Sara looked out over the crowd settling into the seats of the school auditorium and winced a little. She turned her troubled gaze to Grissom, who was setting out his props along the folding table on one side of the wooden stage and eyeing them carefully.

“I can’t do this!”

“You’re not going to. This one’s MY lecture,” he pointed out with a tiny smile. Sara shook her head and leaned closer to him, her face a mask of anxiety.

“I mean this afternoon, Grissom! Look out there! We’ve got about sixty people waiting in those seats; people watching our every move! What if I trip, or cough or something!” The growing edge of panic in her voice didn’t faze him at all. Instead, Grissom smiled again.

“So you stumble, or clear your throat—nobody’s going to jump on you for that, Sara. We’re professionals sharing what we know with an interested, ignorant audience. It’s a chance to shine.”

Sara’s skeptical expression made it clear she wasn’t convinced. “Sure. I’ll shine about as well as concrete.”

“Like a Maglite in a dark closet, Sara. Is the projector set up?”

Gratefully turning her attention to more practical matters, she looked out at the small table down in front and nodded as she handed him the remote.

“PowerPoint’s all ready to go—all that’s left to do is pull the screen down.”

“Fine—please do that now and I’ll let Daisy know I’m about set—“ he murmured. 

Sara stared at him a moment longer, then slipped to the wings and found the huge electrical panel on the wall. All the buttons were labeled on masking tape, and she found the one for the movie screen. She pushed it, and smoothly the big screen began to descend. Grissom looked up, and stepped aside as it lowered. She grinned at his smooth composure and when he turned to flash her a grin, she gave him a thumbs up.

Grissom looked out over the audience thoughtfully.

“Ladies and gentlemen, my name is Gil Grissom, I’m the night shift supervisor for the Las Vegas Police Department Crime lab and I’ll be starting in a moment. This presentation covers the elements and essentials of crime scene preservation, and as my colleague Ms. Sidle knows firsthand, I tend to drone on, so a pre-emptive trip to the bathroom before I get started is a good idea—“

A polite wave of laughter greeted this, and Grissom shrugged, walking around the prop table. Sara crossed her arms and watched him finish setting up, taking a moment just to stand there and love him.

A cough made her turn; Daisy stood next to her, looking a little tired but cheerful.

“He looks comfortable in front of an audience,” she observed. 

Sara nodded.  “Grissom’s got teaching blood in him. He can’t help it—even out in the field with us he’s always explaining, or demonstrating, or quoting. Being around him is like having your own personal tutor at times.”

“Lucky you,” came the soft reply, the intimation clear. Sara shot a look at Daisy, who shrugged, a little pink in the face.  “I saw the two of you at dinner. I may be off-base but I don’t think so, Sara.”

On stage, Grissom had made a joke; the audience chuckled appreciatively and Sara ducked her head. 

Daisy shoved her hands in her lab coat pockets, sighing deeply.  “I was out of line mentioning it I suppose. Call it envy—not over Gil,” she hastened to add as Sara shot her a wary look, “But of being able to make it work for the both of you. Isn’t it kind of rough, loving a colleague?”

Sara bit her lip. This was the question she’d feared from Catherine or Warrick; now out of the blue it came from an outsider, and it still wasn’t any easier to answer.

“It’s rough,” she admitted slowly, with a frown. “We’re in a situation not clearly defined by code of conduct—at most the language advises strongly against personal relationships in the workplace, but given the ties that develop there, it’s tough not to get involved. Two of our dayshift people married each other this past year, and I know of another couple who’re seeing each other even though one of them’s married.”

Daisy made an empathetic sound deep in her throat, and Sara continued.

“See, the nightshift plays havoc with your personality and your social life, more so than any other shift. You can’t maintain old friendships, you don’t get to see the nine to five world that the rest of humanity does, and so you end up bonding with those who share your nocturnal clock. You see them, if you’ll pardon the pun, in a different light.”

“Like Grissom?” Daisy asked softly. 

Sara nodded.  “Like Grissom. He’s good at camouflage—ninety-seven percent of the time he’s as normal as any guy out there. Then you see him studying bugs. Or blood spatter. Or a ball gag. And that’s when you start to realize that it’s all been a cover for someone who learned a long time ago he was never going to fit in completely with the real world.”

