Thanks so much to my kind reviews and alerty people! Best response I have ever had for chapter one! So for that I thank you!

Okay – just to let you know, I am ENGLISH. Therefore I know NOTHING about high school, so forgive me if I make mistakes (anyone who could PM me with a little insight as to what you call the year groups, if/ when you get to pick your own subjects etc, it would be really appreciated! )

This chapter also seems a little happy go lucky, but it is kinda still introductory, sorry. I promise more drama, romance and angst in the future! It is coming and soon!

Please, Read, Enjoy, Review

Chapter Two # Finding Cliques#

"I am going to give you each two pieces of paper. On the blue paper, you have to write something you are afraid of. On the red paper, write something that you are good at. Don't let anyone see what you wrote, just fold it over and put it into a bag. Then, when I say, tip the bag out onto the table. Everyone take a blue card and a red card. Then you go around the table and try to match the cards to the people who wrote them. Now I know this may seem very personal, but we'll deal with the 'why's later. Any questions?"

"What if you get yourself?" Morgan called. Unknown to Grissom, it was all part of her routine when she got a new teacher. Test whether they demand hands up, 'sir', total concentration or whether they were indifferent.

"Then you say it, and four people throw their card of that colour into the middle of the table and swap them around."

Nick thought for a short moment before quickly scrawling two things down on two the two bits of paper he'd been given.

His whole table finished quickly and Grissom gave them permission to start. As no one seemed to get their own, they all studied them for a moment.

"I'll go first." Catherine announced. "Okay. I have 'fear of the dark'. Um...my guess would be..." she stared around the sea of faces. "Uh...Morgan?"

Morgan laughed. "Me? No. Not that it's funny to be afraid of the dark, just that I love the dark. When I lived in LA, I'd go walking after dark every night."

"Damn." Catherine frowned. "Uh... Sara?"

The brunette shrugged and nodded mutely.

"Yes!" Catherine grinned. "Okay, I have 'I'm good at blowing things up'. Greg?"

The youngest boy at the table winked. "That's me."

"Remind me not to sit next to you in science." Morgan looked at Greg, who pouted dramatically.

"My turn." Nick said from Catherine's right. "Fear of needles." he saw a slight shudder across the table. "Morgan?"

"Guilty."

"And it says 'dancing'. I'm gonna guess...Catherine?"

"Nope." She sighed.

"Sara?"

"Are you kidding me?" she raised her eyebrows and Nick shook his head.

"Warrick?" Nick turned to the other boy.

"Hell no. I have two left feet." Warrick laughed.

"Then I have two belonging to Morgan, and I am the worst guesser in the world."

"Both are correct." Morgan nodded.

"Okay..." Warrick began. "I have fear of flying. Uh..." he paused. "Catherine?"

Her eyes opened wide. "How did you...?"

"I grew up in Vegas. Been playing card games since I was nine. You're poker face is good, but it needs some perfecting."

She smiled at him. "Impressive."

He grinned back. "I also have writing as a skill. I'm guessing...Nick?"

"Man, you are good!" Nick looked appreciatively at Warrick, who felt proud, for what he thought was the first time in high school.

"You like writing?" Sara asked curiously. Nick shrugged.

"Sometimes. When my mom forces me to stop playing baseball."

"Ah, you're a jock." Greg said.

"No. I'm just a kid who likes baseball." Nick shrugged.

"Good answer." Greg grinned.

"My turn." Sara sang. "Okay, claustrophobia...Greg?"

"Yep." Greg shrugged. "I hate tight spaces."

"I can tell." Sara shrugged.

"How?" demanded Greg

She laughed delicately. "You have a lot of energy."

"Skill, baseball...okay, we know it's not Nick...Warrick?"

"Uh, no." Warrick coughed.

Sara frowned in concentration for a minute. "Catherine?"

Catherine grinned a cheeky grin to mask her surprise at how quickly the brunette had figured it out. "Yeah."

"You play baseball?" Nick asked

"And I'm a cheerleader." she winked. "I like to dance, but I also like to swing."

Warrick looked at her curiously for a moment.

"Okay I have fear of snakes." Greg announced. "Uh...Nick?"

Nick nodded.

"And my skill is... poker. Warrick?"

The boy nodded. "I kinda gave that away."

"You did." Greg nodded. "Can you teach me sometime?"

"Sure." Warrick asked, surprised.

"Okay, I'm last. So that leaves the fear of clowns to be Warrick," she paused for the boy to nod. "and being good at science belongs to Sara."

The brunette nodded.

"What sort of science?" Greg asked curiously.

Sara shrugged. "Chemistry. Physics. Biology. Psychology. Any science."

"Cool. Do you like DNA and stuff like that?"

Sara nodded slightly.

"Me too!" Greg grinned. "I got invited for it."

