Harriet refused to speak to Greg for the whole of the week that followed. The ride to and from work was silent and if Greg tried to make small talk, she ignored him completely until about the third day when he gave up trying. If she had DNA results for him, she just handed them to him without a word, he was the DNA tech once, he didn't need the print outs explaining to him. And she showered after she had made sure he was up and in the kitchen.
Bizarrely, things were starting to improve, with Greg not having any opportunity to irritate her; she started to settle in to the lab and felt more at ease but still refused to talk to him. That was until Grissom decided to step in, his size nines quashing any plans she had for not speaking to Greg for the rest of her life.
'Hattie, Grissom wants to speak to you in his office,' Sara said, as she came in to collect some analysis from her.
Sara and Harriet had gotten to know each other well when sitting in the break room and so her nickname which she had let slip, had become the way everyone addressed her now. Everyone except Greg who had given up talking to her at all.
'When?' Harriet replied.
'He said now,' Sara shrugged 'I'm not sure what he wants.'
'Okay, thanks.'
Harriet checked that Monty was in his box before she headed down to Grissom's office. Monty being the tarantula from the case last week. Grissom, being a busy person, had not yet returned to take it to be re-homed so she had unofficially adopted it and given it a name - something that received mixed responses from the other lab workers.
When she reached his office, she discovered that Greg was also there so she waited in the doorway, expecting Grissom to dismiss Greg but instead he instructed her to come in.
'Okay, you two, this has gone on long enough,' Grissom said. 'I expect my staff to behave professionally, whatever their personal differences. I would have expected you to have more integrity than this Harriet.'
She sighed, realising that she had been behaving pretty immaturely.
'But you don't expect me to have any?' Greg asked, suddenly.
Grissom's face looked like thunder, clearly not expecting to be spoken back to.
'I think you just answered that question for yourself!' Grissom snapped 'I want the both of you sort this out when you go home and I expect you to return to work tomorrow at least speaking with a civil tongue!'
Greg sulked but didn't answer back again.
'Yes sir,' Harriet said 'I'm sorry.'
'Now get back to work the both of you and tell Nick and Warrick they can stop wagering as to when you two are going to start speaking again when you see them. I'm sick of the immaturity of the people in this lab!' Grissom was almost shouting at them 'Now get out!'
They didn't need telling twice and they both hastily retreated down the corridor. Harriet glanced at Greg as she turned to go into her lab. He still looked pretty mad as he walked into the break room and slammed the door behind him.
After another silent car journey home, they walked into the apartment to find lots of boxes on the inside of the door.
'What's all this?' Greg said, looking unhappy about his apartment being invaded.
'Oh these are my things, they're late,' Harriet explained. 'Must have been re-directed or something.'
'Brilliant, I hope you're going to sort them out' Greg said.
'I'll put them in my room, sorry to be such an inconvenience,' Harriet said bitterly.
Greg sighed and turned to her.
'Grissom's right we can't go on like this,' he said.
'He meant when we're at work. We don't have to talk here and I'd rather not do this right now. I'm going to put these boxes in my room.'
'Whatever,' Greg said, throwing his keys onto the breakfast bar.
Harriet stubbornly picked up a box that was incredibly heavy and half-stumbled, half-waddled to her room and put it down in the corner. She returned to the living room as Greg was taking a bottle of red wine out of the fridge and pouring himself some. He looked at her, she held her head in the air, indignantly, and picked another box up and strutted back into her room.
Five boxes later and she was sweating and out of breath. Greg just sat at the breakfast bar with his wine, watching her, clearly trying to make her give in and ask for help. Talking to him might have been in her best interests but she refused to cave and carried another three boxes into her room before kicking a fourth one out of frustration.
'Will you stop looking at me?' she shouted. 'It's bad enough I have to live in this stupid apartment with you without having to look at you.'
'What is your problem?' Greg shouted back 'I'm sat here, not doing a thing and again you're bitching at me.'
'Well if you hadn't been such an ass things would not be like this!'
'It's not my fault that you can't take a joke,' Greg said. 'As soon as you walked into the crime lab you took a dislike to me. Why the hell are you so uptight all the time?'
