I do not own CSI

Rated M for language and suggestive content.

Trista felt the pressure rising simply by being in the same room with Warrick

So she bolted...she left...she ran away.

As she drove away as fast as she could...

she thought...and thought...and she remembered...

her past...

As she sped down the street she could feel the lump in her throat tightening and it made her mad. She turned up the radio but it didn't drown out the voices in her head. So she slammed the radio off angrily.

"Fuck you, Warrick Brown!" Trista yelled inside her empty car.

"You won't get to me, asshole!"

"I know how you guys operate…you only want me because you think I am good in bed and the challenge is there. Nah, you ain't getting me to fall for you, Brown…I know your type! You can keep your amazing kiss…don't look at me with those green eyes…leave me the fuck alone, Warrick, because I won't allow myself to fall for you…no matter how much I want to!" she continued screaming at the air.

Trista hated to admit it but she wanted to cry.

The way she left Jules' house suddenly was a survival technique.

She felt something for him and she wasn't going to let that show. She would squash anything she felt for him and never let it out. She was furious with herself for even looking at him that way. She was furious that he even continued to scope her out. She knew she had to get away from him. She knew that his kiss made her melt and she would be damned if she let Warrick know that.

Trista thought about the wounded look in Warrick's eyes when she laughed at him and told him to get over it and she wasn't interested.

She didn't care.

No. Absolutely not.

She knew what she had to do. She needed to shut him down fast.

Trista knew it was the only language men understood.

She had no doubt so she ran him off.

Before she witnessed the love that Nick and Jules shared she swore it didn't exist. But, as she always told Jules, they were truly the exception. They were rare. Couples like that were extinct.

She was no fool…lightening doesn't strike twice and Jules was the lucky one so Trista knew she could forget about finding her lightning bolt…it wasn't gonna happen.

She knew it. She accepted it.

She knew how men operated. She knew how even her own father was a liar and a cheat. She knew how he screwed around on her mother. She knew how he fucked anything in a skirt. She had loved her father more than anything but he chose skirts over his family and he walked away. He left her shattered.

The one man she thought was different wasn't different at all. He was a liar and a cheat too…he just hid it better. He asked her to marry him and all the while he was banging the chick from his office. Had she not walked in on them she might have walked down the aisle with him.

Trista shuddered from the pain of even remembering it.

She had truly loved Danny Sutton with all her heart. When he asked her to marry him she thought her fairytale had begun. She wasn't one to fall easily. She was nobody's fool…but Danny changed all that. He taught her how to trust…how to love…how to give away her heart…

Only to lie…cheat…and tear her heart to pieces.

She remembered the way Danny looked at her when she walked into the office. He had his secretary bent over his desk and his pants around his ankles as he slammed himself into the whore. She remembered holding onto the doorknob so tight it snapped off. She remembered seeing her hand bleeding from the slice it gave her when it snapped. She remembered throwing it at him with such force it made a lump on his forehead instantly.

She remembered it all…running from the office. Him yelling for her to wait. She remembered the parking garage…how it smelled, the way the wind blew her tear streaked face. Danny begged. He told her it was only that one time but it wasn't.

She knew it wasn't.

She began to search through his things and she found more and more evidence of his infidelity. She knew she had to leave. She packed her bags but she had no place to go. Her mother died seven years ago. Her father left them flat years before that. She sat on her suitcases in the middle of her apartment that she shared with Danny and she cried.

She had nowhere to go.

But she was wrong. She had called Jules on the way home from the office horror and told her what had happened. She told her she had to leave Danny and her heart hurt to much to breath. She told Jules she would call her later…she just couldn't talk right now.

But Jules didn't wait for her call. Jules showed up at her door with her brother and they took out Trista's stuff and they got her out of her apartment that very day.

Trista remembered the look on Warrick's face when he saw her sob on Jules' shoulder. She remembered how he carried every single thing she owned out of that apartment and packed it neatly in his truck. Trista remembered how bad he felt for. She remembered the genuine sadness they felt for her.

Danny called her repeatedly but she never looked back. She knew there was no such thing as true love. She knew she was wasting her time hoping for anything that even resembled Nick and Jules. In fact, when she saw the pictures of Nick with Brooke, before she knew they were staged, she wasn't shocked completely. Part of her knew it was only a matter of time before even the best fell. She was glad Nick turned out to be the exception. She was really happy for Jules…she deserved nothing but the best…Trista truly felt that way. But she also felt that she would not be foolish to think that she too would find that kind of loyalty and love.

It didn't matter, she thought. She was fine just doing what she did. It was safer that way. She didn't need anyone. She didn't have to worry about getting hurt. She hooked up with guys when she wanted to and threw them aside when she was through.

Trista's thoughts went back to Warrick. Tears began to well in her eyes. Not just from the memory of Danny but from the knowledge that Jules and Warrick loved her like family. Sure, she and Warrick fought...but it was their thing. It was just the way they were. But, when the chips were down, Warrick would always come to her aid if she needed him.

She smiled softly and wiped her tear with her wrist as she sat at a red light. She remembered when she called Jules drunk as a skunk from a bar because the cab that she had called never showed up. But Jules was home alone with Emma who was just a tiny infant. Nick was at work and Jules couldn't come get her. So Jules called Warrick and woke him out of a sound sleep, scaring the hell out of him. But, although he bickered with her all the way home, the fact was he got out of his bed at 3:00 in the morning and came and got her. He brought her home and he made sure she got inside safely.

He was a good man and Trista always knew it...she just never thought him in that way...at least she never used to.

"But who are you kidding, Warrick? You know damn well you like the Honeys...You don't know how to stay in one place...in one bed. No, I have known you for too long, Brown. You are incapable of anything resembling a relationship! Don't tell me you want to see where this could go, Asshole! Because there is ONLY ONE PLACE where this could go and that is down the toilet...shot to hell...No way, Homeboy...you ain't doing that to me!" she screamed at no one but herself.

The fact was, Trista was not prepared for what she felt for Warrick. It hit her like a ton of bricks out of left field. But, although she may feel a lot of surprising emotions for Warrick she would never let him know. She would never admit it to even her best friend. She would run far away before she ever hooked up with Warrick another time because she knew that as soon as she connected with him again it would make her feel things she never wanted to feel again.

Warrick was doing something to her heart and she recognized it. He suddenly awoke something inside her heart that she had long forgotten about. A feeling she never wanted to allow to come into her life again.

She had to be cold.

She had to walk away.

She had to hurt him…

…before he hurt her first.