Title: Willows' Play
Author: Alison Nixon
Rating: G
Category: General/Humor
Spoilers: Blood Lust, S3
Summary: Someone gets a tip. The rest is Willows' Play – Blood Lust post-ep – G/S
Disclaimers: The usual. None of the characters are mine. They belong to Anthony Zuiker, CBS, et al.
Feedback: Of course! Let me know what you think.
Archival: www.grissomandsara.com, otherwise please ask first.
Author's Notes: She's in a good mood, and she's about to bust her latest case wide open. Just a quick fic, because the real story just had to be told. G
*******
She approached the corner at a fast clip, swinging the brightly colored cylinders lightly, like batons. What was it about children's birthdays that made her feel so good? Well, her child's birthday, at least. Everything had worked out perfectly so far: her rape case was wrapped up and now she could celebrate with Lindsey without any ugly intrusions. Time with her kid unclouded by thoughts of work, well, that alone was worth a little exuberance. The cylinders, cardboard covered in paper patterns of silver and gold, were again sent flying as she tested their weight. Just like batons, right? A quick toss and twirl in her Joan & David's and they would never even hit the floor. Didn't do all that cheerleader pep stuff just to get away from the ranch, now did I? Catherine bent her head and smiled as the memories came floating back; she hadn't even seen a baton since she'd left home. Maybe it was the flash flood of images from her youth; maybe it was her happy mood about the day ahead with the person closest to her heart. Whatever the reason, she was just about to dare herself to do it when she ran straight into a broad male chest.
"You seem awful happy."
"It's my daughter's birthday. Of course I'm happy."
Brass, who had thrust his hands forward to keep her from barreling into him, greeted her with a friendly smile. Given that she still ended up practically standing on his toes, he couldn't have extended them out very far. Catherine took this in, and returned his friendly smile with an amused one of her own. It was funny, she thought, her eyes drifting back down to his hands. Funny how body language marks people in your mind and makes them recognizable, even when all you see is some instinctive physical gesture. Brass didn't bother to put his hands out very far. Grissom would have stuck his out a half-mile at least--the man had personal boundaries that stopped just short of the city limits. She had just passed him in Ballistics, anyway, head bent over a microscope, utterly absorbed by what he was looking for. Unless the earth rumbled, that bit of body language told her that he was unlikely to bump into anyone anytime soon. Catherine shook her head. Sara sure had her work cut out for her. Good luck, sister. If anybody can do it, you can.
Jim's voice broke through her thoughts, interrupting what was sure to have become another frustrating meditation on what it would take to get those two together, and when Grissom would finally pull his head of out of his ass.
"Hey, tell her 'Happy Birthday' for me…how old is she now?"
"Nine, going on thir--" Catherine raised her hand to stop herself; it was an easy joke to make, but it really didn't fit her Lindsey. "Well, just nine, really." She released a grateful breath, and motioned with the gift-wrap. "She's still into Barbie, rather than boys, thank God. Still a little girl."
"Well, consider yourself lucky. I don't think Ellie was ever into Barbie." Brass slipped his hands into his pockets, hunching his shoulders slightly. "Cut all their hair off and burned them in the backyard, just to spite me."
She laughed and patted his arm. His dark eyes thanked her for the sympathy.
"So, how's the case going? Hit and run, right?
"It looked that way at first, but now who knows? I'm just a cop. You guys will have to tell me."
Catherine crossed the rolls of paper in front of her body like martial arts weapons, tapping them against each other in warning. "Sorry, Jim, but I'm not telling you anything tonight. It's Grissom's case. I am out of here."
She smiled her goodbye and stepped around him, ready to continue her race down the hall.
"You know…I'm surprised you didn't cover for him. It was his night off last night, right?"
"Hey, I had my own case to work," she protested sharply, a little stung. "Besides, it's not like the guy has a life that keeps him from coming in, Jim. I wish he did, but…" She shrugged.
"Are you sure?"
Brass' eyes rarely gleamed unless he was about to label a suspect 'felony stupid.' Catherine moved in a little closer.
"Am I sure? What does that mean?"
Brass rocked on his heels like a boy and leaned in, his voice low.
