Chapter 25

Dating a Coworker

"I got another love-note from my secret admirer."

It was the next night during the nights dinner break in the appropriately named break room, and the rest of the team glanced up to see Catherine Willows stepping in, waving a small envelope in front of her. Her name was scrawled on it in the same mysterious handwriting all the other notes had been written.

Gil was settled doing the crossword puzzle in the daily newspaper, he glanced up, "another one?" he asked, he lowered the newspaper, "how many is this now?"

"Including the ones I haven't mentioned?" Catherine asked, she went to pour herself some coffee, "uh…eight."

"Eight?"

"I got flowers twice," Catherine responded, "and a really nice pair of diamond earrings – expensive ones."

"Sounds like this guy means business," Sara commented, she had her cellular phone in her hand and was playing a built in game to pass the time.

"What's the note say?" Warrick asked.

"Uh…" Catherine realised she hadn't even opened the letter yet. She ripped the envelope, and pulled the note from inside out, "oh…" she blinked, seeming a little taken aback, she fell completely silent, and stood there, gazing at the note as if in a daze.

Gil put his crossword down, got up and stepped over, "Cath, what's wrong?"

"Nothing…" Catherine shook her head, but she handed him the note, looking at him waiting for a response.

"What do you think about dating someone you work with…" He read aloud without even having stopped to read it to himself first.

Gil immediately glanced towards Sara, although he didn't realize it had been his first instinct to do so. Sara gave him a look that spoke of her immediate concern about the note. The note brought up a question which could put their secrecy in jeopardy.

"This is from someone I know…someone I work with…someone who works with ME," Catherine pointed out.

Greg raised an eyebrow, "so…how are you supposed to answer this guy if you don't even know who he is?"

Catherine shrugged, "I have no clue…should I be freaking out about this?"

"It's probably just a guy from another department...one of the A/V geeks or something," Warrick suggested.

It was Nick who brought up the question, "what do you think about that anyway?"

Catherine glanced towards him, "what? Dating a coworker?"

"Yeah," Nick shrugged, "just out of interest, what do you all think?"

Gil and Sara looked at each other with wide frightened eyes, and then immediately looked away from each other, Sara feigned interest in her phone and Gil went back to his crossword.

"I…don't know," Catherine admitted, "honestly…if it was someone I connected with, I wouldn't have a problem with it…"

Gil glanced over his crossword quickly, to see if anyone might be looking at him.

Warrick paused, "probably," he said with a shrug.

"Sara? Grissom?" Nick asked.

"Hmmm?" Gil pretended to be preoccupied.

"Would you date a coworker?"

"You know he would," Warrick responded, "he's done it in the past."

Gil felt Sara's eyes dart right to him, and he winced at the thought. He always assumed she might have known about the handful of women he'd dated throughout the department, but Warrick's mentioning it seemed to make it sound worse than it was – especially since he'd made excuses in the past about working together being one of the reasons he could never be with her.

"When he was just one of us and not a supervisor," Catherine interjected. Gil noted she seemed to sense what might be going through Sara's mind.

"Sara?" Greg asked, "what about you?"

Sara faltered, "I…uh…well…it's not relevant, I'm dating a great guy now."

Great guy, Gil's thoughts echoed. Okay, she can't be that mad at me.

"But just theoretically," Greg suggested, "would you?"

"Uh…yes," Sara answered, "if he was someone I felt close enough to risk my job over, then sure."

"Grissom, you still didn't answer," Greg pointed out.

"Someone answered for me," Gil pointed out, he put an answer down on the crossword, then he picked up his coffee to take a sip.

"Doesn't count. Would you actually date a coworker? In fact, since you're a supervisor would you actually date a subordinate?"

Grissom choked on his coffee and swore mentally, luckily managing to avoid it hitting most of his shirt, the newspaper seemed to catch most of it. "Excuse me?"

"Like…would you date Cath…or Sara?" Greg asked with a shrug.

