This is my first-ever completed attempt at writing fan fiction (I have one other short one in progress), and this is in response to a challenge. If we’re supposed to rate our posts, K+ would definitely cover this, and quite possibly just K. I’d appreciate feedback!
Friends and Family
It had been quite the bizarre day. Here they were, stuck for the night. Not just stuck anyplace, mind you, but snowbound in a small mountain lodge not much more than an hour away from The Strip under normal circumstances. Any one of the ridiculous circumstances that led them to this point would have been frustrating enough on its own, but, all together, it was enough to make anyone groan.
The whole outrageous chain of events had started with a call from one of the most influential casino owners to the mayor of Las Vegas. The mayor, in turn, called Conrad Ecklie, the head of the CSI Lab. Ecklie, in true knee-jerk fashion sent most of the night-shift crew on special assignment to check out human remains found on the mountain property of one of the casino owner’s relatives. The man had purchased a former scout camp in the Spring Mountains outside of Las Vegas and started a team building and business retreat center. He was having ground cleared for newer, more comfortable cabins when the construction workers found human remains on the first site they started to clear.
Ecklie, never one to waste a chance to further his own career, jumped at the chance to impress the mayor by sending out a whole team of people to investigate. He kept part of his swing shift late to cover at the lab, then called the night shift to be on site by sunrise to begin investigation. He even left a message for Greg Sanders, though it was his day off.
It took them several hours to get the machinery moved from the find, erect a tent to shelter the site from what had been light snow, and then begin looking at the remains. It took them less than an hour to realize that all indications pointed to these being very old Native American remains, and to realize that what they really needed to go any further with an investigation was probably a team of archaeologists, a forensic anthropologist, and better weather. Not necessarily in that order.
The snow was coming down quite hard by that time, and the highway patrol closed down all of the unimproved mountain roads in the area, including the one to the retreat. The log cabin lodge was well kept up, but that didn’t diminish the frustration of having to stay there. There was no electricity, but a warm fire roared in the fireplace and several Coleman camp lanterns combined with the firelight to give the room a flickering glow. The owner pointed out a stack of blankets in a cupboard, brought fruit, bottled water, and sandwiches his wife made and then returned to his family’s cabin across the road.
“Man, I can’t believe Ecklie did this to us, “ Warrick grumbled. “It’s bad enough that we got sent out here on a wild goose chase, but to get stuck out here because of a freak snow storm…” Warrick flopped down on one of the rustic ski-lodge style couches near the fireplace and leaned his head back on the cushions.
Catherine sighed as she sat down next to him, “I’m surprised that he sent all of us out here even if the Mayor did authorize overtime. This was hardly something that required a full crew to respond to.”
Gil Grissom turned from the window he and Sara were looking out. “You know that Ecklie will always do what is best for himself. If the Mayor wants something, that’s what he’ll do. Conrad Ecklie wants to get ahead – impressing superiors comes higher on his list than making the right decision. It’s who he is.”
“C’mon, guys. This isn’t so bad! We’ve got this great fireplace and it’s snowing outside. How often do we ever get to see snow?!” Greg Sanders seemed almost ecstatic at the thought of being stranded for the night. “They told us that the highway patrol won’t reopen the mountain roads until they plow tomorrow, so we might as well make the best of it. This could be fun!”
Warrick rolled his eyes and made a “pffft” sound. Sara gave a small, wordless smile and shook her head in disbelief at Greg’s never-ending optimism and energy.
Nick Stokes just grinned and laughed, “What are you going to do, appoint yourself as our entertainment committee?”
“Now that you mention it, I think I will!” Greg fished in his pocket and came up with a jangling set of keys. Since he’d been called in from his day off, he was the only one who drove his own vehicle to the scene. He shrugged his jacket on, and stepped outside into the snow. Momentarily, he reappeared with a large shopping bag from a local department store.
“It so happens that I did Christmas shopping for my cousins yesterday,” Greg said as he pulled a box out of his shopping bag. There was a chorus of groans as he displayed the SpongeBob SquarePants edition of Monopoly. “I thought you’d say that!” Greg laughed, “But I think this one might suit our group a little better.” He flourished a smaller box for their inspection, and a red Santa hat with a white pom-pom fell to the floor.
“Truth or Dare? Aw, come on, Sanders. How old are your cousins, anyway?” Warrick scoffed. “You’re giving them a Santa hat, too?” The latter was accompanied by a skeptical glance at the offending object on the floor.
“Kelli is a mature 11, Michael is 8, and the Santa hat is for me to wear in the lab” Greg answered with a twinkle in his eye, his enthusiasm not in the least diminished by Warrick’s grumbling.
