A/N: This chapter's a bit short. Sorry.

Catherine pulled into the driveway of her home; something she was seeing less and less of as time went on, it seemed. Getting out of the car, she checked her watch. It was 5 o'clock, probably the earliest she's been home in weeks. Months, even. It was a shame that she'd have to go back to work in just a couple of hours.

Walking into her house, she walked into the living room, where Lindsay was laying on the couch watching t.v.

"What are you doing home so early?" she asked, still sounding a little stuffed up. She caught a cold somehow, even though it was summer in Las Vegas right now.

"I got off early today," she said, walking to her daughter and kissing her on the forehead. "How are you feeling?"

"Better," she said as her mother walked away into the adjoining kitchen. She turned around to watch her. "How did work go?" she asked.

"Terrible, as usual," Catherine said with a heavy sigh. "Where's grandma at?" she asked, noticing her mother wasn't around.

"She ran to the store really quick," Lindsay said. "I told her I wanted ice cream, and we ran out," she added innocently.

Catherine smirked. Pulling out a packet of instant-make hot chocolate, because she had a weird yearning for some, she turned back to her daughter as she poured the mix into a mug. "Want some hot chocolate?"

"With a giant marshmallow," she said, watching her mother add hot water into her mug. She got another packet of the hot chocolate, and a bag of marshmallows. She dropped one marshmallow into the cup, then walked over to give it to Lindsay.

She took it happily, taking a sip and watching her mother make herself another cup. "If you hate your job so much, why don't you get a new one?"

Catherine forced herself not to sigh heavily. She knew where this was going. Conversations like this usually ended up with them both yelling at each other and Lindsay getting grounded.

"Because, seeing the bad guys get caught in the end makes it worth while."

"How many kidnaping cases do you get," Lindsay asked hesitantly as her mother sat down beside her.

Catherine readjusted herself on the couch so that she faced her daughter, brushing a piece of her blonde hair behind her ear. "A lot. But I haven't been so determined to find the children as I was when I was trying to find you," she said, lowering her head so that she could see eye-to-eye with Lindsay.

Lindsay smiled briefly. "Well you should," she said, turning back to the television. "Because some other kid's mother goes through the same thing you do when their child is taken." And that was the end of it.

Catherine smiled, kissed her daughter on the head, then got up and disappeared into the bathroom. Nights like this were perfect for a hot bath. And someone to share it with, she thought as she shut the door.

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Warrick watched the fax machine as the phone company sent him all of Melissa's outgoing and incoming calls for the last six months, looking through the stack for any visible patterns. Not seeing any at the moment, he set them on the table in the break room and took a look at his pager when it went off. Hodges had something.

He walked down the hallway, glancing at the clock as he passed it. 5:15 p.m. Another couple of days without sleep. The graveyard shift would start in a couple of hours, stifling a yawn, he decided maybe he could take a nap in the break room after he visited Hodges.

"I've identified the substance under the vic's finger nails," Hodges said as Warrick entered the room. "It's skin particles."

"Well I figured that," Warrick said, perhaps a little too irritably. The lack of sleep and Hodges all mixed together made him a bit cranky.

"Well did you figure this?" Hodges said matter-of-factly, handing Warrick a sheet of paper. "The skin particles are female."

Okay, so he hadn't known that. He took a look at the paper, skimming through it. "Thanks Hodges," he said, turning to walk out of the room.

"Come back when you have something to compare it too!" Hodges called after him.

On his way back to the break room, his cell phone rang. He flipped it open.

"Brown."

"Warrick, it's me."

The sound of his wife's voice startled him.

"Hey, baby," he said, shutting the door to the break room after he walked in. "How's everything at your mother's?"

"It's fine," she said. There was a few moments of silence. Neither of them wanted to get to the point of the conversation. Because neither of them knew what to expect from the other.

"Warrick," she sounded frustrated. "You know I love you, but-"

"And you know I love you," Warrick said, sighing heavily. "But I'll make this easy on you, I'll say it. I'm not quite sure if I love you enough."

There was a moment's silence. "Thank you," she said softly, then hung up. Warrick sighed heavily, rubbing his face with his hand. Pushing a few buttons, he dialed another number.

"Hey Dom, it's Warrick Brown. Listen, um, I need some divorce papers."