Mozell shut the door behind herself and leaned against it. "First time home from the job--another milestone. This calls for a celebration!" She went into the kitchen and opened the freezer compartment. It was bare, save for an open box of Eskimo Pies--not even any ice trays (the ice-and-cold-water-in-the-door had been a selling point for her). She dug a treat out of the box, muttering, "The things I'll celebrate in order to justify ice cream." She gestured with the novelty, declaiming, "I'm free, single, and over twenty-one! I don't have to make excuses!" She blew into the end of the paper sleeve to make sure it wouldn't stick to the cold treat, then skinned the paper off. "The single part sucks, though."

She nipped the end off the treat as she walked back into the living room and sat at the desk (which had been part of the furnishings--another plus). She fired up her computer and began picking the chocolate coating off the bar as it booted up. By the time she was ready to sign on the Internet she was down to bare ice cream. *And to think that mother actually believes that there's such a thing as 'too early for ice cream'. Bet Greg doesn't ascribe to that idiotic theory. Bet Greg could face down a banana split way before lunchtime.*

Her desktop came into view, complete with the picture she'd set up as her wallpaper the day before. She pointed. "Greg! No, wait..." She peered closely at the smiling image. "No, the hair is darker. Something a teeny bit off about the eyes, too. Uh, Eric... S something. Szmada... Szmanda. Damn, boys, was your daddy a traveling man?" She sang softly, "It's a small world after all, it's a small world after all."

*I can't believe it. I'm working with a guy who's cute enough to be a Cyber Cutie. Ain't life strange?* She grinned back at the image. *And ain't it wonderful, too?*

She went to Yahoo and opened her email account. *Yow! They were busy lil beavers last night. Let's see...* She weeded out the spam and the viruses, cursing the senders roundly, questioning their ancestry, and their physical relations with said ancestors. That took the volume down considerably. Then she picked through the fiction posts that she had received from her two dozen or so mailing lists. She didn't read everything that came down the pipe, but she WAS following a good number of continuing stories. It always cheered her up to find another chapter of these.

She read, immersing herself in the world of spicy fanfiction, cheering when there was another chapter of a particularly hilarious story set in the Xenaverse. She sent off a few lines of feedback for each chapter she read, being sure to point out something that had made her laugh, or touched her. Then she went to her favorite part of checking the email--reading her won feedback.

There wasn't much, but then, she hadn't posted much of anything for a couple of weeks, since she'd been busy with the move. She'd explained that on list, but a few of the readers were starting to poke gently, asking for updates on favorite stories. She decided that, instead of going right to bed, she could knock out a few pages, just to get back into the flow of things.

She'd come to the last bit of feedback. It wasn't from any of the lists, or any of the automatic archives she used. This one must've visited her personal website. The sender was listed as ardentadmirer.

//Dear Scribe,// *Yep. She's using my pen name, not my real name.*

//I just recently found your site. What a treasure trove! I can see now that I'll have days of reading enjoyment ahead of me. I just wanted to let you know that I'm going to be keeping my eye on you, and that you'll be hearing a lot from me in the future. You strike me as a woman who must be given due consideration. I'll be watching you.//

*Well, don't I feel special? Someone writing just to tell me that they'll be writing. Oh, well... Whatever I can do to amuse. Now, let's see... Which should I work on? Cupid/Strife? Mulder/Krycek? Jim/Blair? I haven't done a chapter of one of my originals for almost a month.*

She signed off, and her desktop appeared. Eric/Greg was smiling at her sexily, a twinkle in his eyes. "Who am I kidding?" She opened a Wordpad document, thought for a moment, then saved the blank sheet as Coworker, storing it in her Fantasies folder. She started typing. //*I could have taken that job in Boston...*//

Mozell went briefly to her music folder, and scanned till she found what she was looking for, then clicked on it twice. WinAmp popped up, and she went back to her document. She typed rapidly, knowing damn good and well that her story-self was going to share a hell of a lot more than breakfast with Greg Sanders. As the words unfurled on the screen, she sang under her breath with K.T. Oslin. "Younger men are starting to catch my eye. I'm starting to stop what I'm doing just to turn around and watch them walk by... Testify, my sister."

The plastic sheeting was still up over her future lab when she arrived at the CSI headquarters. She only muttered a little as she went on down and unlocked her office. She was dumping an armload of rolled posters on the desk when Greg came across the hall. She found herself smiling at him automatically. *Oo, you don't know what I did to you today, you sweet thing.* "Hi."

"Felicitations. Have a good day?"

