"So, no one reported a disturbance until the movie was over?"

Probably didn't even think anything was wrong until after the house lights came up. The carpet was red, lush except for the spots where popcorn and old pieces of candy had been ground in beyond recovery, and the darker spots of blood that marred the floor near the wall. And two spatter marks on the wall. No victim, no suspects, only a crime scene.

Gil Grissom loved his job.

"Well..." The usher looked a little sheepish, but he shrugged in the ill-fitting vest and tie so that it all shifted over too-small shoulders. The scraggly mustache and giant glasses were distracting. "There was a lot of shrieking for part of the movie, anyway. I mean, it's sort of a cartoon, so..."

"So that's enough of a distraction that no one wanted to get out of their seats to report what had to be an obvious altercation? Never mind. Just keep this place empty, and I should be out in a couple of hours." He wasn't going to let the distracting man loom behind him, and he certainly wasn't going to let the guy start bitching when he cut a carpet sample.

"Um, the manager didn't want me to leave you alone in here, 'cause he said last time we had any kinda crime admitted, you guys totally trashed the place..." The look Gil shot him was enough to make him swallow hard. "Uh, right. I'll just, um, head up to the projection room." And some sort of perceived safety, right.

"You do that. And be silent for me, like a Chaplin film." He had plenty of time to decide whether or not he was taking the wallpaper with him. The scene itself was important, but also important was to explore the theater and see what the patrons would've seen.

To the right of the scene, the downward sloping left-hand aisle. To the left, a short twisted stairwell that led... up. Interesting. There weren't a lot of theaters left with open balconies, and from the angle of spatter and the location of the stairs, it would seem a logical place to look for further clues. Huh.

A frayed velvet rope dangled, brass-colored plastic still attached to it as if it had a place on the wall. Gil took a look at it, but there wasn't any obvious spot from which it was missing, so it had probably been laying on the floor like that for a while.

Neglect, not violence, had led to the rope's state. It was quiet, and darker up there. Some of the light bulbs overhead were burnt out, Gil noted before he paused to photograph the rope anyway. One could never be too sure. Maybe the victim had been entangled in it at some point. Without a victim, he couldn't make assumptions to discount parts of the scene yet. Everything was important. Who knew what might lurk in the darkness above?

A faint skitter gave him at least one indication. He wouldn't be surprised if he found mice, at least, which wasn't a pleasant thought. Gil had seen what a mouse or a rat could do to someone who wasn't exactly awake and kicking, and that was never pretty.

He mounted the steps, slow and careful, thinking only as a second thought to turn his flashlight on. That faint skitter noise, a... shift? Cloth on cloth, so he wasn't alone up there. The victim, perhaps? Hadn't the officer who was eating popcorn in the lobby cleared the damned place?

With care, he made his steps softer, slowly drawing his gun just in case. 'Clear' didn't always mean clear, and Gil wasn't about to go up into the dark completely unprepared. Doing otherwise wasn't just ill-advised, it was stupid, and no one had ever accused him of stupidity.

Another faint disturbance of some sort reached his ears.

"I have a gun," he spoke aloud, keeping it soft. Movie theater voice, without even thinking about it. "So please save me a scare and show yourself." Victim, please let it be the victim, he didn't actually want to have to fire it.

No response. Nothing at all, in fact, and if he had thought about it before he spoke, maybe he would have realized that declaring himself to be holding a gun wasn't the most soothing thing that anybody who'd been hurt might want to hear.

Amendment, then. "I'm with the police. Please... I won't hurt you if you don't hurt me." He took another step forwards, scanning the flashlight as progressively as he could without leaving a hole for someone to attack him.

"Anybody could say they were with the police."

It was a cracking voice, the kind that belonged to boys on the edge of puberty, and Gil couldn't quite tell where it was coming from. Underneath the seats, maybe? Over near the edge?

"This is true. Do you want to maybe come out of the dark and see my badge? Are you hurt?" Was this his victim?

"If I come out of the dark and you don't have a badge, I will be." It was definitely coming from beneath the seats to the left of where Gil stood. "Hold it up. With your flashlight on it."

"It's a clearance badge -- I'm a scene processor. There was a crime committed here tonight." Still, he un-tucked the lanyard from his shirt, and held it out with his flashlight aimed at it while trying to not drop his gun.

