(transversal)
(Of Grissom, Catherine and Warrick - and Sara and Eddie, letting go and holding on, hedging a bet and how complicated simple can be.)
II
Warrick Brown knows a poker face when he sees one and Catherine Willows doesn't have one. She thinks she has, he can tell, but she what she has is confidence. It's a different thing, even if it can still disguise the cards on her hand sometimes. Grissom doesn't have one either - he has masks, all of them disguises but all of them possible to remove. Nick, oh Nick can forget it. Too much heart in his eyes. Brass doesn't cut it either - enjoys being a dealer too much.
It's Robbins who's got it. Grandfatherly, smiling Albert Robbins who sees more than he says and can read people even when they're dead. Know people. The cards are secondary. That's how to play poker.
Warrick's still learning to.
II
It's a bar. Warrick isn't getting drunk; he doesn't need to. He's got other ways of having demons. Alcohol is just booze. He drinks it more because he can and stay in control still. Control, that's the thing.
He thought he had it.
Now Holly is dead, Sidle is staying and he has his grandmother's voice in his head, saying nothing. She wouldn't, he knows. If he lost his job and killed a colleague, she would just look at him and still love him, but he would know he didn't deserve it.
Guilt. He doesn't need others to blame him when he feels it strong enough himself.
"Rough day," Catherine says. He isn't sure why she is there, except he asked and she agreed and they're friends and sometimes, sometimes silence is better with two.
'I left her alone,' he wants to say.
'I convinced her to stay in this job,' she'll probably counter.
Guilt. It holds on. Maybe they'll learn to let go together.
"Rough day," he agrees, and clinks his bottle against hers.
II
Work defines a guy. CSI Brown can't 'return favours'. CSI Brown can't date a drug user. CSI Brown can't let work just be something he does for a living.
Warrick's starting to think CSI Brown isn't just something Grissom has pushed him towards.
II
Catherine doesn't like Sara yet and Sara doesn't like Warrick and Warrick doesn't like Brass and Brass doesn't like the Sheriff and the Sheriff doesn't like Grissom and Grissom doesn't like Ecklie and Ecklie doesn't like anyone.
Sara does like Grissom and Grissom likes Brass and Brass likes Nick and Nick likes Greg and Greg likes Sara and Sara likes Nick and Nick likes Warrick and Warrick likes Catherine and Catherine likes Grissom and Grissom likes Sara.
It holds together.
Sort of.
II
"I could kill Eddie," Catherine says, hands on her hips and rage on her face.
"No," Warrick says, calmly leaning against the doorframe and watching her heart in her eyes. They tell him too much. "You couldn't."
He's not entirely convinced he couldn't.
II
"You seen Catherine?" Grissom asks, eyes on dead bugs and mind on dead bodies. Warrick can tell whatever he answers will be answered with 'good'. Grissom is solving a case.
"Yeah, in the locker room seducing Sara," he answers casually, because 'having another fighty with Eddie' is the the truth that she probably doesn't want advertised.
"Good," Grissom says, carefully pining up another fly in his long, orderly line. "Ten days. You were right, Warrick. Good job."
Two words to feel king and submissive at the same time.
"I knew the brother was a good bet," Warrick says. "I'll tell Catherine."
"Tell Catherine," Grissom agrees, before his brain finally seems to catch up with what went on while the screensaver was on. "... what?"
II
Murder, death and the grieving - they're all used to dealing with them, almost like a casual friend. But every time it strikes close, it's a reacquaintance all over again.
Warrick doesn't grieve Eddie, but Catherine does. Not just for Lyndsey, he thinks. Not just, because nothing is that simple.
Eddie Willows leaves a child. Warrick Brown has nothing but flesh and bones to leave for Grissom's beloved maggots.
He begins to think about that.
II
Sara and Warrick will never be best friends, he knows. It's just not in the cards, not with the deal of the hand given.
But there is something. Not what he has with Nick. Definitely not what he has with Catherine. Not what he has with Grissom, and he's never sure if she envies that or not. Not what he has with Brass either, outright hostility gone to begrudging camaraderie.
Just something. With some barbs.
"Oh, come on, you can't possibly excuse murder!" Sara says hotly.
"All I said was that I understood his motivation, not his actions," he counters, calm to her passion. "Come on, Sara. Have you never wanted something so bad you would do anything to get it?"
"I wouldn't kill for anyone," she says firmly, eyes dark.
He wonders.
II
He meets Tina. He likes Tina. He dates Tina. He sleeps with Tina. It's Tina and Warrick, Warrick and Tina, and it works. It's simple. Nothing to wonder about.
Nick almost dies, and Warrick makes it simpler. Something to leave behind. Something to put to his life. Something to write on a tombstone.
Husband. Tina's Warrick now.
It gets a bit more complicated from there.
II
He didn't consider Catherine.
Sure, he has fantasized about Catherine - in a car, in an elevator, in the morgue, on his desk, on Grissom's desk, against a slot machine - but that's just... She's Catherine. And she's wrong. The great thing about fantasies is that it doesn't need possibilities.
He can just about believe that, if he fantasizes really hard.
II
"You seen Sara?" Grissom says, and Warrick looks up from his blood-stained clothes, feeling a brief moment of amusement.
"I think she's talking to Brass," he replies. "Like you asked her to. Ten minutes ago."
"Oh," Grissom says, face a mask all too easy to peel away. "Good."
Grissom likes Sara and Sara likes Grissom and Warrick knows complicated when he sees it now.
He still rather likes their odds.
II
"Neglect," Robbins says, turning the body back over.
"Neglect as killer," Warrick replies, shaking his head a little. Not in disbelief. The evidence is clear enough. It's more that it even had to come to that.
"Yes. People, friendship, marriage. Massacre with less blood," Robbins replies calmly, looking at him with old eyes. "No heart in it."
Warrick's going to be a killer real soon, he can feel.
II
"I'm getting a divorce," he tells Nick, and Nick doesn't even blink.
"I know."
It turns out Tina knows too and beats him to it.
II
Fucking Catherine - oh yeah, they're fucking. This isn't making love. He's got her faced against a wall, her fingers clutching at wallpapered leaves as his hands are already up her skirt; he can feel naked thigh against his fingers and his teeth scratch her collarbone and the sweat of his chest sticks to the skin of her back, glistening and he tries to remember if he managed to yank his shirt off before or after they got in the door and hopes it wasn't in the cab already and oh yeah, this is fucking.
Making love can wait until he's certain he's ready to get fucked over by it again, he decides.II
"And now what?" he asks, Catherine in his bed after their third night, clean sheets he'd bought just two weeks before. A clean slate. When you get a possibility, it stops being a fantasy and becomes a beginning.
"Just now," she says, and in the streaming sunlight she looks almost young as he considers her. Warrick and Catherine. Yeah. Just now.
It holds together. Just enough.
II
The first time Sara Sidle meets Gil Grissom he's a teacher and she is learning and she already knows she can love this man. It's not love at first sight. It's love at first thought, a meeting of minds even when he keeps distance close, like an intimate friend. He isn't a mirror to her - her intimate friend is something else - but it's a reflection close enough that she feels it almost blinding. She knows what others will say, but it won't be true. He isn't like her father and she refuses to be her mother. She won't kill for him. She won't.
She just might live for him.
II