Catherine spoke up quickly. “I think Truth or Dare is a great idea. It’s not like we have anything better to do tonight, and it sure beats the pants off old SpongeBob, there.” This brought muffled chuckles from both Nick and Sara, both of whom nodded their agreement to the game.
“You all play. I’ll just sit and watch,” Grissom spoke up. He looked faintly amused at the thought, though it was never easy to tell quite what he was thinking.
“I think you’re afraid,” Sara said with a sly smile. “If it’s a box game for 11-year-old kids, just how bad could the questions or the dares be?”
Grissom and Warrick exchanged glances, and Warrick threw his hands up in the air. “All right, I’m in if Grissom’s in. I know I’m going to regret this.”
As Greg explained the game, the others made themselves comfortable on the wide sofas that formed three sides of a square around a large pine table, with the stone fireplace and its cheery fire forming the forth side. Since it was a kid’s version, each card came printed with a question and a pre-defined dare. Each player simply decided whether they wanted the truth or the dare and then drew a card. Then they chose the next player. Greg chose Grissom as the first to play.
“All right. I’ll choose ‘truth’. Sticking with the facts on anything is always the best policy,” Grissom said rather solemnly as he drew a card. There was a chorus of laughter as he read the question, “Are you afraid of spiders?” Grissom raised one eyebrow ever so slightly and managed to look completely perplexed as he responded, “I can’t understand why anyone is afraid of spiders. Arachnids are some of the most helpful and useful creatures that there are. And very few of them are actually toxic to humans.”
“Truth.” Sara reached for a card. “What was the best holiday you ever had? Wow. I don’t have an answer for that one. I tend to avoid holidays. Holidays in foster care were just... You just never quite felt like you belonged there. Since then, I just don’t really do holidays.” She was very matter-of-fact about her answer.
“Since no one else looks like they’re going to be brave enough, I’ll take a dare!” Greg flipped his card and read, “Mime along to your favorite music video.”
Remarks about having no TV were stopped with a wave of Greg’s hand. He looked at Grissom as he reached again into his shopping bag, “Boss, what do you say? Can I use the lab laptop for non-work purposes? It’s got plenty of battery charge left!” He gave a mock-pleading pout as he produced a DVD copy of “Queen’s Greatest Video Hits 2”.
Grissom shrugged and smiled as he asked, “Who am I to stand in the way of our evening entertainment?”
Greg popped the DVD into the drive and queued up a video, placing the PC on the far edge of the table facing the group so they could watch. “Close your eyes for a minute now,” he instructed. The others good-naturedly humored him. “Ok, open your eyes!”
Greg’s back was turned to them as the music started, and just on queue he turned to face them. Doing his best to imitate Freddie Mercury on the spur of the moment, Greg had tied his jacket backwards around his waist to look like a mini-skirt and had used a smudge of fingerprinting dust from his kit to create a mustache. In front of him, he pushed the push broom that had been sitting in the corner. As Freddie sashayed across the screen with his vacuum cleaner, Greg danced back and forth in front of the fireplace with his push broom, singing along...
“I want to break free, I want to break free
I want to break free from your lies
You're so self-satisfied I don't need you
I've got to break free
God knows, God knows I want to break free…”
By this point, the others had dissolved in mirth. Greg reached up to rub his lip and succeeded in spreading the black finger print dust even farther. Catherine had tears of laughter running down her cheeks as she told him, “You know that stuff doesn’t come off very easily. You’ll be wearing that smudge for a while!”
With the ice broken, the game became a little livelier for the next couple rounds. They laughed together as they watched Warrick sing “I’m a Little Teapot”, Nick take his best shot at being a mime, and Sara doing the Hokey-Pokey. Grissom never wavered in his choice to answer only the questions, but Catherine drew a dare to “kiss each boy on the cheek.” Only once, Greg chose “truth” and looked comical as he answered a question about his movie star crush while sporting his Santa hat and smudged mustache. Then he passed the turn to Nick and picked up a sandwich.
“I think I’ll stick with ‘truth’ this time,” Nick smiled as he picked up a card. “I don’t want to have to follow up some of the acts we’ve seen.” A shadow flickered across Nick’s eyes as he read the card he’d picked up, and he made a wry expression and turned his head to the side, shaking it slightly. He took a deep breath and read from the card, “Tell about the scariest thing that ever happened to you.” He didn’t raise his eyes from the card.
Sara reached over and touched his arm gently. There was no one in the room who had any doubt what Nick’s worst experience was; they’d all been a part of it, racing against time to rescue him from the small chamber a madman had buried Nick alive in. Sara tried to sound cheery. “Hey guys, I think we’ve had enough of Truth or Dare for one evening! Greg, is there anything else in that bag of yours?”