"She's gone. She left a while ago." The disembodied voice sounded along with the shuf-shuf of clothing, and Gil could see a boy standing up in the vague half-light of the balcony. Since it probably wasn't supposed to be in use, no one had bothered to change out any of the bulbs. "There were th-th-three of them. I thought, maybe... maybe they'd come back. Maybe you were them."

"No. It's all right -- I'm with the police. Why don't you come out?" Gil eyed the boy, keeping his ID outside of his shirt as he took a step backwards.

"You're between me and the exit. And if you're faking me out, I want a fair chance at running."

He had to get a kid who was smart, didn't he? So he took a step backwards down the stairs. "Do I look like any of the suspects?"

"How do I know? It's dark up here, and you're a lot bigger than me. And you're still blocking the stairs, so I'm not too sure I want to go any closer." He could almost make out some things now... vaguely asymmetric haircut, although Gil couldn't say for sure. Shorts. T-shirt of some sort. Just a kid.

Gil turned the flashlight on himself, so the boy could see his face. God help him if it was a mistake... "I'm blocking the stairs because I don't want you to run through the scene and maybe kick some of my equipment. It's pretty expensive."

"Oh. Hey. You're an old guy." At thirty-two, it was probably the first time Gil had ever been called an OLD guy. "Those other guys, they were younger. Older than me, but not as old as you." That seemed to have been the right move, because the boy was coming closer now, and Gil could see him better. Hypercolor t-shirt, Umbro shorts, Converse All-Stars with crazy colored bunched socks.

"Thanks. It's the gray hair, right?" Gil took four more steps backwards, and lowered the flashlight as he moved into the light of the theater. "I told you, I'm with the police force. Are you sure you're not hurt?"

"I scraped my knee, climbing under the chairs. They..." The boy stepped up, moving into the light. He was scrawny, all knees and elbows, and that asymmetric haircut didn't quite make the cut, so to speak. He looked like he spent a lot of time in the sun, and there were a few moles on his chin and his cheeks.

Gil shied away from thinking of them as identifying marks.

"They were, there... There were three of them, and they were hurting her. So, I couldn't do anything, and then I was scared that they weren't really gone..."

"They're gone," Gil insisted softly, shifting to holster his gun at his hip where it belonged. He was a good shot. He could blow someone's chest wide open, but he didn't ever want to make another scene on top of a scene.

It would've been a mild logistical nightmare.

"Where do you live?"

"San Gabriel. California. My mom and dad are gonna be worried. I promised that I wouldn't be gone long. Just to see the movie. What time is it?" The boy moved to Gil's right, sidling away from him a little. It was probably good for him to be a little nervous, considering what he'd probably seen.

Caution had a great protecting ability. "It's nine thirty pm. You're staying at a hotel? Can you remember which one?"

"Um. I'm thirteen, not three. I even know how to use the bus system." Yeah, he was thirteen, all right, and looking at Gil as if he was old and stupid. It was going to be a long day. "Are you gonna catch those guys?"

Gil leaned on one leg more than the other for a moment before he started forwards. He needed to talk to Officer Whitnel anyway. "We'll need a statement from you, actually -- it could go a long way to helping."

"Can I call my mom? She worries. She'll call Poppa and give him what-for 'cause he taught me about busses and about going places by myself." The kid hadn't even introduced himself, and he was already telling Gil about his grandfather.

"Of course you can call your mom. There's a pay phone out in the lobby. By the way, I'm Gil Grissom -- what's your name?"

"Greg Sanders. I've got quarters, or I did have, except they're back upstairs. That's where... you know." Gil could see him swallow and visibly shudder. Violent crimes were never pretty. For a boy on the edge of puberty, it was probably more traumatic than usual.

"I know." He could see it in the kid's eyes, the scared line of his body, and the way he'd demanded to be sure Gil wasn't one of them. He was honestly scared, and while dealing with witnesses wasn't Gil's specialty, he was at least going to herd the kid around for a moment more. He just had to coax him to leave the theater, walking slow and hoping at the kid would follow him. "Don't worry about it. We'll make sure you're okay."

Greg bristled faintly, mouth compressing. Gil could see a certain amount of sheer stubborn attitude in that, in the way that the boy's brows drew together. "I'm okay. That girl, though..." He shuddered, took in a deep breath. "I mean, you know. That's... We're on vacation. I figured, maybe... I don't know. It's something you expect to see in LA. Not in Las Vegas..."

