Even though the city seemed to heave great sighs and condolences for Nick, the crime stopped for nobody. The team was given a week off in order to recuperate from the ordeal, but Catherine felt as if going to work no longer held the joy it used to. She used to revel in the puzzle-solving, the idea of giving her hand to justice was satisfying, but all the usual routines, lab work and evidence collecting had become tedious tasks. Worst of all, her job was a constant reminder of Nick, and by twisted association, she found that frequent thoughts about her own brushes with deviants crept up into her psyche when she least expected it.

She handed the leftovers of her case to one of the temporary, substitute criminalists that the city brought in for the special circumstance. Normally, Catherine was wary of patronizing and would have been adamant about refusing special treatment or anybody's implication of her possible weaknesses, but she welcomed the extra help with open arms.

Walking past the locker room, she saw Warrick sitting solemnly on the bench, haphazardly shoving a shirt into his messenger bag. He glanced up at her as she took a seat next to him.

"Leaving early too?" She tried to keep the mood a little bit lighter.

"Mm-hmm." The man had been increasingly non-communicative, which worried Catherine.

"Do you wanna grab dinner or something together?"

"I've got plans."

"Player's gotta date, I see," she said jokingly, which made her realize how foreign the humour felt.

Warrick scowled at her, "Cath, just stop it, okay? I'm not in the mood."

She was silenced by his snapping and was struck dumbfounded while he continued to aggressively attempt to put his now-very-wrinkled shirt into his bag. Finally, in frustration, he threw the bag against the locker, resumed his seat on the bench and put his head in his hands.

Catherine gently put a hand on his shoulder, "Warrick, look at me." In response, he didn't move for several moments, but then quickly looked at her and turned away. What Catherine saw, or rather, what she didn't see, made her inwardly gasp at the shade of dark grey that his eyes had taken.

He stood up in a haste, grabbed his bag with the shirt half-stuffed into it and left, muttering, "I've gotta go."

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In the break room, Sara had fallen asleep with her head on the table. Grissom walked in and shook her softly, "Sara? Sara… why don't you go home?"

She slowly lifted her head, revealing red, puffy eyes – she'd been crying in her sleep again. A rush of shame shifted within her, having been so unabashedly emotional in front of Gil Grissom, who rarely knew what to say or do with her. Later, in reminiscence, or in the less joyful act of simple remembrance, she would laugh a little bit at the idea that they only seemed to be brought together through unfortunate circumstances.

"No, I'm… I'm okay. I have to go back to the lab," Sara stood up to empty her coffee into the sink.

"You and I both know that you can't do your best forensic work when you're half asleep and obviously thinking about other things," he was standing in front her, almost too closely, as his only able gesture of showing her that he cared.

"Grissom, I'm fine. I swear…" Her voice turned into a whisper that she could barely choke out, "I need to work. Please at least let me have that," Sara's eyes refused to meet her boss's, the man who she often wished would save her from the world, or perhaps most importantly, from herself.

On the other hand, he stood there in a state of minor shock, unsure of how to reply to her words that implied that he had previously denied her of some unknown pleasure. There was, and had always been, a muted silence between the two of them; the words wanted to desperately come out, but neither person provided an appropriate channel. Grissom desperately wanted to offer some sort of reassurance, some form of happiness that Sara could perhaps cling onto, but he couldn't guarantee anything – he was barely holding onto the seams of his own life.

They stood, facing each other for quite a while, neither of them sure of how to proceed. Finally, Sara looked up at him, gave him a forlorn smile that had obviously been forced out for his sake, and walked out of the break room.

Grissom returned to his office. Upon finding that all of his paperwork had been completed in an earlier working frenzy, he started on the pile of "Entomology Weekly" magazines. He stared at the pages, but the words on the page had been transformed into the screen on which his thoughts were projected. The diagram of Scutigera coleoptrata, the house centipede, was suddenly a dark mahogany coffin being lowered into plot 257 at the St. Ignatius Cemetery off of Palm Road.

When he looked up again, Catherine was sitting in front of him, "Geez, Gil, I've been sitting here waiting for you to notice. I knew bugs were interesting, but this is a little bit ridiculous." When he didn't reply, she softened her tone, "How many hours have you slept lately?"

Raccoon eyes had been an epidemic with the graveyard shift, each of them seemingly carrying their respective baggage under their eyes.

"Not many."

"You wanna talk about it?"

"I don't know what you want from me, Catherine."

She lunged towards him slightly, and spoke with a hushed anger, "Okay, obviously, things are not okay. Things have not been okay, and it doesn't look like they'll be alright anytime soon. I need to talk, Gil. Everyone around here holes up their emotions as if we're all not going through the same damn thing." Tears of frustration glossed over her eyes.

He was silent for a few moments, but their long-standing friendship had erased any inhibitions that he might have had with someone else; "Look... people deal with the grief their own way. If they can't, then we have that therapist on payroll for a good…"

"Ugh, no! Why do you have to deal with this… this thing, like it's not affecting the people right in front of your eyes? 'They' this, 'they' that. It's we, Gil, we are going through this. Jesus, will you please stop this robotic act of yours and just… I don't know, cry a little? Would it embarrass you that much? Do you not owe at least a few tears for him?" Her voice was increasingly loudening.

Grissom replied with a similar temper, "It's not about embarrassment, Catherine. And how dare you try to heave this guilt trip on me. You know how I'm dealing? By working. Working so that I can pretend that the system didn't fail us!"

He was shouting so loud that he could see the other employees swivel their heads to catch wind of the commotion through the open-blinded windows. The others quickly turned away when he caught them staring. Once again, silence prevailed; it was becoming the champion of all the battles that were fought.

Catherine brought her glance to the floor, letting her tears fall onto the linoleum. When she felt Grissom come around the desk towards her, she stood up, "I'm sorry. I just… it's…" She began to sob another countless sob. A wall in Grissom's demeanor came down just enough to invite her into his arms.

She wondered when the tears would dry up permanently.

He wondered when he would stop being the rock he helplessly was.