"Same." Sara said.

The bell rang for recess and the class jumped for the door.

"Hang on!" Grissom called. The whole class froze. "Alright, you can go."

The class shook their heads in confusion, before leaving the room.

"Where're you going?" Greg asked Morgan.

"I'm going to find my friends. Where are you going?"

"To find my friends."

"Cute." They seemed to be going in the same direction, and soon Greg say the pretty brunette that he's seen her say goodbye to at the door.

"Lindsay!" Morgan sung, waving at her. The girl was a little taller than Morgan, but Greg noticed that even she way tiny. He saw a skinny Asian kid come out of the next room and bounded up to him.

"Hey Arch. How was homeroom?"

The boy rolled his eyes, and looked at Greg."I have the worst teacher, ever! He's the worst! His name is Mr. McKeen, and he is strict as hell. He gave this kid, Messer or something, detention this evening for passing a note to a girl called Aiden or something. I'm not gonna be able to make it til lunchtime!"

"Quit moaning, Archie! We're in Vegas! You can't get any more different to San Gabriel!"

"Yeah, there's nowhere to surf!" Archie grumbled, glaring at his friend.

"Relax! This is gonna be awesome."

"I best everyone else is sat there on the beach, discussing their first day at the high school we were supposed to go to. I bet Mandy is teasing Henry and he's still working up the courage to ask him out and Bobby is still using your old Pink posters for target practice."

"He what?" Greg cried. "Well then I am very glad he's not here."

"Oh, god there is this suck up called David Hodges. He's the most annoying kid in the world. He's from somewhere in Los Angeles. And there's this senior, Eliot Stabler from New York. He has my lunch money."

"What?" Greg stopped in his footsteps, and Archie swore. He hadn't meant to let it slip because he knew exactly what his friend would do.

"Greg...I..."

"Archie, who is he?"

"Greg we can't pick a fight with him, he's a senior. I just don't want any trouble-"

"Archie! Now he won't stop, we said this wasn't happening anymore. Where is he." Archie just shook his head as they walked into the cafeteria.

"Oh, hey Greg." Nick grinned as he and Warrick came up beside them on the way in. "Who's this?"

"Hi Nick, Warrick. This is Archie. Archie this is Nick, from Texas and Warrick, from Vegas. They're in my homeroom." Archie smiled politely.

"Hi."

"Hi." Warrick and Nick returned.

"Where d'you wanna sit?" Nick asked Warrick, you shrugged.

"Wherever."

"You two wanna join us?" Nick asked Greg and Archie.

"Sure." Greg nodded, and Archie just smiled in response.

The whole cafeteria was stuffed, and there wasn't an empty seat in sight as people tried to grab chairs and cliques. It made Nick slightly queasy that he could already tell the jocks from the populars, and the cheerleaders, and geeks etc.

"Maybe we could ask Grissom if we could sit in A11." Greg thought aloud.

"Why not?" Nick shrugged. As the four boys turned to leave the cafeteria, a voice called, "Hey, Stokes!"

Nick turned to see an obvious jock jog up to him.

"My name's Jesse. Jesse Cardoza, and your sister's in my homeroom. She says you're handy with a baseball bat?"

Nick shrugged with a slight smile. "I try."

"Well, I got invited here for sports and I've been asked to get a team together made up of kids from all grades. You interested?"

"Sure." Nick nodded. "Sounds cool."

"Great." Jesse grinned. "Tryouts are Wednesday after school on the field."

"I'll be there."

"You wanna come sit with us?" Jesse asked, quietly eyeing the three boys Nick was with. To everyone's surprise, the Texan smiled politely but shook his head.

"I'm okay, thanks. I'll be at the tryouts."

"Oh...okay..." Jesse frowned, and Nick nodded and turned away.

"Are you insane?" Greg asked Nick loudly as they left the crowded cafeteria.

"I don't think so."

"Sitting with senior jocks is like, the highest level of immunity that there is!"

Nick frowned. "Well, they didn't invite you to sit down. So if I did that would be harsh. Besides, immunity is pointless if you feel guilty for taking it."

Warrick looked at Nick in complete shock, and Nick noticed. "What?"

"Nothing."

Nick narrowed his eyes but said nothing as they made their way back to their homeroom. When they got there, they saw Dr. Grissom disappearing around the corner at the end of the corridor.

"I'll catch him!" Greg volunteered. "C'mon, Arch!" Giving his friend no choice, Greg raced down the corridor hollering "Dr. Grissom!" at the top of his voice. Archie simply rolled his eyes and followed.

As the two freshmen disappeared after their teacher, Nick turned on Warrick.

"What's wrong, man?"

Warrick's heart sank. "Nothing."

"You've been looking at me as if I'm an alien all day, man, and you get this little sad look in your eye all the time. What's up?"

