Of the characters only Libby and a few assorted goons, thugs and bad guys are my invention. The rest belong to CBS and people who are definitely not me; I'm just borrowing them for a little while. No harm, no foul.

Set in season 6, a day or so after the end of Gum Drops

With many, MANY thank yous to procrastin8or951 for the help and beta'ing

And thank you also to everyone who's read and reviewed and enjoyed - I'm just sorry that updates are currently taking me so long.

And Falling Down

Nick was beginning to get a cramp. As much room as the layout table offered for spreading out papers and files, it was a lousy place to try and write up notes for any length of time - and he had a feeling he'd been at the task for much longer than he really wanted to think about. The only break he'd taken had been to look at Greg's 'hair' samples - insulation fibres as it turned out - and that had been...

Nick frowned. Just how long ago had that been? He glanced at his watch and realised it was showing five am. Apparently, he hadn't moved from the layout room in nearly four hours. No wonder a cramp was setting in. Remarkably, it also meant that no one had interrupted him in that time. Did that mean the others had yet to return from their crime scenes? He felt a flash of guilt at that idea. The shift was already short handed with Grissom out; it didn't need to be made worse by him being sucked up in a case review. A look around the lab, however, settled that. He could see Warrick talking with Mandy in the print lab, while Catherine and Greg were both heading purposefully in the direction of either ballistics or the garage. Given both were wearing coveralls, he suspected the garage.

He slowly straightened up and winced as his back give a series of pops. He really, really should have moved sooner.

"Hey."

Easing round, Nick saw Sara in the doorway. "Hey."

"You weren't kidding when you said speed reading," she commented, gesturing to the tottering stack of files Nick had already gone through.

He smiled faintly. "How was your DB?"

"Trick roll gone bad," Sara replied. "We already have the suspect in custody, just need to get the evidence tied together."

"And Cavaliere isn't over here breathing fire at you for taking your time?" Nick shook his head in disbelief.

"You just bring out the worst in him."

"The feeling's mutual."

Sara smiled. "Anyway. I was wondering if you could use a hand with this stuff, or at least, if you needed a break."

"A break's good, but don't worry about tackling any of this. I've got it covered." Nick got to his feet and stretched. "Done all the easy stuff, anyway. What's left is...complicated."

"Easy stuff?"

For answer, Nick took the top file off the stack he'd dealt with and held it out. "See for yourself."

Sara took the file and opened it. "Single DB, three shots to the chest, Jane Doe, drug mule." She looked up. "Not much of a case file."

"There wasn't much to go on."

"They're all like this?"

Nick chuckled without much humour behind it. "Some are. I haven't counted exactly how many yet. They're the ones that match to the DB that Days pulled out of Lake Mead."

"Then what's the rest of it?" Sara asked, handing the file back.

"Other crimes where one or more of the guns were used. Mostly armed robberies. Some street crime too. There's also a couple of drug busts linked in and there's a hit and run in there as well - I do remember that one; vic was a veteran who saved the life of a little girl. The driver turned out to be one of the shooters."

Sara stared. "Is there anything this case doesn't cover?"

Nick shrugged. "No trick rolls, far as I've found." He started towards the door. "How fresh is the coffee in the break room?"

"I think Greg put a fresh pot on when he got back about an hour ago," Sara replied.

"Sounds good to me."

Rolling his wrists to try and relieve writer's cramp, Nick headed into the break room in search of the coffee Sara had mentioned. What he ought to do was actually take a proper break and go out for some food, but he wasn't sure he wanted to take the time. While he'd probably dealt with the majority of the files now, what was left could easily take him right up to clocking out time. It was only as he entered the break room and saw Libby curled up in the corner of the couch, her nose still buried deeply in Greg's book, that he remembered it wasn't just himself he was supposed to be looking out for.

"Hey, Libby?" he called, trying to squash the stab of guilt he felt at not checking on her sooner.

She looked up. "Hey."

"You feel like catching some food?"

Libby lowered the book. "What time is it?"

"Five in the morning."

"What would it be? Early breakfast?"

Nick offered a lopsided smile. "Late lunch," he replied. "How 'bout it?"

Stiffly, Libby uncurled from the couch. "What if all I want is some French toast?"

Nick grinned as he held out a hand to help her up from the couch. "If that's what you want, we can get some. There's a diner just down the block from here - figured we'd go there, since it's close and the food's good."

Sara watched as both Nick and Libby left the break room, heading towards the exit. Presumably, she judged, Nick was actually going to take a proper break rather than the five minute coffee break he'd implied when talking to her. That was definitely no bad thing - God knew there were plenty of shifts where you didn't get the luxury of even a five minute coffee break, so voluntarily missing a meal when the shift was as quiet as this one had been was always a stupid move. Unfortunately, judging by the size the files he still had to go through, it had probably also consigned him to pulling overtime. She eyed the files for a few moments, then slid into his seat. He might have said he had it covered, but it couldn't hurt for her to at least make a start on summarising the next file. Opening the file, she found a fresh page in the notepad Nick had been using and began taking notes about the file's contents.

