Taming of the Greggo

“So,” Nick said, driving back toward the crime scene, “you’re from Washington?”



“I wouldn’t say from. My most recent residence was in Washington. I’ve lived all over, but I grew up in California. Greg and I both graduated from Stanford together.”



“Looks like you did a little more than graduate together,” Nick winked at her, drawing out his Texas drawl.



Ireland blushed slightly. “We dated in college, but that was forever ago.” She brushed off the feeling she’d had in the lab. It had been way too long. They hadn’t even sent an E-mail since shortly after college. When I started working with the feds, Ireland thought to herself.



She hadn’t been fair to Greg after she’d left. They’d ‘broken up’ before she left, but they’d kept in constant contact, both of them trying to secretly keep the long distance relationship afloat. But the federal lab, her second job, had kept Ireland so busy that after the first thousand phone calls that she answered with, ‘I can’t talk right now’, Greg just stopped calling. They sent E-mails back and forth for a few weeks after that, but Ireland was barely able to check her E-mail more than twice a month, so that stopped too.



She’d missed him for a while, but once she’d gotten a reputation at the federal lab, every state lab in the country wanted her to come and work with them to meet federal standards. She’d heard at one time that Greg was working in San Francisco, but by the time she got there he’d moved on. After that she’d just stopped hoping. It was a big country. There were thousands of labs. She didn’t have the time or patience to try and track him down. She filled her life by taking some classes about the newest technologies and getting field training so she could work scenes, not just bits of hair and blood that belonged to nobody in particular. Her main duties remained lab related, but once in a while she’d get to go out and process a scene. After she’d completed the updates at Washington, they’d offered her a permanent position, and she’d considered it, but wanted to go back to a warmer climate. After 8 months in Alaska, she’d decided she didn’t really love snow after all.



Ireland was still lost in thought when Nick pulled back up to the crime scene. “Ready?”



“Huh?” Ireland looked around and it took half a second, but then she realized where she was. “Oh, right. Sorry.” Ireland grabbed some gloves, a camera and a flashlight from the spare kit in the back of Nick’s Denali. She rearranged a few things so they were where she’d expect them to be and shut the back doors behind her. Nick was already dusting the door handle of the car for fingerprints when Ireland walked up.



“Uh, Nick?”



He looked up from the tape he’d just pulled. “Yeah?”



“If somebody pulled up and shot this girl, why is half the window on the ground outside the car?” Ireland shined her flashlight on a relatively small pile of glass, but for a window being shot from the outside, the pile was large. Too large.



Ireland took a few pictures and then collected every piece of glass she could find. Once Nick had finished processing the outside of the car, they slowly opened the door and collected the rest of the window glass. Nick looked at the bag of glass in Ireland’s hands.



“Good luck with that,” he smiled at her.



Ireland looked at the bag. “Yeah, I know. I found it, so I process it.” Ireland sighed. Hopefully they liked overtime slips.



The small team processed quickly, taking swabs of blood spatter and looking for gun shot residue. Just over an hour later, they had collected, swabbed, printed and lifted every piece of evidence they could see and had the car towed back to the CSI garage so they could process more if they needed to.



As they climbed back into the Denali, Ireland sighed. “I don’t know what that glass is going to help. Even if I have all of the pieces, fingerprints are shot. Literally.” She yawned.



“Want some coffee before we head back to the lab?” Nick pointed to a dive-in shop up the road.



“Nah, Greggo’s probably got something good going. I’ll just steal some of his.” Ireland remembered Greg’s taste in coffee. He spent most of his cash on some $40 a pound bag of coffee every couple of weeks. They pulled back into the lab parking lot a few minutes later and after handing off some evidence to Hodges in trace, an odd little duck in Ireland’s book, Nick took the bag of glass to the layout room, leaving Ireland with some prints and a few hairs to drop off with Greg.



“Hey,” Ireland popped Greg on the head with a piece of paper. He was eyeballs down a microscope.



“Hey. Social visit?” Greg spun around in his chair, grabbing a piece of paper coming off the printer.



“Nope.” Ireland handed over the bindles of hair she and Nick had collected. “Find out if my killer left his DNA with his hair, and permission to steal a cup of coffee.”



