DISCLAIMER: I do not own any of the characters from 'CSI'. They're not my property.

"Grissom," Catherine came to the office to see him. "What's with you?" she asked after seeing that familiar curl of his lips.

"Um?"

"You seem happy."

"I had nice company last night."

"A date?" she sounded curious.

"No. Just met some old friends."

"Good to see your social life hasn't gone down the drain completely," she said and smirked.

Grissom looked over at her. "You need something?"

"Er, yeah. I will probably need to take a couple of days off soon," she said.

"Reason?"

"I think I'll be forced to take Lindsay to her grandmother and after a terrible tantrum last night... An overdose of yelling, she made it pretty clear she needed me to... be there also."

Grissom chuckled. "Kids can be such a handful," he hummed.

"Yeah, lucky me, I only have one," Catherine mumbled. "So, is it a possibility?"

"I think so. You have two weeks?"

"Yeah, but I won't use more than five days max."

"Okay." He nodded. "Jack and Cynthia asked me to send you their greetings by the way."

"Who?"

"Clearcane? You met them seven years ago."

"Oh, right... the bug couple? Yeah, who can forget them." Catherine shook her head. "Interesting to see they remember me."

"You dozing off in the middle of the conversation seemed to have left quite an impression on them." Grissom sounded amused. "And on me."

"I must've been very tired that night," she sighed.

Grissom tried hard to contain his small smile from forming into a giant grin due to the amusement and the image of his friend barely fighting to stay awake. "Yeah, that's it. You were tired."

"Don't make fun of me, Gil. After last night, I'm really not in the mood," she told him flatly.

Grissom only gestured with his hand before forming a fist and pressing it against his lips. When Catherine finally left, Grissom let out the chuckles as quietly as possible. He should have told Sara that story.

Perhaps in the close future; it certainly seemed like a possibility.

Exiting into the hallway, Sara almost crashed into Nick. She raised her hand to emphasize her apology when Nick backed away as if by instinct. "What?" For a moment his behavior surprised her.

"I am staying clear from your way for a while."

"What?" Her face scrunched. "Oh, Nick, seriously! It was an accident!" She paused. "Wait, is that why you didn't want to work the Smith case last week with me?" She sounded amused rather than annoyed.

"As much as that may sound odd... no, that's not why. Date ruined."

"Sorry, Nick," she said and pouted. "So, is that it now? You don't like me?"

"Zip it, Sar!"

She chuckled. "Whatever you say." Sara crossed her arms. "How's the new case?"

"Hell," he said simply and looked down at the papers in his hands.

"Why? What are you working with?"

"Women," he sighed and left Sara with that.

Watching Nick walk away, it wasn't long before she heard Grissom's voice behind her. "Ready?"

"Huh?" she turned to face her supervisor. "Oh. Yeah, yeah, I a-..."

A sudden and exceedingly loud female scream stormed through the hallway. A moment later three more screams joined in a rather confusing chorus of unexpected chaos.

Both Grissom and Sara felt their sudden urge to find the source disappear when a small gray ball of fur appeared crawling on the floor rushed towards them with an increasing speed.

"Is...that what I think it is?" Sara asked.

"I think so." Grissom wanted to crouch down and catch the small creature when it zoomed passed him. He missed his chance. Turning around Grissom was pleasantly relieved to find the little ball of fur moving franticly in Sara's hand. "Nice catch."

Slowly rising to his level of view, Sara watched the creature with an amusing smile. "Where did you come from?" she asked as if it could respond.

"Nibbles!" A teenage boy with ginger hair came running towards them. With his flushed face, the poor boy appeared as if he had been chasing the mouse for hours. When he finally reached the right distance, instead of rooting himself to the floor, he ended up sliding on it, barely managing to keep balance, as if he had stepped on liquid detergent.

The boy's attempts pulled out a few smirks from the two adults waiting for a possible explanation of this incident. When the teenager finally managed to halt his movements properly and end up freezing like an ice statue in front of them, Grissom asked him: "Is this... your pet?"

"Yes..." the boy's breaths were easily overpowering his voice to form clear sentences. "He... somehow... escaped... when I...phew... when I wasn't... looking. I'm... I'm sorry." He reached over to Sara to retrieve the mouse.

"Nibbles?" she asked.

"Yes... that's Nibbles." The boy smiled and quickly walked away from them.

"It never ceases to amaze me how a small harmless creature like that can cause such chaos."

"Yes. Especially if it's in a crime lab," Grissom said and glanced at her.

Their walk was shortly interrupted again when they were passing by the waiting area. The room was filled with women with red dyed hair and wearing pink umbrella-like dresses. Five of those women had surrounded the only police officer in the room, demanding an explanation for the "tiny monster" that had just passed through.

Watching this, the two CSIs couldn't help but feel sorry for the young man as he struggled to answer calmly to them.

"Nothing worse than being trapped in a room with demanding Lucy's," Sara said.

"I agree."

She suddenly understood Nick's earlier reaction. "Was this the murder case at the "I Love Lucy" convention that Nick's handling?"

"This is the one."

"I pity the man."

"Ah, everyone gets their turn to suffer." Grissom said before he and Sara calmly resumed their walk.

"Jack called me this morning," Grissom said on their way to the crime scene. "He asked when it was possible to meet us again."

"Us?" Sara sounded confused.

"Didn't I tell you they loved you?"

"Flattering but not in those words." She smiled.

"You were awake the whole time," he said jokingly.

"That sounds like I have succeeded where others have failed."

"It should." Grissom smirked. Seeing Sara's bewildered stare, he shook his head and chuckled lightly. "I'll tell you later," he said.

They barely made it to the front porch when a couple of uniformed officers and the detective greeted them with either masks or handkerchiefs over their noses.

"Hey, why is e-..." An overwhelming stench cut off Sara's question. "Oh, man, that's..." Her lungs barely took in the stinky air as she felt a sudden urge to cough.

"Sulfurous, like rotting eggs!" Grissom said, trying to protect himself primitively with his hand from the smell attack but it was useless. "And something else quite unpleasant..."

"That's 'cause it is rotten eggs!" the detective responded.

Putting on the appropriate masks, Grissom and Sara cautiously entered the two-story house. The state of the living room was a housewife's nightmare. The body of a middle-aged man lying on the floor was surrounded by hundreds of rotten eggs; with them were tons of animal manure, and the windows were smeared with red paint. "I thought you said it was just rotten eggs," Grissom said as she survived the scene.

"Didn't want to spoil the fun for you," the detective sneered.

"Someone was very angry with this man," Sara noted.

"Pissed," Grissom added, after which he received a slightly surprised look from Sara.

"What?" He looked at her.

It was pretty rare for her or anyone else to hear him use words like that. "Nothing." She shook her head. "Nothing."

"From the position of his body and the time of death... the house must've been littered before he came inside," Grissom said.

"The killer wanted him to see the mess," Sara responded.

"And smell it. His neighbor said he was always cleaning his house after his girlfriend left him."

"Trying to get rid of her presence over and over..."

"Yeah."

"I wonder what he did to make the killer so angry."

"Whatever it was, the victim died with very dirty thoughts," Grissom said.