Deli Run
Prologue
The shift had been long, tedious, and boring as hell. The two teams had merged once they discovered that their cases were related to each other, and they had all congregated in the break room, taking up all the space like they used to, much to other employees' chagrin because the coffee would be completely gone, and the former graveyard team got very territorial like a pack of lions in a savannah.
Exhausted of all possibilities of their bizarre case, the CSIs just sat around, tapping pencils, exchanging crime scene photos, and bouncing new theories off each other now and then.
When they got up to get coffee, however, seating arrangements changed as Warrick sat next to Catherine and Nick sat next to a six month pregnant Sara, Grissom and Greg now sat on opposite ends of the table, both rolling their eyes at all the love that had just been rushed into the room.
Suddenly, Sara's stomach growled loudly and she blushed as she felt the baby roll to the other side of her belly, making her proportion look lopsided. Nick looked at her and chuckled.
"Hungry?" He asked.
She glared at him.
"What the hell do you think?" She snapped. "I'm six months pregnant with your baby. I would think you'd have it figured out that I'm hungry all the time."
"Okay, Uncle," Nick surrendered, frowning at her sour mood.
Catherine giggled at the couple as they rolled their eyes at each other. Warrick shook his head as he placed his arm around her shoulders, playing with a strand of her hair. In contrast to Nick and Sara's relationship, Catherine and Warrick were just sickening, especially when it came to matters such as lunch. The couple would turn to each other and have a deep, long discussion, seeming to forget that there were other people around, innocent victims of their pathetic puppy love.
"What do you want to eat?" Nick asked Sara as he got up to grab the last doughnut.
"Can you go to the deli?" Sara requested.
Nick shook his head.
"Sara, you hate the deli," he mentioned. "You always say how disgusting it really is despite its claim that everything's fresh and clean…especially the restrooms."
"But I'm hungry," she whined. "Make sure the deli's clean."
"The deli sounds good," Catherine said. "But can we trust you guys to get us lunch and come straight back?"
All four men assure the women that it would be a piece of cake.
"Okay, this is EXACTLY what we want," Catherine began. "I want the grilled turkey and cheese, toasted on rye marble bread with lettuce, pickle, and mayo. Be sure to get cheddar cheese on that. Sara wants the fried catfish sandwich with Swiss cheese and everything except hot peppers, onions and the fish paste that goes with it and a regular salad with cottage cheese. Got it?"
"Yeah," Nick nodded confidently.
The men got up and headed out.
"Trust us," Greg said.
Catherine and Sara looked at each other, knowing that some way or another, the four men's brains would give out, in favor of testosterone, and the four of them together would manage to turn a small twenty minute trip to the deli into something they could avoid.
"I'd say two hours tops," Sara sighed, biting into an apple.
Catherine rolled her eyes.
"Yeah, wishful thinking," Catherine snorted sarcastically. "Remember what happened last week when we sent them to go order the cake for your baby shower?"
"Oh yeah," Sara chimed. "Then we'd better give 'em three."
"And I bet you anything that at least one of them doesn't have their cell phone," Catherine predicted as she sipped at some tepid coffee. "Namely Warrick. Part of me wants to give them the benefit of the doubt though. How hard could going to the deli be?"
About as hard as Nick, Warrick, Grissom, and Greg could make it out to be…