New colleague

Just a little something I have been working on. I have brought in my favorite character and the two character in the show that I really don't like. I never liked Quinn Shelby and whenever I watch the episodes with her I feel like the team members really don't like her either so I have played with what would happen if she came to work at the lab.

Thursday had been a long day for Mac in the lab. Chief Sinclair had demanded him to hire one particular applicant for the job as an entomologist. Mac knows that this CSI is one of the best. He had been working with her long time ago. She used to be a good friend of his, back when he started in the crime lab.

Now mac pulls up in front of his building. He takes a minute just to relax and clear his mind before he walks into the building. Standing in the elevator his mind keeps going back to the conversation he had with Sinclair earlier. There was a lot of great applicants but Sinclair wants him to pick one with FBI-experience. Mac knows one with FBI-experience looks great in the press but Mac's concern was on the resolves in the lab.[mj.941] Mac comes into the apartment, he is now sharing with his fiancé Christine. It is his old apartment that she has moved into. He takes off his coat and his shoes and enters the living room. There is a wonderful smell in the apartment. he walks to the kitchen where Christine is making dinner. He stands behind her and kisses her on the neck.

"hey, sweetie." She says while she is stirring in some sort of sauce.

"it looks great." He comments and then turns around to grab a beer from the fridges. She turns around.

"hey. the dinner is ready in five minutes." She looks at him with an accusing look. He looks down at the beer.

"I need it. Long day." He explains. She can clearly see he had a long day. He looks tired. She nods in accept.

"okay. Only today then." She turns around and continues with the food. "take one for me too." He smiles and takes one out for her too.

After dinner, he goes straight to his computer to finish some paperwork. Christine is sitting and watching TV. She looks over at Mac occasionally. She can see that he is not doing any work. He is clearly not focused on work. She turns off the sound of the TV and walks over to him and wraps her arms around him from behind.

"you are not getting much work done tonight." He runs his fingers over his forehead.

"no, I can't focus."

She gives him a kiss on the top of his head.

"is it the case?" mac shakes his head and gets up from his chair.

"no politics." He signs and takes the empty beer bottle from the table and disappears out to the kitchen. Christine knows Mac well enough to know, that is the part of his job that he hates the most. Mac comes back into the living room with a glass in his hand. He walks over to the couch and sits down. Christine is just watching him while he is trying to find something on the TV. After he zaps by five of his favorite channels, Christine walks over to him. Take the remote away from him and sit down on his lap. She looks straight into his eyes.

"tell me what is going on," she orders. Mac knows he can escape from this. She can see right through him. one of the things that no one had done since Claire. She could look right through him too. He loves that about her, but sometimes it also bothers him.

"is it that obvious?" she nods. He looks down for a second.

"it is the new CSI I have to hire. It is an entomologist. There is a lot of great applicants but the chief has one that he wants me to hire because she has FBI-experiences."

Christine gets off Mac and places herself next to him.

"is that a bad thing?" he smiles and shakes his head.

"no, it's not. And normally I would have hired her, but…" he looks down and her hands. He takes her hand and touches her engagement ring. She is waiting for him to continue.

"I have worked with her before. She was my first colleague at the New York crime lab when I started."

"so why don't you want to hire her? If you already know her well?"

"because… she doesn't always know the line for personal spaces." Christine looks surprised but she doesn't say anything, waiting for Mac to continue.

"after I had worked in the lab for 6 months. My team started to ask me why they had never met my wife. So, one time. we had just solved a big case, so we decided to go for a beer and celebrate and I asked Claire to come along. Everything was fine until Claire realized that one of my employees was flirting with me. According to Claire, it was pretty obvious."

Christine look surprised. "so, this woman that your boss wants you to hire now has been hitting on you before in front of Claire?" Mac nods. Christine looks surprised. "wow."

"that night was the only time I ever saw Claire showing jealousy." Christine nods. She remembers Claire as a very tolerant person too. Mac looks over at Christine with a teasing smile.

"she didn't even get jealous when you got drunk and hit on me." Christine looks over at him and pretends to be very offended.

