CSI - Series Fan Fiction / Buffy The Vampire Slayer Fan Fiction ❯ CSI Point of View ❯ CSI Point of View - III ( Chapter 3 )

Title: CSI Point of View (III)

 

Main pairing: No pairing at this point, this is a stand-alone tale, of very brief duration.

 

MY Inspiration: CSI Vegas, Halloween Fics from this website, Flash Idea that I'm not sure if it has been done yet or not

 

Disclaimer: This is my standard disclaimer; I don't own anything in regards to the sources of MY Inspiration. All publically recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.

 

All the characters, worlds, base concepts or general ideas are just a bit food for the writing bug. This story is pure fiction and is in no way meant to copy or reflect real life, events or people, should this happen then obviously it is pure coincidence.

 

Summary: Halloween, a night to become something different. What happens when the spell left something lingering like ideas, career paths...? (Part III, upon request from the wonderful reviewers and reviews)

 

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It took a bit of time for the rest of Xander's future plan to work. He needed to get the Sunnydale Police Department to agree to his application and they would only agree with proof of a recommendation from his current employer, but that didn't take much and soon he had everything in order. He decided to wait until he was seventeen years old to apply and then he'd try to get his mother to sign the consent form.

 

He managed to convince her. It was interesting how that happened.

 

-----

 

One evening near the end of March, it was late after his last shift at the morgue, he was sitting at the kitchen table in his parents' home and his mother was sitting across from him. He just sat there looking at her. Staring at her really and he made her hold his gaze until she absolutely knew that there was something different about her son.

 

“What is it?” Jessica Harris asked her son.

 

This was the first time that it looked like he what he was about to say was very important to him. He wasn't smiling or joking or doing any of the usual Xander-like things that she associated with him and his teenage friends. “You didn't lose your job did you?”

 

Xander snorted and shook his head. “No I did not lose my job,” he told her. “There are not that many people willing to work in a morgue, doing everything that needs to be done in order to prepare a body for examination or any other stuff, like gathering the evidence or washing them to prep them for burial for the funeral homes.”

 

She shuddered at his mention of the things that he did. He had surprised her and husband with getting a part-time job at the morgue in the evenings. There were so many accidents and deaths in this town, that she didn't want him to be exposed to the results. However, her boy sat them down and explained that it was a good job and that he was working there with an eye to opening more options for his future.

 

“I want you to come to the Police Station with me and sign a few forms,” he said. “I've applied to attend a special course called the `Citizen Police Academy' (...i...). They had two versions of the course. A ten week program and a twenty week program and I want to attend the ten week program to see if I like it... I want to take it before the end of this school year.”

 

“If you do,” she questioned. “If you do like it, what will you do then? What about finishing your school year?”

 

“I can apply to attend the extension program and stay for an extra five weeks to round out the courses I'll need,” Xander said. “This is something that I know I can do, but I also know that it can't be taken near here in Sunnydale.”

 

“Why not near here?”

 

“I don't want to be influenced by the cops in this town or by the way they work. I don't want to develop bad habits, just in case I ever move to another town,” he held up his hand. “You know what I mean.” He was looking at her with such an expression that she was forced to acknowledge that sometimes the police in this town were not that quick or that they were definitely `paid off'.

 

“I want to go to the one taking place in Las Vegas. It's due to start in five days and I'm not going there for the nightlife. As I understand the requirements, it's a pretty intense course because they compress most of the elements that they stretch out in the twenty week program. But I also need to get far enough away so that it will be impossible for me to run home or give up. Do you understand?”

 

Jessica sighed and nodded her head. “I thought that you had to be eighteen to attend such things.”

 

“I can get into the courses and take them, as long as I have parental consent from one of my parents,” Xander explained. “The captain at the Sunnydale PD has agreed to recommend me, if one of you come in and sign the papers with me. Then when I come back from the course, I'll be permitted to work with them at a desk and on paper work. I won't go out into the field until I can take the high school equivalency tests and reach the age of eighteen, but I can still work at the morgue and do the evidence gathering from the bodies that come in for them.”