Sara stopped, stricken and wondering if she’d said too much. 

Daisy drew in a deep breath and gave a wry little smile in return.  “And you love him because of it, not despite it.”

Sara said nothing, but the bittersweet expression on her face spoke volumes as she cocked her head. Daisy made a show of polishing one of the pairs of glasses hanging around her neck.

“You’re more than lucky then. I wish—“ she stopped, bit her lip and shook her head. “—Never mind. I really only came back here to see if you and Grissom wanted to take a look at the body and get my formal report on our stripper. Pending tox screenings of course.”

“Yes, I’m pretty sure he’s going to want to follow up on it,” Sara murmured. 

Both women exchanged a last smile, and Daisy made her way through the wings to the exit, leaving Sara to watch Grissom continue to hold his audience.

***   ***   ***

“Working hard?” Warrick inquired, looking at Catherine with a soft smirk. She glanced up, eyes flinty, pencil clenched between her teeth.

“Homtimes I HATE Gis’som,” she snapped back around the writing implement. Gently Warrick tugged it from her lips and she yielded the pencil as reluctantly as a puppy letting go of a bone.

“It’s not evaluation time yet is it? I thought we weren’t looking at performance reviews until after sometime in March,” he parked a hip on the desk and kept his gaze on Catherine’s face, just to keep it from wandering to the tantalizing gap of her cleavage.

Catherine sighed, mouth pulling into a tired smirk.  “No, not evaluations. I’ve been looking over the expense reports. Grissom’s been paying out of pocket for a lot of things he SHOULD be getting reimbursed for, and he’s not filing the receipts. Also, he’s got some weird ass filing system with a secret shorthand that’s making it impossible to figure out what’s been submitted and what’s pending. I know our initials on some of these—CW, WB, SS—but I have NO idea what some of these other notations are . . .”

“Probably his way of insuring job security,” Warrick teased lightly. 

Catherine made a face.  “Yeah, well cryptology isn’t my strong suit, and Lorraine from Accounting has been calling about some request he submitted for a conference in April. If she doesn’t get the paperwork by the end of this week he’s not going to go.”

Warrick thought hard.  “So call him. It’s not like this is about a case, and if there’s a deadline, he’s going to appreciate the heads up.”

Catherine thrust out her jaw and gave a tired little headshake, her bangs dangling in her eyes; Warrick fought the impulse to brush them back for her.

“Yeah I’m going to have to I suppose, even though he’ll either get on my case about getting into his files, or tell me he’s already sent it in—it’s a no win situation here. Between this and that seminar on Saturday, I’m about ready to give up on shooting for that promotion, you know?”

“Heyyy.... Come on, Catherine, that’s the paperwork talkin’, not you. So you’ve had a little bit of a trial by fire today . . . it’s nothing you can’t handle, right?”

His kind words were delivered in a gruff but tender tone, and Catherine looked up into his green eyes, shyly pleased to see a sparkle there that instinctively she knew was for her alone. She smiled, a quick bright flash.

“Thanks, coach,” she teased back softly. Warrick nodded, rising from the desk and heading for the door. He turned and paused, reaching up and framing himself in it as he looked back at her.

“One thing I’ve seen in my time, Catherine, is that you don’t make supervisor on the big cases; you make it on the track record of a lot of little ones.”

She watched him saunter away, mulling over his advice and noting (not for the first time) what a truly magnificent ass Warrick had—

Catherine blushed, and mentally signed herself up for a front row seat on Saturday.

***   ***   ***

The morgue of Sheba, Nevada was a small, green-tiled room with florescent lights. There were no fancy drawers here, so bodies lay on gurneys neatly parked in the walk-in cooler behind a frosted glass door. Daisy was finishing up the last notations on her clipboard when Grissom and Sara stepped in, pulling on smocks. They approached the draped corpse, moving quickly.

“No rush—he’s not going to Wacheski’s Funeral Home until tomorrow. According to his ID, this is Timothy Alan Weldon, twenty-six, from Fresno, California,” she murmured, a hint of sadness in her tone. 

