Title: Dinner Gone Bad
Summary: While taking Linds out for lunch one day, Catherine sees a couple rather...engaged. A few weeks later, she meets the woman, who's introduced to her as Mrs. Warrick Brown. The man in the restaurant? Not Mr. Brown. CW
Rating: T
Disclaimer: If I owned CSI, I wouldn't be putting a disclaimer, nor would Tina have ever shown up on the show.
Author's Note: This is one of the scenarios I thought up in regards to the whole Tina/The Ex thing. I don't know what his name is so we'll just not write his name in here ;-) Anyway, here's the fic!
Dinner Gone Bad
"Hey, Cath, you coming for lunch? Brass is payin' today!" Nick called to his blonde co-worker down the hallway. She turned around and waved at him, replying,
"Nope, sorry, me and Linds are going out for lunch." Nick laughed.
"Good luck with that!" Catherine grinned and headed out the door to pick up her daughter from school.
-----
Fifteen minutes later, the two walked into the Burger King closest to Lindsay's school. Heading toward their usual table, Lindsay suddenly stopped.
"Ugh, Mom, not there, that girl and her boyfriend are way too close for comfort." Looking in the direction Lindsay was pointing, Catherine noticed that one table over, there was indeed a couple that shouldn't have been in public at that moment. The woman was practically on her boyfriend's lap, and from where Catherine was standing, they definetely needed to get a room.
"They need to get a room," muttered Lindsay, who walked in the opposite direction to a table next to the window. Catherine stared at her for a second, wondering whether Lindsay was watching too much TV. Shaking her head, she followed her daughter over to the table, marvelling at how different thirteen-year-olds were in the year of 2005.
Throughout the course of Catherine and Lindsay's meal, the couple on the other side of the room barely got any farther apart. Other patrons of the restaurant generally looked the other way, not really caring. Catherine, not wanting Lindsay here longer than she had to be, told her that if she was finished within ten minutes, she could have an ice cream on the way back to school.
They were out in five minutes.
-----
Over the next week, Catherine completely forgot about the couple she'd seen in Burger King. The week was pretty busy, even by Vegas standards. One night, she was sitting at the break room table with Nick, discussing their latest case, when the door opened. Not looking up from her casefile, since Greg had already been in and out about ten times and she figured it was just him again, she was surprised to hear Warrick's deep voice.
"Hey guys, someone I want you to meet!" He sounded a little excited and a lot nervous, Catherine was surprised to hear. He must be worried what they would think of whoever it was- though Catherine had a good guess that it was Tina, Warrick's wife. She looked up to see that, indeed, the person Warrick was holding in his arms was being looked at with the same affection they'd all seen in his eyes when he talked about her.
"So, Mrs. Brown! I hope our 'Rick has been treating you right!" Nick said to Tina in welcome. She grinned.
"Of course. Couldn't be happier!" Catherine, who had been dreading meeting 'The Wife' since she'd found out Warrick was married, decided to play it nice. She stood up and walked over to Tina, holding out her hand with a smile.
"I'm Catherine. I'm really happy for you and Warrick, he's a great man," she said, looking directly in Tina's eyes. What she wasn't expecting was a sudden flash of recognition from seeing her up close.
This was the woman she and Lindsay had seen at the restaurant!
And the man she'd been with...well. Catherine believed- though she'd never admit it out loud- that she'd spent enough time staring at Warrick to recognise him, even from the back and while he was...otherwise engaged.
Mrs. Warrick Brown was cheating on her husband.