Part 15
"Gil?"
Grissom's head jerked up in surprise. He tore his eyes away from the e-mail he'd been staring at on the computer monitor and focused on the body in his office doorway. "Catherine. Can I help you?"
"Probably not. I just figured I'd come check on you, since the only times you're late to the team meeting are the times when you've got an e-mail from a certain brunette." She took a few steps into the room, expecting Grissom to growl something defensive at her any second. When he didn't, she walked further in and crossed behind his desk so that she could see the computer screen. "Yep, Sara."
"Of course 'Sara,'" he said, scrolling up in the window so that Catherine could only see the e-mail's headers. "As you just said, Catherine, she's the only thing that can unsettle me this much."
"How much?"
Grissom regarded her coolly. "Are you trying to get me to tell you that you're welcome to read the damn thing?" he asked grumpily, waving a hand at the screen. "Because if you are, I'll have you know that this is a private communication, not something that's a new source for office gossip." He turned in his chair so he was positioned between Catherine's eyes and his monitor.
"You told me all about it last time. What's wrong with telling me this time?"
"I didn't tell you anything last time that you didn't already know from what she'd e-mailed all of you. This e-mail, however, was not sent to everyone and is not meant to be read by everyone."
Catherine leveled a skeptical gaze at him. "What's so different about this? Did she write you a dirty letter or something?"
"No!" he snapped, shutting the window containing Sara's e-mail. "Why can't you just leave it alone and stop insulting her and pissing me off?"
"What'd I say?" she said, blinking. "I wasn't insulting anyone. I just meant that you're acting really overprotective about this e-mail, when you haven't about the others."
"Not your business," Grissom said shortly, standing up so that Catherine was forced to back up from her position behind his chair. "Can you pretend to be a professional for a few minutes so I can go start the shift?"
Giving him an amused look, she shrugged. "That's what I came in here for to begin with." She turned to follow him as he strode to the door and stood, waiting for her to leave before he shut and locked his office door.
"Jeez, touchy touchy," Catherine said with raised eyebrows.
******************************************************
"You know better, Gris," Warrick told him twenty minutes later as Grissom drove the Tahoe to their scene. "You're gonna kill yourself with those, and then Sara's gonna be pissed."
"Sara won't be anything," Grissom corrected, flicking his ashes out the window. "She lives across the country, remember?"
"What, you think she wouldn't come home for your funeral and say nasty things to your casket?" Warrick snorted. "The woman cares, Gris, no matter where she is."
"Can we PLEASE not talk about Sara for once? She's not here. She moved. I am here. I didn't move. And I'm your boss."
Warrick winced. "Hey, whatever you say. But I'm telling you, Sara or no Sara, you gotta stop with the cigarettes."
"Well, it's a good thing I don't have to obey what you say, then, isn't it?" He took another defiant puff and deliberately allowed some of the smoke he exhaled to drift toward Warrick.
There was no getting through to the man, Warrick decided as he tried to fan away the carcinogenic air. Grissom was on the warpath tonight, and Warrick wondered what Sara had said to him to make him so . . . whatever he was. Angry? Dejected? Leaning his head back against the headrest, he sighed. Catherine had slipped him a note about Grissom's mood at the meeting, but he hadn't thought it was this bad.
"What?"
Warrick looked at Grissom in confusion. "Huh? I didn't say anything."
"You're looking at me."
"No, I wasn't. Gris, you need to chill out. You're not gonna be able to work tonight if you won't let yourself cool off." He held out a hand to stop Grissom from speaking. "And that's the last non-work-related thing I'm gonna say to you tonight unless you speak to me first."
Grissom muttered something unintelligible and swung the Tahoe into a hard right turn into the Tropicana's parking lot.
******************************************************
Grissom was still in a vicious mood when he and Warrick arrived back at the lab four hours later. He wasn't speaking to Warrick, he was avoiding Catherine, and he stalked through the hallways like he was searching for his next victim. Techs scattered as he approached, and whispers abounded once he was gone.
At 6AM, Nick cornered him in the locker room, hoping to diffuse the situation. "Hey, Grissom," he said calmly, coming around the bank of lockers Grissom was surveying blankly. "You got a second?"
"No."
"Too bad," Nick said flatly, and pushed against Grissom's shoulder, forcing the older man to step backward and sit heavily on the bench behind him. "You need to listen to me, ok? I don't particularly care what Sara said to you, or what you said to Sara, or what your gay Martian one-eyed lover said to you, or whatever else might have happened; I'm just here to tell you that you've got to give up the junkyard dog act."
Grissom said nothing for a long second. "Junkyard dog?" he finally asked emotionlessly.
"Yes. As in, you're snapping at anyone who comes near you, whether they're bringing you a bone or a beating." He eyed Grissom, checking for a reaction, but saw none. "Work with me here, Gris. We're still a team, no matter who's here and who's not. You can't go around not talking to two of the team members – and probably a third after I'm finished in here – and expect us to still be an effective group. Like it or not, you're the boss and we're the followers. If you're not willing to keep up the interpersonal supports we all have, then we're screwed."
Grissom sighed. "Nick, this is not the end of the world. I'm just having a bad night, is all."
