DISCLAIMER: I don't own CSI
This chapter takes place a few days after chapter eight. Hope you're all enjoying this so far. I just realised my mistake, they probably didn't have mobile phones like we do now 15 years ago, but just ignore it.
I was working as a waitress in a cocktail bar
That much is true
It was two a.m. when his phone rang. Cursing humanity, he got up and began patting down the bed, trying to find the source of the ringing. Finally locating it, he snapped it open, meaning to give whoever was callling him so early a piece of his mind.
"Greggie" she breathed into the phone.
"Cat?"
"I know it's early but I need... I need to talk to someone."
"You alright?" Greg was already pulling a t-shirt over his head and trying to locate a clean pair of jeans in the pile of clothes he called his closet.
"Somebody is watching me" she whispered.
"Where? Who is he?" Greg asked urgently.
"I don't know." she replied "but I can feel a presence and it's driving me crazy."
Then there was a scream and the line got cut off.
Greg looked outside. It was pouring rain and so cloudy Greg couldn't see more than ten feet ahead, the sky was pitch black but lit up every few seconds when the lightnigh flashed. Greg could hear rolls of thunder. Throwing a coat on over his t-shirt, Greg ran to his car.
He arrived at Cat's apartment fifteen minutes later. Greg rang the bell but it was broken. He was about to knock when he realised that Cat never locked her door anyway. Walking in and looking around, Greg didn't see anything out of the ordinary. Lindsey still lay asleep on the couch, despite the thunder and lightning outside the window. Grabbing Cat's one and only kitchen knife, Greg tiptoed over to her bedroom, pressing himself up against the wall. Counting to three, he pushed open the door and jumped into the room. It was empty.
"Cat?" he called "CAT?"
"Greggie?"
"Cat, where are you?"
"I'm...in...in the closet. Is he... is he gone?"
"Cat!" Greg flung open the closet door. There, between two cocktail dresses was Cat, hugging her knees her face streaked with tears. He pulled her up off the ground and into his arms, she was shaking.
"What happened? Was it Grant? Are you hurt?" Greg had a thousand questions but Cat just sobbed silently into his chest.
"I don't know. I...I heard noises and I hid. Did he hurt Lindsey?"
"Cat, what did you hear? Why did you scream? Did he hit you?"
"I heard... rumbling...like he was rolling a huge boulder around outside my door. And I screamed, because I knew he was coming for me, he was going to kill me Then you hung up and I knew he'd...he'd killed you too. He... he was going to kill everyone. It was my fault... I.."
"Cat." Greg said, rocking her back and forth "There's nobody here. Nobody killed me and nobody is going to kill you. You just heard the thunder. I didn't hang up, it was the storm, we must have gotten cut off. It's alright."
"He..."
"Cat." he said, holding her at arms length and holding her chin up with one hand, forcing her to look at him "There is no He. Just you, me and Lindsey."
He drew her back into his arms and she continued to weep, her tears staining his t-shirt. When she finally stopped crying, Greg sat down on the bed, pulling Cat down with him. She sat on his lap and murmured softly as he dried away her tears with the back of his hand, singing softly to her. He planted gentle kisses all along her hairline and whispered that everything was going to be alright. Eventually she believed him and drifted into a dreamless sleep, snoring softly. Greg looked down at the beautiful woman asleep in his lap and realised how looks can be decieving. When he first saw Cat, she seemed fiery, independent. She was in control, she way the one who could make his heart thump by just looking at him. Lookiang at Cat now, he knew she wasn't always in control, wasn't always fiery and independent. She was a person, and a pretty messed up one at that. It didn't put Greg off her though, he liked a challenge.
When Greg woke up the next morning, Cat was already up. Walking into the kitchen, he saw her leaning over the stove that Greg hadn't even realised she had.
"Morning" she smiled. She was wearing a pair of boxer pajama shorts and a blue vest top. Her red hair was scooped back in a messy ponytail and even though she wasn't wearing any make up, and she'd removed her nine inch heels in favour of bare feet with pink painted toenails, Greg had never seen her look more beautiful.
"You want pancakes?" she asked him.
Greg was worried. He and Cat needed to talk, she needed to fix things and pancakes wasn't going to help that. Couldn't hurt though.
"Sure."
Cat continued slopping dollops of the batter into the frying pan and producing things that actually resembled pancakes. Greg was a little shocked, he'd never imagined she could cook. She put a plate down in front of him and tossed a pancake onto it.
"There's jam, honey, ice-cream, what else do you have on pancakes?"
"Maple syrup." Greg offered "lemon and sugar, caramel sauce, chocolate spread."
"I have chocolate?" she said, taking a bar our from her cupboard. "We could melt it?"
"Good idea. I love chocolate on pancakes."
"This microwave is so old." she sighed, punching the machine to get it to work. "It was here when I got the place."
"It was probably here when the place was built" Greg laughed as she put the bowl of chocolate in the aincent microwave.
"It was probably here when the first humans were born." she added, laughing.
The old machine beeped, and Cat spread the thick, melted chocolate onto their pancakes.
"You know what else I have?" she asked him "whipped cream!" Greg found the bottle in the fridge and squirted some onto their pancakes. Then he aimed the bottle at Cat and squirted, covering her in white foam.
"You are so gonna pay for that!" she screamed, getting up and chasing him round the kitchen. She giggled as she gained ground on him but every time she caught up, he turned around and sprayed more cream at her until she backed him into a corner, claimed the cream bottle and squirted him until he begged for mercy.
"I surrender! I give up Cat, you win. Stop squirting me!"
"Admit that I am the superior cream squirter?"
"NEVER!"
She shrugged and sprayed again, so he ended up with a whipped cream beard.
"Alright, you Cat are the almighty, superior cream squirter. Now cut it out!"
She smiled smugly and dropped the bottle. They made way back to the table, wiping the white foam off themselves as best as they could, to eat lukewarm pancakes with melted cream and chocolate.
While they were eating, they talked about anything and everything, music, movies, books, everything but what really needed to be said. Greg didn't want to upset the humour, the easy, light, happy atmosphere but he knew it had to be done.
"Cat?" he asked, and she looked up at him, sensing the seriousness of whatever he was about to ask her.
"Yes?"
Greg opened his mouth to speak but there was a lump in his throat and it may as well have been mount Everest for try as he might, he couldn't make a single sound. So instead he picked up the whipped cream bottle and squirted a tiny dollop on the tip of her nose.
"That." he smiled, and she grinned back, stretching her pink pinted tongue and attempting to lick it off. Greg laughed and tried to be content with the happiness, with burying his head in the sand, even though he knew that just because he couldn't see the danger didn't mean it wasn't there.