Initially, she didn't see what on earth the file had to do with what Nick had described. The first set of pages described a standard house search - she wasn't even clear on why the house was being searched - and she was almost tempted to skip over them altogether until a phrase leapt out at her: CSI Stokes located the gun.

Sara blinked and scanned back until she found the beginning of the paragraph.

CSIs Stokes and Drew were assigned to searching the living room for anything that could further connect the suspect to the rash of John and Jane Doe bodies. It was CSI Stokes who located the gun, tucked beneath the cushions of the suspect's couch. CSI Stokes made the weapon safe and then logged it in as evidence. The gun was a Glock 17. Ballistic tests subsequently proved that it was one of the three guns that had been used on the victims.

Sara smirked. Why wasn't she surprised that Nick had been the one to find such a key piece of evidence? He had that knack of being in the right place at the right time. Her amusement faded as she realised that he also had the unenviable talent of being in the wrong place at the wrong time, too.

Was that what had happened here? Was that why he was being so cagey about the case?

Hurriedly, Sara continued to read the search report, scanning for signs of anything bad happening. When she found nothing out of place, she moved on to the next section of the file. That proved to be an autopsy report of a body found in a car trunk which contained nothing out of the ordinary. Beyond that was a car search report which did feature Nick's name again, but it was a search conducted in the lab garage so barring accidents, nothing should have happened there and, sure enough, the car search yielded nothing suspicious either.

It was only when she realised she'd reached the end of the file that she remembered she was supposed to be taking notes about the file's contents. Sheepishly Sara turned back to the start of the house search. While it was tempting to skip ahead and check the other remaining files, just to be sure nothing bad had happened, it made more sense to curb her curiosity and make the notes. At least that way she could say she'd been helping rather than prying.

With that thought uppermost in her mind, she set to work methodically making notes on the file's contents and had soon lost herself in the work. It wasn't until a voice said, "Thought I said I had it covered," that she realised just how deeply into the files she'd got, or how much time had passed.

Sitting up and looking round, Sara saw Nick leaning in the doorway, an odd expression on his face. "I just thought it would help," she said, even as she scrabbled together the couple of files she'd finished with.

Nick smiled. "It does; thank you." He pushed away from the doorway and entered the room. "You done with that one?" And he gestured to the file she had open in front of her.

Sara took a moment to check. "About half way through. Guess I'm starting to see why you said the rest was complicated. I mean, I thought we'd done some thorough investigations on people but this file on Roberto Mendosa is..." She trailed off and shook her head.

That got a lopsided smile. "Him I really do remember - mostly because he'd been so untouchable pretty much the entire time I worked in Dallas. We, uh, we might have been a little over enthusiastic when we finally did get a warrant."

Sara pressed her lips together in an effort not to giggle. "I see."

"You, uh, want to carry on?" he asked. "Or you about ready to climb the walls in boredom?"

"It's not that bad," Sara objected. "It's actually kinda interesting - you don't say much about Dallas."

"You don't say much about San Francisco," Nick pointed out. "And if you really want to carry on, be my guest - just hand me the last two files. That way we might both get out of here on time."

Sara slid the two files across the table. "Boring subject."

"So was Dallas."

Sara glanced down at the file she'd been working on. Boring was about the last word she'd ever use to describe it. "Don't wanna talk about it, huh?"

"Not really."

She looked up again, but he'd already hunched over the two files she'd handed over. Clearly, as far as he was concerned, the conversation was over. Sara rolled her eyes and turned her attention back to the file she was reviewing. As much as she was tempted to try and pursue the conversation, he did have a point about one thing: if they didn't get on with the review, they would end up pulling overtime.

Catherine couldn't help but smirk as she stood in the layout room doorway. On one side of the table sat Sara, her head propped on her left hand while her right hand scribbled away, making notes on the file she was staring at. On the other side of the table sat Nick, in a perfect mirror image of Sara's pose. They even seemed to be flipping pages in time with one another. It was, frankly, amusing.

And, to judge by the stack of files in the middle of the table, it was also pretty effective.

Catherine cleared her throat, drawing startled yelps from both. "You two look like you're having way too much fun here," she said.

Nick snorted. "You have a warped idea of fun."

"What time is it?" Sara asked, stretching.

"Almost end of shift," said Catherine. "Are you about finished or do you need to pick this up again later? Because," she added, "there is no way Ecklie will pay out for overtime on this."

"I'm done," said Nick. "Sar?"

"I'm finished - but I do have a question."

