Disclaimer: They're not mine.

Spoilers: None as far as I am aware

Rating: I've gone with T or PG-13 just to be safe. There's a use of the f-word about once and THAT'S ONCE TOO MANY! Swearing is overrated, kids.

Summary: GCR with a little WS. After an accident affects a team member, the team find themselves revisiting old memories.

Thanks so much again for reviews: sitarra, Lissa88 (heehee...yes you did say that), September, bloodymary2, D.M.A.S, cherishedcrush and Lynh. Thanks also to the manager of the C2 'A Series of Gil and Catherine Stories' who put this fic and the 'On The...' trilogy up. That was immensely cool! Anyway, yes, please keep those reviews coming in if y'all have the time. Some more flashback-GCR-love, because ya gotta love it! Enjoy! Love LJ xXx

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Perpetuity. Chapter Seven. Strike One

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Catherine Willows pinched her false eyelashes between her false nails and began to carefully peel them off. That was the thing about this place that bugged her so much; everything was false and that was the gritty fantasy behind the whole business. She felt a large hand on her shoulder and looked up at the blond-haired man who stood behind her in the mirror.

"What is it now, Billy?" she asked the club manager exasperatedly. "I'm on again in half an hour and I have an essay to write in between."

"Well, change of plan, Jane Austen – you're not in any of the shows tonight," Billy told her. Catherine's eyes lit up momentarily before she turned around to face him, suspicious.

"Oh really? And why's that?" she posed, warily.

"Were you always so cynical or did it just develop?" Billy kidded, avoiding the answer.

"Billy!"

"Fine, fine – some guy's booked you in Booth 4 for the rest of the night." he admitted. Catherine groaned.

"You're kidding me. All night?" she repeated and Billy nodded.

"Hey, you get to make an extra buck or two," he tried positively but knew anyway how much his girls hated being booked for private dances. It was none of his business what went on in those small rooms behind closed doors but from what he'd heard from the girls themselves, they got a pretty rough time.

Catherine rolled her eyes and sighed, putting the eyelashes back on again as Billy snuck away. As if being paraded on stage in front of drunken and ogling men wasn't bad enough. Sure, the money was pretty great but if there was one thing that could make you feel as cheap as shit, it was the private dances. Christ, she wondered why some of these men didn't just hire a hooker but perhaps they found they could kid themselves into believing this was less seedy if they had to pay more for it. She changed her clothes to something that was, in her opinion, even worse than what little she already had on and reluctantly made her way to Booth 4.

"Well that's a relief," a voice greeted her when she stepped into the dark room. "I thought I might be a little under-dressed."

Catherine found herself looking into the eyes of the CSI from the crime lab. He smiled awkwardly and stuck his hands in the pockets of his jeans. She suddenly felt, of all things, extremely self-conscious before pulling herself together: as much as she hated it, she had a job to do. Cringing at her own sordidness she did so, she ran her tongue over her lips and pushed him down onto the plush chairs seductively. To her mortification, he began to chuckle slightly.

"Don't laugh," she snapped, hotly. "It's not funny."

He shook his head, still grinning. "I'm sorry, of course it's not – but what are you doing?" She exhaled angrily to try and cover up her extreme embarrassment.

"My job." she retorted. "It's what you paid for, isn't it? This is what you wanted, isn't it? To see me humiliate myself for your entertainment?" The young CSI looked taken aback for a moment and Catherine sighed.

"I'm sorry – please don't tell my boss I said that. I just get so sick of this all the time." she admitted quietly, looking to the floor. Grissom surveyed the woman carefully – he hadn't realised the emotional effect of all of this on her; he just assumed it was a bit of fun.

"Hey, Catherine," he tipped her head to face him. "It is Catherine, right?" She nodded with a half-smile. "Well my name's Gil Grissom – and I didn't come here to try and humiliate you. I'm sorry if it seemed that way."

"Well you kind of did buy me out for the whole of the night to do everything but fuck you, didn't you?" she answered bitterly. Grissom's mouth fell open.

"No – no, I didn't do that at all." he told her. He smiled at her. "Want to get out of here?"

Catherine looked at him cautiously. Sure, he seemed like a nice guy now but how many times had she fallen for that 'I'm a nice guy' routine? Too many times; the list of names was endless – what could she say? She was a sucker for that sort of thing; she always believed there was a Prince Charming out there for her. When would she learn?

"Where to?" she asked. Grissom shrugged.

"How about I take you out to dinner – it's past 11 and I guess you haven't eaten," he suggested. Catherine smiled but then it disappeared when she looked down.

"Dressed like this?" she looked doubtful.

"Haven't you got something else to wear?"

"In the changing rooms, but I can't go back there – I meant to be working," she answered miserably.

"Here – " Grissom handed her his long, black overcoat. "Wear this." Catherine looked at him and slipped it on with a beam; perhaps the nice-guy routine was the real deal.

"Can I get my bag? It's in the lockers next to the stage," she asked.

"Of course." Grissom followed her out of the room as she pulled the coat tightly around her. "It's your night off."

He hung around beside her as she closed the locker and slipped her bag over her shoulder until he saw a dark-haired guy approach her. The tall, burly man grabbed her shoulder from behind.

