"He stole my candy," Sara stated simply fumbling with the straw hat in her hand.
"Pardon me?" asked Catherine wondering if she'd heard the younger CSI right.
"Greg was given loads of candy and Ecklie stole it; said it was against lab policy. He practically grabbed it from our hands and now he's holding it hostage until the end of shift. Because it's not enough he's got me locked up in here," Sara finished her rant waving her hands wilding.
"Breath," instructed Catherine. "That explains the spider in the drawer. Whose idea was that?"
"Mine," grinned Sara. "Trick or treat," she added placing Grissom's hat down on his desk.
"What that doesn't explain is why you've got that thing," she pointed to the offending accessory.
"I don't like it; he's got a much nicer one but he prefers this one."
"Sidle, that's not an explanation," started Catherine." What are you up to?"
"I'm not sure yet. I was going to hide it but I've tried that before and he always finds it."
"He isn't our boss for nothing," smiled Catherine picturing Sara hiding the hat in various places. "What if it was damaged irrecusably due to small accidental fire?" Catherine suggested with a wicked grin that matched Sara's.
"Really?" asked Sara shocked Catherine would even suggest such a thing.
"Really, I've had enough of that monstrosity too. We'll burn it then say one of his experiments caught fire. He has enough of them," she added looking around the room at the various things set up in corners with wires and monitoring devices sticking out.
"Does your house look like this?" asked Catherine poking one of the jars.
"We have bees," replied Sara rolling her eyes." We also have honey, lots of honey."
Catherine couldn't help but smile at the slight note of despair in Sara's voice as she spoke of the hives in the back yard.
"Well, next time I run out of jam to put on my toast I'll be knocking on your door," smiled Catherine. "That and I want to see where you and Grissom cohabitate."
"And why, can I ask, are you so eager to break the rules and destroy someone else's position?" asked Sara twirling Grissom's hat on her finger. "I'm his girlfriend, somewhere in there I gained the right to drive him crazy."
"You've been driving him crazy for years. You just haven't seen it," said Catherine surprising Sara with her insight and forwardness. "And I have read nowhere in the rules of this lab that burning a straw hat is forbidden. In fact, if we claim it as a genuine experiment I'm sure it would be encouraged."
"Ecklie's doing something," interrupted Sara.
"Politics are doing something, Ecklie's just annoying and enforcing it," corrected Catherine. "And as for this hat, every time he wears it and I'm with him I get funny looks. And once he felt the need to lend it to me when I lost my baseball hat."
"You wore it?" interrupted Sara again with a smirk on her face.
"He looked so proud that he'd 'come out from under the microscope and considered someone's feelings'," said Catherine doing a rather poor impersonation of Grissom. "I'd have felt guilty if I didn't. Anyway, he spilt human soup down my favourite pants so this is revenge," added Catherine finally coming out with the real reason.
"All valid points," smiled Sara. "But what's Ecklie up to with Hodges?" asked Sara wanting to know why Hodges had recently been seen in Ecklie's office on several occasions.
"Well while Ecklie left the room during my mandatory review," Catherine spat. "I spotted files on us all. Hodges is spying. It's like having school monitors running off to the teacher. You know, he even questioned Doc Robbins."
"Who, Hodges?" asked Sara confused.
"No, Ecklie. He's reviewing our status on the night shift," said Catherine annoyed. Partly because she didn't want the team to be split up again as Ecklie had already tried this and found out it didn't work.
"I used to be a hall monitor," said Sara suddenly. "I spent most of the time picking locks."
"You rebel," interrupted Catherine before hearing the reason.
"To get out the lockers I'd been shoved in," finished Sara. "This is our fault isn't it?" said Sara apologetically.
"No, well yes. The two of you should have told us all sooner but my guess is Ecklie would still have done this. But he's going to find no just cause to move anyone." finished Catherine in a definitive tone.
"Thanks," smiled Sara. "Now come on." With that Catherine had snatched the hat from Sara and placed it on Grissom's desks eagerly looking around the room for matches or a lighter.
