The surprise.

Disclaimer: I do not own CSI - blah-blah woof-woof.

Present day.

"Hey baby!" Catherine stood on her toes, leaned in and kissed Warrick. He wrapped his strong arms around the small blonde and held her for a second.

"Hey, some of us have gotta work here ya know!" Nick said as he walked through them. "Oh Catherine, Lindsey goes to Butterfield Academy right?"

"Yeah, why?"

"You don't have their roster, do you? I gotta case & the Head won't give up the 'privacy policy'." He motioned with his fingers.

"Yeah, sure. I'll bring it in at lunch."

"Awh, Cath, you're a star."

Warrick watched as the sun danced on Catherine's blonde hair for a moment until the suns path was obscured. He looked up to be greeted by the stern sight of Gil Grissom.

"Shouldn't you all be at home? And shouldn't you be encouraging these guys to be working, not slacking off?" Girssom said, mentioning towards Cath's promotion to supervisor of the new swing shift team.

"Yeah, most of us are either pulling yet another double. Cath, how's your case..." Warrick turned back to realize he was talking to space; Catherine had rushed to the morgue to meet Doc Robbins.

2 weeks earlier...

"Hey, you know, this is right around where I found Lindsey."

"Really?"

"Yeah, when Eddie's car went off the road..." Catherine sighed and shook her head. "Let's get out of here."

Catherine tried to walk up the steep edge of the tunnel but slipped and fell.

"Woah, you okay?" Warrick smiled. Catherine turned and laughed.

"Y-Yeah, I'm fine." She looked into his deep brown eyes, not realizing how beautiful they were. She was lost for a few seconds.

"Cath?" Warrick had obviously not realized what had happened.

"Oh, yeah. Sorry." She jumped down and they walked the long way round.

Present Day

Back in the office, everyone was in their usual swing of things. Sara was walking around with a file in her hand, muttering away to herself about the case & Greg had some Marilyn Manson song blasting out of his boom-box, vaguely annoying other members of the CSI team. Cath walked along towards the break room. She couldn't help but wonder how all of this had become her life. Not that she minded, she loved it here. It was like the team was her family. Although, no-one had thanked or congratulated her on the promotion. It's not that she wanted it to change everything, but she had worked so hard since she got promoted. Not through choice of course, the sheer amount of paperwork was baffling not to mention the cases!

She walked into her office & shut the door behind her. Cath loved these moments in the day when she could be alone at work which was somewhat of a rarity these days. She sat in her leather chair which, of course, they did not provide; she brought it from home, one of those longed for comforts and let out a long sigh; she was tired, after having spent the night at Warrick's & not slept as much as she should…

Looking at her desk, she noticed a spot of colour out of the corner of her eye; it was a small, green rubber duck. It was the most out-of-place thing she had seen in her neat, minimalist office. She picked it up & wondered who had put it there, not to mention why! Surveying the creature, she realised there was something written on the underside. It read 'Meet me in the break room, G xx' Cath couldn't help but wonder who would plant a rubber duck in her office, but guessed it was Greg rather than Grissom.

Sauntering down the hall, Catherine pondered on what Greg had wanted & why he'd asked for her presence in such a wacky, unconventional way. Turning into the break room, Greg was sat on the couch with a grin plastered on his face. Cath sat beside him and smiled & nodded while he rambled on about the case they were working & how he had an experiment all hooked up in the courtyard since yesterday but he couldn't get hold of her hence the rubber duck.

"So, you wanna come & check it out?"

"Yeah, sure. Sounds like it could be relevant. Sort of…" As much as she loved the youngest member of her team, he had a terrible habit of wandering off topic when in conversation & so she had pretty much no idea what this experiment was about.

As they walked down towards the back door leading to the courtyard, they bumped into Warrick. Cath didn't hesitate to wrap her arms almost! around her lover.

"Where you two off to then?" Warrick asked, almost sounding worried.

"Just to the courtyard, Greg has some experiment set up. It's about our case."

"You can't." Warrick, usually a very strong, composed man, was now slightly swaying in the spot & looked nervous. A bead of sweat formed on his forehead.

"Why not?" Cath made her bedroom eyes at him, hoping to get the response she wanted.

"Erm, Grissom's doing something back there. He told me to tell Greg that his experiment's been moved to the empty yard at the other police base in Henderson."

"Henderson!" Cath was clearly not impressed. "That's not exactly the back yard, is it? Why would Gris do that?"

Warrick just shrugged. "I dunno babe. Don't shoot the messenger though."

"You didn't have anything to do with this, did you?"

Warrick shook his head. "No. I want us to be closer, not further apart."

Catherine grabbed Greg by the arm & led him out towards the parking lot, grabbing her coat on the way. In the car, she had her radio loud. And I mean window-rattling loud.

"I love this song!" Greg winced as Pat Benatar's Hit Me With Your Best Shot's intro chords strummed out of the speakers. For the entire journey to Henderson, Cath listened to her choice of music in a bid to cheer herself up. She was upset, no, pissed off that she was being forced to drive into Henderson for reasons she wasn't entirely sure.

On arriving at the police base, she & Greg were shuffled in the direction of his experiment. In the yard, Cath was amazed to see a mass of buckets of paint, a rather large canvas & a step ladder on the floor. It turns out that Greg was on the right lines when he said that the killer had dumped a bucket of the victim's blood out of a window. The paint was all the right consistency to be used as make-shift blood & Greg had ordered it in neon pink, green orange & yellow. This cheered Catherine up immensely as she & Greg spent the next 2 hours dropping buckets from the step ladder and analysing the spatter Catherine's speciality. By the end of the hour, she & Greg's previously bright white body suits were covered from head to toe in a rainbow of neon paint.