A/N: Horribly, horribly late, I know. I promise the next chapter will be up within a week, two tops. Forgive me?

And thanks so much for all the lovely reviews. I didn't reply to them all like I usually do, but I wanted ya'll to know I appreciate them. Thanks to Sunset, Greggo Maniac, and Chickie Baby for the wonderful beta work. I'd be so lost without you three.

Chapter Twenty: Showdown

He knew!

Catherine was caught by complete and total surprise. She looked away, unprepared to deal with…this. Her eyes alighted on white everywhere they landed in the brightly lit hospital room. White walls, white bed sheets, white tiles on the floor. Even the medical machinery was white, save for the neon green peaks and valleys of her heart monitor. The room's nineteen-inch television, mounted on the wall across from the bed, featured a blank screen and black plastic shell, lending to the monochromatic scheme.

She focused on the room's only true splash of color, a picture hanging on the wall to the right of the bed. The print, pale pink frame shining dully in the florescent lighting, featured a lakefront at sunset. She stared at it transfixed. The vivid reds and oranges of the burning sun proving an absorbing contrast to the pale and dark blues of the water. The soft pinks and deep purples of the evening sky harmonized with the greens and tans of the sand grasses and cattails. Overall, it was a beautiful print, calm and serene, and as she gazed at it she steeled herself for whatever was about to come.

The room had grown quiet after her initial greeting, but now Warrick spoke up, clearing his throat. "How're you feeling?" he asked, his tone low and calm, reminding Catherine of that brief period before a thunderstorm.

She gave a small one-shouldered shrug, her fatigued muscles making the movement much more of a strain than it should have been. She paused, considering her words carefully. Deciding to be straightforward, because there was no point in doing otherwise, she said, "We're alive, in pretty good shape. That's enough for me."

She'd watched his eyes as she spoke, gauging his reaction. He nodded slightly, but other than that there was nothing. His expression was passive, betraying no hints of what was going on inside his head. Catherine felt a pang. Usually, she could read him but now, she felt a distance…a chill...between them. And it scared her to think just how much that bothered her.

She realized she was holding her breath and forced herself to breathe slowly, taking shallow, even breaths as the silence stretched between them. She finally let out a sigh, dropping her gaze to her hands where they lay limply in her lap.

When she looked up, she met his gaze with more bravado than she really felt; the fact that his bright and expressive eyes were now painfully flat and hard was playing on her already frayed nerves. She swallowed a lump that had formed in her throat, and prayed her voice stayed steady. "I…I was going to tell you, Warrick," she said, her voice soft, but stable. "Tonight, actually. I know I should've done it sooner, but I…panicked, I guess…" her voice trailed off and she gave another small shrug. She watched him, annoyed by the tears that were making themselves a nuisance as they threatened to slide down her cheeks.

The muscle of his jaw twitched slightly, and his eyes flashed with something she was hard-pressed to name. There was a short pause before he finally nodded. "That's what you had wanted to tell me earlier? That you were pregnant? And the baby's mine?"

She nodded and looked at him. "Yeah. Then Grissom sent you on that kidnapping, and he wasn't exactly in a waiting mood. And now, here we are…" Catherine closed her eyes, the reality of it all hitting hard. She gave a tired sigh and leaned back into her pillows.

Warrick had a billion questions. But he looked at her, really looked at her, for the first time since entering the room. The black eyes, courtesy of a broken nose, were a dusky purple against her sallow complexion, her already fair skin ashen. The flesh-toned bandages holding together the gash on her forehead stood out in stark contrast, the skin around the wound an angry, irritated red.

He watched the shaky rise and fall of her chest, her bruised and battered body propped against the hospital issue pillows. And he felt like a complete jerk.

His anger and frustrations were valid but his behavior was hardly justifiable. This was neither the time nor the place for him to be demanding answers, even if the questions were legitimate. Catherine was recovering from surgery and he was behaving as a brute.