 

“So you want to leave high school now and go into a Police Academy course instead,” his mothered needed to confirm. “Why?”

 

“I can't explain it, but this is something that I've been working at for some time,” he said. “I've already taken the final exams for the year at school, so there's no need for me to go there for the rest of the year. I've been exercising and working out in the school's gym in order to meet the physical requirements. It's just something that I feel I have to do.”

 

“How are you going to pay for the trip?”

 

“I've sold some of my comic book collection,” Xander said. “I put the rest in safety deposit box at the bank for protection.”

 

“Comic books are valuable?” She asked wondering what she was missing.

 

“Some are, yes,” Xander said. “I only sold the ones that I had duplicates of. There are some that are just valuable due to rarity and that makes them special enough to keep. The ones I tucked away are there because they have sentimental value.” She looked at him, wondering what he was talking about. “Jesse.”

 

Jessica looked into his eyes and saw the sadness that lingered there. It had been there for a long time. She noticed it ever since she found out that her son's best `male' friend had disappeared. She knew that the boy would never found after she saw the boy's details on the milk carton.

 

She looked deeper and noticed the sincerity and determination that was practically vibrating from him with regards to this strange request. She was very familiar with that particular look because when Xander was a little boy he often looked at her with that same expression.

 

This look triggered memories, of things that she thought she had forgotten. Thing like; the first time he tied his shoes, even though they were on the wrong feet; the first time he rode his bike without training wheels; the time he defended a very young Willow from a frog that had hopped too close to her... there were many memories of this expression and this time was not different.

 

“We'll go in the morning,” she said.

 

“Thanks, Mom,” he said.

 

The next day the papers were officially signed and two days later, Xander hugged his girls, saying good-bye and small farewell to his hometown for the few weeks needed to take the courses for a career path that he's quite certain that he had never considered before in his life.

 

Sure, as children they all played `cops & robbers', `bounty hunter & the fugitives on the run from justice' and even the old one of `cowboys & Indians', but it was still only something that a child's imagination could come up with. This new course and path is not something that he would have ever considered, if not for the analytical scientific influence of one Dr. Gilbert Grissom.

 

-----

 

Eight weeks into the Academy course and Xander was doing very well. In some of his courses he was average enough not to stand out, but in some others where they drilled the cadets in crime scenes, he positively excelled at an alarming rate.

 

Some of the other students were jealous and it did come out in the form of mild hazing. It was not something that he was unfamiliar with, so he held his own and pranked them right back until they quit hazing him or they just quit the Academy courses.

 

This teenage student knew more about forensics and the gathering of evidence from cadavers, than any other nominally adult student there. The teachers and professors all spoke about it, but none of them even thought to ask him how he learned some of those skills.

 

They were only watching and gauging him. They knew that he never cheated on his tests and sometimes to trip him up, they would give him a completely different test and at a completely different and higher level from the others.

 

It wasn't until they had a guest lecturer for two sessions that any of them ever found out how the teenager knew what to do and why.

 

Dr. Gilbert Grissom was there to lecture about the bugs that could be found on cadavers and how the forensics community relied on that information some of the time in order to assist in cases. It was especially useful when the corpse had been exposed to the elements for a long time.

 

The man himself was curious about a very familiar face in the group attending his lectures. He did think for a long time that it had been just a dream brought on by the drugs used during the operation for his ears and his subconscious mind.

 

Xander was eager for this course in order to actually see the man that continued to live with him, even though it was only his experiences that influenced him. The man knew his stuff and he was right about the bugs. They were interesting and having found out about Forensic Entomology he wasn't surprised that the man was in that field.

 

He reminded him of Giles. Expert in their knowledge, but living closed or almost closed lives. He knew that Giles expected his death from his activities, but he got the feeling that Grissom was trying to do the same, only in this case it was with his current life and lack of seeming direction.

 

However Xander could see that the man loved his bugs and he could see that there was still something that held the man where he was.