"Try telling that to Catherine. She's afraid you're never going to trust her again, even though she didn't do anything wrong to begin with. Try telling that to Warrick. He thinks you're never even going to speak to him again, just because he told you you need to quit smoking." Nick fixed him with a piercing look. "Like I said, I don't give a shit what's going on between you and anyone else; all I'm interested in right now is being able to do my job, and I can't do that when this whole place is so tense that I'm afraid it's going to shatter any second."
"Then go do your job and stop harassing me. I'll be fine; I'm just having a bad night. Drop it."
Nick looked at Grissom for a few seconds, waiting some reaction, any reaction. There was none, and he sighed. "Fine, Gris. I'm going. But just keep what I said in mind. We need you."
Grissom stood outside his townhouse three hours later, smoking his fifth cigarette of the night. Or day. Or whatever it was; he didn't exactly care enough to keep track. Inhaling the smoke deeply, he leaned against the rough brick wall and considered the events of the night.
Ok, so maybe he'd been an asshole to people tonight. Everyone was entitled to a bad day every now and then; it wasn't like his being angry with Catherine was going to bring about a nuclear winter. She was moody too; it wasn't like she was always Miss Sunshine.
And Warrick, well, he should have known better than to try to try to give his boss orders about what was good and bad. If Grissom wanted to smoke three packs a day, he would, no matter what anyone said.
Strangely enough, he wasn't angry with Nick, despite the dressing-down the younger man had given him. Grissom supposed that the lack of anger was due to Nick's explicitly saying that he didn't care about who said what to whom. Whether it was the truth or not (and he suspected it really wasn't), it made him feel better to think that there was at least one person in the lab who didn't think they were living in a soap opera.
Grissom sighed heavily, then coughed as the sigh met the mouthful of smoke he'd just inhaled. With a frown, he snuffed out his cigarette against the wall and dropped it into the nearest "butt bin" the complex had provided.
Nick had been right, at least partly. He couldn't go on being a bear to everyone who came near him, no matter how much he might want to. He *was* the boss, and he had to try to set some sort of example. To be able to do that, he needed to work out this latest wrinkle in his personal life, as distasteful a task as he found it to be. Or at least, try to work it out . . .
From: Gil Grissom grissomg@nevadaonline.com
Date: Thursday, August 7th, 2003 9:18 A.M.
To: Sara ssidle@hotmail.com
Subject: Re: (no subject)
Sara,
Well, it sounds like you're having a good time in your new position. I'm glad to hear that you get along with your coworkers and that you've found a protégé. Every good master must have one. I'm sure you're also happy that your male CSIs are all attractive and your age, as that must make working and developing good relationships with them quite easy. It's a good sign that you realize that your CSIs are not the same people as the people you knew here; I know that the human instinct is to try to make such connections to make oneself more comfortable, but it seldom turns out for the better.
I want to caution against you trying to play matchmaker, though. Perhaps Sophie and Jack are alike and perhaps they might eventually become a couple, but as I'm sure you've noticed over the years, relationships between two CSIs, especially with a large age gap between them, are unlikely to work. Again, I strongly suggest that you abandon any plots you might be making for the two of them.
I'm glad to hear that you're, uh, "proud" of me, Sara; I always enjoy emotional validation from my peers. I hope you're settling in well to your new job and your new surroundings. Have you found an apartment yet?
Well, it's just about my bedtime, so I'll say goodnight, or good morning, or whatever you call it these days.
Grissom
He clicked the "send" button without pausing to re-read what he'd written. He knew it wasn't as warm a missive as he usually sent her, but he didn't much care. Grissom was not in a good mood, and he felt no need to pretend he was in his communication to Sara.
Ten minutes later, as he was setting his alarm clock in his bedroom, his computer alerted him to a new e-mail.
From: Sara ssidle@hotmail.com
Date: Thursday, August 7th, 2003 9:28 A.M.
To: grissomg@nevadaonline.com
Subject: ??!!
Grissom,
What the fuck was that?
Sara
Grissom stared at the screen. What the hell did she think she was doing, cursing at him when all he'd done was send her a perfectly good e-mail?
From: Gil Grissom grissomg@nevadaonline.com
Date: Thursday, August 7th, 2003 9:31 A.M.
To: Sara ssidle@hotmail.com
Subject: Re: ??!!
"That" is what is commonly known as an e-mail, Sara. Was there something wrong with the transmission, that you were unable to determine that?
Grissom
There. That ought to show her.
From: Sara ssidle@hotmail.com
Date: Thursday, August 7th, 2003 9:40 A.M.
To: grissomg@nevadaonline.com
Subject: Re: Re: ??!!
Don't give me that bullshit. You just sent me the coldest e-mail ever, and you want to pretend nothing's wrong with that? What the hell, Grissom? Yesterday you wanted to be my best friend; today I don't even deserve a full-length e-mail, let alone one that sounds like you give a shit about anything or anyone I told you about?
You can be as pissy as you want, but I want an explanation about *why* you're being such a bitch.
She hadn't bothered to sign this e-mail, and Grissom stared at the screen. HE was the one being a bitch? Him? He wasn't the one who'd just gone off on a rant about nothing. He wasn't the one who was hardly even using complete sentences. What the hell did she want from him, anyway? God, he needed a cigarette.
Ten minutes later his computer was shut down and he was back outside his house, sucking down smoke like it was his job in life.