Thank you for all the reviews so far :) I promise sulky-Grissom isn't going to be around forever, although there is precedent for him behaving this way in the show!
x X x
"Grissom!" Catherine called, running down the corridor after him. Once Ecklie dismissed them, he had barely spared her a glance before striding down the hall at pace.
"Hey, Grissom!" She repeated, finally catching up with him as he stalked into his office. "Slow down, will you?"
Stopping abruptly in the middle of the room, he spun around to face her, his face inflamed.
"You agreed to this?" He asked, visibly flabbergasted by the turn of events.
"Well, it didn't seem like I had much choice." She pointed out.
"You could have said no."
"And let him transfer Sara and Nick onto another team?" She countered, taking a step towards him. "You know that this isn't my fault. I've warned you time and time again about your lax attitude towards paperwork."
He scoffed, rolling his eyes.
"This has nothing to do with me being lazy with paperwork. This is Ecklie flexing his muscles at my expense."
Catherine's jaw twitched.
"Sandy Matthews is dead." She pointed out. "And if her supervisor had known what was going on in her life, she might still be alive."
"Nick and Sara aren't suicidal." Grissom stated matter-of-factly.
"I certainly hope not!" Catherine agreed earnestly. "But that doesn't mean they don't have things going on in their lives that they need support with, things that their supervisor should be aware of."
"If they needed my help, they would ask for it." He asserted, holding up his hands to dismiss the conversation and moving behind his desk.
"No, they wouldn't." She argued amidst a choked out laugh. "Nick doesn't talk about his feelings and Sara ... she doesn't talk about anything outside of work. It's like pulling teeth trying to get anything remotely personal put of either of them; which is probably why their files are so vacant."
"Then surely that's on them, not me." He shrugged sinking into his seat.
"You're the supervisor, Gil." She rolled her eyes impatiently at his reluctance to accept her point. "It's your job to draw information out of them, whether they want to offer it up or not. And if you're not prepared to push them to talk, then I will."
Grissom eyed her carefully.
"You once said that if you got a promotion you wanted it to be on your own merit, not because of my failings." He reminded her, quirking an eyebrow. "What changed?"
"That was four years ago." She shrugged, deflecting the question. "And technically this isn't a promotion; it's a temporary increase of duties."
Grissom stared at her for a long moment, apparently assessing her motives, before walking over to his filing cabinet and extracting two folders. Shuffling back to his desk, he wordlessly offered them to her, his expression cold.
She took them, noting that they were Nick and Sara's personnel files. Meeting his gaze, she nodded slowly.
"You know that we're going to have to explain this to the team." She stated carefully, pursing her lips. "Are you going to have my back?"
As she uttered the words, she was suddenly reminded of the last time she asked him that question. Ironically, that situation had also involved Nick and Sara, along with a dead showgirl and an obsessed suspect. On that occasion, Grissom hadn't hesitated before confirming that he always had her back.
This time, she wasn't even sure she wanted to hear his answer.
x X x
"Hey guys," Sara greeted, tagging on to the back of the group as they made their way down the corridor. "You get paged too?"
"Hey Sara, yeah we did." Nick agreed with a frown. "Hey, you have any idea what this is about?"
"No, I just know that I was to come to Grissom's office before shift for a team meeting."
"You think something's happened?" Greg asked, concern seeping into his voice for the first time. He wasn't technically a CSI yet, but it had felt so nice to be considered part of the team that he hadn't even thought about the reason for this impromptu meeting.
"I don't know." Nick frowned. "This all feels kind of formal for my liking."
"I'm sure it's nothing; probably some new departmental policy." Warrick shrugged as they reached the office.
Sharing a pensive look with the rest of the group, Nick rapped on the door and pushed it open.
Upon their arrival en mass, Grissom and Catherine ended their hushed conversation.
"Hey guys," Nick greeted, apparently declaring himself spokesman for the team. "You wanted to speak to us?"
"Yes, have a seat." Grissom agreed, giving nothing away with his demeanour.
The four of them stared at the two chairs in front of the desk for a second, before Warrick and Nick gestured for Sara and Greg to sit down, while they loitered behind.
"What's going down?" Warrick asked, resting his hands on the back of Sara's seat.
Catherine, who was lurking behind Grissom, shot the boss a look; but after his brief greeting he had taken to staring intently at the desk and didn't appear inclined to take control of this conversation from here. Rolling her eyes, she straightened up and cleared her throat.
"There are a couple of things that we needed to talk to you guys about." She began cryptically, internally searching for an appropriate starting point. "I know you're all aware of what happened to Sandy."
The all nodded in agreement as a sad mood crossed the office.
"Well, following talks with the Sheriff and Undersheriff, Ecklie has introduced a new staff welfare programme, in an effort to prevent anything like this from happening again."
"What kind of programme?" Nick asked somewhat uncomfortably.
Catherine moved around the desk and perched on the edge in front of Sara.
