."

Taking a seat on the bench, Sara checked her watch. When she saw the time, she grabbed her cell phone to text Grissom and say she was running late for their cyber date.

As Greg trudged down the hall replaying the scene with Nick in his head, he heard Mandy's voice shrilling behind him.

"Stop talking!" Mandy whisper-yelled at Henry. "Which part of I don't want to talk about it anymore don't you understand?! Stop talking!"

Greg couldn't stop himself from turning around. "Everything okay?" When Mandy screamed 'yes' and Henry desperately huffed 'no', he knew the lab rats were fighting again. He wanted to tell them to get a room and get it over with already, but since he was already batting zero for the day, he opted to keep his mouth shut.

"He called my boyfriend a jerk."

"He is!" Henry informed Greg. "He cancelled on her again. That's four times this month."

"He works in the DA's office. He's a busy guy with an important job."

Henry exasperatedly asked, "Why is she letting him take advantage of her?"

Mandy snapped at Greg, "Why does he think my love life is any of his business?"

"Because I'm her friend!" Henry answered.

"Tell him he doesn't sound like a friend, he sounds like my mother and since I already have a meddling mother, I don't need a second one."

Greg just stood there letting his co-workers fight through him.

"She's only putting up with the jerk because her sisters are both pregnant again." Henry vehemently nodded at his buddy. "She's hearing the tick-tock of her biological clock and is afraid if she breaks up with her deadbeat boyfriend, she'll be giving up on her chance to settle down and have a family. She's only 32. Eggs don't really start to decline until after 35 and assuming she has a healthy uterus…"

"31 and a half!" Mandy turned to shoot daggers directly at Henry. "And you have no right to talk about my eggs or my…"

"Time out!" Greg made a T with his hands and stepped in between the ever-quarreling lab rats. "Run, Mandy."

"I owe you one, Sanders!" Mandy huffed as she resumed storming down the hall.

"Dude!" Greg chided his socially-dysfunctional lab buddy. "What the hell are thinking? Chicks don't want to hear a guy talking about her rotting eggs and barren uterus. That's a perfect 10 on the buzzkill chart."

"I'm just trying to help her."

"Would you think I was helping you if I stood here yelling 'aww, don't worry that you have a small penis, Henry, everyone knows size doesn't really matter'?"

The news coming as a huge relief, Henry broke into a brilliant smile. "I'd feel great." He immediately sobered. "Were you just saying that to make me feel better or do girls really think that size doesn't matter?"

"I think girls care more about what you do with your mouth than your…"

"Wait." Henry glanced around to make sure they were still alone. "Do you mean kissing or…"

"Talking!" Greg yelled, "I mean talking! You need to cure your verbal diarrhea and stop saying what she doesn't want to hear."

"You mean lie to her?"

"No, don't lie to her, just don't tell her the truth."

The MIT genius asked, "How exactly am I supposed to not tell the truth without lying?"

"Simple." Greg counseled, "You change the subject and make your move." When he saw the man was flummoxed, he gave an example. "If Mandy says her boyfriend called and cancelled their date, you don't tell the truth and say the guy's a jerk and she's an idiot for taking his bullshit, you just say 'Wow, that guy must really love his job, because if I were in a relationship with a gorgeous, intelligent woman like you, I wouldn't be able to cancel our date. Or I'd at least stop by and bring you some gooey brownies to give you a raincheck in person. How does he handle not seeing you for days at a time?"

"That's so not me."

"I know." Greg dropped a hand on his buddy's shoulder. "But like any cute little puppy, I think you're trainable."

"Wait…why should I take your advice when your methods didn't work with Sara? She married Grissom, not you."

Ignoring the question, Greg pointed at his pal. "Gooey brownies. Trust me."

"Brownies, not flowers?" Henry asked, recalling his father always bringing his mother flowers on special occasions or when he screwed up. "Wouldn't a rose be better?"

"No, Mandy's allergic to roses, but she loves the gooey brownies from the bakery across the street."

"How do you know that?"

"I'm a CSI. It's my job to be observant." After checking his watch, Greg gave one last piece of advice. "Just chill out and be her non-judgmental friend. That'll put you in the perfect position to pick up the pieces when she wakes up and realizes her boyfriend is a total loser who isn't worthy of licking her boots." He whispered, "If you boost her self-esteem when she's feeling vulnerable and manage to get her in the sack when she's desperate for TLC, odds are she won't care about your um…little issue."

