DISCLAIMER: Don't own it... No money made... Just for fun and enjoyment.
SUMMARY: Sequel to Displacement. The CSI team and their recently hired coroner Stephanie are back to work solving cases, sharing companionship and generally making their way through the dire world of criminal investigation with humor and friendship... This one will show the development of the relationship between Grissom and Sara and there should be some other surprises down the road as well. Romance/Drama/Angst/Mature Situations
RATING: M for Mature - I'm starting this one out at "M", since we won't be waiting quite so long for the smut this time out ;) There are also sprinkinglings of language here and there.
A/N: Do you remember a time when Gil and Catherine were friends? It's been a while, I know, but I miss it, so here it is again.
REVIEWS: I am always looking for ways to improve my writing, and your reviews let me know if I am hitting my mark. Thank you in advance for the time you take to review this story.
Chapter 8
The Layout Room table held an unusual amount of paper clutter for the start of a shift, and with the two senior most members of the shift pouring over the piles, a normal person would think it was a high profile case. However, the lab had been dead for two days, and there were no more open cases. The other members of the shift were "running off the board" in hopes of sparking possible leads on their old unsolved cases, but that left other paperwork to the two seniors. It was evaluation time again, and it never ceased to amaze Grissom exactly how much paperwork was involved in telling someone whether or not they were doing a good job.
"Now I know why you always hated doing evaluations." Catherine dropped another file folder onto the stack at her left side. "Has there always been this much paperwork for these things?"
Grissom sat up from the stack he was going through and put on his pensive expression, "No, I actually think there are fewer forms now." Catherine stared at him with her mouth agape. "There's just more documentation to weed through since Ecklie's been around."
Catherine chuffed at his final response, "Figures… Self serving little pri-…"
"Ah, I see you two are putting the time to good use." Ecklie stood at the doorway with a prideful pose, cutting Catherine off from finishing her thought.
"Was there something you needed, Conrad?" Grissom spoke normally, but the man's name was spoken with disdain practically dripping off of it.
He crossed his arms over his chest, leaned against the doorjamb and shrugged, "Oh nothing… I just needed to grab something from my office and thought I would stop by to check on the troops."
"Really?" Grissom questioned the man from over the top of his glasses.
"Not everything is an inquisition, Grissom." He turned to walk away from the Layout Room, but not before calling out over his shoulder. "You really should see someone about that persecution complex of yours."
Catherine sat there in disbelief, gritting her teeth through her anger. When she was certain Ecklie was far enough down the hall, she shook her head in disgust, "Gil, I don't know how you can sit there and take shit from that fucking weasel!"
"Catherine." Grissom looked down his nose at her, showing his disapproval in her choice of language.
"Sorry, Gil, but if I were you, I would've crammed my fist down his sniveling throat years ago. It was bad enough when he was just an incompetent CSI, but now he's taking the whole lab down to his level." Grissom cocked his head to side in a question and Catherine asked, "You haven't heard?"
Grissom shook his head and took off his glasses, "Heard what?"
Catherine leaned back in her chair in disbelief, but as she thought about it, she should have realized that Gil never paid that much attention to accolades, so why she thought he would know about the lab rankings report was a mystery. "Gil, didn't you wonder why the director, the sheriff AND the Mayor changed the staff scheduling around here last year? Or why Under-Sheriff McKeen has been camped out in Ecklie's office once a week for the last few months?"
Grissom shrugged, "Well, I know there have been some inquiries into a few budgeting discrepancies. The first one coming after I submitted that proposal you and Sara ran with in response to that whole dispatch thing." That information shocked Catherine, and it showed on her face, but he continued, "And I know that quality control has been an issue on the day shift. You and I have spent enough time at the request of the D.A.'s to know about that one." Grissom paused, trying to figure out what it was that Catherine had been referring to, and when he ran all the information through his thought process, he hit upon the answer, "Just how far did we sink in the rankings?"
Catherine should have been used to the way his brain worked, but he always managed to surprise her. "Enough to lose some major grant money." He nodded at hearing that, and she continued, "Sixth; behind NYC AND Miami-Dade."
"Let me guess; Quantico, L.A., San Francisco, New York City, Miami-Dade?" Catherine shook her head and laughed at his list: it was dead on.
"How can you live in your own head so much, and yet pull off something like that?"
Grissom smiled, in that crooked, knowing way he had and then shrugged, "Elementary deduction, my dear lady… Quantico has too much money to not be in first every year. I'm surprised they even consider them for the list anymore. L.A. has been campaigning for second since we knocked them off, why else would they have been recruiting the way they had?"
Catherine was not sure what he meant by that, "What kind of recruiting?"
"There isn't a person hired there in the last two years that was any lower than the top five percent of their class, and more than sixty percent of them were once listed as child prodigies. Stephie said she felt like she was at summer camp for Einsteins half the time." Grissom was actually being jovial, but Catherine was still shocked that he had that information.
"There's a frightening prospect… A whole building filled with young Grissom's and Sara's and Greg's running around." She shuddered to add effect to her statement.
"Well, anyway… The director in San Francisco is a friend, so I know what they're capable of, and you gave me the rest of the list." Grissom simply sat back in his chair and smugly nodded to Catherine as she chuckled.
"Fine, but it doesn't bother you at all that you helped to make this the number two lab in the country and it's falling apart around you?" Catherine also sat back in her seat and crossed her arms over her chest.
Grissom pursed his lips and thought over her question a moment before answering, "Not really… But I am rather proud of the fact that the efforts of our team are the only thing keeping it in the top ten." Catherine could only smile at his answer, because she knew it to be the truth. And one day, she hoped the powers that be would figure it out as well.
