"I know that you're very busy," Ecklie began in that sickly sweet professional tone of his. "So I want to thank you for taking the time out for this."
"Can we hurry this up please, Conrad." Grissom snapped tensely. "I have a dead body waiting for me that's getting cold."
"Gil," The Undersheriff cut him off around the wad of gum he was masticating. "Your crime scene isn't going anywhere. This is important."
Catherine shot her compadre a look, hoping to keep him in check. Not that she could blame him for being a little uneasy – last time they were called to a meeting like this, he lost Nick and Sara.
"As you're both well aware, there has been a big push to improve welfare services in recent months." Ecklie continued, a smarmy grin settling itself on his lips at the distasteful look that crossed Grissom's face.
"Yes, we're quite aware." The grave supervisor agreed snippily.
"Well, there's something that we wanted to talk about with you today regarding that; but first of all, we thought it would be a good opportunity to gain an update on your team. How is Nick doing now he's back under your supervision?"
"He's fine." Grissom replied instantly.
"Fine?" McKeen clarified, far from impressed with the blunt answer.
"Yeah," Gil licked his lips thoughtfully for a moment. "He's just ... Nick."
Catherine rolled her eyes at the answer, but elected not to comment.
Deciding that that was as much as they were going to get from him, Ecklie and McKeen turned their attention to the blonde instead.
"What about Sara?" Ecklie asked, turning the page in the folder sat before him. "I can see that there's been a lot of good progress, but there's not much documented from your last meeting with her."
"No, it ended quite abruptly." She agreed.
"Why was that?" The Undersheriff asked, cocking his head to the side.
"I made her cry."
The calm statement, with its frank delivery, visibly startled the men.
"Why?" Grissom asked, alarmed. She turned to him with a weary sigh.
"Because I ask the questions that you've been avoiding for the last five years." She snapped a little too harshly.
"Go on, Catherine." Ecklie interjected. From the look on his face, he was enjoying this a little too much for her liking, but she obliged with an explanation all the same.
"There are just some things in her life that she needs a little support with. Nothing major, just ... life stuff. Sometimes she gets upset when we talk about it, but she's okay."
"I don't see any of this in her notes."
"No, she would only tell me off the record." Cath explained, clearing her throat. "It's the only way I could get her to talk to me."
"But she does talk to you?" McKeen clarified. "I mean, this 'stuff' that she's dealing with – she'll come to you about it?"
"Oh yeah, we're good." She assured them. "If anything's wrong, she lets me know."
"Good." McKeen nodded, absently popping a second piece of gum in his mouth, as if he'd forgotten he already had some. "In that case, I'm happy for you to continue as her supervisor. I think this is going to work out well."
"Glad that's settled." Grissom stated sarcastically, having expected as much. "Are we done here?"
"No." Ecklie cut him off before he had chance to fully rise from his seat, causing him to sink mournfully back into it. "There's still the other matter we needed to discuss with you."
Ecklie and McKeen both stood up and moved to the table behind them, where they began shuffling some papers over a hushed conversation.
Catherine sank her gaze into her lap.
"Don't look at me like that, Gil." She whispered.
"Like what?" He challenged.
"Like this is my fault." She flicked her eyes up at him sorrowfully. "You dropped the ball on this one, and Sara paid the price for it."
x X x
"What's going on around here?" Warrick asked as soon as she entered the break room.
"Where's Grissom?" Catherine countered, ignoring his question.
"Not here yet." Nick answered. "We saw y'all having a meeting with Ecklie and McKeen. What's the deal?"
"Well, I think I'd better wait for Grissom for this." She replied awkwardly, sneaking the paperwork she was holding behind her back.
"Don't bother." Ecklie announced, striding into the room. "He's in the morgue."
The team shared a mildly startled look at this declaration, before Nick offered a small cough.
"Is he coming back, or do I need to go rent a tux?" He joked, earning him a playful slap from Warrick and a smile from Greg and Sara.
Ecklie, however, was not amused.
"He got called away on an urgent case." He explained, although his voice was dripping with disbelief, indicating that he was not buying the entomologist's excuse one bit.
And judging by the way Catherine rolled her eyes, neither was she. Grissom had been fairly vocal about his objections during their meeting, so she wasn't surprised that the boss had ducked out of breaking the news to the team.
"So, what's going down?" Warrick asked, sensing the waves of frustration washing off the blonde.
"Well," Ecklie straightened up. "I'm sure you're all aware of the efforts we have made recently to improve staff welfare, in the wake of Sandy's tragic death."
Nick pursed his lips, casting his eyes towards the floor. He still wasn't thrilled about those efforts, even if it had proved to have some benefit for him in the long run.
"As part of these initiatives, the Undersheriff and I have decided to send each team on bi-annual team-building courses. These will be three day long intensive courses and they'll be staggered, to allow the other teams to cover the shift rotation." He explained. "We've already arranged the first round of courses, and we're going to start with Grave."
"Why?" Nick scowled. "I mean, what's the point of these courses? We already take part in the regular team training exercises."