"Hey, Catherine – you're meant to be dancing right now." the man barked.

Catherine paled but didn't turn around, looking pleadingly at Gil. Without knowing what he was doing, Grissom threw the man's hand off Catherine's shoulder and squared up to him, fury blazing in his eyes.

"Hey – what the hell do you think you're doing?" Grissom shouted at the man. "She's not one of your sleazy dancers – that's my wife you're talking to." The man held up his hands in submission.

"Whoa – whoa, calm down, sir. I didn't know..." he stammered. "A little misunderstanding – I thought she was one of the..."

"Yeah I know what you thought, smart guy," Grissom continued heatedly, drawing inspiration from the attitude his friend Jim Brass had recently adopted. "Maybe next time you should be more careful alright?" Gil flashed his police badge at the man who blanched.

"No disrespect meant, sir – I'm sorry," he stuttered. Still not turning around, Catherine tugged on Grissom's sleeve.

"Come on, honey, let's go," she murmured.

"I'm really sorry, ma'am," the man apologised. Grissom shot him a withering look like the one he'd seen on his friend's face many a time before escorting Catherine out of the building protectively.

She had barely stepped out of The French Palace before she erupted into giggles.

"That was great! I wish I'd seen his face!" she enthused, her arm still slipped around his. "That was Tony – he can be a real jackass sometimes, but you were brilliant! Thank you! He was so scared! Ever take acting?"

Grissom grinned, delighted to see her so happy. "Me? No way."

"I think you missed your true calling," she smirked. He stopped in the middle of the sidewalk and turned her to him.

"So what do you want to do now?" he asked. Catherine shrugged.

"Dinner would be nice. And I have to finish up an essay for tomorrow," she remembered. Grissom nodded.

"I'll give you a hand with that – hope you're not expecting anything too fancy for dinner. I'm a little short on cash – you know you're $30 an hour?" he remarked. Catherine looked at her feet, embarrassed slightly.

"You really don't have to do this," she told him quietly.

"Yes I do," Gil replied as they headed down the strip to a small diner.

More than two hours later, they were still there, getting coffee refills to keep them going late into the night. Catherine chewed subconsciously on the end of her pen as she pored over her essay: a study of the role of forensic science in police work over the last fifty years.

"With better technologies used in police departments worldwide, forensic evidence stands a better chance of entering formal investigations..." she muttered to herself, frowning. She scribbled something out and read it through again. "With more advanced technologies..."

Gil flipped through her college-issued textbook.

"Aha, 'Criminalists: An Introduction To Forensic Science by Richard E. Saferstein'," Gil read out. "This thing was like my bible in junior high. Not detailed enough though."

Catherine looked up and stared. "Junior high? Not detailed enough?" she repeated with raised eyebrows. "What were you, a child prodigy? I can barely get through it as it is."

"No, it's just...my passion," he explained. "It's a good book."

"I liked chapter 12," she commented briefly, turning back to her work.

"Forensic Serology." Gil supplied without even needing to look. Catherine's head nodded.

"Yeah, all the stuff – the forensic characterization of bloodstains and stain pattern, to find so much information in just some thoughtless blood spatter – it's really fascinating," she spoke animatedly. She'd never been able to talk about these things with anyone in her own time before. It just felt so...normal.

"What do you think about?" he asked her impulsively.

Catherine looked confused. "What do you mean?"

"When you're up on stage – you're thinking about something else," he furthered. "What do you think about?" Catherine laughed, brushing her fringe out of her eyes.

"Honestly? Jesus, it's so geeky," she began, twisting the pen in her hands. "It's the only thing that works for me when I'm trying to forget the job I do. I recite the periodic table in my head. Y'know, going through the elements, atomic numbers and masses..." She trailed off and laughed at herself. Gil only smiled.

"You'd make a good CSI." Grissom told her sincerely and Catherine glanced up at with a genuine smile.

"Thanks." she murmured and held his gaze for a while until his watch began to beep. He jumped and looked at it, a kind of disappointment in his face.

"Time's up," he stated. "You don't have to hang around with me anymore." Catherine stared quizzically.

"Well if it's alright with you, I think I'd rather stay," she answered curtly.

"I don't have any more cash," he warned her.

"Jesus, Gil – I'm not a mugger," she told him. "Can't I just stay with you because I like your company?" Grissom grinned.

"Of course. I just didn't think you'd want..."

"For someone who almost got into a fight with a six-foot-two ex-bouncer, you sure have some self-esteem issues," she observed fondly, scribbling down more sentences.

It was lucky the diner was a 24-hour one; they were both still there in the early hours of the morning, powering by on coffee refills and chatting like old friends.

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"Every night for months afterwards you'd book me out all night and take me out," Catherine continued. "You were so sweet; it cost you a bomb, but you did it anyway. And you never asked for anything in return. I don't know why I didn't just marry you there and then, but I had a lot going on in my life then – I was young and stupid."

Jim Brass smiled; he remembered that story. Gil couldn't get his act together around that student and became some clumsy mess. Catherine paused and looked at Grissom, still holding onto his hand.

"You don't remember, do you?" she murmured with disheartening realisation. Gil shook his head slowly. Catherine sighed. "Right. Right, okay. We'll try something else."

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