'Uptight? UPTIGHT?' Harriet roared at him, feeling hot tears forming in her eyes 'you have no idea what my life has been like. You swan around the lab like you're the coolest, funniest guy on the planet without a care in the world and expect everyone else to be as happy as you. Well, for some people, it isn't all that rosy for them and sooner or later one day you will learn for yourself.'
'Of course I know what life is like, I'm a CSI for crying out loud, I see the shit in the world every single day so don't go giving me all this about how I don't care about other people because if you took the time to know me instead of spending all your time scowling at me you might get to see that!' Greg shouted.
Harriet sighed and flopped down onto the floor. She drew her knees up to her chest and covered her eyes, dissolving into tears. This had gotten out of hand and she couldn't take anymore; she was so tired and angry.
'I'm sorry,' she heard Greg say from in front of her.
He had moved over to where she was sitting on the floor. She looked up and wiped her eyes, trying to control her sobbing.
'It's o.k. It's not your fault,' she said, seeing that he looked truly remorseful.
'You wanna talk about it?' he asked, putting a hand on her shoulder.
Her lip trembled and more tears spilled out as she shook her head. She swept them away fiercely, trying to be stronger.
'Seriously, tell me, what is this about? You're obviously keeping something bottled up,' he looked at her sternly as if to say he wasn't taking no for an answer.
Harriet swallowed another sob and looked at the floor.
'Back home in Manchester I was a top level forensic investigator, about the equivalent of your CSI three over here,' she said.
'Really? But you're so young,' Greg said.
'I'm almost twenty-seven; I'm not that young but yeah. I only spent a year in DNA before I became an investigator and I moved up the scale pretty quickly.' She explained.
'What are you, a genius?' Greg looked shocked.
'According to my IQ but I don't really agree,' Harriet said. 'I solved a lot of cases that a lot of top people couldn't.'
'That's cool,' Greg said 'but why did you come over here, I don't get it, sounds like you were doing really well.'
Harriet looked up at the ceiling; she couldn't believe she was going to tell him this.
'I couldn't solve the one case that mattered,' she said, finally, feeling more tears fall down her face.
Greg frowned at her, puzzled, but didn't say anything so she continued.
'My mum was murdered and I guess the killer must have been even more of a genius than I'm supposed to be. I begged them to let me work the case, told them my judgement wouldn't be affected and I held it together but I couldn't find anything to lead me to a killer. I completely let her down,' Harriet sighed as more tears fell silently down her face.
Greg reached over and pulled her into a hug. She sat there and sobbed into his shoulder for a while.
'I'm so sorry, that had to have been difficult for you but you can't blame yourself. You didn't kill her,' he said, rubbing her back comfortingly.
'I know,' Harriet said 'But I just lost all desire to be out in the field anymore, it reminded me too much of what had happened and I – '
'You just wanted to get out of it?' Greg finished for her.
Harriet pulled away and looked at him, surprised.
'That's exactly right. I take back what I said about you not understanding people.'
'Yeah well, I almost died in an explosion at the lab a couple of years back. That's part of the reason I wanted to become a CSI. I didn't have to spend as much time in the lab.' Greg confessed, avoiding eye contact with her.
'Greg, I'm so sorry. I got you totally wrong.' Harriet said.
'Ah, forget it,' Greg said, standing up and offering a hand to help her up which she took. 'Fancy a drink?'
'Yeah, I think I need one.'
'Coming right up,'
Harriet walked over to the sofa and sat down whilst he fetched his glass and another for her. He came to sit beside her, bringing the bottle.
'I figured we could both use more than one glass,' he smiled, holding up the bottle.
'Good thinking,' Harriet said, and took a large swig from the glass.
'So, do you think we're cool now?' Greg asked, taking a sip from his glass. 'I'm sorry for being an ass by the way.'
'Yeah we're cool, fresh start tomorrow sound good?' Harriet suggested.
'Well, it'll keep Grissom happy.'
Harriet smiled and took another drink from her glass.
A/N - aaah. I couldn't have them hating each other for twenty eight chapters could I now? Hope you're still enojying it. There will be a bit of angst coming up in a couple of chapters time just to warn you. Thank you for reading this far!