Sara moved to stand near the top of the gurney, looking down at the pale young body. Grissom stationed himself at Sara’s shoulder and looked down at the young man’s throat.

“Cause of death?” he asked softly, studying the grey and purple marks on the neck. 

Daisy lightly touched them.  “Asphyxiation due to a crushed trachea. His larynx and windpipe were compacted with excessive force by something cylindrical right across it. Not a nice way to die, but in the scheme of things, fairly quick.”

Grissom leaned down to have a closer look; Sara lifted one of the body’s hands, turning it gently to study the palm.

“Defensive wounds?” she asked softly. 

Daisy shook her head, her white hair gleaming in the florescent light.  “None that I can see—no bruising, scratches or cuts on his hands or arms. He’s in fine shape, so if he’d known what was coming I’d think he would have put up a fight. Which means--“

“--He was taken by surprise,” Grissom finished. He glanced up at Daisy, “You made note of the striations in the wound?”

“Yes, a twisted impression, like you’d find on a rope. I listed it in the report,” she replied with a little sniff. Grissom shot her an apologetic smile and she briefly smiled back, adding, “But it’s not rope—there were no fibers of any kind in the wound.”

“Just the flake of metal. Curious. Anything else of note?” Grissom intoned. 

Daisy bit her lip, pausing.

“Well, yes. I found some pinkish purple lipstick on the body . . .” she admitted reluctantly. Her tone made both of them look up at her and she went a little pink along her cheekbones. Grissom blinked. Daisy coughed with a hint of desperation.

“And where were these smears?”

Daisy flicked the drape back, uncovering the rest of Tim’s body. Sara drew in a sharp breath; Grissom blinked again, more rapidly as all three of them took in the eye-catching sight of the dancer’s namesake.

“Well as we all can see, Not-So-Tiny Tim had an impressive crutch all right—“ Daisy blurted, “--And it’s got Mabelline’s Sins of Youth on it.”

“Wow. He’s been collagen enhanced, hasn’t he?” Sara commented, drawing an annoyed glance from Grissom. 

Daisy’s mouth twitched.  “To be honest, I can’t be sure. All I DO know is that I was able to get both a sample of the lipstick and some saliva from Tim’s, ah, source of revenue here, so we’re off to a good start. And somebody took his cock ring.”

“His what?” Grissom shot the coroner a sharp look, his embarrassment rising another notch as he reached for the drape to stop Sara from staring. Daisy gently ran a latex-covered finger close to the base of the enormous penis, pointing out a red stripe.

“His cock ring,” Sara announced matter of factly. ”Male strippers make themselves, ummm--tumescent prior to dancing, and keep themselves at maximum volume by restricting the flow of blood via a constrictive band around the penis. Theory is, the bigger the package, the more the grateful audience will tip you . . . or so I’ve heard,” she trailed off as Grissom stared at her silently. 

Daisy bit back her grin, but nodded.  “Yes indeedy. Of course, after twenty minutes it’s got to come off or blood vessels get damaged.”

“Damaged?” Grissom gave a small shake of his head, as if to dislodge an unpleasant image. Sara lifted her chin and worked very hard on a bland expression. Daisy continued to absently stare at the penis as she thought out loud.

“Although you can get in a lot of . . . dancing, in twenty minutes. Anyway the point is, someone took the thing. It wasn’t with the body, and since we found ejaculate on the carpet, his fellator must have spit, so . . .”

“So we’re looking at two perpetrators,” Grissom sighed. Both women looked at him and he gave a shrug. “Whoever was busy with the lower half of Tim Weldon was setting up the distraction so someone else could come up behind him and kill him.”

“Crime of passion—in more ways than one,” Daisy agreed.

She busied herself re-draping the body and rolling it away as Sara turned to Grissom, catching his expression. She hadn’t seen him in a brown study in a while, and it worried her a little when he turned a slightly hurt gaze her way.

“It will bother me for the rest of the day until I ask,” he grumbled in a very low voice. 

Sara shrugged.  “So ask.”

“Sara, exactly how are you so knowledgeable about male strippers and their proclivities?” he asked softly. 

