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"If this becomes routine, I think we are going to have to start deducting this from their pay." Catherine Willows said glancing at her watch. "It's been forty five minutes! Where could they possible be?"

"Think about what you are saying, they could be anywhere." Nick Stokes said entering the break room and taking a seat on the couch next to Catherine.

"This is the fourth time in two weeks that both of them have been late for shift. In all of Grissom's years here he has never ONCE been more than ten minutes late for a shift. First it started off with fifteen, then on to thirty, and now forty-five minutes late?? This does not sound like him at all."

"I think Sara has gotten to his head." Warrick Brown said tapping his head as he commented from the coffee pot. "After their whole little "roller coaster riding" date, they seem to be spending a whole lot more time together."

"That wasn't supposed to even be a date! Grissom was trying to point blankly tell Sara that she needs to get out of the lab! Look what it has turned into!"

"I think you're just scared about loosing you man." Warrick said with a sly smile towards Catherine, who in return gave him a dirty look.

"Sara can have Grissom for all I care. But I want my boss so I can have a case. Brass is going to kill us if he finds out that we haven't done anything yet." She rubbed her forehead like the whole ordeal was giving her a headache.

"Well, you pull rank after him. Why can't you just hand out assignments?" a voice from the table called. All three of the CSI's in the room spun to see who was talking. Jenny Duke sat at the table listening to their conversation. Jenny had been taken on as an intern three weeks ago, and she had already pulled her share of cases. Jenny had become sort of a drifter; she moved back in forth helping every one else out when they needed it, and if not, she hung out here at the lab with Greg. She was certainly not quite and always stated what was on her her mind, weather or not the CSI wanted to hear it. It was sort of strange having someone new around, but Jenny didn't seem to mind being overlooked sometimes. It was almost as if she found comfort in the walls of the crime lab. Jenny had finished most of her classes over at UNLV for the time being because she would still get nasty looks in the hallway for helping uncover a huge conspiracy with some of the sports players over at the school.  She was set to graduate in a month, and there was some talk of then taking her on as a CSI.

"You just want to get out of here." Nick called to her, "You've been here with Greg for the last two hours, haven't you?" he said throwing her a playful smile.

"He was teaching me how the run the machines, big deal. It's not like I'm getting paid for any of this stuff." Jenny said rolling her eyes.

"You're not getting paid?" Nick said a little surprised.

"Intern, Nick, Intern. I'm the gunnie pig of this lab." She added with a little frown. Just last week, she was used as a dummy while they were trying to recreate a rape scene, and then Bobby Dawson recruited her to test fire fifty guns because he needed to observe how they all fired. Jenny had come back from both of those bruised and her ears ringing.

"You are right though, Jenny." Catherine said standing up. "I'm going to go find us a case." Catherine stood up, but before she could even make it out the door, Detective Jim Brass came running in and almost plowed her over. Catherine stumbled back, and then mumbled something under her breath.

Brass took a deep breath trying to get some wind back into him. It looked like he had just sprinted down here. "Ok guys," he puffed "I've got something for everyone in this case. Two cars on a back road, one person is dead, another one is unconscious, and we believe a third is MIA. We are thinking maybe a kidnapping, but details seem to be changing every other minuet."

"That sounds exciting." Warrick half laughing. "This might be the first time in a while when I actually get to max out all of my over time."

"Speaking of overtime," Brass said looking around the room, "Where's Sara?"

"Well, we're not quite sure." Catherine responded, "She hasn't come in yet and we haven't heard from her."

Brass gave her a suspicious look, "And where's Grissom?" he now asked sensing his absence too.

"He hasn't come in either." Catherine avoided the gaze from Brass. She would crack and spill the whole ordeal about them to him, and that would not be good. The three senior CSI had tried to keep their whole "date" thing on the down low, but Jenny had noticed their absences and behavior, and had alerted Greg Sanders, the lab tech. At this, Greg had tried to butt his way into their business, and Catherine had tried to kill him (once again). Now a good portion of the lab wanted to know what was up with them, and every time Catherine (Or Warrick, or Nick, or even Jenny and Greg now) was asked, she abruptly stated that they were not here because they were doing fieldwork, and turned and then briskly walked in the other direction.

"Are they together?" Brass now questioned, sensing tension in the room.

"We're not sure, they're probably off doing some field work." Nick added quickly turning away from Brass and went over to grab a cup of coffee. The three seniors then shot each other darting glances, hoping that Brass wouldn't catch on to anything.  

"Well, when you see Grissom, tell him that I got a bone to pick with him. I'll see you all at the scene." Brass said as he handed the case file to Warrick and headed out the door.

 "Sooner or later people are going to put two and two together." Warrick said looking over the file.

"Let's just hope they both know what they are doing." Catherine said as they left the break room and headed out towards the cars. 

"What do you think they are doing?" Jenny questioned as she getting into one of the cars.

"Hopefully not what you think they are doing." Catherine replied sending Jenny as look to tell her to stop thinking what every college student would bet thinking right now. Catherine opened up one of the doors for another car. She had a feeling that taking two vehicles would come in handy tonight. "See you two at the scene." Warrick climbed into the seat next to her, and the two of them sped off.   

Jenny watched them go as Nick climbed into the driver's seat of the Tahoe. "You okay?" he asked her as he started up the car.

"Yah, yah, I'm fine." Jenny replied sharply and bucked up. She knew how Nick drove and didn't want any of the CSI examining her after she was thrown through the front windshield after a quick stop. "I'm just thinking about stuff." what she was really thinking about was why Grissom and Sara needed to sneak around like they were doing, and why couldn't they just act normal around each other? And why is it that Catherine and Warrick always seem to be together, leaving her to be here with Nick? Is there some conspiracy being set up between everyone on this shift? And why is it that Greg is the only one that can make any good coffee? Nothing made sense to her. Everything seemed to be happening so fast, and Jenny was just going with the flow for most of the time.

"Well, you better push all of those thoughts to the back of your mind for the time being. This case is going to need our full attention." The car started up and the country music that Nick liked blared though the speakers. Jenny shook her head at this. If there was one thing she knew, it was that the graveyard shift was one odd bunch of people.

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