 

On the last day of Dr. Grissom's presentation, he passed out a test that counted for their courses. The cadets were familiar with this by now, as several of the guests were lecturing professors and the knowledge they brought in with them counted as base course requirements, if the students wanted to go further into the field.

 

Xander snorted when he reached the end of the test. There was a bonus question, but... `Sneaky Entomologist,' he thought. `Geez, you didn't even mention the second bug, let alone the scientific name for the first.'

 

The last question on the test was; “Name the first two insects to arrive at a corpse, extra bonus points will be awarded for their scientific names?”

 

Xander shook his head and had no problems answering: Dipteras which is commonly referred to as “Blow Flies” are the first to arrive at a corpse. They are flesh eaters. Second to arrive are Staphylinids, known as “Rove Beetles”. They appear as soon as there is exposed bone because they are bone-eaters. (...ii...)

 

He handed his paper and was about to leave the classroom when Grissom called out to him. “Alexander Harris,” Dr. Grissom said, calling forth the attention of the only teenager in the course. “Could you please return in hour? I will have graded this and I have a few questions for you, that is, if you're available to answer them.”

 

“Sure thing Doc,” Xander said nodding.

 

Later all of the students had left for study sessions or down time, as this was the last course of the day for some. The test took another hour of that time and Xander came back into the room with an extra coffee and one of his famous snacks in a brown paper bag.

 

“You wanted to see me,” Xander said, startling Grissom from the test corrections that he was doing. He had made sure that they were simple questions and only had a few that required full written answers, but the answers were to be simple too. “Sorry, I thought you heard me come back. I did knock. Here I brought you a coffee. I figured you could use one.”

 

Grissom cleared his throat and said, “Thank you.” He sipped the coffee and noted that it was exactly how he preferred it. “I wasn't sure you'd be back when I saw the students race out here.” He shrugged and then asked, “I need to know. Have we ever met before?”

 

Xander looked at the man, looked down and away and then looked back, holding the questioning blue eyes. “No we've never officially met. How about I introduce myself? Hello, professor. My name is Alexander Harris, but you can call me Xander.”

 

“Dr. Gilbert Grissom,” Gil said. “You can call me Gil or Grissom.”

 

“Thanks,” Xander said.

 

“For what?”

 

“Not many of the professors here have asked me to call them anything other than Professor,” he told him. “Most of the other students were already given that adult kind of permission to call them by their first names.”

 

“Not you?”

 

“No,” Xander said. “I think it's because I confuse them.” Gil had a quizzical look. “I mean I know a lot about some of the things that they are teaching here, but sometimes they catch me out and I'm sometimes lost, which is nothing new here. That and also because I'm still a teenager and the youngest student that they have here at the moment.”

 

“What is it that you know?” Gil asked. “I mean that's different from the other students.”

 

“Well for example, when they took us to see cadavers and learn how to process them,” Xander began. “I already knew all of that and I think that surprised a lot of people.” He chuckled a bit and explained, “Three cadets got sick at the sight of the dead bodies and four had to leave the room with the shakes. All of them had to return at later dates and complete the course requirement.”

 

“You had no problems?” Gil was surprised at that. He had a lot of new employees that would never pass the stage of seeing dead bodies. It didn't make them less efficient, but it was also a deterrent when the body could tell a CSI so much about the crime.

 

“None,” Xander said. “I worked part-time in the morgue back in my hometown for about a year and half.”

 

“Why?” Gil was now very curious. His dream had occurred about a year and a half ago. “Why would someone your age choose to work part-time in a morgue?”

 

“My town has a high rate of `accidents' or `disappearances',” Xander said. “One of my best friends disappeared a long time ago and working in the morgue has allowed me to work through some bottled grief. Besides it's one of those high paying, low demand type of jobs that the people there were grateful for whatever help they could get, even if it was from a high school student like me.”

 

“So why did you choose to attend this particular city's academy?”

 

“I checked out the solve rate on some of the labs in the country and this one is the closest to my home town,” Xander explained with a shrug. “I figured that there was something that you guys were doing right, so I thought that in my down time from the courses, I'd attend some court cases that are opened to the public in order to get a feel for the system and see how you guys presented your findings.”