"Whoa," Sara grabbed the hat from the desk. "Don't you think this is going to look little suspicious?" she asked sliding open one of Grissom's drawers and retrieving a box of matches.
"With all the things he's got cooking up in here, no." answered Catherine taking the metal bin from the floor and putting it on the desk. "We burn it in here, 'Oh no it's caught fire' we put it out," smiled Catherine pleased with her plan.
"And when Gil comes in and finds his hat burned to a cinder we say it jumped in the bin?" asked Sara placing the hat in there all the same.
"He's a good CSI but I don't think even he could reconstruct his hat from ashes," smiled Catherine as Sara pulled out a match.
"Hang on," Catherine grabbed her bottle of water from the side where she'd put it when she walked in. "Okay now," grinned Catherine. Sara struck the match and dropped it on top of the straw hat. It took a little while for it to start but once it had it spread into flames quite impressively. In fact, so impressively they probably should have looked at what was in the bin under the paper.
"Red smoke?" shouted Catherine surprised as the grey smoke billowing out turned tinged red.
"Red creeper. Damn," cursed Sara seeing the powers bubble up under the flames.
"Put it out," she demanded as Catherine threw her water; it turned out that was not quite enough and the smoke alarm began beeping.
"We didn't think this through," said Catherine as both she and Sara looked for something to throw over and smoother the fire. It was at that moment the door burst open and the room filled with white smoke choking both Catherine and Sara. As the smoke cleared Hodges was standing in the doorway coughing and brandishing a fire extinguisher.
"What the hell?" shouted Catherine coughing.
"I didn't see you. There was a fire," said Hodges looking at the bin on the desk.
"God, what the hell?" Asked Sara as her sentence was interrupted as she had a coughing fit.
"Move," said Catherine pushing by Hodges and into the hallway which was now crowded with lab techs.
"It's a co2 extinguisher," said Hodges dropping it with a clang.
"Are you okay what was on fire?" asked Archie as Catherine and Sara emerged from the room coughing.
"Experiment," replied Catherine.
"Why's the bin on the desk?" asked Hodges suspiciously.
"It caught fire. We moved it to stop it from spreading then super Hodges here came charging in head first," explain Catherine giving Sara a little smile to show how pleased she was at coming up with that story.
"You better not have killed anything with that," coughed Sara taking the glass of water offered to her by Mandy.
"Killed, what?" asked Hodges.
"WHAT THE HECKS GOING ON?" shouted Ecklie over the din of muttering lab techs and the alarm currently sounding. "Get that thing turned off," he bellowed. And call the fire brigade, let them know it's a false alarm," he stopped in front of Catherine and Sara.
"My office now. You too Hodges," he added turning and stomping back off down the corridor. The lab techs who had been in the process of evacuating when Hodges went in with his extinguisher decided it was best to busy themselves again and quickly disappeared from the corridor.
"Great," muttered Sara as her and Catherine trudged off towards Ecklie's office Hodges behind them muttering constantly. By the time they arrived Ecklie was on the phone having a rather heated discussion that didn't seem to be going too well for him. The CSI's hung around in the doorway causing Ecklie to jump slightly when he turned.
"Get an incident report to me by the end of the day," barked Ecklie. With that the three left.
"Great plan Cath," sighed Sara as Hodges left.
"I'm not the one causing chaos," replied Catherine as her phone began to beep. After a quick conversation Catherine flipped her phone shut.
"Sorry, get out of jail free. Nick needs some help," smiled Catherine.
"More? How big is this scene?" asked Sara.
"We just found a possible second scene," said Warrick from somewhere behind the pile of evidence boxes he was carrying.
"Car with a trail of blood a coupe of block away; cars been towed back to the lab now," said Warrick as Sara took a box from him.
"Well, at least I've got something to do now," sighed Sara.
"Enjoy," grinned Catherine waving as she left.
TBC ……………….
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