"Are you speaking from experience?" Henry asked with a hopeful lilt.

"With my size 13 feet?" Greg laughed. "Hell no."

"I hope he rots in hell," Mandy snarled as she grabbed another tissue from the box Wendy was holding. Standing in the Ladies Room with her supportive best friend, the dejected girlfriend stopped ranting to blow her nose.

"The DA's office is a busy place. How do you know he's not telling the truth about getting dragged into court all day?"

"Because his secretary is out with swine flu and I guess the temp they have covering for her didn't know she was supposed to cover for my bastard boyfriend. She spilled the beans that Randall went to lunch with Becky from the Sex Crimes division." Her blood boiled thinking of that bimbo banging her boyfriend. "Ironic isn't it? He's committing the crime of infidelity with a supposed do-gooder from the Sex Crimes Unit."

"Yeah, sometimes I think all those holier than thou prosecutors and Victims Services folks get so fed up doing good all day that they have to be naughty at night." Wendy sighed, "At least that's what I told myself when Jack from Social Services dumped me for a stripper." She glanced down at her chest. "But deep down I knew it was my lack of double Ds."

"And his lack of morals." Mandy sniffled into a tissue. "I don't think there are any nice, straight guys left who aren't hapless geeks suffering from terminal cases of verbal diarrhea who only make me feel worse about myself, not better."

Thinking of Hodges and his significant behavior improvements over the past year, Wendy smiled, "I don't know. I think even the most hapless geek is trainable. Look at Hodges. He seemed hopelessly incapable of ever uttering the right thing, but just yesterday he said something that made my day. That's light years away from when I first met him and every other sentence was an insult." Looking back on their arduous journey to love, she remarked, "Sure it's required the patience of a saint and the tolerance of Gandhi, but it's happening. It's finally happening."

Even though her heart was aching, Mandy joked, "Maybe you can score a reality show."

"The Lab Rat Matchmaker?"

"I was thinking instead of The Dog Whisperer, you could be The Geek Whisperer. Hodges can be your testimonial success story."

Wendy joined in the laughter. "Do I get to make him wear a studded collar and lead him around on leash?"

"Please tell me that's not really one of your Hodges fantasies. I'm still recovering from the Sci Fi ones you shared with me that night we went to that martini bar and sampled ever drink on the menu." Mandy perked up. "Ooh! We should go back there right now and drown my sorrows."

"I really don't want to leave you alone when you're so down, but I'm a guest lecturer at UNLV today."

"That's right, I forgot about that. It's okay." Mandy walked over to the sink to splash water on her face. "I should use the extra time to catch up on my backlog. When I'm done, I'll stop by the bakery and drown my sorrows in a box full of gooey brownies."

"Here." Wendy handed over a ten dollar bill. "Since I can't commiserate with my best friend, I at least want to pay for her brownies."

"Thanks, and maybe you're right about the hapless geek thing."

After trying to push her best pal and Henry together for months, the Geek Whisperer filled with delight. "Really? You're ready to give a geek a try?"

Mandy sniffled and nodded. "Just give me a few days to eat brownies and lick my wounds, okay?"

"Is that code for having a one-night stand with a vapid hunk?"

"You know it." Returning her glasses to her face, the lab rat remarked in a sultry voice, "My naughty librarian look is bad boy kryptonite."

Wendy chuckled with her friend. "Anyone who talks kryptonite is a geek in disguise." She grabbed her purse from the sink counter. "Ooh! That just reminded me. I have an Ebay bid on an authentic Astro Quest shock necklace." She hurried for the door. "I want to give it to Hodges for Christmas."

"Yeah, nothing says 'thinking of you this holiday season' like a shock collar."

"Trust me, he'll love it."

"The man's a perv, of course he will. All men are pervs." Mandy's anger returned with a vengeance. "Is it wrong that I want Randall to get his man parts stuck in Miss Sex Crimes body piercings and have to go to the ER to have it surgically removed?"

"I think Gray's Anatomy did that storyline once."

"People still watch that show?"

