Disclaimer: I don't own them.
A/N: So hopefully you all get alerts for this. Some people didn't get an alert and others got two... :(
I rewrote this chapter like a hundred times, because I really didn't want it to just be a summary of the episode. It still is, kinda, but hopefully only the pilot will be like that. There was just so much going on and I felt like I needed to include most of it, but for other episodes there won't be so much to include, I think.
If, as we get into part 3, you think there's too much summary, let me know and I'll lessen it up. I really want to focus on what happens in between episodes with only reference and inclusion of certain parts of episodes, but I don't want people to have to go re-watch the episode to understand the nuance of each chapter, you know? :)
Whew! Okay, enough talking. Please review!
Chapter 31: Holly Gribbs
I don't know why I was surprised that the night was so horrible—generally, when there's so much going on, there has to be some amount of tragedy. Granted, not this much… but then, we worked with death every day. The fragility of life should come as no surprise.
She reminded me of Amber. Not necessarily in any distinct way—she didn't look like her or talk like her—but the way her lips parted around her teeth, and the way her eyes flickered from place to place when she was focused… it was like I was watching four year old Amber trying to spell her name from memory, or eight year old Amber working on math problems.
She was almost timid, though—timid but somewhat scathing also. What a strange combination. I felt like the hint of derision in her voice was comparable to Sara's bravado—a front, to hide the fear. Holly just wasn't as good as Sara was at disguising it. When she moved into Brass' office, I braced myself for the worst, knowing exactly how he'd been lately and exactly how fragile she appeared to be.
"So your mother is lieutenant Jane Gribbs from Traffic, is that right?"
"Yes, sir."
"Well, congratulations, Gribbs! You're the…" A soft, almost bitter chuckle escapes his lips, "you're the fifth person I've been forced to hire!" He throws the file in his hand down to his desk with a sharp slapping sound. "We're the number two crime lab in the country. We solve crimes most labs render unsolvable. Now, what makes you think you belong here?"
In truth, it had been a long time since Jim had done any solving on his own. She looked at me, almost for support, and though I felt defensive of her, I kept my face impassive. I didn't want to speak for her if she was capable of defending herself… and I didn't want to undermine my boss' authority so directly, either.
But she turned back to Brass as soon as she saw that I wasn't about to jump to her rescue, despite my previous supportive behavior, and met his eyes without hesitation.
"Sir, with all due respect, I thought the key to being a lucid Crime Scene Investigator was to reserve judgment until the evidence vindicates or eliminates assumption." She drew a deep breath, as if to steel herself to continue the confrontation. I glanced at Jim, and he had an amused smile on his face—mocking. I didn't return it. "You're prejudging me. I graduated, with honors, in criminal justice at UNLV."
I was impressed.
"Yeah, so?"
This flusters her, a little. "That's not fair."
"Fair? And you think putting a juiced-in lieutenant's daughter on the shift is fair?" I frowned, just slightly. It wasn't fair, but Jim played politics and called in favors as much as anyone else. Something I never ceased to be grateful for, in truth, though I was not good at politics myself; it had allowed me to provide for Amber.
"You know, I've been in the field twenty-two years, I've seen it all." Holly glanced nervously between the pair of us again. "I've seen people like you come and go, and you know what? They don't amount to nothing but headaches and bad press." She looked away from him, defeated, and I too averted my eyes. He was crossing the line.
"Dismissed."
He sat down and I watched her struggle—in part to control her temper in front of her new boss and in part, I think, to control her emotions. "Fine," she muttered, and turned and left the room. I turned to him, feeling that I could speak more freely without her present. I pursed my lips.
"You think you got through to her?" My voice wasn't angry, though slightly indignant—but he was not about to let me question him, even in subtle sarcasm and disapproving tone. He disregarded my question completely.
"You're scheduled to appear at an autopsy at 12:30 a.m. They're cutting up that bozo that put a hole in his chest—Take her with. I think every new hire should experience an autopsy on their first night."
I narrowed my eyes and walked out, getting extremely tired of the angry man who had overtaken my boss. It wasn't doing the lab any good.
The autopsy didn't go well. She went in strong, brave, even commenting on how the body didn't look real. But the minute the coroner started to cut into the body, her face started to change, and then she was running from the room looking for a bathroom, no doubt to vomit in. The smell was something that took a very long time to get used to.
And then there was distant, muffled screaming and I found myself racing into the hallway, frantic—she'd gone into a storage room, full of bodies, which locked automatically from the outside. I let her out and caught her hand as she ran, wanting so badly to comfort this poor girl—panting about bodies and feeling them breathing—to make up for the bad start to the night and bring a smile to lips so reminiscent of my little girl's.
