A/N 1: I was sorely tempted to make this a CI/CSI crossover, but it would have split the focus. I think I will, however, write that type of fic in the future.

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CHAPTER FIVE: DENIAL

Las Vegas
6:00AM Monday morning

Alex woke up feeling like shit. She was sore, nauseated, horribly stuffy, and sweating in the sheets she'd twisted around her naked body. She rubbed her browline gingerly while she tried to remember the night before. Did she do something stupid? Was she even in her own room?

The daylight coming through the cracks in the curtains told her it was past her usual waking hour. So she was probably alone. She turned her head slowly and saw her own suitcase on the club chair beside the bed. Whew. Thank god for small favours. She closed her eyes. Slowly, the previous night was coming back to her. The bar, the drinks. Stumbling down the hallway like a lush. The sadness, the loneliness, knowing who was waiting for her in her room. The self-loathing, for still needing to numb herself somehow. The shame.

What was she doing here?

She licked her teeth and lips to try to get the sour taste out of her mouth. She wasn't yet up to hoisting herself up and into the bathroom. She thought about what the rest of the week was going to be like. What were people saying about her? Her past? Her work with Bobby at MCS? Pity, scorn, righteous anger, schadenfreude? Had she actually gotten what was coming to her?

Yeah, she probably had.

She'd shat where she ate, and now everybody knew it. And some of them had probably guessed why. And if she wasn't really careful, Bobby would know too, and then what would he think of her?

o.o.o.o.o

After 10 minutes or so, Alex began to grow impatient with her stomach, and decided to ignore it and try getting up. She'd carefully run over the evening in her mind and decided that she'd lucked out and made it to bed unmolested. Again with the small favours. And the room was dead quiet, so she was right about being alone. But just to be safe, she carefully clutched the sheet around her as she propped herself upright at the side of the bed.

In an instant, the room and her stomach turned circles. Closing her eyes didn't help, and she had to cover her mouth and make a run for the toilet. When she turned, the sheet wrapped tightly around her legs, making her tumble to her knees. She held it close around her, because she could see a shape in the other bed – her roommate was still asleep. Whatever was still in her stomach started pressing against her throat, making her eyes and mouth water, not pleasantly. She breathed deeply, through her mouth, trying to be quiet.

She had to crawl a couple of feet before the sheet loosened. She looked up to see if she could safely prop herself up on Carruthers' bed without waking her. What she saw wasn't Carruthers.

Not any more. The body had been clumsily eviscerated, its innards strewn over her half of the room as if a creature from a 70s sci-fi had sprung straight through her abdominal wall. Shallow, awkward stab wounds marred the upper body, but not the hands or wrists. Carruthers' face was waxen, her black hair seeming dulled, her body oddly peaceful despite the violence of its end.

Alex's stomach finally got its way.

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A/N 2: The small 'g' God isn't my thing; I don't know if it's Canon or not, but I'm under the strong impression that Eames is an atheist, so it's a nod to my understanding of her beliefs. Also, someone suggested I make the chapters longer. I usually aim for over 1500 words, but I'm experimenting with something new – one scene, and in particular, one POV per chapter. So that's why they're shorter than usual. BTW, the hardest part of this fic so far was writing Eames's discovery of the body. It was bloody difficult! Definitely didn't butter my parsnips. Hope it butters yours.

WORDS: 710 UPLOADED Wednesday, March 31, 2010

Edited Friday, July 2, 2010 to fix section breaks