"Happens every day of the week." It took work to bite back the remark that Greg was just lucky that nothing had happened to him personally. "Once you've called your parents, we're going to need a statement. How did the girl leave...?" he asked as they wove down the red-carpeted hallway that would lead to the larger one, which would lead to the lobby.

"Can I just have to say it once?" The boy was obviously nervous, tongue darting out to moisten dry lips. Gil could see his hand twitching faintly as if he wanted to reach out and touch something. Something living.

Something safe.

Gil put a hand on the boy's shoulder, hoping that would suffice. "Sure. You can even decide who you want to talk to. Maybe you'd feel better waiting for your mom or dad to show up?" It was eerie that people were coming and going in the hallway outside of the blocked off theater, and he had to pull away to duck under the crime-scene tape, holding it up for Greg.

The boy stayed close to him, almost as if he was some magical talisman of protection. It was pretty funny, considering the fact that Greg had been scared of him not ten minutes previous. "No. I mean, I told you. Thirteen, not three. Just..." Greg swallowed, the sound audible even where they moved. "Just I don't want them to worry."

"It's policy to suggest it if the witness is a minor. So, if you were seventeen, I'd still be asking you if you wanted a parent there when you testified." Gil gave the kid a smile, and put his hand on Greg's shoulder again as he turned to lead the way back to the lobby. Hopefully, Officer Whitnel was still there, and hadn't just deserted Gil at the scene.

"Yeah. I guess." That touch seemed to calm him down, make it all right. "I'm sorry, but I don't want to go back up and find my quarters. Do you...?"

"I have change, don't worry. We were already warned that the house phone here actually doesn't work. Can you imagine that? What a shitty theater." He'd get the kid fed, too -- the movie had ended two hours ago. Greg had to be terrified of what he'd seen, to hide up there that long.

"I can imagine most anything," Greg declared. His eyes were shifting nervously, as if he might catch sight of the guilty parties and take flight. "If it's all the same, real stuff sucks bad enough."

"It does," Gil agreed as they stepped out into the lobby and the relatively bright light of the place. No sign of the Officer. Nice, but Gil had expected that. Dump the geek at the scene unprotected, even though people tended to return to the scene of a crime. "Hey, the phone's over there. Looks like I'll need to use it, too. My patrolman seems to have gone AWOL."

"Oh." Great. Now the kid was even more nervous, eyes darting from side to side. "Um. Tell you what. You call first. 'cause, I mean, you've got a gun and everything, but. One of you, three of them, not good odds." And Greg obviously was going to take off like a shot if he saw anything.

He squeezed Greg's shoulder as they came to a stop at the phone. "Hey. That's not what I meant, Greg. I was going to have him take you to the department -- but now it looks like you'll have to stick around and watch me scene process, because I can't head back until I've finished taking photos and samples. Okay?"

Gil dug into the back pocket of his pants, and came back with a few quarters. "So call your parents."

"Do you know the number for the Bellagio?" Greg asked him, wide-eyed. "We're in room 846, and I can get there from here with buses and stuff..."

Right. Gil knew why he didn't have any kids; he really wasn't the kind of guy who dealt well with them. He was only thirteen, and he was scared, but he kept insisting he was like a grownup. Gil didn't know whether he wanted to throttle the kid or hug him. Maybe both at once was an option. "I thought you were scared."

"I am scared! Or, well, I was scared. And, frankly, I don't know what that's got to do with me not knowing the number for calling my mom..." The way Greg peered up at him was, frankly, disapproving. "Which would work a lot towards, you know, making me not scared. Unless you're secretly a Terminator or something under there, in which case, I'm going to stay that way."

"If I was a robot in disguise, don't you think I would've picked a much cooler way to represent myself?" He lifted the phone up, and dropped a quarter in. The Bellagio was a central location, and Gil was good at remembering phone numbers for the biggest places that he had to call the most often. It took a few rings for it to be picked up. "Room 846, please."

Greg eyed him up and down and then nodded slowly. "Robots are tricky. Especially assassin robots. So, you might decide the best way to go would be as an old crime guy."

Gil was never, ever breeding. But if he did, he hoped he had a kid with that much imagination.

"But it wouldn't be the most efficient use of my supposedly assassin robot skills, would it? I think I'd... try to join the secret service, or..."

~"Hello?"~

"Mrs. Sanders?"

~"Yes?"~ Gil could hear her voice shaking. ~"Is this the police? Have you found Greg!?"~

"Aw, man..." Obviously Greg could hear her, too. "Mom!" he called. "I'm okay!"