“No. I want to answer this.” Nick stared at the fire, and for a few moments the only sound in the room was the crackling of the flames in the stone fireplace. “I want to say this, not because of a kid’s game, but because I never...” His voice broke slightly and trailed off as he set the card on the table.
“Nick, you don’t have to...” began Catherine.
“It’s ok. I haven’t talked about this before because I try not to think about it. I decided that I was not going to let that experience define my life. And, I know that you know how grateful I was to all of you for finding me, but I’ve always wanted to thank you all. Not just for finding me. You guys were the thing that kept me from giving up. I knew you weren’t hunting for me just because it was your job. You guys are a second family to me, and I knew that I couldn’t give up because you guys would never give up on me. Even though I was alone, I knew you were there for me.” Nick looked at each person in the room as he spoke.
“That’s what family is for, Nick. We weren’t going to let you down,” Grissom assured him, with nods of agreement from all those present.
“And, but for the toss of a coin, that could have been me. And I know you’d have done everything in your power for me, too.” Warrick had long since resolved his guilt over losing the coin toss, but it had given him a new perspective to realize how fragile and unpredictable life could be.
“There is more than one kind of family. Some families you’re born into, and some families are made. I think I knew I’d really been accepted by the way you all cared so much when I was hurt in the explosion.” Greg was serious for the first time in the evening. Sara looked very thoughtful about what Greg was saying, while Catherine winced slightly at the mention of the incident.
“You’ve all been there for me and Lindsey countless times, too,” Catherine spoke up. “When she was younger, she thought the lab break room was another place to call home. And as she’s gotten older, I’ve turned to you guys with our more serious problems more than once.”
“I remember helping Lindsey with homework a few times when she was little.” Nick rolled his eyes at the memory. “She could sure come up with some unexpected things. I remember her wanting to use the lab’s synthetic blood for a volcano science project!”
That easily, the conversation moved back to a lighter mood. The game sat on the table, forgotten, as they spent time reminiscing, laughing, and deepening the bond they shared.
When at last they decided to try to get some sleep on their couches and chairs, they pulled blankets around themselves and turned out the lanterns. Out of the darkness came a voice...
“Good night, John Boy. Good night, Mary Ellen”
Five voices responded in unison, “Good night, Greg!”
Friends and Family
It had been quite the bizarre day. Here they were, stuck for the night. Not just stuck anyplace, mind you, but snowbound in a small mountain lodge not much more than an hour away from The Strip under normal circumstances. Any one of the ridiculous circumstances that led them to this point would have been frustrating enough on its own, but, all together, it was enough to make anyone groan.
The whole outrageous chain of events had started with a call from one of the most influential casino owners to the mayor of Las Vegas. The mayor, in turn, called Conrad Ecklie, the head of the CSI Lab. Ecklie, in true knee-jerk fashion sent most of the night-shift crew on special assignment to check out human remains found on the mountain property of one of the casino owner’s relatives. The man had purchased a former scout camp in the Spring Mountains outside of Las Vegas and started a team building and business retreat center. He was having ground cleared for newer, more comfortable cabins when the construction workers found human remains on the first site they started to clear.
Ecklie, never one to waste a chance to further his own career, jumped at the chance to impress the mayor by sending out a whole team of people to investigate. He kept part of his swing shift late to cover at the lab, then called the night shift to be on site by sunrise to begin investigation. He even left a message for Greg Sanders, though it was his day off.
It took them several hours to get the machinery moved from the find, erect a tent to shelter the site from what had been light snow, and then begin looking at the remains. It took them less than an hour to realize that all indications pointed to these being very old Native American remains, and to realize that what they really needed to go any further with an investigation was probably a team of archaeologists, a forensic anthropologist, and better weather. Not necessarily in that order.
The snow was coming down quite hard by that time, and the highway patrol closed down all of the unimproved mountain roads in the area, including the one to the retreat. The log cabin lodge was well kept up, but that didn’t diminish the frustration of having to stay there. There was no electricity, but a warm fire roared in the fireplace and several Coleman camp lanterns combined with the firelight to give the room a flickering glow. The owner pointed out a stack of blankets in a cupboard, brought fruit, bottled water, and sandwiches his wife made and then returned to his family’s cabin across the road.
“Man, I can’t believe Ecklie did this to us, “ Warrick grumbled. “It’s bad enough that we got sent out here on a wild goose chase, but to get stuck out here because of a freak snow storm…” Warrick flopped down on one of the rustic ski-lodge style couches near the fireplace and leaned his head back on the cushions.