She began taking off her smock, hiding her smile.  “Gris-som! I’ve been to at least eight Bachlorette parties in the past few years—three of them for my cousin Sorcha alone. I’ve talked to a few dancers and found out a few things—it’s nothing too freaky.”

He looked only slightly relieved by this, and began to pull his own smock off as Daisy bustled back out from the walk-in, rubbing her hands.

“Cold! Well, you two have a free lunch hour before the Trace talk, so I’d suggest Lulabelle’s, down on Cherubino Drive . They do a veggie pasta there that Joe raves about.”

Grissom checked his watch; Daisy sat down at a small computer station and turned it on.

“You’ll have to fend for yourselves though—I’ve got to get this boy’s paperwork done before five or Wacheski will be griping at me.”

***   ***   ***

Clem yawned, and finished dressing. She still wasn’t used to the nightshift hours, but going back to sleep was impossible. The clock read three in the afternoon, and sunlight poured into her bedroom, even though the drawn shades.

After a bowl of Ramen noodles and a few sliced peaches she headed out for Laxault High School, bouncing along to the car radio. Once there she parked, and wandered out to the track, where groups of people were already beginning to set up booths and rope off seating. Despite the hive of activity Clem found it easy to spot David and his sister, and she hurried over to them, smiling as Natalie spotted her first. Natalie Phillips had the same dark curly hair as her brother, but in a pageboy cut, and had a sweet sprinkling of freckles across her pudgy nose and cheeks.

“’Lem! ’Lem!” the girl beamed, arms extended for a big hug. Clem returned it affectionately, giving a little extra squeeze before letting her go; Natalie reached up to touch the golden corkscrews of Clem’s hair, a source of endless fascination to her.

“Still pretty!” she announced. Clem nodded and looked up at David, who slipped one hand on his sister’s shoulder.

“Okay Natty, remember, we have to ask before we touch,” he reminded her softly. Natalie looked crestfallen, but Clem took her hand and brought it back up to the curls, smiling broadly. Natalie broke into a happy grin once more and David sighed.

“You’re as bad as my mother in letting her get away with that,” he warned Clem, but his mild expression held a glint of appreciation through his glasses and Clem gave a shrug. All three of them were dressed in sweats; Natalie in pale pink, Clem and David in traditional grey, although Clem’s shirt advertised a punk band called Cathy and the Catheters, and David’s bore the emblem of the Las Vegas Police Department.

“Natty, will you go get the cooler?” David asked his sister. She nodded, giving him a clumsy hug and trotting off towards the stands, taking her mission very seriously. David watched her go, then turned back to his coworker.

“I don’t know if it’s such a good idea to be here, Clem, if you can’t make the Olympics tomorrow. Not that Natalie and I aren’t grateful, but you know how attached she is to you already, and if you’re a no-show—“

Clem held her hands up, pointed to herself and then the ground. For good measure, she scribbled on her whiteboard.

I’ll BE here, David. Already talked to Ms Willows about being in the second group with you and Grissom the following Saturday. Besides, I think Natalie’s got a great chance at taking her event!

David flashed his gentle smile and nodded, then looked down at the ground between them as a wave of shyness washed over him. Clem waggled a hand to get his attention once more, and showed him the board again.

Hey, after this, you and Nat want to come get some ice cream with me over at BR? I hear this month’s flavor is flirty fudge—

David glanced at her, and was about to nod when Natalie bumped into him, the plastic cooler banging his thigh. He smiled ruefully at his sister and glanced back at Clem, who was reaching for Natalie’s free hand playfully.

“Ah, sure—I could go for something sweet . . .”

  ***   ***   ***

Sara bit her bottom lip again, and chided herself for nibbling yet another coat of color off as she did so. Grissom watched her pace on the stage, muttering to herself, her heels sounding loud on the parquet stage, her hands deep in the pockets of her lab coat.

“Sara, you’re wearing a groove into the wood . . .” he teased softly. She actually glanced down a second, then shot him an arch look, crossing her arms defensively even as she tried to smile. It was a sickly thing, and taking pity on her, Grissom walked over to stand close.

“You know your subject, you have it outlined—just think of them as a roomful of Gregs out there, without the hyperactivity and you’ll do fine,” he murmured down along the crown of her hair. Sara tipped her face up, her brown eyes wide and soft. Grissom wanted to kiss her lashes.