"Only one?" asked Nick looking wryly amused.

Sara rolled her eyes and tapped the file. "All this evidence and this case is labelled a cold file?"

Catherine watched as Nick shifted on his stool. "It's a long story, Sar," he said. "And I'm gonna have to tell it tonight - least, I'm pretty sure Grissom's gonna want to hear it - so if you don't mind, I'd like to only go over the whole thing once. 'Kay?"

"Something happened," said Sara, frowning.

"It was a long investigation. A lot of 'somethings' happened."

Catherine cleared her throat again. "Nicky, if there's something in these files you don't want us to know about, it might work better if you didn't immediately start going evasive on us."

"The case makes the whole Dallas lab look bad," said Nick shortly. "I'm not exactly big on advertising that. And no, I know I don't talk about Dallas much - this would be why."

Catherine held her hands up in surrender. "Okay - only going over it once is fine by me." Sara looked as if she wanted to argue the point, but Catherine gave her no chance, instead continuing, "Anyway, I stopped by to say that if you are done, you might as well clock out and go home, both of you. Warrick's already gone and Greg and I are stalled until Hodges gets through the trace backlog. Plus, Nick, you're down for on call, so you should probably make sure Libby's home before anyone takes advantage of that."

"Lucky me." Nick started to box up the files. "Though, if that's the case, Sar, you want to give me your notes? That way I can pull everything together before we get in tonight. Ecklie can't accuse me of doing overtime if I'm already on call."

"If you think you can read them," said Sara standing up. "Catherine can I talk to you for a second?"

Somehow, Catherine had been expecting that. "Sure. See you this evening, Nick."

It said a great deal for how much things had changed between them since the mail order brides fiasco that Sara waited until they were safely inside Catherine's office before she said, "Why are you letting him get away with this?"

Catherine gave her an amused look. "Because if there's one thing the last six months has taught me, it's to not push Nick into a corner about things he doesn't want to talk about. Especially if he's already tabled a time when he will talk about it."

"And you don't think he's acting strangely?"

"I didn't say that," said Catherine. She sighed. "I think you're right, but I don't think we're going to get anything out of him until he's ready. And after everything that's happened, I think we can cut him a little slack on that score."

"Assuming it doesn't interfere with the case."

Catherine smiled wryly. "Well we'll know the answer to that tonight."

Nick wasn't entirely surprised to see Libby fall asleep before they'd even left the crime lab's parking lot. It had been a long night for both of them, and he reasoned they'd probably both had more entertaining nights. The difference was that he was used to the hours while she probably hadn't had any decent sleep since she'd left Dallas. He shook his head. Maybe he should be more surprised that she hadn't ended up dozing in the break room.

Unfortunately, with Libby asleep in the passenger seat, he didn't feel he could risk turning on the radio and without that distraction, his thoughts inevitably returned to the case review and the new Dayshift case file. With just the one body, it was hard to tell just how linked it was to what had happened in Dallas, but the odds of it being utterly unrelated were vanishingly slim. The Dayshift file matched nearly word for word with the nine year old files from Dallas.

Was it Roberto Mendosa, finally reappearing from the woodwork? It was the most likely explanation - except that it made absolutely no sense. Why here? Why now? Nick shook his head. Mendosa was unlikely. But if it wasn't Mendosa, who else would be behind it?

It could be dumb luck, of course. The Mendosa case had been big news and two of the guns had never been recovered. All it would take is someone from Dallas with a knowledge of the case, possession of the two guns and a desire to recreate a case that had investigators chasing their tails for nearly a year before they finally caught a break. Again Nick shook his head. A copycat was even more unlikely than Mendosa. Sure, it had been a big case, but it was also eight years old. Copycats copied recent or truly notorious crimes, and the Mendosa case was neither.

That just left one viable option. "Chris Johns," he muttered, making a right onto his street. "And that would make this whole thing personal."

He snorted at the idea even as he parked in front of his house. He sounded paranoid even to his own ears; what the hell would Grissom and the rest of the team make of that theory?

He sighed and shelved that line of thought as unhelpful, then leaned across and gently touched Libby on the shoulder. "Hey," he said softly. "We're home, okay?"

Libby yawned and blinked. "Already?"

Nick offered her a smile. "You slept the whole way here."

She blushed. "Oh."

"Hey; it's not a problem. You're not used to the hours and God knows they're anything but normal." He opened the truck door and climbed out. "C'mon - we'll fix something for dinner, then you can get some proper sleep."

"What about you?" Libby asked between yawns.

For answer, Nick patted his pager. "I'm on call this morning - I don't get to be off duty for another four hours, unfortunately."

"Wow, that sucks," said Libby stiffly climbing out of the truck.