"Busted!" A little voice sang in Warrick's head. "You're the one who needs to work on their poker face."

"I didn't mean to freak you out-"

"You haven't." Nick frowned.

"Look, I've been a dork since middle school. I don't make friends easy."

"So?" Nick looked confused, and Warrick shrugged. "This is a new start man. We're friends."

"Really?"

Nick rolled his eyes. "If we weren't, I woulda done a runner at recess."

"Cool." Warrick said happily.

"You could do yourself one favour, though." Nick reasoned. "Have a little more confidence. You don't come across as a dork. Apart from the glasses." He grinned.

"I'll try." Warrick grinned back.

Greg and Archie chose that moment to come jogging around the corner.

"We have permission."

When the four boys entered the class room, they saw that they weren't alone. Morgan was sitting on the middle of their table cross-legged, using a spoon to eat peanut butter out of a jar, the same brunette girl, Lindsay, that Greg had seen earlier cross-legged next to her.

Sara Sidle hadn't moved from her seat, and was doodling on the back of a piece of paper.

"Hi." Greg said. "Mind if we join you?"

All three girls shrugged.

Nick wrinkled up his nose as he looked at Morgan. "Is that peanut butter? Gross!"

"What's wrong with peanut butter?" Morgan frowned.

"Its gross." Nick wrinkled his nose.

Morgan shrugged. "Suit yourself."

Sara studied the young Texan man, absently rubbing at the top of her arms. As if that would make the bruises go away. Nick seemed nice enough, and she had to admit he was cute. However, it was probably just a show; make himself look good for the first day. Make himself popular before he started pushing people down.

She had seen it millions of times before. And she knew that despite how friendly people were being, she would soon be an outcast. It happened every single time, in every single school. She had gone from school to school, moving whenever people became suspicious. Therefore she wasn't surprised when her dad agreed to move to Vegas when invited - her friend Olivia had seen the bruises. But anyway, Sara knew.

There were people like Nick Stokes in every school.

CSIVCSIVCSIV

Catherine meandered her way through the cafeteria until she found someone she recognised.
"Calleigh!" She called in relief, waving to the familiar blonde girl she'd met when the southern girl had come to San Diego, where Catherine had been living at the time. After exchanging email and phone numbers, the two had remained friends, despite the fact that they lived thousands of miles apart and Catherine was a year younger than Calleigh.

"Oh my god, hi, Catherine!" The blonde girl called in her distinctive southern accent.

They hugged each other and Calleigh introduced Catherine to her friends, both old and new. "This is Natalia Boa Vista, and Jess Angell they're juniors, and Alexx Woods, Kate Todd, and Ziva David, who are all seniors."

"Cool." Catherine grinned. "I'm Catherine Flynn. I'm a junior."

"How'd you know Cal?" Kate said nicely.

"We met while I was on holiday in San Diego, Cath used to live there." Calleigh smiled.

Another girl with rich auburn curls that filled Catherine with jealousy arrived and smiled warmly at Catherine.

"Hi." She said in a strong Texan accent.

"Cath, this is MJ, she's a senior too. She was my pen pal."

"Mary-Jane Stokes." The girl smiled.

"Stokes?" Catherine frowned slightly, and Mary-Jane smiled wryly.

"Which is it? Ethan or Nick?"

"Uh...Nick is in my homeroom, we were sitting on the same table. Seems like a nice guy." She explained slightly awkwardly.

Mary-Jane laughed. "Yeah, Nick's a good kid."

"Well, he got in a little trouble."

"Really?" Mary-Jane frowned.

Catherine relayed the Rick Steler incident and Nick's involvement to the crowding girls.

"Anyone who picks on kids half their size must be a pimp." Ziva sighed.

"Uh, Zee?" Kate edged. "I think you mean wimp."

"Oh." Ziva frowned.

"Jeez, leave it to Nick to stand up to the seniors on the first day." Mary-Jane shook her head.

"Yeah, well when you're friend," Catherine motioned to Calleigh, "Eric, said that Nick was Ethan's brother, he left them alone."

Mary-Jane snorted delicately. "That is the thing about the Stokes family. We fight each other tooth and nail, but no one else can touch our family."

Catherine laughed along with the others, happy to settle down into a group that would soon blossom into populars and cheerleaders.

A good looking boy with a cheeky grin shot passed and winked at the girls. A couple giggled, but Kate just shouted.

"Go away DiNozzo!" she turned to the others. "He was my next door neighbour. We're practically like cousins. And he is the most annoying little-"

Catherine let the conversation bubble over her head as she stared around the cafeteria. She was having a great day so far.

Too bad it wouldn't last.

PS: If anyone has any particular pairings (non-slash) that they would like to see, just tell me in a review or PM and I will have a little think. I am pretty certain about what I will do, but I can be persuaded otherwise! :P