Disclaimer: I own nothing.
~Two days later~
"Well, the report makes one thing clear, your people acted legitimately", Detective Hiller closed the report Grissom had handed him 5 minutes ago. 5 long minutes of reading and waiting. "Some things however remain unclear."
Grissom had been sure this would come up.
"How did Ms Willows get into the room in the basement? It took the officers 20 minutes to find it."
"I don't know, I know is much as you do." Grissom said.
Hiller did not comment on this, but Grissom could tell that he didn't believe him.
But belief or no belief the investigation was officially over. But the repercussions were not, he suspected. The loose ends in this case bothered him. But it was never possible to retrace every singly seconds of a crime, evidence told them a lot, but sometimes it could not tell them everything, then they had to go back to the human participants. He didn't like when that happened. Partly because it always felt somewhat wrong to him as a scientist when science seemed to fail him and because human behaviour was impossible predict, especially during a crisis situation. Normal thinking and judgment were suspended, the instinctive drive for survival took over. People did what their subconscious had picked as the best way to protect one's life. This was often difficult to accept both for those acting and for those trying to understand their actions.
~~~~
When Grissom returned to the CSI after his talk with the Detective Hiller from internal affairs, Nightshift was already waiting for him in the break room. Tense, waiting for new of the investigation's outcome. Aside from Catherine everyone was there, even Nick, who looked like he would prefer to be anywhere else right now.
"Everything's fine, the investigation is officially closed", he told them. "Now we have to ID the 5 women from the basement." Everyone took this as a sign to get back to work. Only Nick stayed behind, assuring Warrick that he was indeed fine.
~~~~
"Can I come in?" Nick was standing in the doorframe of Grissom's office.
"Sure, what it is?"
"It's about me shooting Catherine…"
"Don't worry it has been ruled as an accident." Grissom interrupted, assuming that Nick was worried about legal consequences. Nick wondered whether his boss was genuinely unaware of the human interaction issues linked to this, or whether he was just avoiding to address to issue. Well, he wasn't going to find out.
"It can happened to anyone, but you made the right call. The situation warranted it. She fired at you first." Grissom continued, his tone having a distinct finality to it.
"But…" Nick wanted to correct Grissom, that this was not the order in which things had happened, but then he let it go. He was not going to drag anyone else into this. It was bad enough that he had messed up when things got difficult. He had to face it, he wasn't cut out for this. As long as things were quiet he did fine, but when…
"Take the rest of the shift off, Nick. Get some rest at home. Better yet, take the rest of the week off." Grissom interrupted his dark musings.
"Thanks", Nick stumbled out of Grissom's office not sure whether a "thank-you" was the appropriate response. Grissom giving him the rest of the week off. Did he think that he couldn't handle the stress. Well, if he did, he wasn't far from the truth, Nick thought bitterly. When it counted he had reacted badly, endangering his co-workers. He probably shouldn't even carry a weapon.
~~~~
After a long debate with himself, Nick had decided that he needed to talk with Catherine. He drove out to the hospital. Visiting hour were long over, but flashing his CSI ID at the duty nurse, spared him any trouble.
Catherine was flipping through some magazine when he entered.
"Hi Nick."
"Hi Catherine."
A pause during which neither of them knew what to say ensued.
"Hiller's final report clears both of us."
"Good, did you come to tell me that."
"No, actually, I wanted to ask you" Nick was at a loss for words now.
"You said that Mrs Jansen fired at me first before I fired at her. But…"
Catherine interrupted him before he had a chance to finish.
"You did the right thing, it doesn't matter who fired at whom first, it was a good shooting no matter what."
Nick was not happy about this. He was not sure whether he was more stunned at Catherine tweaking the events to suit them, or at his own incompetence. The embarrassment that he had so completely been taken off his feet by what had happened was still fresh. Catherine seemed to handle it a lot better than he did. Hell, anyone would have handled that better than he had. Thoughts like this had chased him incessantly, ever since he had come to in the hospital, after the incident. But who was he to accuse her of lying, after all when he had learned of what she had said, he had not spoken out, had not said that it had been different. As much as he liked to belief it, he had not let a lie pass to avoid Catherine getting into trouble, he had done so for himself, it made things easier to live with. But it was still going to be hard enough.
He noticed Catherine looking at him, expectantly.
"Thanks then" he managed.
~~~~
After Nick had left, Catherine was left to her own demons, which were far closer to the surface than she would ever admit. She considered herself to be strong, able to handle everything. What had happened at Mrs Jansen's house at cracked that belief. That hurt. The painful realisation that when things had gotten Only weak, fragile people block out memories like this, she thought. Rationally she knew this not to be true, but the thought still followed her. While she was having trouble rationalising her own failure, her testimony presented less of a problem to her. It made no sense to get Nick into trouble needlessly when his action had probably saved her life and that of the others.
The End.
Note: Okay, some people will probably think it would be outside Catherine's character to lie, but based on the episodes of CSI which I have seen (1st season and two mid 3rd season), I think it's conceivable. Let me know what you think.