The doctor's words came flooding back to him, clear and chastening: "Try not to over-stimulate her…"

Disgusted with himself, Warrick sighed, and in a few quick strides was at her bedside. His questions could be answered later. Right now, he needed to be there for Catherine. Nothing more, and sure-as-hell nothing less.

Catherine had opened her eyes at his sigh and had pensively watched his approach. She was unable to keep the wariness, fatigue and a pain that had nothing to do with her injuries from showing in her gaze, and now it was Warrick's turn to feel a pang.

Surprised that the expressionless mask had been replaced with concern and compassion, Catherine began to speak. "Warrick, I—"

"Hey," he said softly, with a small shake of his head and slight smile. "Don't worry about it, okay? You just focus on getting better, all right? Right now, everything else…doesn't matter."

She scanned his eyes, seeking explanation for this sudden change in emotion. Finding none, but relieved nonetheless, she nodded.

Warrick picked up the hand nearest him and, his thumb trailing the back of her hand, leaned forward, pressing a kiss to her forehead between bandage and brow.

Her lids fluttered closed at the contact and when she opened them they immediately sought his. She saw no hint of the frustration she knew he must be feeling, no trace of the doubts and questions she knew lingered somewhere in his mind. Instead, there was just the compassion and concern, and a tenderness that had tears prickling the backs of her eyes.

She swallowed hard, and parted her lips to speak, but was unsure of what she wanted to say.

Warrick smiled. "We'll have plenty of time to talk later, Cath, okay?" He gave her hand a squeeze and glanced at the door, and turned back with a grin. "Besides, Lindsay'll have my head if I leave her out there for too much longer."

Catherine chuckled softly, the sound husky and low, though not from drugs or tubes this time. "Okay."

Warrick held her gaze a moment longer before giving her hand a final squeeze and turning to the door. As he approached the door, Catherine blinked away the tears she knew lingered in her eyes and took a deep breath.

Warrick pulled open the door and stuck his head into the hall. "Is there a Lindsay Willows out here?" he asked, purposefully overlooking the teen.

"Warrick," she groaned. "Stop playing around. Can I come in now or what?"

"I dunno," he paused. "I'm gonna have to see some I.D." Catherine could practically see the eye roll.

"Warrick!"

He chuckled. "Alright, alright. I'll get back to you about the I.D. thing later. Come on in."

Lindsay tentatively stepped into the room, and, after shooting Warrick a baleful look, she took one look at her mother and flew to her side.

Warrick watched the two engage in a gentle embrace, happy tears trailing down both their faces. He smiled at the image of mother and daughter before quietly leaving the room, pulling the door shut behind him.

-x-

The next few days' shifts were abuzz with news of Catherine, the accident, and, of course, the baby. Now that it was clear that Catherine was going to be just fine, speculation turned to one simple topic: Who was the daddy? The entire lab, minus five key individuals, was alive with theories, and the rumor mill was going full tilt.

Of course, the five abstainees were Grissom, Sara, Nick, Warrick, and, strangely enough, Greg Sanders.

Grissom figured that it was none of his business, and he'd never much been one for guesswork anyway. He followed the evidence, not baseless, inane theories. He had a lab to run and didn't see the necessity, or intelligence, of mindless speculations. Besides, he knew that Catherine would let them all know when and if she wanted. That was how Catherine operated. Always had, always would.

Sara had no time for the lab rats and their gossip, no matter how often Hodges, or Archie, or Bobby tried to get her to voice an opinion. And she told them as much, but the truth was that she was preoccupied with her own dilemmas. The least of her concerns was who'd fathered Catherine's child. No, she was more worried if the knowing looks Nick kept sending her were going to get the rumor-mill started on her. The looks, the smiles, the double entendres…the fact that she grinned like an idiot whenever he was around…All of this was troublesome. But if she'd put her mind to the question of 'who?' she probably would've been able to figure it all out.

