By: Braidless Baka
Disclaimer: I don't need a disclaimer, since I obviously own CSI, and I -- *watches the flying pig* Oh… no fooling you guys huh? Okay, well, I only own Greg ^_^;; … Well… no… I don't own anything… as much as I would love to own Greg O_o;;
A/N: Well… This isn't a Greg fic, though it may morph into one. This chapter hasn't been beta-ed, although it has been checked for spelling-errors and such.
A/N2: Many thanks to Sandpiper for pointing out my XX/XY mistake ^_~ Science was never my strong suit – so thanks for that!
A/N3: Ahh, I'm so sloppy O_o;; Just so people know, I'm going through and changing the premise for the murder. What I claimed to be a shooting I've somehow managed to turn into a beating. My bad, and I apologise ~_~;; This is the third time this chapter's been reuploaded…
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For once, Greg was working in silence.
It was late, several hours into the shift. And already the lab tech was snowed under with stuff to do, DNA to analyse, evidence shuffling back and forth through the underground tunnels of the justice system. Known officially as the Las Vegas crime lab. Usually having some sort of beat helped the brunette keep on top of what he was doing. Some noise to break the silence; some kind of rhythm to keep him on track. But today he had a bad feeling. He wasn't sure what was going to happen, but something always did when he felt like this. And he certainly wasn't looking forward to it.
Absently, he waited for a print out to come out of the laser printer beside him. There was other stuff he really should be doing, but waiting by the printer was seeming like the best option at that point. He took it up as soon as it was done, the paper still warm in his hands. Casting a quick eye, he looked at the results, the same way he always did before paging someone with their results. It was a homicide case Sara and Warrick were working on. They figured it was bank robbery gone wrong, and so far all their evidence seemed to fit. The brief run through CODIS hadn't pulled up anything, but if you gave them time they'd figure it out. XX chromosomes though, definitely female. If nothing that'd give them a head start.
With no haste whatsoever, Greg paged Sara, and then set the print out aside to start something else, something left over from dayshift most likely. His work was absently done, almost mechanical, and not for the first time he dwelled on the results he'd just pulled. He was usually privy to quite a lot of the musings of the graveyard team, if not officially, then by way of "thinking aloud", and he knew a decent amount about this robbery case due to Sara's "thinking aloud" in his direction the night before. He even knew enough to start drawing his own conclusions about it. The very realisation that he was 'pulling conclusions' made him wonder if he was really going to be watching samples of blood dissolve into DNA for the rest of his life, and with a kind of vigour he took the sample and continued to analyse it, attentive, but uninterested.
He finished on that, and then looked up, suddenly realising that Sara should've come for her results by now. She wasn't out of the building as far as he knew, and as he did, he saw Warrick striding down the corridor, leafing through a file.
"Hey, Warrick!"
Warrick looked up at Greg's voice, watching him trying to hastily, yet carefully, put down what he was working with. With a preoccupied look he walked into the lab. "Yeah? You got something?"
Greg nodded, suddenly realising he didn't have the paper in his hand and looking for it, locating it and snatching it up to present to the CSI in front of him. Warrick's weary gaze wandered over the print for a few seconds before he spoke. "Woman?"
"Uh-huh," agreed Greg with a nod. "No CODIS match for you though."
"Tell me there's more."
Greg simply shrugged and shook his head. "Sorry, man. Nothing."
Warrick sighed, then nodded and turned to leave. On an impulse Greg spoke quickly, causing the taller to turn back to face him. "Where's Sara? She didn't come when I paged her."
"She's… busy right now, Greg."
Greg blinked at the quiet hesitance. The words 'Who are you and what did you do with Warrick?' sprung quickly to mind. But all he said was, "Are you okay? You seem a little…" he waved a hand casually to illustrate his point. "Distant, I guess is the word."
Warrick paused for a moment, not really sure what to say about it. "You know the case Nick, Grissom and Cath are working on?"
Greg nodded. They'd gotten it a few days ago. "Sure." At Warrick's expectant pause the tech continued. "Homicide out in Spring Valley. Blunt trauma wound to the back of the head, right?"
Mildly unsettled, but not surprised, at Greg's knowledge of the case, Warrick nodded. "Wealthy family, the husband's the owner of Vegas Denki."
"Denki, huh?" He paused for a moment in thought. "Electrics?"
Warrick frowned slightly.
Greg then smiled in mild embarrassment. "Denki's a Japanese word. Means "electrics", I think it's a corporate thing."
Warrick nodded, amused despite himself. "Well, whatever it means…" He trailed off with a slight pause before continuing. "They found traces of Sara's hair and shoe prints at the crime scene. She's got a temporary suspension."
Greg took a few seconds to process this information. "But that's not even Sara's case right? Has she ever been to the crime scene?"
Warrick shook his head, no she hadn't. He sighed slightly, his unsettled and almost distressed aura suddenly understandable.
"So… how…?"
"They don't know," Warrick admitted, shrugging. Greg noted with interested how Warrick distanced himself from the case. The word "they" as opposed to "we" strangely apparent. "So, until they figure it out, page me with any results, okay?"
Greg nodded, his brown eyes seeming to have taken a hue of worry. "Sure thing."
He watched as Warrick turned to leave, and then suddenly a thought struck him.
"Hey Warrick?"
Again the CSI turned to him, this time from the doorway. "Yeah?"
"Who's filling Sara's shoes while she's gone? We're understaffed as it is." Silently, almost feverishly, Greg was praying for Warrick to tell him that Greg was going to do it. That he could get out of the lab and they'd send someone else in to do the lab work.
Warrick could almost see that in the tech's eyes. And personally, even though he probably had the smallest 'relationship' with Greg, he'd prefer it to go that way. "A 'Rachel Simmons'," he said quietly, watching Greg for a reaction.
The reaction was small, almost undetectable. Of course it wasn't going to be him. He wasn't even level one yet; they'd have to get someone with more experience in. All Greg had been allowed to do so far was watch over someone else's shoulder. But there's always a first time for everything, and he'd hoped…
But no.
"Rachel, huh? I'll make sure I say hi."
The unspoken understanding of that was, 'I hope she'll not be here long.'
"Yeah, you should do that."
Another unspoken understanding as they both read into each other's meanings. 'Me too.'