A/N: Sorry I missed posting yesterday, I got called into work unexpectedly and it threw off my schedule. Don't they know I have important things going on?

Watching this episode was a nice prelude to the "Two Mrs. Grissoms" repeat that's going to be on CBS tonight. The post-ep is not much, but I thought it was about high time we heard from Catherine.

Spoilers for episode 1x20, Sounds of Silence.

It had been quite the night.

Five dead, and all because a married man couldn't handle the fact that a twenty-year-old girl was carrying his illegitimate child. I dropped by the lab after shift, and to my surprise, Grissom was there too, the light still on in his office.

I knocked on the door lightly.

"I hear you and Nicky solved the coffee shop murders," he commended. "Nice work, Catherine."

"Thanks," I replied. "And… thanks for getting the paperwork in. Looks like I'll be going to Chicago after all."

He smirked at me and I couldn't help but smile. I started to walk out, but paused just outside the door.

"Hey," I called. "You want to get coffee?"

He stared at me, and after the case I'd just solved, I couldn't blame him. I laughed.

"Or how about just dinner?"

"Good idea."

We went to a place several blocks away, and all the while, I was debating internally whether to mention the case he, Sara and Warrick had solved. Word around the lab was that things had gotten a little touchy, and apparently, Grissom signed. I threw timidity out the window and went for the gusto.

"So rumor has it you sign," I said bluntly.

He studied me in the way he always does, head quirked to the side slightly and brow furrowed.

"Yes."

I waited for him to continue, but he just sat, eating his fillet in perfect happy silence.

"Are you… going to elaborate on that?"

He sighed and I realized that Sara, Warrick, or both of them probably tried to pry this out of him too. Oops.

"Why is everyone so concerned about this?" he asked. "Matthew from day shift speaks six languages, including Swedish… why doesn't someone go bother him about it?"

"Well, it's… something we didn't know about you," I reasoned. "Call it professional curiosity."

He chewed slowly, studied me some more, and finally relented.

"My mother is deaf."

Well I wasn't expecting that.

"She was the one that taught you?"

"Yes."

I had a million more questions, but I could tell by his short answers that it wasn't a topic that was willingly up for discussion. But to my surprise, he continued.

"Sara and Warrick struggled with that case," he said, saying what lab gossip already told me. "They don't understand that being deaf is not a disability. It's a way of life. My mother raised me to understand that. It was her biggest fear – that I'd grow up thinking there was a normal and an abnormal, and would treat people differently because of it."

"Well, for what it's worth, you're the least judgmental person I know."

He smiled at me, and I relaxed.

"I'm sure my mother would appreciate that."

We ate the rest of our dinner together without another mention of the case. Grissom had pleasantly surprised me, in both the newfound revelations and his willingness to talk about it. If I wanted to push the buttons just a tiny bit more, I'd ask him about what happened between him and Teri Miller when she helped us with yet another case a few months ago. He hadn't mentioned her since she left. But if Grissom kept his fluency in sign language a secret all this time, what else didn't we know about him? He could be romancing a beautiful blonde from right under our noses.

But I knew better than that.

One, talking about romance of any kind with Grissom was strictly off-limits. No exceptions.

And two, I'd always pictured him with someone slightly nerdier than Teri.

But maybe that was just me.