Chapter Thirty-One

II

The words were swimming, becoming blots of black and grey, making no sense and not registering in her mind. Catherine knew she should sleep, but it was almost as if she were too exhausted for that as well, too exhausted for anything but stare at the words. A limbo between awake and asleep almost, or perhaps a purgatory. She just wasn't sure what was hell anymore.

"You look like you could use a bed."

She looked up from her computer to see Sara leaning against the doorframe, smiling faintly, giving no clues as to how long she'd been there. Catherine just hoped she hadn't done anything too disgraceful, like drooling on the keyboard.

"You look like you had one."

"Touché. What are you doing?"

"Gil wants me to dig into Alan Keyes' past," Catherine declared, trying to keep annoyance out of her voice. "The good Sheriff think I'm too personally involved to be supervising on this one."

Sara shrugged, looking suprisingly apologetic. "You could take the opportunity to get some sleep."

"Last time I went to bed, I woke up to finding out my daughter had been approached by a killer."

Alan and Lindsey talking. Alan touching her child with hands that had killed. Alan wanting... She wanted to scream at the images of it all, but they had carved their way into her mind with a knife of fear and weren't going away.

Perhaps they never would, not even after he'd been caught and the case was history. The mind clung on to fear out of survival, for feeling safe was often to walk into death. Yet another price for life.

Sara nodded in understanding, closing the door behind her as she walked in. "I went to the Keyes' little mansion. Think I may have found a link between Alan and a possible source in the PD."

"The mysterious accomplice Grissom talked about," Catherine breathed, rubbing her temples. More complications, more troubles. Nothing was simple anymore, it seemed. Not getting along with Lindsey, not relationships, not family, not life... But perhaps simplicity was innocence and age made innocence seem more and more an illusion, one you wrapped your children in and hoped they didn't break when it came undone.

"Maybe," Sara acknowledged, then paused as she sat down and got a good view of the desk. "Is that a mug with moose making love?"

"Gift from Greg."

"Of course."

They shared a smile and Catherine found herself wondering again just what to classify her relationship with Sara as. Colleagues, sure, but not just that. Friends? They'd shared moments of that and moments that would probably have Greg eating popcorn in a corner while calling for mud. Sisters, they had never been. Perhaps... Soldiers in the same war, trodding the same trenches and that was a bond that didn't break, disagreements or no disagreements.

"Sounds like you had an eventful trip," she said after a moment, holding up the mug. "Do moose actually do this? In these positions?"

"I didn't see any," Sara chuckled. "Maybe they were getting frisky up in the hills. Yeah, the trip was..."

A moment's hesitation, making even Catherine's exhausted brain leap to attention.

"... Interesting."

"Interesting," Catherine repeated, taking in Sara's face, frustration and hurt obvious now that she looked.

'Okay. Now what did Grissom do?' she thought and wondered if she should hide all the sharp objects in the lab.

"You've known Grissom a long time," Sara said hesitantly, looking torn between bolting and writing a "Dear Catherine" letter.

"You could say that."

"Does he open up to you at all?"

"In some ways. But I'm no risk to him," Catherine replied carefully, weighing her words. "Grissom and I... We're a bit like a marriage without sex. It's not..."

'It's not Warrick and me,' she thought. Or perhaps she and Grissom had not been Sara and Grissom and she felt a moment of envy for that. Not that she had wanted to claim Grissom, but she still felt loss for something she'd never had, had never wanted and envy for Sara, the one who might have it. Strange.

Perhaps he felt almost like hers for all the time they had spent together, for all the time she had spent in this lab before Sara came and changed the dynamics.

"It's not romantic," she amended. "It's just two people getting very used to each other, and thus sometimes, sharing by default."

"I know that, I know that," Sara muttered, closing her eyes for a moment. "I just..."

She groaned, looking up at the ceiling and silence settled for a moment. Catherine fought the urge to put her head down on her desk and rest for just a moment. If she rested now, she would be comatose and dribble all over her lovely desk for a week.

"How do you talk to him?" Sara went on, looking genuinely stumped.

"Grissom, you mean?"

"Yeah."

Catherine let out a slow breath, hoping it would bring some presence to her mind. This was not a good day to be asked to deliver a report on her field studies of Grissom in the wild. And Sara had to be really frustrated to ask her of all people.