"This isn't a law enforcement training exercise," Ecklie clarified. "The idea is to improve team relations, to allow staff to feel more at ease with each other. That way, in the event that something is wrong, they will be more comfortable in sharing it with each other."
Far from comfortable, the team shared an uneasy look. This sounded an awful lot like the kind of 'organised fun' courses that big corporations would send their staff on, ostensibly to boost productivity by boosting morale. The kind that were, by unanimous agreement, anything but fun.
"So, when are we doing this?" Greg asked at last, sensing that arguing would be futile at this point. Ecklie's lips twitched into a grin.
"Monday."
x X x
"Hey you." Catherine greeted warmly, causing Sara to start and drop her cell phone and the little ball of paper she was holding in the process.
Cath bent down, picking them both up and holding the phone out to the frazzled young woman with a soft frown.
"I'm sorry," she offered. "I didn't mean to scare you."
"No, it's fine." Sara swallowed hard, accepting her phone back with a shaky hand. "Thanks."
"Sara," Catherine caught her wrist before she could retract it, intense blue eyes scanning her friend's face with concern. "What's wrong, honey?"
"No, nothing." Sara tried to free herself, but her attempts only caused Catherine to tighten her hold.
"Hey, hey!" Cath managed to catch her other arm as well, essentially trapping the brunette, and dragged her unwillingly down onto the bench. "Come here, sit down."
Once tentatively released, Sara quickly wiped at her eyes, although she remained put. Not that she had much choice, since Cath was clearly braced and ready for any escape attempt she might offer.
"Sweetheart, you're obviously upset." She pointed out, gesturing to her actions. "What's wrong?"
"It's..."
"Don't." She cut the younger woman off pre-emptively, pressing a finger lightly to Sara's lips. "Don't say it's nothing. What's happened?"
Sara sniffed, sinking her gaze into her lap.
"Is it about the team-building course?" Cath guessed when she didn't proffer an answer. "I mean, none of us want to go, but ..."
"No." Sara mumbled. "No, it's nothing to do with that."
"Okay." She nudged her gently. "Then what?"
Sara still wouldn't look up, but her eyes drifted to the little piece of paper that Catherine had picked up, the one she had dropped in her shock. Cath clocked the source of her attention with a small frown. She had assumed when she picked it up that it was trash and was going to throw it out, but the way Sara was staring at it now made her reconsider.
Unfurling the tight little ball carefully, she found that it was actually a label from a bacon wrapper, with one word scrawled across it in bright red ink.
She read it three times, before her fist slowly closed around it, scrunching it back up again.
"Where was this?" She asked, her voice unsettlingly calm.
"Someone pushed it through my locker door." Sara answered reluctantly, a small hitch to her voice. "Cat, it's okay, it doesn't ..."
"No, it's not okay." Catherine turned to her sharply. "Do you know who it was?"
"I've got a pretty good idea." She murmured.
Cath had a pretty good idea too, and it made her jaw clench just thinking about them.
However, before her temper could run away with itself, a quiet sniff brought her attention back to the girl sitting beside her. Sara had taken to staring despondently into her lap, unconsciously cracking her knuckles. It was a sign of stress – one Catherine hadn't noticed her doing for a long time, she realised.
She reached out, placing a hand over Sara's, causing her to cease the movements.
"You were going to throw this away." She stated knowingly, earning a small nod of agreement. "I thought I told you to come to me if there were anymore issues like this?"
"You did." Sara agreed softly, gesturing to the note balled up in her hand. "But look what good it's done."
Her fingers twitched around the abusive note. She couldn't deny that there was a chance Vicki and Natalie were getting back at Sara for reporting them. But it was also entirely possible that they had done this out of sheer hatred and that they would have sent this note anyway, even without Catherine and Ecklie's interference.
Either way, it didn't matter one bit to Catherine.
"Okay. I think it's time to make this more formal." She stated. "I'm going to tell Ecklie and we're going to file a report with the police for harassment."
"No." Sara flinched, her voice catching in her throat, strangled by the sobs she was trying to fight back. "No, I don't want you to do that. I want you to leave it alone, just ... just leave it. Please?"
Catherine shook her head, a mix of sadness and indignation settling on her face at her subordinate's pained little whimper.
"Sara, I can't do that. I won't." She stated. "If we do nothing, then they get away with it."
"So, let them get away with it." Sara threw her hands up, the tears finally breaching her barriers and starting to stream down her face unhindered. "I don't care anymore."
Catherine stared at her for a long moment, feeling her heart fracture at the pitiful sight. No matter how many times she saw her young friend cry, it never seemed to get any easier.
Slowly, tenderly, she cupped Sara's cheek and forced the girl to meet her eye, using her free hand to sweep away her tears.
"I care. And I won't let them get away with it. Nobody gets away with hurting you; not on my watch."
Sara stared back at her through watery eyes, darting back and forth between Catherine's affectionate gaze and her lips, turned up into a sympathetic smile.
Suddenly, before her brain could tell her not to, Sara's own lips were on the startled supervisor's, in a desperate, fear-laden kiss.