 

“That's an interesting method to improve yourself,” Gil said. “Are you going to be working in the Forensics Field when you return to you home town or stay with the Police?”

 

“That will depend on my home town and how their current system works,” Xander said. “It's not quite the same as Vegas or L.A. My town is... um... isolated in some ways and ... um... they might have outdated methods.”

 

“Really,” Grissom was curious about it, however the bell rang in the school to indicate a change of classes for those who needed to move on to their next class. “I'm sorry... I don't want to detain you from your next course.”

 

“This one was the last one I had for the day,” Xander said. “Besides I figured you would have questions for me.”

 

“How so?”

 

“You stared at me when you called out my name the first day,” he said. “You also kept looking at me more than any other student during the past two days. So, of course, I figured you had some questions in particular that you wanted to ask.”

 

“Is food good here?” Gil asked. “I would like to continue this discussion.”

 

“It's all right,” Xander said. “I usually add a few things like spices or other stuff to improve the taste sometimes.” He leaned in and said, “It helps that the stuff I add is something that no one would touch.”

 

Gil smiled at that, thinking about his own meals that he sometimes added a bit of bugs parts to improve the taste and to prevent anyone from ever mistaking his well balanced meals for something that they could take without asking. He did try to offer it to the others for tasting, but he never had any takers.

 

“I understand,” Grissom said. “I do that at work sometimes.”

 

“I know,” Xander muttered, as bent down to gather his things.

 

“What did you say?”

 

“Hmm,” Xander turned to look at the wide-eyed expression that the older man had. “I'm sorry, what?”

 

“You said that you know,” Grissom pushed. “What is it that you know about me?”

 

“I'm sorry,” Xander said. “I didn't mean to say that out loud.”

 

Grissom was at loss of what to do. “There's a Thai restaurant that's nearby, only a couple of blocks away and quite good.” He noticed the youth wavering and then said the one thing that would guarantee acceptance, “My treat.”

 

“Well in that case,” Xander said. “You got it.”

 

They were seated in the restaurant about half an hour later and beginning to eat their meal. Grissom asked, “So what kinds of things do you add to your meals in order to improve the taste or texture.”

 

Xander swallowed a portion of his wild rice. “Being an Entomologist you must be familiar with the term entomophagy (...iii...),” Xander said. Gil's widened at that and then was surprised when Xander said, “Here,” and handed him the brown paper bag.

 

Grissom looked into the bag and noticed three bags of snacks. He though that they were regular chips because the bags had the same type of packaging. He pulled one out and noticed that it contained the picture of an Ant. `Chocolate-Cover Giant Ants', curious he pulled out the other two, they were `Roasted Giant Crickets' and `Chocolate-Covered Scorpions.'

 

“Curious eating habit,” Gil said. “How did you develop such a taste?”

 

“How should I know?” Xander said. “One day I'm craving the most tasty and beautiful `Golden Snack Cake' dream that is known as a Twinkie, when suddenly it wasn't enough.”

 

“How do I know you?” Gil asked. “It was only a dream, wasn't it?”

 

Xander shrugged and said, “If you suspend your scientific mind for a bit, then anything is possible. Don't you think?”

 

Gil Grissom was taken right back to that night where he had the strangest exchange in his life. There was a lot that he could believe in, but when that blond vampire with the strange Billy Idol look showed up, he hadn't truly believed in much of that evening until that particular demon showed up.

 

Xander's instincts that night had saved them, but that vampire had been able to get away with some injuries that would be difficult to heal. The powders worked very well.

 

They had spent the rest of the evening herding the non-changed humans back to their home or to a safe places and waited out the spell for its termination. All the while they had been exchanging knowledge ideas and just conversing as friends.

 

Gil had asked to look in a mirror and was shocked to find that the boy looking back at him was so close to his appearance when he was younger, that he wondered if they were possibly related. Xander had told him then that his mother was Jessica LaVelle before she had been married and that he knew most of their relations, so he didn't think so.