"It's not so bad - and being on call only comes up if things have been all quiet. Kinda hard to be on call if you're already thirty miles out of town digging up the Alien that Elvis buried."

Libby stared. "Please tell me you're kidding."

Nick grinned. "That's not even the weirdest case I've had. Tryin' to explain a scuba diver up a tree. I don't think I'll ever beat that, even if I work for another twenty years."

"Now I know you're making this up."

"You can check with Catherine," he answered, locking the truck. "Or look it up in the court records - case is about four years old."

Libby eyed him across the hood of the truck. "Scuba diver up a tree. Sounds like an urban legend."

"Hand on heart, Libby, it was as real as you are. Though," he added, "if I hadn't seen it, I probably wouldn't have believed it either." He turned for the front door and then stopped as something across the street caught his eye. "Libby, was that van there last night when you got here?" And he inclined his head in the direction of the large silver-grey van parked directly opposite his house.

Libby blinked. "Uh, maybe? Why? Isn't it your neighbour's?"

Nick shook his head. "Most of my neighbours drive compacts or family saloons. Nothing that size."

"Maybe they have visitors."

Nick eyed the van. "Maybe." It was a rational explanation but something about the van's presence made him nervous all the same. It seemed like there were a few too many things happening at once. Or maybe it was just his rampant paranoia getting the jump on him because of the memories the Mendosa case review had dragged up.

"I thought you said something about dinner," said Libby, breaking across his train of thought.

"Yeah," he agreed, shelving the line of thought as unproductive. "Dinner's good." He headed up the path towards his front door. "What time did you arrange to meet Catherine?"

"She suggested six o'clock."

Nick unlocked the door and keyed in the alarm code. "Sounds good. C'mon..." But before he could finish, his pager bleeped loudly. With a groan, he unclipped the device and looked at the message. "Damn."

"What's up?" Libby asked.

"Looks like the quiet night hasn't exactly translated into a quiet morning. They're calling me out." Nick stepped aside to allow Libby into the house. "Lemme find out the details. Go on through and start fixing yourself some dinner."

As Libby went, Nick pulled his cell phone from his pocket and, after double checking the pager message, found Sophia Curtis' phone number in his list of contacts. Pressing send, he finally closed the front door and made his way through to the kitchen where Libby had begun to pull the fixings for a salad together.

"Curtis."

"Hey Sophia - you want me for something?" Nick asked.

"You are down as the CSI on call this morning," she answered. "And, so Barb Carmichael tells me, also primary on the floater from Lake Mead - which is pretty impressive, since I know you were out of town when we pulled that guy out of the water."

Nick snorted. "It's a long story. I figure if you're asking that, you've got another."

Now it was Sophia's turn to snort. "Same deal as the first one. We really need a CSI on hand when rescue pulls him out, just in case there's any trace--"

"--which there won't be," Nick completed. "Whole point of the dump is to get rid of trace."

"Anyway," Sophia continued as if he'd said nothing, "since you are CSI in charge on the case - and since Days are tapped right out on a drive by on Jefferson - it looks as though it gets to be you this time."

Nick sighed. "Lucky me. Where am I going?"

"Swallow Bay."

"Okay; I'll be there in fifteen minutes."

"Hey; don't break any speed limits to get here."

Nick snorted. "I'm starting from Henderson. I'm already half way there."

Sophia's only response was to cut the call. Nick sighed and shook his head. Well there went his morning.

"You have to go, huh?" said Libby who had finished putting together her salad.

"Looks like." Nick grimaced. "Once I've gone, I want you to lock the front door and set the alarm - the code's in the notebook in the dresser drawer, okay? Ignore anyone who comes knocking on the door; at this time of day it's someone either looking to convert you or sell you magazines, so it's not worth bothering with. The phone ringer's turned right down, so you can ignore that, too." From one of the kitchen cupboards he pulled out his old cell phone and charger. "Plug this in and charge it up. If I do need to get a hold of you while I'm out, I'll call this, okay?"

"Uncle Nicky, I'm sixteen not six," said Libby with a roll of her eyes, although she did accept the proffered phone and charger. "And you sound really paranoid."

"Yeah well." Nick sighed. "Sometimes, darlin', just because you're paranoid, it doesn't mean there aren't folks out to get you. Besides, you're in a city you don't know. It's always good to be careful."

"I will be careful. I won't talk to strangers. I will lock up behind you. I-- What if I need to call you?"

Nick gestured to the dresser. "My current cell number is in the notebook too, along with my pager and a couple of other useful numbers. You know where everything is, right?"

"You showed me last night. Hadn't you better get going?" Libby asked.

"Yeah." Nick headed for the door. "Just in case I'm not back, better set the alarm clock for four pm."

"You'll be gone that long?" Libby sounded incredulous as she followed him back towards the door.

"Round here, anything's possible."

To be continued...