A/N: Well, one night I randomly stumbled upon The Almighty Angie in CSI: Miami and was completely thrown by the fact that she had straight hair in it {seriously, there's a long LiveJournal rant to prove it}. She obviously was still gorgeous beyond words, but OMG the crazy.

This was then born.

Summary: Simon's world makes a little less sense.

Pair: Really? I'm still writing this? Amanda and Simon. They're beautiful. I can't help it.

Set: During season 2, pre Pas De Deux, but no spoilers.

Straight Hair

by

Tricki

"Morning." Amanda chimes brightly, delivering coffees about the office. Even though he and Layla are the only other people in this early, she sets one on everyone's desk.

When he catches sight of her Simon's eyes bulge out of his head, regardless of how hard he tries to stop them. His mouth goes dry and he feels as if his world no longer makes sense. Any sense whatsoever. In fact, even the word 'sense' no longer makes sense to him.

"Your hair..." are the only two words he manages to get out, but his tone quite clearly says: 'what have you done to your hair?'

It's not that she looks bad – because honestly, at least at this point in his life, Simon Lloyd cannot fathom the idea that Amanda McKay can look bad – but she looks...

She doesn't...

She looks more –

She doesn't look like herself, and that bothers him. Bothers him infinitely, in fact, because there is no improvement she could make on her existing self – she is utterly perfect to him.

Amanda shakes him out of his reverie by speaking:

"Oh, this?" She queries, running her hand through her hair and picking it up at the ends for dramatic emphasis. "I ran out of time this morning."

"What - how...?" He's so rarely rendered speechless that she takes pity on him.

"I blow-dried it."

"... It's... Straight." He finally manages.

Amanda laughs softly, smiling at him. "Last minute blow-drying tends to do that."

He can't stand it. Her hair – her hair which he loves. Her beautiful blonde curly hair is hanging straight by her face and he's quite sure his head is going to explode.

"Don't like?" She asks breezily as she sets a coffee {just the way he likes it} on his desk before him.

He fumbles. He doesn't want to offend his friend, but he also doesn't want a reappearance of this bizarre bastardisation of her much beloved hair. "...It's – " he begins, not sure where he's going.

"Straight?" She supplies teasingly and perches on the edge of his desk. His eyes sweep her body – taking in her long legs, defined waist, elegant hands and beautiful face before once again his eyes land on her painfully straight hair.

"Different." He retorts pointedly. Beatific smile playing about her lips she rises from his desk and then, as if by some psychic connection, she assures him:

"Well, don't worry, it'll be back to normal tomorrow," before setting off for her own desk and the already mounting pile of writs she needs to see to.

Although he attempts discretion, Simon breathes a deep sigh of relief. Tomorrow the world will all make sense again; tomorrow he'll know where everything stands again.

Tomorrow he'll once again be surreptitiously in love with the woman with the blonde curls. For today he'll just have to cope with being surreptitiously in love with the woman temporarily lacking her blonde curls – and because everything else about her is still spectacularly Amanda, he's pretty sure he can.