"I never hit on you." She hits him with a pillow. Mac nods. "year you did, when you got drunk." He says with a big teasing smile. She gets up from the sofa and walks toward the kitchen while she is saying. "Why would I hit on you?"

Mac chuckles and then turn on the TV.

Mac is standing in the kitchen and drinking his coffee. He is wearing his usual suit and tie. He is looking out the window on the gray sky. Christine sneaks up behind him and lean her head against the back of his shoulder and wraps her arms around him.

"morning." He says. She doesn't say anything but just hugging him tight. He turns around and places his coffee cup on the table and wraps his arms around her.

"morning sunshine." He says. She looks up at him. She looks very tired. "why are you up so early?"

"couldn't sleep." She takes his coffee cup from the table and takes a sip. But Mac can see on her face that it is way too strong for her.

"what is that? Did you forget to put water in it?" mac laughs.

"I didn't want to wake you up to make great coffee for me so I had to try it myself."

She looks at him with a serious look. "that didn't go well." She throughout his coffee and starts making coffee for both of them. Mac steps aside and watching her make the coffee. When they are waiting for the coffee machine Christine stands against the table across from Mac who is leaning against the wall.

"so are you going to hire her?"

Mac looks down. "I don't know. If I tell the chief the truth, he will ask me why I didn't rapport it back then."

"why didn't you?"

He looks down for a moment.

"because it would ruin her career and even though I choose another one to become my assistant supervisor I didn't want to ruin her career and she didn't step over the line until she had quit."

Christine look serious at him. "what do you mean with stepped over the line? You had an affair with her?"

Mac looks very surprised by that question. "no. you think that about me?"

Christine realizes she stepped over the line. She steps closer to Mac and wraps her arms around his neck and looks straight into his eyes.

"sorry, I don't think that." She kisses him on the lips but he doesn't respond. She knows he got offend by that question. "sorry Mac. I know you would never do that to anyone and especially not Claire."

Mac looks out the window. "she kissed me. I didn't kiss her." Mac doesn't look at her while he is talking. She looks at him. "I believe that Mac," she says with a soft voice. "she quit when I hired Stella Bonasera as my assistant supervisor instead of her. Stella was in narcotics and she had been passed a promotion before. She was really great. That was why I choose her instead of Quinn. Quinn got very upset and quiet. After that, we went for a beer as a goodbye. That was when she kissed me." He looks at her again.

"I love you and I would never cheat on you." He says. She nods. "I know that." They get into a passionate kiss that ends when the coffee is done. Christine walks over and finishes the coffee. While she has her back to him she says. "you can tell her she will get into serious trouble if she gets too close to my fiancée." Mac chuckles. Christine turns around and hands him the coffee.

"she will." She says with a serious look and then with a smile. Mac nods. "I know." He takes a sip of his coffee.

"you do know that this is one of the main reason I love you." She looks at him with a smile and the take a step closer to him. "what is the other reasons, detective?" she looks up at him with a daring look.

"sorry babe. We don't have time for that now." He says with a teasing tone.

She pretends to be offended. "pervert." She says and walks over and takes her coffee. Mac just smiles without saying anything.

Mac arrives in his office 5 minutes late. He rushes into his office and takes off his coat.

" hi Mac." he gets surprised by the familiar female voice. He turns around and sees the redhead woman that he knows too well.

"hey, Quinn. What are you doing here?" he asks. he has difficulty hiding his surprised and slide disappointment. Quinn Shelby stands up. She walks closer to Mac and invades his personal space. Mac is aware of it and takes a step back and takes a seat behind his desk to make the situation more formal. Quinn notices it and stays stood in front of his desk.

"I got a call from chief Sinclair. He said you want to talk to me."

Mac looks through the pile of applications to find hers. She notices that hers isn't on the top of the pile so Mac clearly didn't plan this meeting himself. She has known Mac for years and he is always well prepared for everything. Mac finally finds her application. While he looks through it, she notices there is to applications on the other side of the desk. On has a yellow posted note on it that says interview. There is no posted note on her application. After a minute Mac puts down her application.

"listen, Mac." she takes a seat in front of the desk." I know I'm not your choice. You don't want to hire me. you just have to have this interview with me because the chief tells you to." Mac looks down. A little embarrassed that she looks right through him, as she has always done. He nods.

