"Are you planning to sit and brood all day?"

Gil Grissom lifted his eyebrows over his glasses and stared at Catherine Willows, who was standing in the doorframe of his office, arms crossed over her chest. "Am I brooding?"

"Yes, Gil, you are. You've been sitting here staring at the same report since shift started, and that was two hours ago." She closed the door and helped herself to the chair in front of his desk. "What's up?"

Grissom took off his glasses and sighed. "This case. The librarian." He hesitated. "Sarah Dawson."

"I know which case you meant," Catherine said patiently. "Go on."

"It doesn't make sense."

"What about it doesn't make sense? It was a burglary. It looks like she walked into the middle of it. Wrong place at the wrong time."

Grissom's forehead furrowed sadly. "She was at home, Catherine."

"Well, home happened to be the wrong place at that time." Grissom was silent. "All right, go on," she said slowly.

"What I don't understand…is that nobody called it in until after the gun was fired. We've established that there was a struggle. She hit him hard enough to spray his blood. It got pretty violent, and I'm going to guess noisy. How could no one have heard that? Those walls are paper thin."

"They probably didn't realize how serious it was until the gun was fired. Or maybe they thought it was her television."

Grissom pressed his lips together and shook his head wordlessly. Catherine watched him with a concerned frown as he stood up and reached for his jacket.

"Where are you going?" she inquired warily.

"Back to the scene."

"Again? There's nothing there!"

"I have to check. There might be something we overlooked." He shrugged into his jacket and patted his pockets for his keys. Catherine rolled her eyes and stood up to face him.

"No, there isn't! We went over that apartment with a fine tooth comb. We don't have the evidence this time. Aren't you always saying that we have to follow the evidence? Even if it doesn't lead us where we want to go?"

"I am not leading the evidence," he said heatedly. "I just need to make sure we're not missing anything."

"For God's sake, Gil, what's gotten into you? You're acting like Sara."

He stopped cold and stared at her. "Excuse me?"

"You're acting like Sara," Catherine repeated. "You're empathizing. Looking for things that aren't there." She tilted her head to the side and studied him carefully. "Is that what this is about? Because I've got to tell you, Gil, there are a lot of women in Vegas named Sarah."

Grissom glared at his colleague. "I'm well aware of that! This has nothing to do with her."

"Well, what is it then? Because you're getting on my nerves."

"I just don't like an unsolved case. That's all."

"Bullshit. We have hundreds of unsolved cases. You want to know what I think?" He didn't, but that wasn't going to stop her. "Her name was Sarah. She had dark hair and she was such a loner that even her neighbors didn't know who she was until she was killed. Any of this sound familiar to you?" Her tirade was unceremoniously interrupted by a sharp knock, followed by Sara Sidle, who stepped into the office with a printout in her hand.

"Hey. Greg said you'd want to see this." She hesitated at the door. It didn't take a criminalist to sense that something was wrong. "Sorry, should I come back…?"

"No," Grissom snapped, sharper than intended. Sara held out the printout hesitantly.

"DNA results, from the blood spatters. You were right, there were two blood types. The inconsistent spatter is male." She glanced sideways at Catherine, who was clearly pissed off about something.

Grissom glanced dismissively at the results. "Fine. But we still don't have a suspect."

"Right," Sara said carefully. "Well, let me know if I can do anything to help."

Catherine waited until Sara had shut the door behind her. "All right, this has gone on long enough. You need to talk to her, Gil. I'm serious. This isn't the first time that something like this has happened," she added meaningfully. Grissom clenched his jaw and looked stubbornly away from her. He was beginning to wish he had assigned this case to someone else.

"It's not that simple, Catherine. I wouldn't even know where to begin..."

"Well figure it out! You're a grown man, Gil, you should be able to figure out some way to communicate that you're worried about her!"

If only it were that simple. What he felt for Sara went farther than concern, but what good would it do to admit it? Nothing would change."Do you really think she'd want to hear that?"

Catherine observed her former supervisor for a long moment. "You might be surprised." Her voice had softened significantly. Without another word, she turned on her heel and left him alone in his office, staring gloomily into a jar of preserved fetal pig.

-----

"So, have you thought about what I said yesterday?"

Grissom looked up from his desk with a wince. It had been nearly 24 hours since his argument with Catherine, and he had rather stupidly hoped that she might have forgotten it by now.

"Yes…" he said hesitantly, removing his glasses.

"And?" Catherine raised a challenging eyebrow.

"And…you're right. I need to talk to her."

Her eyebrow rose further. "I know. Glad to see you've come around."

A ghost of a smile appeared on his face and just as quickly faded. "But… it's not going to be easy."

"Of course not. You're the ultimate scientist, Gil. We all know you and your emotions mix about as well as oil and water."

Grissom frowned. "That's not fair. I know I don't have the best track record, but Entomologists have feelings just like everyone else."

Catherine smirked. "Well, prove it. For all we know, you may be the one exception to that rule."