"Once a month, every CSI and lab tech will have a half-hour, one-on-one meeting with their supervisor – Ecklie called them Regular Welfare Reviews, or RWRs. There will also be weekly five minute catch-ups to follow up on any ongoing issues."
"Don't we kind of do that already?" Sara asked with a frown.
"This isn't work related." Catherine clarified. "It has nothing to do with your ongoing cases or your performance stats. It's an opportunity for you guys to discuss any issues that are going on in your personal lives."
"Come on." Nick scoffed. "You expect us to sit down and divulge details of our private lives to you guys?"
Finally, Grissom looked up from his desk and met Catherine's gaze. They had expected this and they could have guessed that Nick would be the first to reject the idea. Again, it was Catherine who spoke.
"Nick ... Sandy Matthews committed suicide because there were things going on in her life, things that her supervisor could have helped with if he'd known about them. This scheme isn't designed to pry into your lives; it's just in place so that if there is something going on, we can keep an eye on it and provide support where it's needed."
"So, it's a prevention mission." Greg paraphrased. "Stopping problems before they get out of hand?"
"Exactly." Cath smiled, glad that one of them seemed to be on board at least. "If there is something going on, we can monitor it and make sure it doesn't get on top of you."
"Sounds simple enough." Warrick nodded approvingly.
"Do you guys have any questions about that?" Grissom asked, the tone of his voice suggesting that he really hoped they didn't.
"Yeah," Nick shifted from one foot to the other behind Greg's chair. "So, what exactly are we supposed to tell you? Anything that might impact us at work?"
Catherine exhaled.
"You can come to us about anything you feel you want support with, or you want us to know." She repeated calmly. "We're not going to beat it out of you, it's your call how much or little you tell us."
"Does this ... information go in our files?" Sara asked, speaking for the first time.
"No." Cath replied. "We'll document the fact that the meetings have taken place, but whatever you tell us will remain confidential."
Sara nodded, seemingly satisfied with the answer. However, Catherine wasn't quite finished.
"Of course, there are some restrictions to that confidentiality." She pursed her lips. "If we thought that you were at risk of being hurt, or hurting yourself, then we would need to report that to someone. And if there was a criminal act going on, or likely to happen, we'd have to follow procedure."
The team all nodded in understanding.
"Any other questions?" Grissom pressed when the room fell quiet.
"Yeah." Warrick straightened up. "So, are you both going to be carrying out these meetings?"
Catherine turned to Grissom, who was now staring at her through narrowed eyes.
"Well," she began when it was clear that he was also going to leave this entirely up to her. "That's the other thing that we needed to talk to you about. While reviewing the current welfare procedure, Ecklie carried out an audit of all the staff evaluations over the last five years and he identified a few ... discrepancies."
She sent a pointed look at Grissom, which the rest of the team couldn't help but notice.
"Apparently, I have been lax in my supervision of some of you." Gil ground out sullenly between his teeth, sensing the question that was hanging unasked in the room.
"Ecklie identified some serious gaps in some of our team's personnel files – Sara's and Nick's, in particular." Catherine elaborated.
The two CSIs both looked up, startled.
"Why ours?" Nick asked, sharing a concerned glance with the brunette.
"Oh, it's nothing that you two have done wrong." Catherine assured him, sending another scowl in Grissom's direction. "But, Ecklie feels that Grissom's supervision of you has been sub-par, so much so that he's temporarily assigning you both a new supervisor – me."
She assessed their reactions carefully. Nick squared his shoulders slightly, but nodded his assent. Sara shot a questioning look at Grissom, who was studiously avoiding her gaze.
"So, you'll be in charge of our welfare meetings?" The brunette asked after a moment.
"Yes, but I'll also be responsible for all other aspects of your supervision – your evaluations, case reviews, leave requests..."
"For how long?" Nick interrupted, also looking to Grissom for answers. He shrugged.
"That will be up to Ecklie."
"What's going on here?" The Texan pressed. "Is this Ecklie's way of forcing you out; is that it?"
"Nick," Grissom held up his hands, although he really didn't have an answer for the young man. "Ecklie's doing what he feels is best for the lab. We just need to play along and ... see what happens."
That fact seemed to depress the team somewhat and the scrutiny was making Grissom uncomfortable, so he cleared his throat and stood up.
"If there are no more questions..." he waited and nobody spoke, "then we'll get on with assignments. Sara and Greg, you two have a 419 in Mount Charleston. Nick and Warrick, you're with me."
The guys shared a quietly despondent look as they accepted their assignments and made to leave. Catherine hopped off the desk.
"Sara, Nick – I'll catch up with you two later."
They both waved a hand in agreement as they sloped out with the rest of the team, leaving the supervisors alone again.
"Well, that could have gone worse." Catherine exhaled. Granted, they hadn't exactly been jumping for joy; but she chose to put that down to their loyalty towards Grissom, rather than any particular reluctance to answer to her.
Grissom's expression remained stoic, giving nothing away as to whether he agreed or disagreed with that statement.
"Well." He stated in an unsettlingly calm voice. "They're your problem now."