Author's Note: Thanks for coming back for this second installment of Busted! Thank you for reading the first installment! It's nice to get back into fanfiction! Please review!

Busted! Catherine Willows Discovers GSR

Sara and Gil were finally coming off shift, after having pulled a double with Warrick and Nick. Both were fuming. Not that the murder of a member of the social elite didn't matter; it did, but all four of them would have chosen to pull the double to work on the open case involving a five-year-old girl's murder over the bigwig's. The sheriff made the call, though. Politics had called the prioritizing of the day, and they were all angry at the unfairness of it.

At least the sheriff had allowed Catherine and Greg to work the little girl's case. At first, he refused, saying he needed "all hands on deck" for the celebrity, but he did eventually relent enough to "only" need four of them.

Grissom had wandered back to his office, but Sara, Nick, and Warrick were in the locker room preparing to finally go home.

"Who's looking for a solid ten hours of sleep?" Warrick asked.

"Me, but only after a nice, long shower." Sara responded.

Nick piped in, "Yes to the shower and yes to the sleep, but I need some good old comfort food beforehand; you know, I think I'm gonna call Mio's and have them whip me up a take-out meal."

"Mio's? Why does that not surprise me?" Sara pulled a magnet off her locker door and tossed it to Nick. "Yet again, let me provide the number for you."

Nick smiled and responded in a cheeky voice, "Thanks, Sara. You know, I don't know what I'd do around here without you to take care of me."

They all laughed and Nick continued, "You know, speaking of taking care of me, I've got this whole pile of dirty clothes in my locker- you mind taking that home and washing it for me?"

Sara slapped his arm playfully, slammed her locker door closed, grabbed her bag, and headed out the door saying, "You wish! I guess I'll see you both in way too few hours- go get your beauty sleep!"

On her way out of the building, she popped her head into Grissom's office.

"Hey."

"Hey."

"You know, Nick just mentioned getting take-out, and now I really want Chinese. Mind if I order? Orange chicken with fried rice for you?"

"You know me well," Grissom said, arching an eyebrow and smiling at her. "Are you ordering from Lin's Garden?" Once Sara confirmed that, Grissom offered to pick it up on his way home if she called it in. With that settled, Sara headed out, followed by Gil, just a minute or two later so as not to arouse suspicion about their relationship.

Usually, Grissom got home about ten minutes before Sara, even after leaving the lab a few minutes behind her. This was another strategy to keep their relationship a secret at the lab. Sara always turned right out of the parking garage and headed toward her old apartment. About halfway there, she changed course to Grissom's house, which was hers, too, now.

Today, with Grissom stopping to pick up their take-out Chinese food, they arrived almost at the exact same time. Grissom always parked out front on the street, and Sara always got the garage spot; this was just to be extra sure that if one of their co-workers drove by, they wouldn't see any evidence of Sara being there.

Gil walked in the front door and carried the bag of delicious-smelling take-out to the kitchen table. He set it down as Sara came into the kitchen through the garage door.

"God that smells good." Sara had come up behind him, wrapped her arms around him, and laid her head against his shoulder.

"Better than you, dear," Grissom commented, very bravely at that, because he knew he'd be in trouble for it even if he was only teasing.

Sara released him, affronted because she was too exhausted to know he was teasing. She said, rather crossly, "It's not MY fault that my boss made me crawl through air ducts today."

Grissom turned to face her, palms up in surrender, with a smile on his face. "It sounds like your boss was looking for trouble." He pulled Sara into a hug and said into her hair as he held her close, "You don't smell that bad, dear, and I don't smell much better. Should dinner wait until we're both-"

Sara pulled back from him, and Gil knew what was coming. At the same time, they both yelled, "I call first shower" like a couple of kids. Sara managed to get out of the kitchen quicker than Grissom did, but he caught her shirt at the doorway to their bedroom, pulling her back until he was winning the race to the bathroom. Sara was screeching at him for the duration of their short race with "ladies first" and the like, and Grissom was too busy laughing at her to say anything.

Gil reached the shower first, opened the door, and turned the water on. He turned around to declare his triumph over Sara, and found her discarding the last article of her clothing. Stark naked, she declared, "Ha! I'm ready first, move aside, Slowpoke!" and stepped into the shower. She closed her eyes and began to wet her hair. Suddenly, her water stream was disrupted. "What the? Gil!"