"Actually, we have. He's fine, but a little shook up. He's a witness to a crime, and I'd like to take him down to the department to get his statement."

~"A crime?"~

"You're gonna get it now. Pull the phone away from your ear," Greg warned him.

The earsplitting, fretful wail came a second too early. Ouch. ~"My BABY!"~

"I'm OKAY!"

"Mrs. Sanders..." No, he had to hold it away, and then he half-offered to down to the boy. It was amusing to see those shoulders droop as Greg took the phone.

"Mom, I'm okay. I'm..."

~"I KNEW we shouldn't let you go out in Vegas alone! I... Don't you dare take the..!"~

Things got quieter for a moment, someone else speaking into the phone as Greg put it back to his ear.

"Hi, Dad. No. The movie... I didn't really see it 'cause there was... Well, no. Yes. Um. Yeah. This guy's name is Gil Grissom and he's with the police. Yeah. Um. No. Okay. Okay. Yes, Dad."

"Greg, could I speak with your father for a moment?" Gil asked, leaning down.

"I'm gonna give the phone to this guy, Dad. Yeah. Mister Grissom. Okay." Greg took a deep breath and sighed, handing the phone to Gil.

"Mr. Sanders? Hi, I'm Gil Grissom, LVPD Criminalistics Bureau. Do you mind if I keep your son with me for a few minutes while I finish processing the scene?" The answer was quietly spoken and pleased him, more or less, so he nodded. "I promise I'll keep a close eye on him, sir. If you'd like to meet us... Yes, I can wait for you to get a pen. You'll need directions -- most taxi drivers try to forget where we are. Yes, I promise I won't let him run off and try to use a bus."

Greg groaned loudly. It was obvious that the bus conversation was one that was held often in their house, probably in conjunction with the phrase 'you're not all grown-up just yet, mister'. Gil had heard it fairly often about twenty years prior himself, and that made his mouth quirk.

"All right. Yes, in about half an hour or so." The directions were easy to rattle off, and then he said a goodbye before hanging up. "So, can you hold on long enough for me to call back to the department?"

The boy seemed to seriously consider it. "Sure. If you'll show me what it is that you do when we're done."

"I can handle that bargain." One more quarter and he dialed over to the department. Rage was best saved for them, and for the officer who hadn't properly cleared the scene and then had left when he was last seen scarfing popcorn.

"Cool. I heard people use science to find out stuff."

~"Las Vegas Sheriff's Office."~

Gil forced a smile to his face while he talked. "Yes, this is field officer Gil Grissom, still at the AMC 9 on 37th. I've been abandoned by Officer Whitnel at a scene that was improperly cleared. Now, this is the third time he's done it to me in a month, so I'm just going to assume that he's doing it to the rest of the CSIs. I'd like you to pen in a meeting between me and his captain, say, sometime in the next couple of days?"

~"Um..."~

"And get someone out here who's actually competent. I've got a thirteen year old witness."

~"I'll send you through to dispatch."~

"Thank you." Gil leaned against the edge of the pay phone's 'booth', and rolled his eyes. "This is why we carry guns."

"Yeah, well, if you're not a cybernetic freaky robot from the future, you're pretty crazy, mister." The way the kid looked at him was filled with curiosity.

Funny. "Why?" Dispatch had him on hold. Jesus. No sense in calling the department if he was ever hurt on a scene. 911 would get to him faster.

"'cause there's no way I'd stand around waiting for the guys who did that," Greg nodded his head, hair swinging forward strangely, "to come back. Gun or not."

"Believe me, I'm not crazy. I'm pissed off. He was supposed to clear the scene. That means he should've found you. You could've been not-you, but someone involved in the crime who could've killed me."

~"Dispatch."~

"Hello, this is Field Officer Gil Grissom, at the AMC 9 on 37th. Officer Whitnel, who was assigned to me, has left without warning. I'm still processing the scene, and found a thirteen year old witness. I need you to send someone out here who's going to do their god damned job. All right?"

~"I'll have someone out there immediately, if not sooner. Is there anything else I can do for you, Field Officer Grissom?"~

"Wow," Greg whispered. "You said pissed off."

"No, that's everything. Thanks." He hung up, and turned to Greg. "Yes I did. And some other bad words that you shouldn't tell anyone I said. C'mon. I need to finish processing."

