In a World They Forgot

To Find Perfection In My Pride

   “How many times do you think you’d have to pinch somebody until they bleed to death?”

I lifted my head from the cool table and slowly turned it took look at Greg, sitting at the desk across from me. “Not sure I even want to know.” I replied in a dull mumble.

“Hey, I’ll do anything to keep my eyes open now. Has it really only been five minutes?” His hand hit the desk with frustration as he glanced at the watch on his wrist.

“We finish in half an hour, it can’t go that slowly now.” I responded, propping my head up on my arms.

  

   It had been such a quiet evening. All the cases were wrapped up, the backlog of evidence had been cleared and there weren’t any files to be organised or supplies to be refilled. It was like Vegas had actually gone to sleep for one evening. Sure, it meant lives were spared and we didn’t have to stare at another corpse, but it also condemned us to an evening of tedious boredom.

   “This is torture.” He said with a heavy sigh.

“Are you sure that there’s nothing to process, anywhere?” I asked for what must’ve been the tenth time in the last hour.

“I’m positive. I raided every single lab and accosted every lab tech earlier. They’re in the same situation as we are; only they get to leave.” We had to stay sitting around just in case a case came up. It was understandable but it was also a huge pain in the neck. “Shall we see how many diseases we can list in a minute?”

“We did this before. We got to eighty one and then you tripped over Balantidiasis.” I reminded him as I sat up, spinning from side to side on my chair.

“Y’know, we could probably just die in here and no one would even notice right now.” His random outbursts always brought a small smile to my face, regardless of the situation.

“Nope. We’d be left to rot, Grissom poking his head in to tell us we had a new case, which would never get solved, because our corpses would be slumped like this.” I said, letting my mind get carried away with the silly little daydream that he’d awoken.

   The door opened and the loud rock music that Greg had playing was suddenly shut off.

“Leave us to rest in peace, we’re dead from boredom.” Greg said, spinning around to face the stereo system and spying Nick watching us with an amused grin.

“You can rest for real now. Grissom said we can leave. The day shift are here early.” He said with a smile as he crossed back to the door.

   There was almost dust flying behind us as we raced to the door, not wanting to spend another minute in the pristine lab that we usually nested in during the dark shifts.

   “Who wants to do something now?” Greg asked as we all collected our personal items from our assigned lockers. Each CSI threw him a ‘are you crazy’ look in turn before anyone actually spoke.

“Greg, it’s 8am.” Warrick said, shaking his tired head.

“Yeah, so? We’ll grab breakfast. We’ve got a new member of the family guys, we have to do something to welcome her other than hand her a pair of gloves and a blood sample.” I laughed softly but shook my head.

“It’s not necessary, seriously.” I said, smiling at each one of my new colleagues.

“No, Greg’s right. We should probably do something to get to know you a little better. Grabbing a coffee shouldn’t tire us out.” Catherine said, closing her locker gently and looking at the others for their reactions.

“There’s the pancake house on the corner?” Nick suggested, slipping his arms into his jacket.

“Sounds good to me. I’ll go and see if Grissom wants to join us.” Sara said, quickly jogging down the corridor as we all began to move slowly from the dark locker room.

   “So, Miki, what’s the Romani story?” Nick asked as he covered his pancakes in sweet syrup.

“There isn’t one really.” I sipped my coffee and then shrugged lightly. “My dad died just before I was born and my mom moved in with a friend and that’s where I grew up and where my mom still lives.” I explained simply as I took a large bite of pancake.

“What got you into DNA?” Catherine leaned on the table and smiled at me.

“I always loved science, especially biology. I don’t have the patience to be a teacher, so I figured that I’d find something that would put my passion to good use. Becoming a CSI was the thing that seemed to call to me.” I said, ignoring Greg’s high five when he cheered and tried to get me to hit the hand above his head.

  I laughed when he pouted and acted upset, but quickly turned my attention to Sara when she spoke up. “What about away from the lab? Any siblings? Boyfriends?” This was starting to feel a little like an interrogation, but everyone was half asleep by now.

“None. I’m an only child and my last boyfriend was probably senior year of college.” My eyes widened when I realised just how long ago that had been.

“What about in Peoria? Leave anyone behind.” She pushed the matter again.

“No one. I left nothing behind in Peoria other than a trail of dust. I’ve spent the last few years trying to find my feet and decide what I wanted in life. That’s why I came back to Las Vegas. This place was, and always will be, my home, so it seemed like the right move.” I explained finishing the pancakes on my plate.

“Well, there’s no better place to be than ‘home.’ To Miki.” Grissom raised his mug in a toast and I had to laugh at how weird it was; toasting coffee.

   For the next half an hour we talked about our lives, interests and hobbies, acting like normal people for once instead of spending our time talking about toxins and blood and APHIS, CODIS and everything else that came with our job. It was nice to know that there was more to our lives than just the dark streets of Vegas and the blood that was spilt on them.

   As everyone began to make their way back to their cars, Greg groaned, a little overdramatically, causing us all to stop and face him.

“You people are dull. The day is still young.”

“And we need to get sleep for tonight.” Nick said, leaning on the top of his car whilst Greg continued his rant.

“Sleep is for old people.” He said, waving the suggestion away with his hand as if it were a bug.

“Hey! Watch it, man.” Warrick said with a soft chuckle.

“And I’m younger than you anyway.” I pointed out, before looking at my watch.

“Then you should be on my side.” He insisted with a lopsided smile.

“For what?” I laughed, pushing my hair from my eyes.

“For having fun! Come on, there’s still a bit of time to hang out before we drop dead from exhaustion.” He said, walking closer to my door.

   I looked at the others for help but they all shrugged. “Good luck Miki.” Nick said with a teasing wink as he climbed in his car.

“What exactly are we going to do?” I asked, folding my arms as every other car left the lot.

“I know a place. It’s great this time of the morning and it makes you feel so alive.” He said, hopping into his car.

“Where is it?” I asked, prepared to spend another hour or two with him. The coffee in my system wouldn’t let me sleep just yet anyway.

“Just get in your car and follow me, it’s a surprise.” He said, his engine roaring to life as I shook my head and strapped myself into the little Beetle that I called my own.

   “I hate surprises.” I mumbled, chuckling softly though as I thought back to his enthusiasm and somewhat hyper attitude to this grand plan of his.