"If you can't beat them, join them, right? Isn't that the saying?"

"Ugh, fine, but stop hogging my water."

"Anything for you, dear."

"Mmm hmm. While you're in here, wash my back?" She turned to face away from him and enjoyed having his strong hands massage her back, even though those hands strayed from her back to her front more than once. "Gil, I'm way too tired and smelly!" Sara swatted Gil's hands from her chest, he responded, "You're not smelly anymore, so?"

"Okay, fine, I'm too tired and HUNGRY, but you're still smelly!" Sara took her turn; she washed Gil's back, and her hands may have strayed to the front a few times.

"Sara," Grissom warned, "You can't do that and expect me to let you out of this shower."

"Is that so?" Sara purred quietly as she reached around to his front again, making "accidental" contact with what was now a raging erection.

Grissom grabbed her. "You. Are. A. Shameless. Vixen." Grissom managed to grunt out as he pushed Sara up against the shower wall and had his way with her.

"But you like that, don't you?" Sara so enjoyed watching his face as his body responded to her teasing and her touch.

A few heated minutes later, Sara turned the water off, and they both began to dry off. When Sara's stomach gave an audible rumble, Gil offered to go re-heat their now cold Chinese food.

As Sara and Gil were enjoying their shower, Catherine stood outside Grissom's front door, banging on the door. After three tries knocking and three tries with the doorbell, Gil had still not answered. "Dammit, Gil, answer your damn door!" Catherine needed him, and it couldn't wait. She had TRIED to get him at the lab every day this past week to get him to sign her conference paperwork so that the LVPD would fund it. She was leaving before the start of the next shift. She couldn't understand why Gil was suddenly leaving the lab before she did once shift ended these days, but hey, it wasn't her fault that she couldn't find him. She'd given him verbal reminders in the halls. She'd stuck post-its to his office door. She'd sent him three emails. If he didn't want her here at his house, then maybe he should have done a better job at being responsible! Clearly, he was home, as his car was parked right there, so why wouldn't he answer the door? Well, she had his spare key for a reason, right? Catherine fished it out of her purse and let herself in.

Catherine stepped inside, and immediately had questions. Chinese take-out? Not very Grissom. Pretty big bag for one guy's food at that. Two sets of keys tossed on the table by the take-out? Who else was here? Catherine stopped snooping to listen. He's showering; that explains why he didn't answer. What was that noise? Catherine's thoughts were running wild. Does he have a girl in there? Gil? Her interest piqued, Catherine perched on the edge of an armchair with a great view of Gil's bedroom door. This was going to be good.

After a few minutes, during which Catherine heard some more rather interesting noises, Gil emerged from his bedroom, wearing nothing but a towel around his waist, with his face turned back toward the bathroom as he asked whoever was in there, "Should I go with the microwave to be faster or do you want me to preheat the ov…" Gil's voice died mid-word as he turned and saw his unwelcome house guest. "Catherine!" Gil admonished, stunned.

Catherine gave him a rather withering look and said, "I wouldn't be here if you had signed this paperwork any of the 36 times I've already asked you to."

Before Gil could answer, Sara emerged, also wearing nothing but a towel, saying, "What did you say? I missed the last… Catherine!" Sara stopped dead in her tracks, hugged her towel a bit closer to her, and looked at Gil with wide eyes. He looked like a fish out of water, and clearly had no idea what to say or do.

Not a fan of being intruded upon, and not caring why exactly Catherine was standing in their living room when she sure as heck wasn't invited to be, Sara felt anger rising in her chest. "Catherine, what the hell? You can't just barge into our house like this!"

"Our house, huh?" Catherine smirked, feeling very little guilt over the situation she had just put two of her friends in. She was enjoying this. "I was under the impression that this was Grissom's house." She turned her face toward Gil. "Care to explain, Gil?"

Grissom was rankled, but tried not to show it as he responded, "Not particularly, Catherine. Hand over those papers."

Gil reached out for papers, keeping one hand tightly on his towel. Catherine kept them out of his reach. With a big smile on her face, she said, "I don't think so. I do have a plane to catch in 6 hours, but I'll cut down the time I'll have with Lindsay to say goodbye a bit shorter to make time for this."

Sara angrily retorted, "What do you mean, this? Frankly, I think it's pretty obvious, and I think you should probably get out of here."