“Maybe it’s not THEM I’m worried about, Grissom,” she replied slowly. 

He gave a thoughtful nod.  “Do you want me to leave?”

“No. Yes. Maybe.”

“Sara—“

“I just . . . I want to do you proud, okay? Live up to all the things you’ve told me I’m good at,” came her troubled reply. 

He reached out and rubbed her upper arms with his palms in a quick gesture of comfort aware of the auditorium filling up again.

“You always make me proud, Sara, never doubt that. And Sheba ’s going to get the most thorough explanation of fiber trace they’ve ever had.”

He reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out his glasses, handing them to Sara, who took them with a puzzled expression on her face. 

Grissom spoke softly.  “Call them a touchstone. Keep them in your pocket and if you get stuck, fish them out and they’ll buy you a minute or two to re-gather your thoughts. That’s what I use them for, half the time.”

Sara shot him a sharp look and he nodded to confirm it, then glanced at his watch. One last squeeze on her upper arms, and he stepped back into the wings, leaving her alone on the stage.

Sara pocketed the glasses. She looked out over the audience, who had begun to settle down in their seats and look at her expectantly. The middle rows were policemen, several in uniform, but the front ones, at least the ones she could see were an assortment of citizens: old men, a pair of punk girls, a mother and her baby, a man in a garbage man’s overalls.

She walked forward, swallowing hard. Sara looked down at the script on the lectern, unable to recognize a single word, a single sentence on the page. The audience grew silent, and she glanced up again, across the sea of faces, feeling her own grow hot, feeling lost . . . then her hand strayed into her pocket, and the coolness of glass met her fingertips.

Sara smiled.

“Good afternoon. My name is Sara Sidle and I have the privilege of working at the Las Vegas Crime Lab. I’m here to talk to you this afternoon about a special type of evidence, something you encounter every day . . .”

As she went on, gaining confidence and moving through the overview of the science, Grissom made his way to the back of the auditorium and watched her. A strange, sweet pride welled within him as he studied her graceful stride, her quick commentary from slide to slide. She wasn’t completely at ease, and yet her audience was clearly enthralled, following her presentation with flattering quiet as she discussed the differences between natural and synthetic fiber. Grissom gave a small, pleased smile.

“She’s good,” Joe Morgan observed. He stood rubbing his eyes, and Grissom nodded.

“Yes.”

“Been with you long?” came the next question. Grissom shot the chief a sidelong glance, trying to see if there was more to the question than the obvious. Joe’s face was mild.

“A while,” Grissom finally replied. He could see Sara calling for volunteers now, pointing at raised hands throughout the audience as Joe turned to look at him.

“It shows.”

Grissom’s glance narrowed, asking his own question, and Joe flashed a grin as he added, “You two work as a team even when it’s something as simple as ordering egg rolls, man. Daisy had you guys pegged from the minute Sara handed you the chopsticks. Now I owe her five bucks, damn it.”

Before Grissom could ask which woman he owed the money to, Joe pointed with his chin towards the stage.

“I bet Daze and I go back almost as long as you two, but she’s so touchy about being older it drives me nuts. How do YOU deal with it?”

Grissom paused, startled by both the openness and intimacy of the question, but Joe sighed, letting his gaze drop to the floor.

“None of my business, I know. You’ll have to forgive me—it’s been a few years since I pulled a double shift and I’m not real good at tact into the twenty-seventh hour.”

Taking pity on him, Grissom spoke up softly.

“It bothers me sometimes too.  Once in a while I realize I was graduating high school when Sara was still drinking from a sippy cup—but it’s not as wide a gap now that we’re both older. And it helps that she’s an extraordinary woman in her own right.”

Joe nodded emphatically. Onstage, Sara was lifting fibers from a cheerleader’s letter jacket while the girl tried to tuck her pom poms and baton out of the way; Grissom felt a flush crossing his face as he recognized her as the supermarket clerk of the night before. He could tell from Sara’s slightly awkward body language that she recognized the clerk too, but was desperately trying to regain her composure. One of the pom poms and the baton clattered to the stage and the audience laughed. 