"yes you are right. You are not my first priority for this position."

Quinn looks down. "I'm sorry Mac. I should have known that if you want to have an interview with me you would have contacted me yourself." Quinn stands up and is about to leave the office when chief Sinclair comes on.

"oh, I see you have already got the good news detective Shelby." Both Mac and Quinn Shelby look confused.

"I want to give you the good news but I see detective Taylor already informed you that you got the job."

Sinclair makes his way all the way into the office.

"congratulations with your new job detective Shelby." He shakes her hands. She looks very confused over at Mac, whose look is confused mixed with very angry. In the same moment, Jo comes into the office.

"hey Mac…" she stops when she sees Sinclair and Quinn Shelby.

"oh, detective Danville. Could you please show detective Shelby around in the lab? She is the new detective on the team." Sinclair explains. Jo look confused at Mac and the at Sinclair. Mac's facial expression is clueless. So Jo just follows Sinclairs request.

"yes of cause. Welcome onboard. I'm Jo Danville." The leave the office together. Mac stands up from his desk.

"what the hell was that?" Sinclair hurry to close the door before Macs yelling drags too much attention. "when did you become the one who sets the team?"

"keep your voice down detective, and think about who you are talking to."

Mac doesn't care about who he is talking to right now.

"last time I checked I was still the one how was the leader of this team." He yells. It has dragged some attention outside the office. a few lab Tec's is stopped working and listing to the argument.

"yes you are, but detective Danville told me that you want to hire a young grad from Columbia university instead of an experienced former FBI-agent. for the reminder, you trained agent Shelby yourself as far as I'm informed."

Mac looks down. He knows that Sinclair is right, as much as he hates to admitted.

"yes, sir. You are right, but the reason why I want to hire a young grad instead of Shelby is because I'm focused on resolve here in the lab that can lead to a conviction of a criminal, more then I'm focused on what looks good in the press or on the political stage."

Sinclair look over at Mac. he is hoping to see some sort of regrade of what Mac just said, but Mac shows no sign of hesitation or regrade. He means exactly what he just said. Sinclair has been working with Mac for years now and he knows that Mac says exactly what he means in situations like this one.

"okay detective. Shelby is on your team for at least 1 month. End of discussion." Sinclair leaves the office and heads straight to the elevator. As soon as Sinclair look over at the hope of Lab Tec's watching, the hope disappears.

Danny walks by the many lab Tec's and into Mac's office. Mac is sitting on the corner of his desk and rubbing his eyes with his fingertips. Danny is looking down at a rapport while he is entering the office.

"hey, Mac I need your…"

"what now?" Mac snaps and then look up and realize it is Danny. Danny just looks surprised.

"what's going on?" Danny looks back at the many lab Tec's and he also gets a look of Sinclair before the elevator doors close.

"was that Sinclair?"

Mac nods and gets up from his desk and walks back to his chair.

"yes… it was." Danny can clearly hear the frustration in his boss' voice. He has worked for Mac for many years and knows that voice way too well. Properly because he has cost it too many times before he got married to Lindsay.

"what was he doing here?" Danny asks.

"the new entomologist," Mac answered.

"you are not going to take his recommended applicant, right?

"I have no choice. At least not within the next month." Danny smiles by the sound of that.

"so you can fire her in a month?"

Mac nods. "hypothetical speaking. Yeah." Danny doesn't like the sound of that.

"but… in reality. Can't you? Can't you use the sexual harassment as a reason?" Mac looks at him for clarification. "I mean she was constantly hitting on you when she was working here and last time doing the cabbie killer case she was hitting on you again. she had enough to get Lindsay fired but she didn't because she didn't want to get on your bad side because she has an obvious crush on you."

Mac starts laughing and shakes his head when he stands up and adjusts his firearm. "no she doesn't Danny." Mac says but he knows Danny is right.

Danny and Mac leave the office together.

"I'll bet before we go home today Jo will tell you that," Danny says with a big grin on his face.

"go solve some crimes, Messer." Mac gives Danny a pad on the shoulder and Danny leaves Mac with a smile.

[mj.941]