"But..." The boy took a deep breath. "Okay. Are you gonna show me something cool?"

"Well, that depends. I can't let you touch anything. I need to cut the carpeting out, and then I might take the wallpaper with me. I'm not sure yet."

"They just let you do that?" Greg eyed him as they headed back towards the theater. "So, it's like vandalism for fun and profit. Sort of. And then what do you do with it?"

"Study the samples on the carpet and wallpaper. If we can find the victim, and the perps, we can use what I catalogue to press charges. This... is crime solving in action."

That didn't seem to be a satisfactory answer. "So how do you know what you've got is going to prove anything?" Greg's mouth pursed. "Somebody ought to prove something. They... she..."

"You get a sense after a while." Gil lifted the crime-scene tape and let Greg duck under it. "It's what we're trained to see."

"So they just magically let you say you think something is so and then the judge accepts it? I don't think so." Greg set his shoulders as he watched Gil slip under the tape, too. "The only real proof is science or math. Not opinions. So."

He grinned at Greg was he led the way back into the theater itself. "That's how we prove it. Do you like science?"

"Correction. I love science. Got my first chemistry kit when I was seven, blew off my eyebrows." Greg grinned back at him. "I'm totally in love with it. My friend John says that nobody who surfs like me should be able to do chemistry in his head."

"Chemistry, huh?" He hadn't pegged the kid for a geek -- he looked like he was trying too hard to be cool for that. Gil knelt in front of the scene, and pointed at the spray. "Murder and assault have chemistries all of their own. This is physics, actually."

Gil flicked his flashlight on, highlighting the spatter that went up the wall. "This spray of blood tells me that she was sitting, back to the wall, when someone punched her on her left side."

"It broke her nose," Greg said softly. "And there was this really nasty crunch sound. She was crying a lot. That was when I dropped down and tried to hide. They weren't quite so close to the stairs, then, and I..." He swallowed. "I didn't know they were gonna go up there. I don't know what I thought..."

"Greg? It's okay. You don't have to talk about it yet." He looked over and tried to get a smile out of the kid while he lifted his camera. "I was just trying to tell you that what I tell a judge is as much science as any string of chemical reactions."

Greg took a deep breath and reached up to rub his nose with the back of his hand. "That's pretty cool. I mean. Science giving you all the answers. Is this what you wanted to do? I mean, when you were a kid? Stuff like this?"

"I had a chemistry set when I was six, and almost blew up my bedroom. What do you think?" Gil winked, and then turned his attention to the scene. A few quick snaps with his camera and the ruler, then he'd be able to move on to the next step. The box cutter, the carpet, and the wall paper.

Greg settled down carefully a few feet away from Gil, putting a bony elbow on one of the armrests of the chairs. "I think this must be a pretty cool job?"

"It is. It's like..." Gil paused to snap pictures in quick succession. "I get paid to spend my day solving puzzles, and the side effect of solving these puzzles is that bad people go to jail. Justice is served through a day's play."

"I hope you catch these ones." Greg was very serious. "She was pretty hurt. I can describe her for you... later," he promised, because Gil had already told him twice that he didn't have to go over it more than once. "What they did, it's not right. Not for anybody."

"No. It's not right. Those crimes shouldn't occur. Period." He backed up, changed the angle, then started to snap shots of the wall.

"Do you think they'll ever stop?"

It was a weird, philosophical sort of question, at least coming from a thirteen year old boy. Had Gil wondered that kind of thing at thirteen? Maybe. But maybe not. He'd always been concerned with the more worldly concerns. What killed the seagull in his back yard? Why had it died in his back yard, and not say, in the water, or closer to the shore?

"Not as long as there are human beings."

"Because human beings aren't, um, naturally good. Innately. Right?" Flash. Flash. Flash. "Yeah. I get that. I just... I guess I wish that wasn't true. If we're not good by nature, how is it that so many people try so hard?"

"Because it's worth it to be good," Gil suggested as he lowered the camera. "Isn't it?"

Brown eyes looked at him, deeply serious. "I've always kind of thought you'd have to really concentrate to be bad. You know? Being good, that's easy. You know, good grades, chess club, surfing, that kind of stuff. Easy." Greg took in a deep breath. "Maybe it's just that some people are naturally bad and some people are good the same way? I don't know. I kind of hoped you might. You know. 'cause of what you do."