"He was on a date last night."
Rarely did he garner scuttlebutt about someone on the team before they themselves did; it was nice to see a CSI's mouth fall open. Especially this CSI's.
"No."
"Yes. I got it from the man himself."
Her blond hair flew as she tried to clear her head.
"No way he volunteered that."
"Catherine, would I lie to you?" She gave him a look. "About Grissom."
Her eyebrows rose even higher. "So who was it?"
"I don't know. He didn't say. But he was sporting a leather jacket I've never seen before, and he looked a little astonished at the idea himself."
"You don't think…"
They exchanged a speculative glance.
"Has to be."
"But what about that guy?"
Catherine rolled her eyes. "Oh, that meant squat to her. Less than squat. Warrick got the 411 and let's just say, it never rose to a 911, okay?"
Brass grinned. "You don't say? Huh. Well, that's one more mystery solved. I always figured she was way too into Grissom for that."
"She is, and he's into her even worse." Catherine drawled, the gleam in her eye as bright as Brass' had been a moment earlier. "That's why this whole thing had been a damn mess ever since he heard the guy's name."
Brass nodded, having suspected as much. Something had certainly been awry between the two. They usually sent a charge into the air whenever they were together, even when they were butting heads over a case, but lately…lately, things had been strangely subdued. Brass smiled at the notion: Gil Grissom, conflicted lover, or would be lover, or whatever he was to Sara. He had been sorry to see his friend floundering so badly, but it was definitely good to know the old goat was human.
"So what exactly did he say?"
It occurred to her that if any one passed by they might think she and Jim were making some off-hours plans of their own, but she quickly pushed the thought aside. No one would think that was a bad thing anyway, except for Warrick. And then there was always Nick, who was surprisingly more difficult to read than she would have guessed…yeah, Nicky was a bit of a puzzle in that regard. Catherine sighed, kicking herself for losing focus. Get the Grissom info. The rest can wait.
"Well, I walked up to him as he got out of the car, alone, and I asked him where you all were. He got that look on his face, you know the one I mean." He waited for her nod. "He says, 'I have no idea. I was actually on a date.' I'm staring at him like he's some bug alien who's taken over Gil's body, and he just shrugs and looks all sheepish."
Catherine urged him on with her eyes, leaning in so close that her sleek loafers bumped his sturdy Oxfords. Brass felt a little warm, but pressed on. "And then…"
She looked so hopeful that he really wished he could deliver the goods, but this was Grissom they were talking about here. The guy was murder on punch lines.
"Well, then he started asking me if I'd ever seen a hit and run end up 'eviscerated' like our vic, and you know…"
She knew. There was no going back to prod the man for personal information once he caught sight of a dead body. It was a very small window of opportunity indeed.
"So," she mused, blue eyes darting as she processed the data. "Gil spent the first part of his evening with a female who was actually alive and he referred to it as a date. Hmmm…"
"You think maybe he was joking? Or maybe he was just out with a friend. He has friends, doesn't he? I mean, besides us." Brass felt himself descending into Grissom-induced confusion.
"Oh no, he was definitely not joking, Jim. He'd never give you that kind of impression about it being a date if it wasn't. And he'd never give you that impression without thinking about it first. That, plus the leather jacket, plus the Sara thing…" She frowned, trying to see the forest for the trees.
"All of that tells me that maybe he's trying to put it out there that he's seeing someone, maybe so we all get used to the idea, you know? Then later, when they feel comfortable, he'll let it drop that it's been Sara all along. It'll be less of a shock that way, see. We'd be used to the idea that he has a life, and so the only jaw-dropper will be the identity of the person he's been having it with…"
Brass looked on in frank admiration. "You got all that from what I said?"
"It's only a theory until I test it. And I think I know where to find my test subject."
Before he could inquire, she graced her informant with a wink and a promise to fill in him later, and sped away.
A few race-walk steps later and she could make out a familiar profile through the glass wall of the trace lab. She was a little surprised by her own hurried breathing; it wasn't as if she was out of shape. There was some peculiar sense of excitement, though. She supposed Brass' news flash proved it—vicarious thrills were sometimes the best kind. Hell, hearing about Grissom's date was almost more fun than going out on one herself. You avoid all the mess and you get all the fun of making someone else squirm, rather than squirming yourself. Not a bad place to be at all. She was still savoring this thought and pondering her investigative approach when Sara looked up.