 

“You mean...” Gil said, looking at his table companion.

 

Xander nodded. “I didn't think that there would be that much of an exchange, but don't worry about it. If it's not something that you want to believe in, then your mind will continue to accept it as a dream and that will be the end of that.”

 

“Why did you take this Police Academy course?” Gil persisted.

 

“What I told you is the truth!” Xander said. “The only other thing was that I was hoping to find was that you were as real too. You see, surfing the web you can find out many things, but to find out that you were a real person... Well that just blew my mind, you know. That's when I figured out that maybe some of these memories would be put to good use and then I thought that I should find you and tell about some of the cases that you've worked on, but could never solve. See I think... No I know what happened, but you'd...”

 

Gil held his hand up and that made Xander stop. “My cases?”

 

Xander nodded.

 

“Cases that currently exist and are still unsolved?”

 

Another nod.

 

“Because of the exchange you know what?” Gil needed to know.

 

“That's what I don't know,” Xander said. “You see, the clothing that was spelled could have come from anywhere, including some other dimension or timeline and I'm not sure that you'll believe that.”

 

“I can accept that there are many things that I don't know about the world,” Gil said. “But what kind of cases are we talking about.”

 

“There was one in Minnesota,” Xander began. Gil knew just where he was headed. “I don't know if the case was a real one or not, but I do know that you'll never find the body of that girl, if everything we've exchanged was correct.”

 

“Claire Marks,” Gil said and watch the boy nod. “Her parents thought that she had run away. She was always out at all hours.”

 

“She was a known Slayer,” Xander said. “A watcher from the Council appeared, taking her away for training. According to their books it was a really big nasty that did her in, in the end.”

 

“You mean like your friend,” Gil said. “How is it that her parents didn't know this?”

 

“Secret societies, ignorance, anything to get rid of...whatever,” Xander said. “There's also just the plain human will to not see things that go bump in the night. She was probably able to see things for a long time and her folks probably had her seeing a psychiatrist in order to get her to stop being different from the other kids. It's common in my town. The majority of people, adults, never see these things. Not many of the students do either, but they feel it more so because their age.”

 

“This is something that I will need time to review in my mind,” Gil said. Xander nodded and finished up his free meal. “Is your plan to return to your town and do police work there?”

 

“Yes,” he answered. “I need to be there. I may not work like other police in this country, but I will do what I can to give some families closure. If it's the fault of some outside force, I know I'll be able to clean up the corpses and prevent more from rising or from being used as bait against the heartbroken. I'll be able to work some cases too, but I'm not sure how the cops in my town will take to me working the night shift only to take care of the cases they don't want to see.”

 

“The night shift is not a bad place to be,” Gil said, as they walked out of the restaurant door. He held out his hand, “I hope you do well in your studies. If you ever do move out of that town of yours, why don't you look me up? I think that you'd do well working with me.”

 

“Thanks Gil,” Xander said. “I'd definitely like to see you working real human cases. Thanks for not telling the other teachers that I'm actually cheating because I'm using the memories that I got during a spiritual possession on a Halloween night.”

 

“I saw no evidence of that,” Gil's eyes were twinkling when he smiled. “I hope to see you around.”

 

Xander grinned his goofy contagious smiley grin, “I hope so too.”

 

They left it at that!

 

For now!

 

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END

 

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(...i...) The courses are real! I “googled” with the search term for “Police Academy” and literally stumbled across “Citizen's Police Academy” courses. I found the mother-lode. Watch out, I've been inspired by a few things. The Police Academy movies were my first thought, as they were on a time-limited course of 10-20 weeks and that is what I was looking for.

 

Canadian Military Reserves allow a teenager of sixteen to join with parental consent, which is what I used as a reference to Xander's early joining to the Police Academy, although I did age him one more year to get him closer to the limit for actually being able to go out into the field.

 

(...ii...) Question and answer found at the web site “Daily Science”.

 

(...iii...) Entomophagy - the practice of consuming insects and bugs as an alternate source to commercially grown beef, chicken and pork (gleaned from the WWW)