Title: Taking Chances: First Blood
Author: Dana
Fandom: CSI
Rating: PG-13 for descriptions of gore
Timeframe: eighth season-ish, AU
Characters: Nick Stokes, Catherine Willows, Gil Grissom, Jim Brass, Warrick Brown, Original Female Character
Genre: suspense, angst, romance
Summary: The new detective in town gets her first case, and meets a certain CSI. Nick Stokes/OFC
Author Notes: Posted for
occhallenge, table 1, prompt "first". (Table located
here. Characters from "CSI" don't belong to me and they're not used with permission. Any other fictitious characters, especially Anna Reese, are mine.
--Prologue--
Las Vegas
April, 2008
The city was, as usual, hazy and kind of gritty around the edges. Though the city didn't know the meaning of true nightfall, with the Strip keeping an unnatural brightness not unlike the midnight sun of Alaska, there were places where the light didn't reach.
This would be one of them, ordinarily. At the moment, it was cordoned off and swarming with police officers clutching flashlights.
Catherine Willows stood at the outer edges of the crime scene, with a camera, calmly snapping pictures and largely oblivious to the uniforms scurrying around the perimeter.
She glanced over at the detective that stood in silence nearby. "You look confused. Not surprising, your first week."
The other woman's head lifted, registering surprise. Anna Reese had been lost in thought, studying the corpse.
"No," she said slowly. "Just trying to figure out why I thought moving to Vegas was a good idea."
Willows snorted. "I think we all have those days."
Reese motioned to the dead man. "I'll bet he wishes he hadn't."
The scene was a fairly small space of undeveloped land squeezed between two lesser casinos, like an over-wide alley. It was littered with beer cans, broken glass, condoms, the usual. Picking through it for evidence was something Reese was glad she didn't have to do.
She stooped a little for a better look, her dark hair spilling over her shoulder to hide her face from Willows's view. Behind them, a black SUV pulled up and two men got out.
Reese glanced up as they approached. One was older, a little paunchy around the middle, with a ballcap that read "CSI". The hair she glimpsed at his temples was liberally salt-and-pepper.
The other guy was solidly built, with wide shoulders and deep crow's-feet by his brown eyes. He said, "Hey, Cath."
Willows gestured to Reese. "Have you met the new detective? Reese, this is Gil Grissom, and Nick Stokes, both with the crime lab."
The elder of the two was Grissom, according to the patch on his vest. Reese extended her hand to him first, then to Stokes. "Detective Anna Reese. Nice to meet you. Could be better circumstances, though."
"I dunno," Stokes said. He was handsome in a strong-jawed, chiseled way, and from the accent in his voice, Anna immediately pictured him in a cowboy hat. Nice. She'd always been a sucker for Texans. "It's a nice night."
He glanced at the dead guy and added, "For us, anyway."
Grissom turned to Willows and asked her about the crime scene processing. Reese pulled out her cell phone to see what time it was.
"So you're the detective from Utah, huh?"
Reese's eyes were grey in the meagre light. "Hardly. I'm from Kansas, but my- Yeah, I transferred from Utah."
Stokes pulled his latex gloves on. "Interesting change. Why Vegas?"
"Got sick of living somewhere they were more concerned with catching speeders than killers. Vegas had an opening." It was six past two in the morning. Good thing she was an insomniac, anyway.
"Night shift, though?"
"I'm the new girl, of course I got stuck with it." It didn't bother her, and she shrugged to show it.
Grissom turned their way. "Too bad for day shift," he said, aiming his flashlight at the object on the ground that they'd all gathered around. "Looks like you're getting a head."