"I didn't have anything happen that would attract the attention of the police, the militia, the FBI, the CIA, the IRS, emergency service, the Pope, national news services, or the tabloids. Also, I managed to sleep, and I had caffeine before I came to work. Life is good."

He eyed the posters. "Whatcha got?"

"My version of interior decorating. Would you, perchance, have any tape? They skimped on office supplies as well as space."

"Sure. Be right back." Mozell watched his butt as he walked away, thinking it was a shame that those lab coats were so long. He was back in a minute with a spool of tape. "Need any help?"

"Probably, but I don't want to get you in trouble for playing hooky."

"Lab work is a whole lot like acting--hurry up and wait."

"This may take a little while. Placement is key. For instance, what goes on the back wall, since it will be what people see first? What goes directly over my main computer, since it is what I will look at most of the time? What goes on the inside of the door? It should be something that gives me a laugh, knowing that very few people will ever see it, and that it is following them out of the room. Ah, I think this one is good for that." She unrolled one and showed it to Greg. It showed a very belligerent looking gorilla, and the caption was 'When I want your input, I'll beat it out of you.'

"Oo, let me put that up!" He ripped a piece of tape off the roll, then took the poster. As he began to mount it, he said, "I wish I had a private space to decorate."

"Huh, I have to reach this stage of my life to have one of the cool kids envy me."

Greg drew himself up. "I beg your pardon--kid?"

"You're what, mid-twenties? You qualify. Anyway, there are cool kids of all ages, and they're everywhere. Anywhere a good sized group of people congregate on a regular basis, there will be 'the cool kids'."

Greg finished taping up the poster. "And you consider me one of them?"

"Definitely."

"Sweet. What else have you got?"

"Well, I'm thinking about this one for opposite the door." An insane looking cartoon character was ripping out handfuls of hair. It read 'When I woke up this morning I had one nerve left, and YOU'RE GETTING ON IT!'

"Very good. It will alert all who enter to be civil. And for over the computer?"

"Ah, the important one! This is my pride and joy." She unrolled it. It showed a fantasy of a different sort. There was a very muscular, very handsome, very masculine, and almost, but not quite, naked man. A couple, male and female, knelt on either side, gazing up at him with obvious admiration, and not a little lust. This sort of thing could be found in just about any bachelorette apartment. The difference was the large pair of iridescent, gossamer wings that sprouted from the man's back. The caption was, 'So? What did you THINK a fairy looked like?'

Greg laughed, then looked at her quickly and sobered. He cleared his throat. She said, "Please tell me you aren't going to think this is politically incorrect. It was given to me by a gay friend, as a going away present."

"Oh, no. It's... unusual." He cocked his head. "And very cool."

"Good. I take it you don't have a problem with gayness?"

"No, no." *Oh, no! She's going to tell me that she's gay! Crap, I knew a straight woman couldn't be this much fun.*

"Even better. I have problems with people who have problems with gayness. I think that I may have been a gay man in a previous lifetime." She shrugged. "That would explain why I like guys so much..."

*Thank you!*

"...but have had so little actual, em, interaction in this lifetime."

*What?*

Before he could think up a way to ask her about that (one that hopefully wouldn't get him his ears burned off) there was a knock on the door. Mozell called, "Come in!" To Greg she said, "I'd advise you to move, unless you enjoy getting hit in the butt by doors."

He stepped toward her quickly. Given the limited space in the office, he ended up almost flush against her. "Uh..." She wiggled her eyebrows at him.

The door opened, and Sara peeked inside. "Grissom was wondering if you were set up to do an Internet search yet. We need to find out what we can on the play dates for a group of Renaissance Faire actors who..." She trailed off, seeing Greg practically plastered against the new computer tech. "Greg, what are you doing in here?"

Mozell looked up at him and said brightly, "And that's why I think that cloning research should be limited to reproducing exact replicas of gorgeous men, preferably with the sex drive at least quadrupled." She smiled at Sara. "Hi, Sidelong."

"That's Sidle," Sara corrected, automatically. "Greg, don't you have things to do?"

"Not unless something new has been dropped off." He checked his watch. "That last batch of results won't be ready for at least ten minutes."

"Well, she has something to do. If you can do it?" She gave Mozell a skeptical look.

*Oo, and that sounds like you're doubting my abilities, rather than the state of my work tools.* This time the smile came close to teeth baring. "I never claimed to be omnipotent, Sidewalk..."

"Sidle."

The irritation in her voice warmed Mozell's heart. "But I can come close with the computer and the net. Give me specifics."

"I guess I really should get back to work. Sara, if you'd... um, sort of move?" he asked.

