Who Would Try by tenofswords665

Chapter 1 – The Bad News...

Disclaimer: If I owned CSI or any of the cast, I'd be some kind of genius. But I don't and I'm not. Now I'm sad.

Notes: This story is basically what I would do if I was a spiky-haired basket case and my boss was the creature from the black latrine. Sorry if anyone else has already had this idea, but there's, like, 7000 stories and I'm not checking all of them. First fanfic, so I welcome reviews, good, bad, or ugly.

Spoilers: Seasons 4 and 5. This is set right after Mea Culpa.

Greg slumped back into his chair as if he'd been gut-punched. He couldn't BELIEVE what he'd just heard!

That ass-licking son-of-a-whore Conrad Ecklie had just earned a new degree of loathing in 'The Patented Greg Sanders Enemies List', right up there with the late Paul Millander, the sadly not late David Hodges, and, for some long-forgotten reason, Homer Simpson (which was, in fact, due to a long and tragic tale involving the world's first ever cartoon restraining order).

To come back to the subject at hand, Greg's reaction to the news of Ecklie's latest duplicities was one of stunned disgust. The supervisory enquiry, launched under the pretext of investigating poor evidence handling during the Garbett case, was merely a thin justification for Ecklie to try and get Gil canned. Greg, who was no-one's fool, knew that. But when he'd heard that Sophia Curtis was going to be heading the inquiry, he had breathed a sigh of relief.

You see, Greg had met Ms. Curtis on more than one occasion, and had been most impressed with her professionalism and sombre demeanour, which reminded him strongly of a younger, feminine Grissom. She had, in return, pretended to be amused by his inane antics and demented capering (apart from what had passed into LVPD legend as the 'Swivel-chair Incident'...). In short, Greg knew that Sophia would be an unbiased judge, and that she had neither the time nor the patience for political blame shifting. Therefore, unless G.I. Grissom and the others fell apart professionally and emotionally, and made complete asses out of themselves all at once, they were safe from any reproach from that direction.

Sara and the other night shift CSI's, however, had been less than convinced when he informed them of this development. Greg soon learned that Ecklie had taken pains to interview/interrogate each of them in turn, apart from him, obviously not thinking enough of him to bother. Even after hearing this, his faith in the team's professionalism (or underestimation of Ecklie's malice) remained steadfast. He felt sure that Sophia would give them a glowing evaluation.

And he had been right. But he hadn't counted on Ecklie taking 'disciplinary action' (i.e. revenge) anyway! Gil had come into the break room looking like Uma Thurman had slapped him, and delivered the crushing news. All of it.

By the time Gil had finished, Greg could have happily choked the assistant director to death with a rancid cucumber (how is not a detail I will go into here!). The Graveyard shift, arguably the best criminalist team in Western America, had been split up! Sophia, Grissom added, had done her utmost to defend the team from Ecklie's hypocritical wrath, and had herself been demoted from her hard-earned position for her trouble!

But worst of all, the smug, self-satisfied prick had granted Catherine Willows' promotion...to SWING shift instead of days! The implications of this were not lost on the horrified ex-lab rat. The whole point of Catherine applying for the position of Day shift supervisor was so that she could spend more time with her daughter, and now Ecklie had put her on a shift that would stop her from doing just that; would in fact allow her to spend even less time with her little girl. All out of pure envy-born spite.

The young CSI ran a number of vicious epithets through his mind as he held his head in his hands for a moment. When he looked up, Grissom was gone, probably to deliver the sad tidings to his other colleagues. What Greg saw instead was a very hurt and morose Sophia trudge past the break room without stopping. Greg knew that offering any kind of flimsy commiseration would only result in her snapping at him. Instead he settled for snarling in frustration and beating up the nearest wall.

Greg cooled down as quickly as he could when it became apparent that the wall was winning the fight. As he sat on the sofa, nursing his freshly bruised knuckles, he held a fist to his head and tried to think of a way he could make this dire situation any better for his friends.

In a surprisingly brief space of time, the outlines of a plan were forming in his mind. Perhaps he could help the CSI's get through this after all...