Catherine sighed as she sat down next to him, “I’m surprised that he sent all of us out here even if the Mayor did authorize overtime. This was hardly something that required a full crew to respond to.”
Gil Grissom turned from the window he and Sara were looking out. “You know that Ecklie will always do what is best for himself. If the Mayor wants something, that’s what he’ll do. Conrad Ecklie wants to get ahead – impressing superiors comes higher on his list than making the right decision. It’s who he is.”
“C’mon, guys. This isn’t so bad! We’ve got this great fireplace and it’s snowing outside. How often do we ever get to see snow?!” Greg Sanders seemed almost ecstatic at the thought of being stranded for the night. “They told us that the highway patrol won’t reopen the mountain roads until they plow tomorrow, so we might as well make the best of it. This could be fun!”
Warrick rolled his eyes and made a “pffft” sound. Sara gave a small, wordless smile and shook her head in disbelief at Greg’s never-ending optimism and energy.
Nick Stokes just grinned and laughed, “What are you going to do, appoint yourself as our entertainment committee?”
“Now that you mention it, I think I will!” Greg fished in his pocket and came up with a jangling set of keys. Since he’d been called in from his day off, he was the only one who drove his own vehicle to the scene. He shrugged his jacket on, and stepped outside into the snow. Momentarily, he reappeared with a large shopping bag from a local department store.
“It so happens that I did Christmas shopping for my cousins yesterday,” Greg said as he pulled a box out of his shopping bag. There was a chorus of groans as he displayed the SpongeBob SquarePants edition of Monopoly. “I thought you’d say that!” Greg laughed, “But I think this one might suit our group a little better.” He flourished a smaller box for their inspection, and a red Santa hat with a white pom-pom fell to the floor.
“Truth or Dare? Aw, come on, Sanders. How old are your cousins, anyway?” Warrick scoffed. “You’re giving them a Santa hat, too?” The latter was accompanied by a skeptical glance at the offending object on the floor.
“Kelli is a mature 11, Michael is 8, and the Santa hat is for me to wear in the lab” Greg answered with a twinkle in his eye, his enthusiasm not in the least diminished by Warrick’s grumbling.
Catherine spoke up quickly. “I think Truth or Dare is a great idea. It’s not like we have anything better to do tonight, and it sure beats the pants off old SpongeBob, there.” This brought muffled chuckles from both Nick and Sara, both of whom nodded their agreement to the game.
“You all play. I’ll just sit and watch,” Grissom spoke up. He looked faintly amused at the thought, though it was never easy to tell quite what he was thinking.
“I think you’re afraid,” Sara said with a sly smile. “If it’s a box game for 11-year-old kids, just how bad could the questions or the dares be?”
Grissom and Warrick exchanged glances, and Warrick threw his hands up in the air. “All right, I’m in if Grissom’s in. I know I’m going to regret this.”
As Greg explained the game, the others made themselves comfortable on the wide sofas that formed three sides of a square around a large pine table, with the stone fireplace and its cheery fire forming the forth side. Since it was a kid’s version, each card came printed with a question and a pre-defined dare. Each player simply decided whether they wanted the truth or the dare and then drew a card. Then they chose the next player. Greg chose Grissom as the first to play.
“All right. I’ll choose ‘truth’. Sticking with the facts on anything is always the best policy,” Grissom said rather solemnly as he drew a card. There was a chorus of laughter as he read the question, “Are you afraid of spiders?” Grissom raised one eyebrow ever so slightly and managed to look completely perplexed as he responded, “I can’t understand why anyone is afraid of spiders. Arachnids are some of the most helpful and useful creatures that there are. And very few of them are actually toxic to humans.”
“Truth.” Sara reached for a card. “What was the best holiday you ever had? Wow. I don’t have an answer for that one. I tend to avoid holidays. Holidays in foster care were just... You just never quite felt like you belonged there. Since then, I just don’t really do holidays.” She was very matter-of-fact about her answer.
“Since no one else looks like they’re going to be brave enough, I’ll take a dare!” Greg flipped his card and read, “Mime along to your favorite music video.”
Remarks about having no TV were stopped with a wave of Greg’s hand. He looked at Grissom as he reached again into his shopping bag, “Boss, what do you say? Can I use the lab laptop for non-work purposes? It’s got plenty of battery charge left!” He gave a mock-pleading pout as he produced a DVD copy of “Queen’s Greatest Video Hits 2”.
Grissom shrugged and smiled as he asked, “Who am I to stand in the way of our evening entertainment?”