Joe shook his head.  “I just thought I’d swing by and let you know that the owner of the CockaDoodle, Fuzzy Pickwick, claims there were no unusual visitors backstage, just the usual traffic of strippers and their assorted significant others. We’re collecting names and alibis now, but it looks like it’s going to be a local thing, which is more of a pain in the ass than an outside job.”

“Sometimes easier—the rumor mill has been known to produce a lead or two,” Grissom observed. 

Joe gave a noncommittal grunt, and rubbed his face again.  “Once in a while. Listen, I have to catch a few hours of sleep. I’ll call you if anything else comes up, all right?”

Grissom nodded, his focus back on the stage, where Sara was waving for the volunteers to sit down again as she carefully set their fiber samples onto the comparison projector. It was a logical moment for a break, and as the audience began to rise and stretch he came down one of the aisles to the stage, only to be stopped right in front by a spotted claw against his chest. Grissom looked down into the face of a little old woman.

She was definitely frightening. The old woman wore a flowing polyester caftan of lurid purple and green around her dried up tiny frame, and her short curly hair had been dyed an aggressive shade of orange that reminded Grissom of Sara’s soda from the night before. Although her smile was bright, the uniformity of her teeth clearly meant dentures, and as for the rest of her face . . . she looked as if someone had taken a Barbie head and withered it like an Apple doll.

“Hellooo Handsome! You can preserve my crime scene anytime!” she cawed at him, trying to bat her eyes. Her false lashes didn’t co-operate, and Grissom watched her struggle with them a moment.

“I sincerely hope you’re never a part of a crime scene, madam,” he replied, his mother’s lessons on courtesy coming through. The old woman smiled again, her teeth looking as if they belonged to a horse instead of a human.

“Trust me, Hot Stuff, when my time comes, it’s gonna be a crime of passion, if you know what I mean!” she hooted. Grissom tried not to blanch at that ghastly image as her harpy talons clutched the front of his shirt.

“Is there something I can do for you?” the minute the words left his mouth he regretted them; three feet away Grissom could see Sara looking up and searching for him. The old woman tightened her grip.

“Oh there’s a lot you COULD do for me Peaches, but what I really need to know is what you’re doing about Timmy’s murder. Gonna miss that boy--what an ass! What a set of shoulders! And honey he had a HELLUVA big—“

“—Ma’am?” Gently Grissom tried to disengage her claws from his shirt. It was like trying to extricate Figaro from a knit sweater.

“—Personality! God, Sugarboy, call me Molly. Fuzzy and me are co-owners of the CockaDoodle, and we wanna know if you and Miss Brains up there are anywhere near nailing Tim’s killer.”

Grissom glanced up at Sara, who was grinning so broadly at the pair of them that she was in danger of hurting herself. He shook his head and let his fingers gently slide around Molly’s thin wrist.

“It’s an ongoing investigation—Molly—and fully in the hands of the Sheba Police Department, however, everything that can be done is being done at the moment.”

It was a tactful reply, and Grissom finished the sentence at the same time he finally freed himself from the woman’s deathgrip on his shirt. Molly cackled again. She brought her other hand up to pat the side of his face.

“Good answer, Peaches, nice and diplomatic. Well you two get to it then while I go see if there’s any Sanka left up at the refreshment table.” She hobbled past him, one arm reaching back and Grissom started. He glared over at Sara, who was desperately trying not to laugh as he moved over to her, his eyes wide.

“She GOOSED me!” he spluttered in a low, shocked whisper. 

Sara snorted into her palms, turning away from the nearly empty auditorium.  “Peaches? Sugarboy? I can’t leave you alone for a MINUTE, can I?” she wheezed, her eyes bright. 

Grissom sucked in his cheeks, looking massively annoyed.  “Don’t push it, Miss Brains.”

“Wait until Catherine hears you’ve got a fangirl . . .” came Sara’s chortle. Grissom’s eyes widened, but he didn’t get a chance to plead with her because Sara suddenly bent forward, examining the two fibers on the comparison mount on the table.

She looked up at him, her expression troubled.

“Grissom?  Um, out of those random samples I took from the audience? We’ve got a fiber match to one of the ones we found on the carpet near Tim’s body.”