"I used to." Smiling at Hodges as she strolled down the hall, Wendy said, "Now that I'm a professional Geek Whisperer, I don't have time for TV dramas. Between vintage toy shopping, perfecting my Xbox technique, and staying current with Nat Geo, my schedule is full."

When Greg woke up on the couch and saw it was dark both in the living room and outside, he scrambled to check the time on his watch. "Ten o'clock?!" Knowing Catherine wanted him in early, he jumped off the couch, stepping directly into the empty cookie box he had carefully placed on the floor earlier. "Dammit!" Sprinkles and crumbs were everywhere. "Why didn't you wake me?!" he yelled down the hall. "I told you I had meeting." Grabbing a dust pan from under the kitchen sink, he mumbled to himself, "My mother's cookies always put me in a sugar coma. I wonder if she keeps her valium bottle next to the mixer and accidentally spills a few pills in the bowl."

After tossing the pan full of crumbs in the trash, Greg hustled down the hall to the bedroom. "Why didn't you…" When he saw the bed was still made, he pulled his cell phone from his pocket. "No messages."

He quickly fired off a text. where are u?

He immediately got a reply. work where are u?

"Where am I?" He furiously texted back. i just got off the couch why didn't u wake me when you left? He tossed his clothes while he waited for a reply.

sorry wasn't there

where were u?

out

"Obviously!" he yelled at the phone as he typed. Where?

working can't talk

the customer can wait!

later

"We both know that's code for you're not going to like the answer, Greg." On his way to the shower, he called Catherine. Thankfully the call went to voicemail. "Hey, it's Greg. I'm going to be a few minutes late. The case file and my notes are on my desk if you want them. Sorry, my alarm didn't go off. I'll be there as soon as I can."

"Hey!" Wendy waved to Hodges in the parking lot and burst into a smile when he waved back and started walking toward her.

"It's Guest Lecturer Simms," the smitten man said with a flirtatious flair. "How did it go at UNLV?"

Thrilled that her geek was asking all the right questions, she excitedly said, "It went great. Better than great. Awesome."

Standing under a parking lot light post, he nervously asked, "So, no trouble with the slides or the…"

"No, everything worked perfectly. Just like you showed me. Thank you." Noticing his new, stylish bistro stripe button-down, she knew he had been sifting through the J Crew catalogs she had conveniently left open on the table in the break room.

"Anytime." Stuffing his hands in his pockets, Hodges anxiously grinned at his nemesis-turned-crush. "I was happy to help."

After some awkward silence, Wendy asked, "New shirt?"

"Yes." He masked his appreciation of the comment. "I um…I wasn't sure of the color." Sliding a hand across his chest, the exacting Trace Tech remarked, "But it's two-ply cotton with a peached finish, so it's very soft."

"Peached finish makes it really soft huh?" She fought the urge to find out for herself and changed the subject back to color, not feel. "Blue's a really good color for you."

"It's Deep Surf actually."

She smiled at the geektasticness of the exacting comment.

"Speaking of shades." Hodges nervously cleared his throat. "That's a new shade of lipstick you're wearing."

"I bought it to wear to my presentation," she answered before licking her lips.

"I knew it." He leaned in for a closer inspection.

Wendy's heart skipped a beat when it seemed a surprise kiss was imminent. But when she saw his eyes headed for her mouth instead of his lips, she knew her Trace Tech boyfriend-to-be was thinking with his brain, not his heart.

"Revlon Mineral Lipglaze," Hodges announced after stepping back. "Unlimited Nectar. Am I right?"

"Yes," she answered with a loving sigh. "You really do know your lipstick."

"There's a lot of cheating going on in this town, which means a lot of lipstick evidence."

Way to kill the mood, she thought, loving him just the same. "Do you ever wonder how they come up with the names for lipstick?"

"No." He chuckled, "Because I already know."

"Silly me." She returned his sweet laugh. "Of course you do." Walking towards the lab entrance, Wendy said, "I bet you even know what 'peached-finish' fabric means and how it's made."

"As a matter of fact, I do." He gushed with pride. "The best peach finish fabric currently comes from China. The Guangdong province to be exact."

In that moment, as David Hodges rambled on about the merits of the carbonized peach finishing process, Wendy knew exactly how she felt...hopelessly in love.

Thanks for reading!

Maggs