“Next on my list, and go for it.” Greg smiled, but grumbled at Sarah and Grissom, who were walking by the door. “At least you ask before drinking my coffee.” Greg secured all of his open evidence and showed Ireland where the break room was, and just like him, grabbed a cup and poured her a cup of coffee.



“You’ve apparently forgotten that I have arms again.” Ireland took the cup gratefully and sipped on it.



“Uh…old habits die hard?” Greg ran a hand through his hair and walked Ireland to the layout room before going back to the lab.



“I need a map for this place,” Ireland waved an extra apple she had grabbed from the break room at Nick and tossed it to him when he put his hands out. He’d already dumped all the glass pieces out on the table.



“This is going to take a very long time.” Nick scratched his head, obviously considering where he should begin.



“Where do you start with a puzzle?” Ireland sipped at her coffee again.



“What? Puzzle?”



“Yeah, where do you start?” Ireland liked testing people’s knowledge. Even if she was the new girl.



“Generally with the edge. But windows don’t really have edges.” Nick thought for a second. “The beveled edge. Man, you’re going to get along great with Grissom.”



Ireland and Nick settled in with magnification lights for the next few hours and they were about three quarters of the way done when Hodges joined the party. He had nothing that made sense. Yet.



As soon as Hodges was out the door, Greg was on his way in, with another cup of coffee. “Oh you are an angel!” She sipped the last of the cold liquid from her first cup and took the second gratefully.



Nick gave them a sideways look and Greg and Ireland both laughed. “When you practically live, eat, sleep and go to every class together for more than three years,” Ireland stopped to take a drink of her coffee, “you get to know people.” Ireland rubbed her eyes and looked at her watch. “Jeez, it’s almost shift end. I guess we’re going to bank some overtime tonight.”



“Aw, I was hoping to take you for a ‘Welcome to Vegas’ breakfast,” Greg pouted at her.



“I…” Ireland couldn’t make the words ‘I’m too busy’ come out of her mouth. Here he was, standing next to her, and she was about to do the same thing she had done over the phone when she was at the federal lab.



Nick wasn’t sure what was wrong, but he knew Ireland needed an excuse to leave. “Need to get some food and get the hell out.” He threw a piece of log paper at her. “You’re getting on my nerves, new kid.”



Ireland turned away from Greg, filling out the log paper and mouthed ‘thank you’ to Nick. She passed over her cup of coffee to him. “A gift.”



Greg and Ireland walked to the front desk and signed out for the day. They walked out to Greg’s car. “What sounds good?”



Ireland looked around and then sniffed her hands. “A shower. I smell like ninhydrin and fingerprint powder.” She pulled down the visor and rubbed a black mark off her cheek.



Fifteen minutes and a few idiot drivers later, they pulled up in front of the Venetian. They took the elevator up to Ireland’s room and Greg sat down in front of the TV while Ireland took a shower and changed into some shorts and a tank top. She came out of the bathroom with a towel still wrapped around her head.



Greg was half-asleep on the couch, so she dropped a dry towel over his head. “Huh?” He scrambled for a second, then grabbed the towel and pulled. Ireland laughed at his hair, which the towel had sufficiently pulled out of place.



“You’re my friend, and that’s why I’m telling you, with all the love I have for you…that you smell too. Go shower.” Ireland smiled at him and banished him to the bathroom.



She had just sat down to watch TV when Greg poked his head out. “The pants are Ok, but the shirt might be a problem.”



“God, you’re still a needy little bastard. Go take a shower. I have one of my old Stan T-shirts somewhere.” Ireland dug through her bags and finally found her old T-shirt. She sat down for a minute remembering how many times Greg had borrowed the same T-shirt when they’d fallen asleep studying or watching TV. “Wow, I need to snap out of it.”



Ireland heard the water stop, so she opened the bathroom door and stuck her arm inside, T-shirt hanging from her finger. Next thing she knew, Greg was shaking the water off his head directly onto her arm. “Oh, God damnit Greg!” She dropped the shirt and pulled her hand back. When Greg finally came out of the bathroom she threw her bunched up towel at his head.



“What?!” He had that stupid, ‘I’m an angel’ look on his face. The same look he gave her when he threw her a surprise party their senior year that she’d specifically told him not to throw. He snapped a scrunchie he’d found on the vanity at her and threw both towels back into the bathroom. Five minutes later they were climbing in Greg’s car, on the way to some Denny’s like restaurant a few blocks off the strip.