"If only I knew." Gil reached into his open kit for the box cutter. "Religious peoples and philosophers have discussed the topic for thousands and thousands of years. Some people think that man is good and falls for temptation created by other men. Some believe that men are bad and aspire to goodness, some blame circumstances..."

"What do you think?" Intense, serious sort of question. "I mean, there's religion and philosophy, and then... there's this."

"I believe... in people. For every unmitigatedly evil person in the world, there's someone who could be a living, breathing saint." He leaned in, carefully cutting the carpet.

"That's pretty cool of you," Greg decided. "I think I like that."

The boy was starting to sound muzzy, but that was all right. He'd probably been riding an adrenaline rush of fear for hours. "Yeah? Why?"

"Makes sense. You make sense. Maybe you're not a creepy future robot. Hey, do you think maybe..." The faint trail of thought was something Gil could almost hear. "Could I maybe do this one day? That would be pretty neat."

"Go to school. Get good grades. You seem like the type who could cut it." Four long swipes of the blade, and he sat back to bag and label it.

"Yeah?" Gil could see the boy lay his cheek against his arm, drooping slowly. "That would be neat."

"It's good work." He trailed off, and then leaned in to cut the wallpaper. Short soft answers would encourage Greg to nap while he finished the scene. He was going to get pictures of that rope, too.

It wouldn't take too much longer.

---

"So, what made you think that this was what you wanted to do? Instead of working in a research lab, say?"

It wasn't a difficult question to answer. Greg Sanders hadn't been in Las Vegas since he was thirteen, but he had never really forgotten anything about it, from the girl who had died of blood loss by the time they had located her to the trial his dad had flown him back to Vegas to testify in. "I was a witness to a crime once. Eleven years ago. And there was this crime scene guy there, and he just... he made it sound like the coolest job that anybody could ever have."

"The people that stick around and don't chicken out because the pay isn't good enough or the hours and the workload is too hard sure seem to think so. We've had a guy who's been here almost fifteen years, and a couple others who're close to it. But they're the exception to the rule. Are you following me? Are you gunna stick around, or will we be wasting our time to teach you how this place runs?"

His boss to be -- Greg hoped -- was leaning forwards, gesturing with one closed fist.

"I'm kind of hoping to stick around." Hearing that most folks were gone was a bit of a disappointment. Greg had kind of wanted to see that Gil guy again, to maybe thank him for showing him what it was that he wanted to do with his life. Still. Just because he wasn't was no reason to back out of the interview. "This is what I've wanted to do for a long time now."

Jim Brass looked at him like he was a singing dancing fish. "You know that you're going to be working as a lab tech and not a field officer. If I decide to hire you." It was his word that was the final say, after all.

"Everybody's gotta start somewhere. Plus, even straight out of college, I'm one of the best chemists you're ever going to see." It wasn't bragging. Much. Okay, a little, but give him a year. If the guy would just give him that, he would be. He'd be pulling this stuff in his sleep, and already none of the noise or the distractions bothered him.

"Yeah?" He nodded, getting to his feet. "Prove it to me, Greg Sanders. You're on the team. Six month review and all that, but don't fuck up and you're fine." He shoved his hand out to Greg.

"Congratulations."

The sound of that voice was a shock, sliding right down into his bones and slithering up to his brain. When he turned around, it was almost like being kicked in the gut.

"Gil Grissom." Eleven years older, sure, but then again so was he. Which was a good thing. "This is a pleasant surprise, Mr. Sanders."

"Hey, you two -- oh, Gotcha. Gil! Stop getting me hires before they hit puberty!" Brass hit him on the back with his folder as he moved past them. "Go on -- show the new tech his office."

If the new tech could stand up out of his chair without totally embarrassing himself, of course, because the only thing sexier than a man with knowledge was a man with knowledge who had set Greg's feet upon the right path. "I'm glad you're still here," he grinned, nearly jittering. God, he was so nervous. He hoped Gil never noticed.

"I told you. I love my job." He smiled as he offered Greg his hand. "I'm surprised to see you here after so long."

"Yeah, well, what can I say." Taking that hand and shaking it took more courage than he thought he would ever have. "You kinda infected me with your interest."

"Great. I'll show you your office. You already know you'll mostly be working DNA... Welcome to the Vegas nightshift." Welcome, and his heart was already thrumming away with absolute nerves.

He was going to have to prove himself. He was going to have to keep his hands off of Gil Grissom, and that was going to be hard. Really hard. He could do it, though. And he would.

This was going to be the best job ever.