Gil examined the young man, striving to see if there might be a knowing look on his face. "You know it'd be inappropriate," he finally managed.

"Come on, look at how hot these women are, especially Sara," Greg winked at Sara, "you're telling me you wouldn't be tempted."

"Tempted, maybe," Gil answered, "but Sara has a man in her life, and Cath already has an admirer – who by the way, isn't me – so I think I shall try elsewhere in the dating pool," he said quickly.

Warrick looked concerned, "why are you getting defensive? It's just a theoretical question."

As apprehensive Catherine seemed about her letter, she still threw Gil a smug grin but pursed her lips as if to stop herself from saying something she might have regretted.

"I'm not getting defensive," Gil put his crossword down, he glanced suspiciously at Warrick, "what makes you think I'm getting defensive?" he asked, his voice slightly higher than normal.

Warrick just looked at him, "No, you're right, you're definitely laid back…" he rolled his eyes and shook his head. "Man, the sooner you get a woman, the better," he joked.

Gil didn't know why he responded, "what makes you so sure I'm not already in a relationship?" he asked insolently.

Warrick's head snapped to the side to gaze at him, "Because you're Grissom," he smirked.

Gil had to smirk, "okay," he decided to agree. He felt the vibrating of his cellular phone in his hip pocket, and he pulled it out, he had a message. He flipped the phone open and opened the message.

New Msg from Sara Sidle

Do you think they suspect?

Gil closed his phone quickly, he glanced over to Sara to throw her a meaningful look, but smiled, indicating she shouldn't worry.

"Cath, what are you doing to find out who this guy is?" Nick glanced over to Catherine.

"Fingerprinting every note, not so much as any kind of trace DNA is showing on them, this guy knows his business…" she admitted, "he knows what he's doing."

Gil glanced towards Greg, remembering a month ago when Greg had been making a valentines card for Sara how thorough he'd been to make it anonymous, to the point of wearing gloves.

Is it Greg? He wondered. No, can't be. Greg wouldn't think to buy a woman diamond earrings…and he has this thing for Sara, that's obvious. If he was going to send anyone earrings, I'd assume it'd be Sara.

Warrick, Sara and Nick stood, noticing time for break was over, it was back to work. "We'll be in the garage if anyone needs us," Warrick commented to Gil.

Gil nodded, and watched as they left, when he and Catherine were alone, he said, "do you think Warrick knows about me and Sara?"

"I think he's aware that Sara has feelings for you, and that you probably have some attraction to her, but I think that's all he knows," Catherine admitted. She was reading the note again, her expression pensive.

"You've had eight notes from this guy – obviously you must know something about him by now," Gil stated, falling back on to the discussion of her secret admirer.

Catherine shrugged, "all I know about this guy is he writes with a black ink gel pen – and it has a slight leak in it," she admitted, "some of the letters have small blotches from the leak," she showed him the letter again.

"Its not much to go on, but it's a start," Gil shrugged. "By the way, I think I should, uh…say thank you for the advice."

"What advice?" Catherine turned to look at him.

"About, you know…the affection…the kiss," he kept his voice low. The break room door was open, and anyone might possibly hear if they were walking by.

Catherine smirked, her eyes glittered with mischief, "you took my advice, then?"

"Yes…and I got some…rather satisfactory results."

"See, I know my stuff," Catherine left the room with a deliberate swing in her hips.

Gil chuckled softly, "I hate to admit it, but yes you do."

I'm heading off to bed at the moment but I just thought I'd upload this chapter before I go. I won't mention the people who reviewed with more than 3 lines at the moment, but I'll get them in the next chapter.

I know people are complaining about this being a terribly drawn out story, I kind of mean for it to be that way. Some people (like me) hate reading a story that's only a few chapters long and wish it had gone on for a lot longer, I guess I like epic stories or something, I don't know.

Hi to Mel, who read today for the first time. She's my pleb, I love her to bits :)

SS