Chapter Nine

"What?" Catherine almost spit out her mouthful of coffee.

"He said he screwed up," Warrick repeated what he'd told her just a moment ago as he'd walked into the kitchen and found her leaning against the kitchen sink, seething.

He watched as her body language and attitude hardened. Her shoulders straightened, her grip on the coffee cup tightened, knuckles growing white.

"He said that?" Catherine finally said.

"Yeah," Warrick stepped up to her and put one hand on her hip as he leaned past and opened the cabinet behind her, pulling out two more coffee mugs.

"But he didn't say what he did?" She questioned further, watching his back as he moved toward the coffee maker and filled both cups.

"No, Cath, he didn't elaborate. He just slumped on the couch, like he was giving up."

"He slumped?" Catherine seemed to soften a bit about the possible slumping.

Warrick nodded as he turned around and headed for the kitchen door, backing his way out, a cup in each hand. "You coming?" he asked his back holding open the door for her.

She pressed her lips together tightly, and adjusted her robe with a hard tug. Warrick nearly grimaced at the sight. It wasn't a good sign.

Warrick knew all to well the differences in the women's personalities hadn't made for a close friendship at first. But in the past year or so, they'd grown into a comfortable ceasefire that had, as he watched fascinated, bloomed in to a full-fledged friendship as Catherine helped Sara with the feminine aspects of planning a wedding.

"Yeah," Catherine said determined. "I'm coming." She marched past him into the living room, and laid eyes on Grissom for the first time.

Grissom sat on the couch; his head bowed, his hands covering his face.

Catherine stood there for a moment, coffee in one hand, the other resting on her cocked hip in a kind of challenge for Grissom to lift his head and look at her.

Warrick watched from the kitchen doorway with a mixture of amusement and trepidation swirling in the pit of his stomach.

The room grew quiet and still, as if the walls were holding their breath with anticipation.

"What the hell did you do Grissom?" Catherine's voice rose to no more than a normal level, and yet it reverberated as if she had screamed at the top of her lungs.

Grissom sat up as if a shot had gone off in the room. His eyes were unfocused from the pressure of his palms. He stared at Catherine for the briefest moment, as if trying to remember who she was and why she was angry with him.

"Hi Cath," he said simply.

"Don't 'hi Cath' me Gil. What did you do to Sara?"

Grissom let his hands fall outwards at the wrists, "I ah… I screwed up."

"Yeah, I got that much from Warrick." Catherine pulled the chair to the opposite side of the coffee table, facing Grissom like he was a suspect. "What, exactly, did you do?" She glanced up as Warrick entered her peripheral vision.

Warrick handed Grissom one of the cups of coffee before sitting down on the sofa next to him.

Grissom was grateful for the distraction, and he sipped the strong hot coffee, taking the moment to formulate his answer. Licking his upper lip, he held the cup between his hands and met Catherine's stare. "I accused her of marrying Nick on purpose."

Catherine rolled her eyes exaggeratedly, "The only reason Nick was standing next to her was you absence."

"I know," Grissom muttered.

"Sara spent every waking moment of the last three months planning that wedding, because it's what you wanted."

"I know," he murmured again, sinking back a little into the sofa cushions, as if physically pushed by her voice.

"She would have much preferred standing next to you at the alter…"

"I know," he sank a little further back.

"And as for marrying Nick," Catherine went on as if Grissom hadn't said a word, "that was an error on the ministers part." She glanced at Warrick. "None of us thought to tell him it was a proxy ceremony." With that last sentence, her voice became softer; as if it was not the first time her own responsibility had occurred to her.

Warrick took a hard swallow of coffee, his own guilt a hard lump in his throat, and looked down at his feet. Guilt had been eating at him since Hodges self-satisfied announcement had sunk in. He felt that if he'd been paying attention during the ceremony, and not staring at Catherine, letting his imagination run away with him and picturing their own wedding, then maybe he would have caught the use of Nicks name, not Grissom's. Then none of this would have happened.

"I should have gone after her," Grissom admitted quietly.

"You did, Gris," Warrick tried to console him.

"No," Grissom shook his head and looked at Warrick. "Earlier, when she stormed out of here, I should have gone after her."

"You and Brass didn't go looking for her?" Catherine had assumed that when the two men left her house they had set off on Sara's trail.

Grissom shook his head. "I went home. Thought she needed to cool off."

Warrick turned his head toward the front door, remembering Nick's determined expression as he'd left, minutes after Sara. Cocking an eyebrow, Warrick suddenly thought he knew where Sara might be.

"When she came home," Grissom continued, not wanting to admit the rest, "I'd fallen asleep."

Catherine's mouth fell open unbelieving, and she stared at the man sitting in front of her as if she'd never seen him before. Suddenly, she stood up and stomped toward the bedroom, too angry to continue the conversation.

"Yeah," Grissom muttered, "that was pretty much Sara's reaction too."

"Look, Gris…" Warrick began; the shrill sound of his cell phone interrupted him. "Hang on," he said quietly as he rose from the couch and headed toward the dining room table where his cell was.

The caller id told him who it was before he answered. "Hey," Warrick said in to the phone.

"Is it Sara?" Grissom asked hopefully.

Warrick met his boss's eyes and shook his head slightly as he listened to the caller's voice in his ear. "There anything we can do?" His eyes narrowed as he listened for another moment. "Grissom's here, I'll tell him….Okay, then, call, let us know." Warrick clicked the phone close and looked at Grissom. "That was Nick, he's had a family emergency, and he's headed to Dallas."

Grissom's stomached flipped with guilt over the hatful accusations he'd made against the innocent man. "Anything we can do?"

Warrick shook his head. "He said he'd call and let us know."

--

Nick hung up the phone and looked over to Sara, sitting on his couch. "Grissom's over there," he told her.

"So?"

Nick bit his lower lip to keep from smiling and looked at his watch. "We've got to head to the airport, the plane leaves in just over an hour."