For Life 11

Lily had come by the hospital to check on both Rick and her daughter. The nurses smiled at her as she walked through. Catherine didn't know this, but Lily had used whatever connection Sam's Legacy as his last girl and mother of his only daughter to make sure Warrick got a private room. Now she knew she would have done that for any of the team, if they were injured; but it was more important to succeed when it was Warrick.

So she walked into the room to the sight of her daughter asleep in the injured man's bed and arms and smiled. Her daughter had had strings of inappropriate men, including her dead ex-husband who was the epitome of dead beat fathers. But this man, who held her so securely in his medicine induced sleep, wasn't like any of the other men Catherine had been with. This man had been there through every bad apple and mistake, and still loved her daughter. And her daughter loved the man; but she hid it during the past few years, but Lily was her mother and could see her daughter more clearly than most.

She smiled at the two before fishing her phone out of the tote bag that was this month's purse. She headed to the waiting room and dealt with whatever she needed to do, while playing look out for any of the team. She knew they would want to keep their new relationship status to themselves for a little bit, enjoy the secret before sharing their joy.

She didn't have to worry about the others finding out. Catherine woke up 20 minutes before the team arrived and had gone to the wash room and brushed her hair out and sat back on her chair by the time the others entered the room. Her mother was with them and gave her daughter her knowing smile. Catherine smiled back while groaning inside her head; her mother knew.

The group visited for the entirety of visiting hours then everyone split up. It was Nick's day off after pulling three doubles in a row and he headed home for a well-deserved night of sleep and rest while Sarah and Grissom headed to Grissom's place to drop her off before he headed into work. Greg headed straight to the lab to finish a little bit of paperwork before getting any assignments.

Catherine walked with her mother, who casually mentioned how happy she was for her daughter. Warrick was a wonderful man and would treat her and Lindsey the way they deserved. Catherine smiled and said that he would because he always had before kissing her mother's cheek and climbing into her Denali and heading to the lab while Lily headed to her daughter's house to keep an eye on Lindsey.

The night wasn't really slow. All of them reported to a scene of a five-car collision with the driver of one of the cars trying to pull a getaway on foot. The officer's split up. A third of the officers chased after the driver, a third helping the paramedics while the last third watched over the scene and the CSIs processing the scene.

The driver was off his rocker and a cocktail of illegal drugs and booze and had drug related priors, two of his three strikes. This would have been the third strike so he ran. He had caused the accident, plowing into the car ahead, but still had his foot on the gas and drove that car into the car in front of it, while two cars couldn't break in time and ended up hitting the other end.

There were no fatalities from accidents, but plenty of whiplash and air bag burns along with various lacerations. None of the injuries required a trip to the hospital, to the patients' relief, so the CSIs didn't have an excuse to stop by the hospital and see Warrick.

The next week passed by slowly. Everyone made sure to visit with Warrick every day, letting him walk through the halls with them before one of them wheeled him out to a courtyard so he could see the outside and absorb some vitamin D from the setting sun before returning him to his room before the others headed to work.

Grissom and Sarah were talking about whether she would stay, and she wanted to, but needed a job. Grissom offered her the spot on his team, but she declined, stating that it would cause a conflict of interest and she didn't really want to be a CSI again, too much darkness. They had to think but decided that her not working was a good thing. Especially as Grissom was planning on proposing to her. He just needed a ring, but wanted to wait until Warrick was home from the hospital to go with him and Nick to pick a ring out.

Warrick and Catherine were still going slow; more because of the hospital than anything else. She had called Tina and let her know what was going on one day when it was just the two of them. Tina thanked her for the call and passed on news that Eli was doing just fine and they'd talk about that more when he was better. Cath passed on the message and hung up before kissing her man.

Warrick's vocal chords were still swollen, though it was significantly reduced and he could now make sounds without wincing. The doctor told him to let it heal a little more before trying words out. Two weeks after Lily caught them he was released with the provision that he not be alone for the first two days and to get into contact with a speech therapist to help after the swelling was reduced.

Warrick wanted to go to his apartment, but the team overruled him and he was given the guest room at Nick's place, Nick had beaten Cath to the punch. The new couple exchanged sad smiles before Catherine volunteered to take him by his place and pick up some clothes and other items before she would drop him off at Nick's place. They took longer than they needed, so they could spend some time together.

They knew time would be short for the next few days, so they spent plenty of time kissing as they packed him clean clothes for the two days he'd spend at Nick's place. They spent 30 minutes just kissing in the kitchen as he grabbed his blend of coffee for his stay as well as his acoustic guitar to keep him occupied.

But finally they could stall no more and Cath reluctantly drove her love to his best friend's house. She held his hand the entire drive and pulled into Nick's driveway and quickly leaned over and kissed Warrick before walking with him to the door and knocking.

When Nick opened the door she kissed both boys on the cheek before winking at Warrick and heading home for a few hours of sleep before work.