Greg popped the DVD into the drive and queued up a video, placing the PC on the far edge of the table facing the group so they could watch. “Close your eyes for a minute now,” he instructed. The others good-naturedly humored him. “Ok, open your eyes!”
Greg’s back was turned to them as the music started, and just on queue he turned to face them. Doing his best to imitate Freddie Mercury on the spur of the moment, Greg had tied his jacket backwards around his waist to look like a mini-skirt and had used a smudge of fingerprinting dust from his kit to create a mustache. In front of him, he pushed the push broom that had been sitting in the corner. As Freddie sashayed across the screen with his vacuum cleaner, Greg danced back and forth in front of the fireplace with his push broom, singing along...
“I want to break free, I want to break free
I want to break free from your lies
You're so self-satisfied I don't need you
I've got to break free
God knows, God knows I want to break free…”
By this point, the others had dissolved in mirth. Greg reached up to rub his lip and succeeded in spreading the black finger print dust even farther. Catherine had tears of laughter running down her cheeks as she told him, “You know that stuff doesn’t come off very easily. You’ll be wearing that smudge for a while!”
With the ice broken, the game became a little livelier for the next couple rounds. They laughed together as they watched Warrick sing “I’m a Little Teapot”, Nick take his best shot at being a mime, and Sara doing the Hokey-Pokey. Grissom never wavered in his choice to answer only the questions, but Catherine drew a dare to “kiss each boy on the cheek.” Only once, Greg chose “truth” and looked comical as he answered a question about his movie star crush while sporting his Santa hat and smudged mustache. Then he passed the turn to Nick and picked up a sandwich.
“I think I’ll stick with ‘truth’ this time,” Nick smiled as he picked up a card. “I don’t want to have to follow up some of the acts we’ve seen.” A shadow flickered across Nick’s eyes as he read the card he’d picked up, and he made a wry expression and turned his head to the side, shaking it slightly. He took a deep breath and read from the card, “Tell about the scariest thing that ever happened to you.” He didn’t raise his eyes from the card.
Sara reached over and touched his arm gently. There was no one in the room who had any doubt what Nick’s worst experience was; they’d all been a part of it, racing against time to rescue him from the small chamber a madman had buried Nick alive in. Sara tried to sound cheery. “Hey guys, I think we’ve had enough of Truth or Dare for one evening! Greg, is there anything else in that bag of yours?”
“No. I want to answer this.” Nick stared at the fire, and for a few moments the only sound in the room was the crackling of the flames in the stone fireplace. “I want to say this, not because of a kid’s game, but because I never...” His voice broke slightly and trailed off as he set the card on the table.
“Nick, you don’t have to...” began Catherine.
“It’s ok. I haven’t talked about this before because I try not to think about it. I decided that I was not going to let that experience define my life. And, I know that you know how grateful I was to all of you for finding me, but I’ve always wanted to thank you all. Not just for finding me. You guys were the thing that kept me from giving up. I knew you weren’t hunting for me just because it was your job. You guys are a second family to me, and I knew that I couldn’t give up because you guys would never give up on me. Even though I was alone, I knew you were there for me.” Nick looked at each person in the room as he spoke.
“That’s what family is for, Nick. We weren’t going to let you down,” Grissom assured him, with nods of agreement from all those present.
“And, but for the toss of a coin, that could have been me. And I know you’d have done everything in your power for me, too.” Warrick had long since resolved his guilt over losing the coin toss, but it had given him a new perspective to realize how fragile and unpredictable life could be.
“There is more than one kind of family. Some families you’re born into, and some families are made. I think I knew I’d really been accepted by the way you all cared so much when I was hurt in the explosion.” Greg was serious for the first time in the evening. Sara looked very thoughtful about what Greg was saying, while Catherine winced slightly at the mention of the incident.
“You’ve all been there for me and Lindsey countless times, too,” Catherine spoke up. “When she was younger, she thought the lab break room was another place to call home. And as she’s gotten older, I’ve turned to you guys with our more serious problems more than once.”
“I remember helping Lindsey with homework a few times when she was little.” Nick rolled his eyes at the memory. “She could sure come up with some unexpected things. I remember her wanting to use the lab’s synthetic blood for a volcano science project!”
That easily, the conversation moved back to a lighter mood. The game sat on the table, forgotten, as they spent time reminiscing, laughing, and deepening the bond they shared.
When at last they decided to try to get some sleep on their couches and chairs, they pulled blankets around themselves and turned out the lanterns. Out of the darkness came a voice...
“Good night, John Boy. Good night, Mary Ellen”
Five voices responded in unison, “Good night, Greg!”
Nice job.