Nick, who suspected he already knew the answer to the million dollar question, was 99.9 sure of it, was simply amused. Watching everyone else go nuts was horribly entertaining. What's more, he was having too much fun tormenting one Sara Sidle to pay much attention to lab gossip. Ever since that first night at the hospital Sara hadn't been quite sure how to act around him, and considering how she'd hounded him for nearly a week and a half about Warrick and Catherine after the case at the Bellagio, he thought it due time for her to suffer a little, if for completely different reasons.

Warrick…Well, Warrick already knew who the father was, which meant he had no need for speculation, did he? Even if he had seen fit to add or redirect certain rumors, he was a bit more preoccupied with getting together some very important paper work. Warrick was fast finding that, unfortunately, it was a lot harder to get divorced than hitched in this town. However, it was his reluctance to get involved in the sport of speculation that was the catalyst for, of all people, Greg finding out.

The revelation went like this:

Warrick, Nick and Greg had been the lucky CSI's to draw a case that was not so much hard to solve, as it was hard to put together. This was mainly because the idiot drunk who served as their only eyewitness was, well, an idiot drunk. His accounts of the events changed depending on just how much he'd had to drink. Nick was just waiting for pink elephants to make their way into the every changing tale of the bank heist.

So, instead of relying on Mr. Hennessey (the ironies of life never ceased to amuse Greg), they were going at it the old fashioned way—lay it all out on the table and see if the evidence spoke to you. In other words, piece by tedious, paper-worked piece.

"You'd think that the bank manager would cooperate more. I can't believe what we had to go through to get these security tapes," Nick groused, heaving an exasperated sigh as he dropped the stills from the security footage on the table in front of him.

"Well," Greg said, "if you were caught on tape with your pants around your ankles and a transvestite named Sally under you desk, while some guys robbed you blind right outside your office, would be eager to let it get out? Especially if you had a wife and two kids?"

Nick nodded an amused if slightly bemused smirk on his face. "Point taken."

Greg grinned and returned to the stills of said videos, trying to get a good look at the perps. So far no luck.

The room was relatively silent as they poured over the stills and reports that littered the table. After about fifteen minutes, Greg sat back and sighed. "I'm getting nothing, a whole lot of it."

Nick was hunched over the table and didn't look up from the still he was examining. When he spoke his words were slow, as though he wasn't putting much thought into them. "C'mon Greggo, this is the fun part. Who doesn't like staring at grainy black and whites for hours on end?"

Greg snorted, "Yeah. Right. And Hoffa's my uncle."

Nick cracked a grin, but Warrick didn't seem to have heard anything they'd said.

Greg whistled, trying to get his attention. "You-hoo, Warrick? You in there, man?"

Warrick looked up, his expression slightly confused. "Wha?"

Greg shrugged. "I was just wondering if you were still with us." He tipped his head forward, towards the report Warrick held in his hand. "You've been looking at that page for fifteen minutes. Either you found something you ain't telling us about, or you completely zoned for a while."

Warrick sat back and let out a sigh of his own, running his hand across his face. "Yeah, sorry. Just a lot going on right now. I got a lot on my mind," he said.

Greg nodded. "I say we take a break then."

Nick dropped his picture and squeezed his eyes shut, pressing the digits of his left hand to his sockets. "Works for me. Feels like my eyes are gonna climb out of my skull."

"I'd offer Visine," came a voice from the doorway, and they all looked up to see Hodges standing in the doorframe, "but I don't think that'll help. Sounds more like you need an exorcist."

Nick offered a tight smile. "What's up Hodges?"

Hodges glanced at the sheets of paper he held in his hand, "Well, I've got the results on those white crystals you found at the scene," he paused, and they looked at him expectantly. "It was salt. More specifically, kosher salt. Great for pickles."

They groaned, having expected something a little more ground breaking than sodium chloride.

"Hey, don't get too down. That's only half the news." The three CSI's perked up again, and again, Hodges paused, soaking up the attention. "I ran into Wendy on my way down here, she'd gotten back the results on those blood drops you found in the vault. I offered to bring them down, for her…"

The silence grew, and Warrick, short on patience, said, "Spit it out, Hodges."