*Yeah, Sara,* Mozell thought. *Even your size... What? Four? Still blocks the doorway. Head 'em up and move 'em out.* Sara shifted, and Greg went back across the hall, but not before tossing Mozell a smile that warmed her somewhere other than the heart. "Now, then, what do I have to work with?" Sara handed over a paper with the name of the troupe, a list of participants, and all known recent performance sites. "Not that I need to know this, but it might help if I knew why you need this."

"One of the casinos has a Medieval themed show, and they hired this group as fill-ins. There's been a couple of deaths in the regular staff--one poisoning, and what looks like death by mace."

"Ooo, nast-eh. I'm on it." She powered up the computer and logged onto the net. Glancing back at Sara, she said, "You can stay if you want, but how exciting is it watching someone else use the computer? As long as they don't visit porn sites, I mean."

"Just bring the results to Grissom's office when you've got anything that might be significant."

"Will do, Sidekick."

"It's..." she paused suspiciously. "You're doing that on purpose, aren't you?"

*My, such a quick study.* Mozell snickered softly. "One more of my endearingly wacky qualities."

"Yeah, real funny," said Sara sourly as she left.

*Be nice to Greg and maybe I'll stop,* Mozell thought as she first went to Google. *But be too nice, and me getting your name wrong will be the least of your worries.*

A couple of hours later, Mozell found Grissom in his office. She dropped a sheaf of papers on his desk. "Here ya go--first fruits. There's a list of the play dates of that troupe going back to 1995. Before that, it went by a different name, so I got those, too, going back to 1992. I traced the careers of what players I could before and outside the group. I realized that I'd seen several of these people die bloodily in low rent horror movies. Oh, and you might be interested to know that there have been several mysterious deaths or accidents where these people played through the years."

Gil was flipping through the pages, scanning them. "I suspected that. With this material, we may be able to find a connection."

"I'd suggest that you look aaat..." she tapped a name on the list. "Him, first. He was there at all the incidents..."

"So were most of the troupe, Mozell."

"Yes, but there have also been nasty things happening on the sets of three movies he appeared in."

That got Gil's attention. "Really?"

"And then there's that history of mental illness thing--two years on a locked ward after running his little brother through with a 'toy' sword."

Gil blinked. "You, uh, you really dug into this, didn't you?"

She shrugged. "You gave me a thread, I pulled, things unraveled. Anything else?"

"No, not right now."

"Terrific. I ran across some really neat Creative Anachronism sites while I was doing this, and I want to go back and bookmark." She saluted, and turned to go. Catherine was just entering, and Mozell swept her a deep curtsy--one that proved that what she was wearing was not actually a skirt, but rather a pair of very full cut trousers. "M'lady."

Catherine sat down. "Don't tell me--let me guess. You had her working on the Medieval case."

"Working on it?" Grissom was sorting through the papers. "She may damn well have solved it. Look at this."

Catherine took the papers and read. "Him? He seems so--bland. Hardly the type to smash someone to death with a nail spiked metal ball." Gil tapped the entry about what had put him in the hospital. "Oh. Ouch. Yeah, we should definitely take a closer look at him." She glanced up at Grissom with a smile. "Looks like the department investment is going to pay off."

Gil sighed, thinking about Sara's mood when she'd returned from dropping off the request. "Cost effective, I grant you. But I have a feeling that some of us around here are going to have to start expending more money on aspirin."

Younger Men
Sung by K.T. Oslin

"Women peak at forty, and men at nineteen
I remember laughing my head off when I read that in a magazine
(I was twenty at the time)
Now I'm staring forty right in the face
And the only trouble with being a woman my age, is the men my age.

That's why younger men are starting to catch my eye
I'm starting to stop what I'm doing
just to turn around and watch them walk by
At the very next opportunity
I'm gonna give a younger man a try
Because younger men are starting to catch my eye

Men my age, poor old darlings, they're worried and they're harried
Some of them drink too much, whole lot of them are married
And honey here I'm at on the threshold of all that fun
I'm gonna try my best to cross it with a younger one

Oh, I said that younger men are starting to catch my eye
I'm starting to stop what I'm doing
Just to turn around and watch them walk by
At the very next opportunity
I'm gonna give a younger man a try
Because younger men are starting to catch my eye

(Musical interlude)

Whoa, look over here
We got a cute little ol' runner to the right
Blue shorts, no shirt
Who! You're looking good darling
That's right, stay in shape

Ohh... Ohh... Ohhhhhhh...

Because younger men are starting to catch my eye
Yes, I said younger men are starting to catch my eye