DISCLAIMER: I don't own CSI
This is just an idea that came to me, and wouldn't leave. This is set in season two. Italics are flashbacks. Hope you like it. Please review if you want more!
Catherine Willows couldn't find anybody from the lab. She checked the corridors again and again, ducking into each lab, every layout room and all the other places where a CSI might choose to hide. Nothing. All she saw were lab techs, waving, smiling, telling her that her results were nearly reaady. But Catherine didn't care about results. She had a huge secret to tell, and she needed to tell somebody. But she couldn't find anyone. Typical.
Catherine and Sara were at a crime scene. It was a simple B and E, no blood, weapons, or dead bodies. They were duting the whole bedroom for prints when Sara got a phone call. After looking at the caller ID, Sara said that she had to take it, and went outside, apologising. Catherine didn't think anything of it at the time. She continued dusting, he mind idly wandering to the million and one things she needed to do that day: pick up Lindsey, make dinner, change the bed linen, vacuum the guest room. She thought of the cold case she and Nick had been attempting to investigate for the past three weeks, and sighed that they hadn't been able to find more evidence. Then she started to cough. Catherine looked down, and realised she had spilt fingerprinting powder in her mindless daydreaming. She continued to cough, and could feel the powder in her throat.
"I'm gonna go get some air." she told the officer.
He nodded and moved aside to let her past. Catherine went outside, to the back garden. She heard Sara's voice, and realised she had walked in on her phone call. If Sara knew she was there, she didn't say anything. Catherine turned to leave, when suddenly she heard something that made her freeze.
"...can't wait to see you either." There was a pause and then "There's shower cubicles in the locker room. See you there? Three fifteen."
Catherine heard Sara say her goodbyes, then she realised Sara was about to hang up and come back in. So Catherine ran back into the room and continued casually dusting, ignoring the confused look the cop gave her. A few minutes later, Sara returned, and they continued printing the chest of drawers. Not a word was said about who Sara had been on the phone to, and Catherine didn't mention the conversation she had overheard. He mind though, was working overtime.
Catherine checked her watch. Three eighteen. Damn. In her desperate need to tell somebody what she had heard, Catherine had completely missed it. She had been planning to casually hang around the door of the locker room, waiting for this mystery man to appear. But now she was too late. She'd have to wait until they came out instead. Which could be anytime. In her preoccupied state of mind, she didn't even notice Brass walking down the corridor, and she bumped right into him, startling herself back to conciousness.
"Sorry Jim." she sighed, picking up te case file she'd dropped when they had collided.
"It's alright. What's on your mind?" he asked her, taking the file.
"What?" Catherine asked.
"You're looking pretty far away there." he explained, reading her like an open book.
"Oh it's nothing." She dismissed it.
"Really?" he asked, and Catherine knew he didn't believe her.
Then Catherine thought of something. Why couldn't she tell Brass? He may not be a CSI, but he was certainly very close to them team. And Catherine ha to tell somebody soon or else she would explode.
"I heard Sara on the phone today." she confided.
"Is this going somewhere?" he asked.
"Yeah. Trust me. Anyway, I don't know who she was talking to, but she's meeting somebody in the locker room at three fifteen." Catherine continued.
"And the point of this story is?" Brass asked.
"In the showers." Catherine finished. That seemed to make an impression on him.
"Oh. And you have no idea who?"
"No idea whatsoever."
"Maybe she was joking?"
"There's only one way to find out."
"I'm on my break anyway. Let's go."
The two wandered idly to the locker room, trying not to look suspicous.
They went in and sat down on the bench. They both observed the OUT OF ORDER SIGN that had been hung hastily on the shower room door. In Sara's handwriting. And they both heard the sound of running water from inside the room. And the muffled moans and sighs.
"You were right." Brass whispered to Catherine.
"Yeah." Catherine nodded, still in shock.
"You know, I was trying to find Nick earlier and I couldn't." Brass told her.
"You think that's Nick?" she asked, gesturing towards the shower room.
"Well" he pointed out, "It's obviously somebody from the lab."
"What makes you say that?"
"Why else whould they come here?"
"Good pint. But I don't think that's Nick."
