SquidgeWorld Archive

Nick and Greg wearily dragged themselves into the breakroom. They'd just gotten through working one of the most sickening cases they'd ever been on. It wasn't that it was gorey--far from it. The only blood involved had been when Catherine had slipped in the mess on the floor and banged her head. she was in the hospital now, being held overnight for observation, but they didn't think there was anything wrong with her other than a lump the size of a ping-pong ball, and a cut that had needed two stitches.

Between checking out the scene, talking to the survivors, and going to check on Catherine, Nick and Greg had been away from the CSI labs for almost the entire shift--close to eight hours. They were due to get off in an hour, but would probably be there longer, dealing with paperwork. This one was a doozy, and Ecklie would want all the I's dotted and T's crossed. They had dropped off samples at the lab, and had decided to grab lunch before they got on the paperwork.

"I tell ya, Greggo," said Nick as they entered the room. "I didn't think I'd be able to eat for a week after that scene, but I haven't had a thing since that Egg McMuffin this morning, and my stomach is talkin' to me."

Greg had opened the refrigerator, and he removed his lunch. "Have a seat and I'll bring yours over." He started rummaging in the refrigerator. "Where did you put it? All I can see is yogurt, and I KNOW that has to be Catherine's, since Sara is still out sick." Sara Sidle had been on sick leave for over a week, recovering from a very, very nasty bout of flu. Grissom had come within an inch of hauling her forcibly to the hospital. The only thing that had prevented him was Sara assuring him that her landlady (who was a registered nurse) was going to look in on her.

"Oh, never mind. Here it is," said Nick.

Greg walked back to the table as Nick unwrapped his sandwich and took a bite. "What ya got?"

Nick was so hungry that for once he forgot the manners his mama had taught him and spoke with his mouth full. "Egg salad." *THUMP!* *oof!*

"SPIT IT OUT! sPIT IT OUT!"

*hauk* Nick didn't have much choice with Greg thumping him on the back of the head. "GREG! What the HELL are you doing?!"

"Nick, you were eating an egg salad sandwich."

"So?"

"You were eating an egg salad sandwich that had sat around, unrefrigerated, for over seven hours. You were doing this after we'd just seen the results of chicken salad with home-made mayonaise that had been stored at the wrong temperature. Didn't the sight of fifty Southern Baptists puking their guts out teach you ANYTHING?"

Nick turned green, jumping up and looking around frantically. Greg snatched up a wastepaper basket and held it for him--just in time. *blurg* "Oh, man!"

"I'm glad you did that, no matter how fragrant it is. We were lucky we only had two fatalities. I'm pretty sure that Al's going to find that those were caused by either choking, aspirating vomitus, or a heart attack brought on by stress. Most people can fight off a mild round of food poisoning, but you can never tell how strong it's going to be. Sit down." Greg brought him a bottle of water. Nick first rinsed his mouth out, spat on the mess he'd deposited in the can, then drank half the bottle in one gulp. "Wow. I didn't think you'd have that much left inside you. Didn't you notice a funky taste? It should have been noticable by now."

"Well, I boil my eggs real hard, so my salad tastes sort of strong to start with, and I use plenty of pickle relish. I guess that hid the taste."

"Well, it's a good thing you didn't get any of it down, or we could see if they'd let you bunk in with Catherine." Greg wrapped the remains of the sandwich and put it back in the paper bag. He started to toss it in the trash, but Nick stopped him.

"They're not going to clean this room till afternoon shift, and it's going to be bad enough with my little reminder. We don't need to have a progressively riper egg sandwich on top of that. Put it in the fridge again, and I'll take it home and dispose of it."

"Okey-dokey. I have PB&Js, so you can have one."

"Thanks, man."

They were just finishing, Nick teasing Greg about eating the bread part out and leaving crust rims, when a very pale, slightly haggard looking Sara came in. "Hey," said Greg in surprise. "What are you doing here? You're supposed to still be on sick leave."

"I heard you're shord handed. I talked by dogdur into gibbing me bermissin to combe in, as long as I dun't go oud indo duh field."

"Are you sure about that?" said Nick. "You had that flu pretty bad, Sara. It's hard on the system."

"Yeah," said Greg. "And you sound like your head is full of wet cotton. Even if you're feeling better, you ought to stay home till you're..."

"You're dot my dad, Sanners," she said curtly.

"Does Grissom know about this?"

Her eyes shifted. "Hed's oud on a call. I'll dell 'im when he geds back. Now, you'd bedder go ged ond your paperword. Ecklie is champing ad the bid for id."

Nick sighed. "Let's go, Greg. I wanna be out of here before dayshift breaks for lunch and gives us dirty looks." They left, waving at Sara.

~*~

A Couple of hours later

Grissom entered the CSI area, mentally shuffling the work schedule to cover a couple of days off for Catherine. The doctor had said she'd PROBABLY be all right to work the next day, but Grissom wasn't willing to risk any of his CSIs. That's why they were more shorthanded than usual. Sara had been trying for two days to get approval to return to work, but Grissom didn't think she'd recovered sufficiently.

He was a little surprised to find Al Robbins, the coroner in the hall. Al didn't leave the morgue too often during his shift. "Al, is something up?"

Al looked grave. "Yeah, I'm afraid there is. I wanted to be the one to tell you, Gil. Ecklie can be such a cold bastard sometimes, I figured this sort of news should come from a friend."

"You're scaring me. What is it?"

"Come into my office." They went into Al's office, Gil becoming more apprehensive as they went. Al wouldn't express this sort of gravity over anything in his professional sphere unless it involved someone he knew. Someone they BOTH knew. He had Gil take a seat, then sat himself. "There's really no way to soften this, Gil, so I'll just say it--Sara Sidle is dead."

Gil winced. "Was it an accident? Murder?"

"No. It was complications from food poisoning."

Now Gil blinked. "Food poisoning?"

"Bad egg salad."

"That killed her? Why didn't she just upchuck it?"

"She did, but by then it was too late. Most food poisoning isn't so serious unless the food is really rotten. Then they usually don't get past more than a mouthful before they realize what's going on, and stop. Even then they usually get most of the bad stuff out of their system by throwing up. Unfortunately for Sara, she didn't taste the spoilage. Anyway, it seems that the salad was made with a lot of condiments--mustard, pickle relish, hot sauce... That disguised the bad taste. When you consider that Sara's taste was probably dull from her sickness (you know how tasteless everything is when you're stopped up), and it's not too surprising that she scarfed the whole thing without realizing it was dangerous. We found her passed out in the breakroom, in a pool of..." he wrinkled his nose. "You know. She apparently slipped in it, banged her head, and knocked herself unconscious. If we'd gotten to her in time we MIGHT have been able to save her by pumping her stomach and administering medicine--but it's by no means a sure thing. Nick is really broken up over this. Greg is comforting him." Al paused thoughtfully. "A lot."

"I know Sara wasn't Nick's favorite person, but I'm not surprised. It's hard to lose a colleague."

"It was his sandwich."

"What?"

"He forgot and left it unrefrigerated when he went on that barfing Baptists call, and Greg just stopped him from eating it. They put it back in the fridge so he could take it home later, and..." Al shrugged.

"And Sara got it out and ate it. Damn."

They were silent for a moment, then Al said, "You know, I was meaning to ask you if you'd noticed that since Sara was out sick, no one had anything stolen from their lunches..."