Hodges looked affronted. Holding out the sheets he said, "Looks like your gunman is a gun-woman."

Warrick took the sheaf of papers, his expression incredulous. "You're kidding me."

Hodges pulled a pseudo-contemplative face. "Mmmm, I don't think a gunman could be pregnant."

"Wait, wait, wait," Nick said, holding up a hand. "She's pregnant?"

Hodges looked pleased to have been the one to drop the bomb. He watched as Warrick passed the reports to Nick. "Hormones don't lie, Nicky my boy."

"Don't call me Nicky," Nick said, distractedly, his gaze drinking in the information on the papers.

Warrick still looked surprised. "Thanks Hodges," he said, effectively dismissing him.

Hodges nodded, and headed off down the hall.

"Wow," Greg said, breaking a few beats of silence. "Guess it wouldn't matter if Mr. Bacardi—"

"Hennessey, Greg," Nick corrected.

"Whatever. I was saying that even if he was sober, it wouldn't matter. That's the one part of his statement that never changes. He swears he saw three men. He didn't say anything about a woman, and that jives with what we're seeing. I mean they all look like men to me. And none of them look pregnant, either."

"Well, the hormone levels are consistent with her being in the early stages," Nick said, glancing at the report again.

"Yeah, she may not have been showing yet," agreed Warrick.

"True," Greg nodded. He paused before adding, "I would've never guessed that Catherine was pregnant."

There was a moment of silence as they all remembered just how they'd come to know she was expecting.

Greg spoke up again. "That's gotta be rough. The accident, then having surgery and staying in the hospital, with the father nowhere to be found."

Nick saw Warrick tense out of the corner of his eye. Uh-oh. "Greg," he said, his tone a subtle warning to drop it.

Greg appeared not to have heard. "What kind of jerk does that anyway? Especially when there was a chance that Catherine and the baby may not have made it. He has to be one hell of a rat-bastard."

"Greg," Nick said again, this time the warning in his tone quite clear, but Greg was gone, off on a tangent, his brow knit in indignation.

"Jeez, where does he get off anyway? There's no chance I'd abandon a girl if I got her pregnant. That's the coward's way out, anyway. What kind of man does that? Can he even really call himself a man? A real man wouldn't just throw away his kid like that. This guy," Greg paused and shook his head, obviously unable to find the proper description of what this guy was. "What a douche-bag."

"Greg!" Nick tried one final time.

Greg looked up, coming out of his anger-induced trance. "Huh?"

But it was too late. By now, Warrick's already tried patience had snapped.

"Hey Greg, did you ever stop to think that maybe the father does care? That he's doing everything he possibly can for her? Did you think of that? Huh?" He was leaning forward, eyes flashing. "Maybe you just don't know who he is because Catherine doesn't need anymore stress on her plate. Maybe they decided that this was the best way to handle the situation right now. Probably don't want any more people peddling in her business than there already are.

"There's a hell of a lot going on that you don't even know about, so I wouldn't make any snap judgments right now. Might piss somebody off, and that might not be a very good idea. Especially if that somebody was dealing with crap you couldn't even imagine. So just shut up and mind your own damn business." Warrick stood up and strode from the layout room, slamming the door hard enough for the glass to shake and both Nick and Greg to jump.

Greg gaped wide-eyed at the spot where Warrick had been half an instant previous, and Nick blew out a breath and ran a hand through his hair. Neither man noticed the stares of the people who'd witnessed the outburst.

Greg was shocked. Warrick rarely went off, not like that, and when he did it was hardly ever directed at his co-workers. Greg blinked and then, if possible, his eyes grew even wider as realization set in.

"What the hell…" he said, shell-shocked. "It's Warrick…He's the father."

A/N: So, you know what I want right? No? Well, I was sorta hopin' to hear what you're thinkin'…