"Well..." The loud, way-too-happy sound of her beeper interrupted her and she glanced at it. "Speaking of the reclusive entomologist... Grissom wants to see us. Come on, I can advise torture methods best suited for making the man speak on the way. And we never had this conversation."

Sara managed to mostly smile on the way over, even adding a few creative suggestions herself to the list Catherine presented. It was an oddly comfortable chat, all past history considered. But perhaps even history yielded to the present sometimes and the need for a little friendliness.

The hallways were quiet as they passed through, the silence only interrupted by the sound of Hodges humming and people telling him to shut up. It was almost enough to put a smile on her face despite everything. The lab was the lab was the lab, changing always, but remaining a home, a vein of life to her, to Grissom, to Warrick, to Sara...

They eventually found Nick and Grissom in the Questioned Documents lab, Grissom not even looking up as they entered.

"Grissom, you wanted us?" Catherine asked, trying to tilt his head and see what he was looking at.

"Yeah. Brass got us a warrant for yet another Keyes property. Gilmary Avenue, number 15. Head over there, see if you find anything. Both of you."

The last was clearly directed at Sara, whose lips thinned in anger. Even Nick seemed to sense something in the air, mouthing 'what the hell?' at Catherine. She only shrugged, slightly at a loss herself.

"Anything else, boss?" Sara shot back, giving Grissom a death glare. He met it evenly.

"Be careful," he said after a moment, voice soft. Sara just stared at him for a moment longer, then quietly slipped out. Catherine followed, shaking her head slightly. It seemed like the rack would be in order for Grissom, if Sara had her way.

As they headed through the halls, she spied Warrick getting changed in the locker room and stopped abruptly, making Sara spin around and look at her.

"Just a second," she declared brighty. Exhaustion be damned, this was too good an opportunity not to take advantage of and she was too tired to care much what people would say. She kicked the door closed as she marched into the locker room, making sure no one else was there with a quick glance. Warrick looked up at the slam of the door, looking slightly confused and even more so when she pushed him against a locker and pulled his head down to kiss him like there was no tomorrow. It took a second before he let his hands come to linger on her hips and kiss her back with equal force, the shirt he was about to put on falling to the floor.

"What was that for?" he murmured, kissing her neck as she closed her eyes.

"For being you. For not being Grissom. For not making me get the rack."

"You're welcome...?" he replied, still looking confused.

She smiled at him, gave him one more quick kiss and wandered out again, meeting Sara's questioning gaze.

"I forgot something."

"On Warrick's naked chest?" Sara asked, looking just a tad bemused. Catherine just gave her a mock glare. Exhaustion was definitely messing with her. Her mind seemed to have gone straight past wanting sleep and into making her act as if in a dream.

"If I start giggling, shoot me," she declared to Sara, who nodded solemnly.

"Count on it."

They set out.

Las Vegas was bathed in the light of morning to come, a faint yellow hue caressing all it could find. The sky was still passing from black to blue, showing all the shades inbetween. The nocturnal were going to bed, the day walkers had not yet arisen, and only the twilight shadows were seen here and there. She almost felt like one of them, not in sunlight, not in darkness. Not awake, not asleep. Not young, not ancient. Life was always stuck in the inbetweens of something, but she felt it more strongly now.

A neautral cop car was parked outside the house Grissom had directed them too, but the cop was nowhere in sight. He could be inside, but she still felt something icy at the back of her neck. She felt an urge to hold the comfortable steel of her gun, but let her hand linger near her hip instead.

Maybe exhaustion had finally tipped her into paranoia, with insanity to merrily follow.

"This feels... Off," Sara muttered, perhaps sensing the same unease.

"Yeah," Catherine agreed. "Let's keep an eye out."

There was no signs of violence as they entered the house quietly, the door swinging open with a soft hiss. The lights were off, only the morning light streaming through blinds at the windows offering some illumination. It gave an altogether eerie feel, and the track of dusty foot prints didn't help.

"I don't like this," Sara said darkly. "Let's call..."

"Let's call who?" a male voice said and Alan Keyes stepped out of the shadows, gun firmly in hand and eyes brighter than the dawning sun.