"Can't do, Sara. Grissom has to sign this paperwork so that the lab covers the cost of the conference I'm leaving for tonight. It's not my fault he didn't bother. It seems his priorities might lie outside of the lab nowadays," Catherine said with a meaningful smirk. "Maybe he's had, uh, 'this' on his mind when he should have been keeping up with his paperwork?"

Grissom and Sara both made to retort, but Catherine cut them off. "Why don't the two of you go put some clothes on? We'll talk after. Gil, weren't you just saying you were going to reheat your Chinese? I'll preheat your oven and get your food warmed up for you while you change."

Catherine hadn't been this happy in ages. She had just caught two of the most tight-lipped people in the world in an amazingly compromising position they couldn't possibly talk themselves out of. This was better than any lab gossip she'd ever heard. As Sara and Gil retreated to their bedroom to dress, Catherine pulled out a chair at the kitchen table, sat down, and waited, almost giddy with delight, shaking her head in disbelief. She had always known Sara had a thing for Grissom, and that, if he was honest with himself, he had a thing for her, too, but she NEVER expected him to act on it.

In their bedroom, Sara fumed, and Grissom tried to calm her down. He wasn't particularly thrilled, either, but tried telling Sara that the best way to deal with this would be to act calm, tell Catherine to keep their relationship to herself, sign her stupid paperwork, and send her out the door. Sara continued ranting as she pulled on her sweatpants, and as she straightened up, Gil, who was also now fully dressed, pulled her into a tight hug and whispered platitudes into her hair until she relaxed somewhat. Ready to face their embarrassment at being caught darn-near naked by a coworker, they headed to the kitchen together and sat down as Catherine pulled their Chinese food from the oven.

She grinned. "Hey there, lovebirds." Catherine was having a REALLY hard time keeping a straight face. She had just caught Gil Grissom, the most uptight, emotionless man she knew, darn-near naked with a woman, and not just any woman- Sara! Catherine put their food in front of them and said, "Don't mind me, dig in," as she just managed to keep a laugh from escaping her lips.

Grissom and Sara both glared at Catherine. She did not quail under their angry gazes. Quite the opposite, in fact, she was enjoying this more by the minute and couldn't even manage to pull off a straight face.

"So, you two… anything you want to tell me?"

Grissom looked apologetically at Sara, and, turning to meet Catherine's eyes, Gil said, "Catherine, I think the evidence you've seen in the past 20 minutes is plenty for you to determine that Sara and I are a couple. We-"

Catherine cut him off, excitedly saying, "I can NOT believe this! I never thought I'd see the day when you finally let Sara in! Good for you, girl! How long has this been going on under our noses?"

Sara pursed her lips and her brows furrowed. She was not a fan of sharing this private relationship with the gossip queen herself, even if she was cheering her for finally landing her man- had she really been so pitifully obvious all these years? Did everyone know she loved Grissom?

Grissom answered, "Listen, Catherine, we, uh, don't want this to be public information." He cleared his throat. "This (he made a motion with his hands to indicate Sara and himself together) has been going on under your nose, as you say it, for over two years, so I-"

"TWO YEARS?!" Catherine interrupted! "Oh. My. God. Two whole years, huh?" Catherine grinned again. "You sly dog. I never would have-"

"Catherine, what Gil's trying to say (Catherine registered Sara using Gil's first name, something she'd never heard her use before) is that we don't want you to know. Obviously, we can't help that now that you barged into our home unannounced, but you can't tell anyone, okay? The last thing we need is for Ecklie to move me to a different shift. It's already hard enough finding time to spend together because of all the overtime we both work, but different shifts would mean we'd spend approximately zero minutes at home together."

"Not gonna lie, it's gonna be hard to keep this smile off my face when I see you two at the lab next week when I'm back from my conference, but I'll do my best." Catherine was still grinning like the Cheshire Cat, and Sara made such an exasperated face that Catherine did her best to tone her smile down to a small smirk and said, "Seriously, I get it. No blabbing."

"Catherine?" Gil questioned, and she looked at him and his exasperated face and said again, a little frustrated, "I said I get it, Gil."

"Thank you." Gil finally took his first bite of his now almost cold again orange chicken, and looked at Sara. She shrugged a shoulder, not even knowing how she felt at the moment.