"Doesn't he have a reputation as a ladies man around here?"
"Yeah, but this is Sara we're talking about."
"Who do you think it is?"
"Grissom."
"Gil?"
"Yeah."
"He doesn't strike me as the kind who would do it at work."
"Have you not noticed what's going on between him and Sara?"
"No. They're dating?"
"Not exactly. But there's definately some feelings there."
"Still though, in the locker room?"
"Yeah. That's not very like him."
"So we're back to Nick."
"You are. I still stand by my descision."
"Call Warrick. He might have a better idea."
So Catherine took out her cell and punched in the familiar numbers. She waited. And then she heard it. Catherine and Brass turned to each other, open-mouthed. They could hear his phone ringing. Warrick's phone was in the locker room. And why would he leave it there unless...
"Warrick?" Brass asked, looking as shocked as Catherine felt.
"And Sara?" Catherine finished.
"Hey guys." Warrick nodded, coming into the locker room.
"Ssshhh!" they both told him, then turned back again.
"Wait a minute. You're here?" Catherine asked.
"Yeah sorry, been swimming." he explained.
"Swimming?" Brass repeated.
"In Lake Mead. Trying to find bodies."
"Fun. You left your phone here you know." Catherine told him.
"I was the only CSI on the case, so Nobody would be able to hold it for me. I wasn't brining it underwater."
"Ah." Brass nodded.
"Why are you two just sitting here, all suspicous?" Warrick asked them after a minute.
"I told you we looked suspicous." Brass muttered to Catherine.
"Sara is in there. With some guy." Catherine explained, pointing towards the shower room.
"Doing what?" Warrick asked.
"What do you think?" Catherine asked, gesturing that he should be quite. They listened to the noises coming from the showers for a few seconds.
"Oh. Who?" Warrick asked, looking embarassed.
"We don't know." Brass explained.
"I think Nick." he added.
"I'd say Grissom." Catherine shot back.
"Maybe it's somebody else altogether. Like someone from swing?" Warrick suggested.
"Maybe." Brass nodded.
"A lab tech?" Warrick suggested.
"Sara and a lab tech? Yeah right." Catherine laughed.
"Yeah, I suppose we can rule that one out. Or else a cop?" Warrick offered.
"There's no way this is one of my guys. Pretty much the whole force is at some protest gone ugly on the strip. The ones left are stretched pretty thin. There's not really much time for, you know, that." Brass said, gesturing the door.
"I'm certain this is somebody from our shift. The way she was talking into the phone, it sounded so familiar. Like she knew the guy really well." Catherine explained.
"Then it's Nick." Brass insisted.
"No way, I know Nick, I would have known if he and Sara had a thing." Warrick shook his head.
"So it has to be Grissom right?" Catherine replied.
"I suppose." Warrick shrugged.
"No way. I'm telling you..." Brass began.
They all stopped talking at the sound of Sara's voice. She was speaking so quietly they could barely hear her, just make out bits of her conversation.
"...need to go..." she was saying.
There was a low male voice speaking next, and although they all trained their ears, he was speaking too low to make out who it was.
"...I'll go out first, count to a hundred then go..." Sara suggested.
Catherine, Warrick and Brass all caught each others eyes. Then they got up, and very quietly snuck out of the locker room, before Sara could come out and realise they had been eavesdropping. The three of them ducked into the nearest lab, whick thankfully was empty, and pretended to be very interested in a microscope with nothing under it. They had a clear view of the locker room door from where they were standing, and they saw Sara come out. They all looked down and she walked on, her eyes oon the ground. Catherine noticed that her shirt had been buttoned up wrong. But she was fixing it. Good. For some reason, Catherine didn't want everyone else to know. She wasn't sure if she felt like she owed it to Sara not to tell the others, or if she just like having a secret. Anyway, it didn't matter. They watched the door with baited breath, Warrick and Brass making a bet on whether it was Nick or Grissom that was going to come out. Then the door opened. And Catherine felt like she was going to faint.
She had been wrong. There he was, with his hair all wet and a very guilty expression on his face, walking out of the locker room carrying the OUT OF ORDER sign Sara had made.
Greg Sanders.