Author Notes: I know it took me forever but here is the latest installment. Hope you enjoy, please review. PS. Sorry it is so short.

Disclaimer: I don't own CSI.... you know the drill

Catherine cut the engine after pulling up in her usual parking space. She closed her eyes and sat back, shaking her head in anger. After a few seconds of silence she managed to muster up the courage to check out the damage in the rear-view mirror. The face looking back at her took her breath away, there was a large red mark across the side of her face that was beginning to turn a slight purple as it began to bruise, and just resting neatly on her cheekbone was a red cut running along her normally porcelain skin for about an inch.

After a few minutes of close inspection and running her fingers gently along her now painful check, she decided that she needed to keep herself busy. But first she had to go against her nature and hide the evidence. After a few moments of fumbling around in her handbag Catherine came to a realisation.

"Damn!" her make-up bag was in her locker. She would have to go into the lab before she had the chance to sort herself out. Her eyes scanned the parking lot in an attempt to see who was at the lab. She noticed that Gil and Sara's cars were both parked at the other end.

"Oh Great!" she muttered under her breath. "That's just what I need, a lengthy lecture off Sara." After coming to the conclusion that she couldn't put it off any longer, she grabbed her bag and headed inside, locking her car as she walked away.

As she made her way through the lab at a quick pace, taking care not to make eye contact with anyone, the glass walls and gleaming floors seemed brighter than normal and almost painful to look at. Catherine put it down to the thumping headache that she now had to endure.

To her relief the locker room was empty and she had made it there without so much as a glance from anyone. She wasted no time, aand instantly made her way over to her locker, before grabbing her make-up bag and slamming it shut. With the same amount of haste she exited the locker room and headed down the corridor.

She looked up just as she came in close proximity of the bathroom door, her heart gradually returned to a normal pace as she felt safety approaching. With just mere footsteps to go the bathroom door opened and out stepped Sara.

Catherine virtually ran into her and was taken aback by the sudden human contact. Luckily Sara was as shocked which gave her enough time to pull her hair across the side of her face.

"Whoa, hey Cath"

"Hi, Sara" her voice was quiet and tinted with regret

Sara notice Catherine's obvious attempts to avoid eye contact. Her eyes dropped to her wrist in the instant that Catherine tried to hide them by tugging on the sleeves of her jacket. Unfortunately Sara's quick eyes picked up on the bruises.

"Is everything okay?"

"Yeah, I...erm…walked into a door" she knew how lame it sounded and the fact that it didn't account for her wrists but she secretly hoped that Sara would accept the lie, for now anyway. To her relief she did, begrudgingly so.

"Oh okay then, I guess I'll see you later." Although she hated the idea of just accepting the obvious lie she knew Catherine would want to be alone, she was a strong, independent woman, who hated the idea of being weak.

Thankful of the opportunity to escape Catherine rushed into the bathroom before collapsing against the door.

"God Damn It!" now someone knew, she knew that Sara would always remember her as the bumbling victim, not the image she wanted. After a few minutes of self pity she pulled herself together, armed with her trust make up bag she headed to the mirror and got to work.

She set about carefully cleaning the wound with warm water, wincing as the water made contact with the raw cut, and then proceeded to splash her whole face. Once she was satisfied that the wound was clean and dry enough she started to apply the many layers of make up it would require to disguise the evidence of her encounter with Eddie. It took longer than she expected to cover her cheek to the point where only a small red line was visible.

After coming to the conclusion that this was as good as it was going to get she decided to brave entering the lab to do some work. She needed to keep her mind busy, and she decided the best was to do that was by doing the massive stack of paperwork she had being avoiding. After gingerly leaving the bathroom she headed quietly to the locker room to dump her stuff before grabbing the paperwork and heading to the most secluded evidence room she could find.