I chuckled softly and pulled her into a hug—uncharacteristic of me, but she needed it, and it felt as natural as embracing Amber had been. But the hug didn't stop her trembling, nor did my words of comfort, and I instead turned and yelled a curse at the bodies she'd left behind, hoping to draw a laugh from her frantic eyes and still-panting, muttering lips. She laughed nervously, shakily, and I couldn't resist putting hands to her face and chuckling again.
I was reminded, once more, of my baby—she'd found a spider in the bathtub and had run, positively screaming, to her mother, who grabbed a paper towel to squish it for her. I looked away, knowing that Laura would still dispose of the creature whether I argued or not, when Amber's voice rose in the protest I had stifled. We let the spider go outside.
...I let Holly sit out the rest of the autopsy, winking and telling her not to tell Brass. She nodded and smiled gratefully, still shaking, and then Brass gave me an assignment to pass on to her. A burglary in a liquor store.
She could have taken a department vehicle, but I didn't want to leave her just yet—I didn't want her to feel alone, even though I had piles of work back at the lab to occupy me, not to mention the blunt-force trauma case from the country club and the staged-suicide victim we'd discovered just the night before. But I dropped her off, made sure she knew how to get in contact and knew what to do, and I let her go in.
There was no reason to believe she wouldn't be just fine. It was a very basic scene to process…
I found out later that the store owner had held her at gunpoint and Catherine had had to respond—and that wasn't even the worst of the night. Catherine had been late, which sent Brass off on another tirade, Warrick and Nick were competing for who would reach CSI level 3 first, Catherine ended up getting called off of Warrick's case to deal with a little girl who'd been sexually assaulted, and Warrick had gone over Brass' head to get a warrant directly from a judge.
I returned to the lab—after clearing the only suspect we had on my staged-suicide… apparently he used to own hand to make a mold for a novelty rubber hand sold during Halloween… ten thousand different people could have planted his print at the scene—in time to hover outside Jim's office and hear the fight between Warrick and Jim.
Even if Jim was wrong—about the warrant, about the toenail, about the entire way he was treating our team—Warrick had lost sight of what was important. He was more worried about his promotion than the case itself. Jim called me in to lay out Warrick's punishment—shadowing Holly for three weeks or until Nick got his promotion—and I dragged Warrick back out before he could get himself suspended.
I yelled at him about his priorities, and remaining objective, in part because he needed to hear it… but in part because I really wanted to yell at Brass instead, about the dramatic shift he'd made in the last year. Warrick had said that many people walked every day because of him, and lately, this was true. I was about the only person he treated half-way decent anymore.
If nothing else, watching me yell at Warrick seemed to convince Jim that I was on his side—he called for a warrant on the toenail, even though he'd denied the same request from the younger man, and I took up the case, despite the fact that I had a blunt force trauma case from a country club on my desk and the staged-suicide which had apparently gone cold. It was something Warrick needed—vindication. And I felt the need to provide support in the way I could.
The striations matched, and we got the guy—I called Warrick to let him know, and we was at the scene in minutes, standing with me to watch the man taken away. It was a moment in which we didn't need to communicate—he was thankful, and I was apologetic for yelling at the man. …And we were both silently pleased that Jim had been wrong… that we had prevailed.
As an afterthought, I realize he isn't with Holly—apparently she was printing a robbery scene with an officer. We head back to the lab to hear that Nicky had cracked his case—he was a CSI level 3. I congratulated him, and there was another moment—Warrick's gracious congratulations, Nick's understanding handshake, Catherine's offer of breakfast for the team… Again, I felt that strange sense of belonging. I really believed I was starting to love these people, and that the job was more than a devotion or a distraction or the thing I'd chosen to give an empty life meaning… it was a home, almost.
And then Jim walked in, and tore apart the little lab family I had just been so proud of… Holly had been shot at the scene, we were pulling a double to investigate, and Warrick was on administrative leave until his whereabouts could be verified. They didn't think Holly was going to make it.
She had reminded me of Amber. She was so young. They thought she was going to die.
But like I said, death was a daily reality for us. It should have come as no surprise…
But I was surprised. I was surprised by how hard it hit me… how much it hurt me. How sudden and unpredictable and chaotic death could be, which I had certainly known and understood before now…
Even though we needed to pull a double… find the person who had done this to her… seek out justice and follow the evidence and every other line I had ever used to motivate my team or inspire a lecture audience… I just wanted to call Sara. I needed to call Sara. I needed to hear her voice, and know she was alive, and safe, and that this life had not taken yet another person from me…
And again, to my surprise, I called her.