"Hey," Sara said brightly, her smile at the ready.
Catherine took a breath and moved in the room quickly, holding both rolls of gift-wrap in one hand as she prayed for inspiration. She had never tried this sort of thing on Sara before, and she didn't have the years of friendship she had with Grissom to ease her way. Oh well, here goes.
"Hey."
Sara looked at her curiously as she continued to press solution-soaked paper onto a blue down jacket. "I thought you had a couple days off."
"I do, but I left these…" Catherine held out the gift-wrap, which she now held in either hand. "…on my desk."
Her smile was broad and eager, and the words came out in a rush as she tried to disarm her colleague. "I'm on my way to Circus Circus with five nine year olds. It's Lindsey's birthday, gotta wrap a Bridal Barbie."
Sara smiled back, apparently taking the other woman's chipper banter at face value. The giddiness was not exactly Catherine's style, however, and the younger woman couldn't resist a little tweak. She drew her dark brows together in mock confusion, aiming for cluelessness.
"What's a Bridal Barbie?"
"Ahh," Catherine laughed and sighed in the same breath, awarding Sara a point. "Funny." Just wait 'til you become a mommy, and see what the Barbie marketing machine reduces you to. Besides, don't try to distract me. I'm running this little game.
Sara grinned at the blonde's expression for a moment, but soon turned her eyes to back to the jacket lying in front of her. Catherine could see the tell tale chemical reaction, as well as Sara's sudden return to seriousness; it was time to make her move before the girl lost herself in one her usual forensics reveries.
"Oooh, blue," she cooed. "Gunshot residue."
Sara's face was thoughtful as she looked up from the reactive paper. Had she had been a little less distracted by the GSR, she might have picked up on the atypically high pitch to Catherine's voice, but as it happened, it hardly even registered.
"On our stabbing victims' jacket."
"So it means that he may have fired the revolver you and Grissom found in the park?"
Catherine kept her voice deliberately vague, even naïve. She knew very well what the presence of residue suggested, but she also knew that her stealth opportunity hinged on misdirection. The direct approach would have met with stiff resistance, but case talk was surely Sara's one weakness…besides Grissom, of course. Catherine was banking on her letting some kind of reaction slip out if the trap was properly camouflaged. But what should the trap be precisely?
"Yeah. Too bad GSR can't tie the vic to a particular gun."
Watching Sara closely now, she picked up on the tinge of disappointment threaded through her words. Disappointment at not having found a definitive answer with her evidence, but also, Catherine would wager, disappointment about not having found an answer for him. An answer she could hand to Gil with that huge grin that always seems to make him forget everyone else in the room. Must have been one hell of a date. I bet the waiter felt like he was intruding. She could see it now: two heads reluctantly turning away from their mutual absorption as the intruder dared to speak, the twinned expressions of geeky confusion about this third reminder of the necessity of actually looking at the menu, instead of each other. It was as she tried desperately not to laugh at this image that it hit her.
Mutual absorption: knowing what your man is up to, before someone else has to tell you… Catherine's eyebrows rose as she let it slip with offhanded casualness, almost as an afterthought.
"Right, hmm...but maybe Grissom can."
"Grissom?"
"I just passed him in Ballistics.
He was…meditating on the revolver.
Didn't even look up."
The classic "He's dead" smile known to new lovers everywhere, easily identifiable by the sheer number of teeth it reveals. Say cheese!
"Excuse me." Sara was already past her, and
crossing through the doorway. "Have
fun."
…and she scores!
"Thanks."
In the sudden stillness of the now empty room, Catherine's eyes slowly drifted upward—with any luck, the sparks would fly when Ms. Pants on Fire reached her destination. She smiled then, just as slowly, curving her lips into the sly canary smile she reserved for occasions when wonders truly never ceased. After giving herself a moment to revel in her own trickery, she executed a near perfect toss and twirl in the new couple's honor, and hurried off to find Brass. He was going to love this.
(Fin)