Catherine decided to take pity on them, and handed Grissom the paperwork. He eagerly signed both pages and passed them back to her. Catherine stuck them in her purse, but made no move to leave the kitchen table. She kept looking back and forth between the two of them and shaking her head in disbelief. After a moment's thought, though, she queried, "Should you be doing Sara's evaluations? Don't you think there's a conflict of interest there? You have a cow any time Sam Braun's name is mentioned within 100 yards of me, but you can evaluate Sara? For that matter, how can you work cases together?"

Sara was fuming, but Grissom was actually the more angry of the two of them at the moment. Firmly, aggressively even, Grissom stated, "Catherine, listen to me. YOU told me once to 'get my head out of my ass' with regards to Sara. I did. We have been working together for 6 years now. Before you caught us today, had you any reason to believe that either of us was making inappropriate choices at work or that I have been showing favoritism toward Sara? That I've been dishonest or exaggerated in my praise of her positive qualities? You do remember me promoting Nick over Sara, correct?" Sara glared at Grissom, annoyed to be reminded of that crappy day. Grissom gave her an apologetic look and continued, "Over the course of these past 6 years, both of us have been professionals who do our job well."

"I don't disagree, but now that I can look back on things with this new lens I've just discovered, I think I could point out some moments- I mean, there have been times-"

Grissom interrupted, "But those times you mention have not affected the quality of our work or our relationships with the rest of our team at work, correct?"

Catherine grinned again. "Okay, fine, you got me. I get it, okay? I'm just giving you a hard time. But, you know, I'll be watching now."

Sara muttered, "Watch all you want as long as you keep it to yourself, Cath."

"Cool your jets, Sara. I'm on your side here. I don't object, but I'm going to have fun with this, you know I am." Sara made to interrupt angrily, but Catherine held up her hand and continued, "Sara, listen. Relax. I've turned to both of you at different times for secret-keeping. Sometimes, friends need to do that for each other. I am NOT going to rat you out to Ecklie. Relax." Cath turned toward Gil, "But I do think that you shouldn't be doing Sara's evaluations."

Grissom asked, "What do you propose? I believe I have been fair and accurate with Sara's evals."

Catherine looked pensive for a minute and then said, "I do the evals, but you sign them so no one else knows I'm doing them."

"Well, that'll be just great. Also, please, Cath, continue talking about me like I'm not here."

"Sara, I just think if you're ever caught by Ecklie, which WON'T be because of me, he'd have reason to fire either or both of you over evals. If you're just working cases together, I think the team can vouch for you and make it be a non-issue. You know I'm right, Sara. Ecklie would have your ass fired in two minutes if he got wind that you earned good evaluations via sleeping with the boss."

"Hey!" Sara was irate. "Catherine, how dare you suggest that I, that we, that-"

"Sara." Gil put his hand over hers on the table. "Listen, Catherine has a point. If we are found out, Ecklie would happily assume your evals are bogus because I was influenced by my relationship with you. I think that would be grounds for firing both of us."

"So, you're going to let her have fun giving me crap ratings because I can't do anything about it, knowing that she could blab our secret at any moment?" Sara was affronted.

"Now who's talking like someone's not in the room? Sara, I won't give you 'crap ratings' for fun. I may not always agree with everything you say or do, but that doesn't mean I don't respect your abilities or that I don't trust you. Like I said, Grissom would have to sign them, so he'd read them before signing anyway, so even if I did say something bad, I'd have Gil to deal with before it got signed. I'm just trying to protect you." Catherine was finally not smiling. She looked at Sara with a straight face.

Sara relented. "Okay. Fine. We'll see how this works." Hunger finally made itself heard over Sara's anger, frustration, and embarrassment, so she finally took a bite of her spicy garlic broccoli, only to find that it was cold yet again. She grumbled in frustration. "Giiiiil," she pleaded.

Gil got the hint. It was time to ditch the intruder. "Catherine, would you mind?" He gestured toward Sara and the Chinese food. "We're hungry. And tired. Please?"

Catherine smiled indulgently. "I hear you loud and clear. I'm out. Enjoy your dinner, lovebirds." With that, Catherine laughed again, shook her head in disbelief yet again, and made her way to the door. After opening it and crossing the threshold, she leaned back in and said, "I'm not sure I'll ever get the image of you two looking like deer in the headlights in your bath towels out of my head! Sorry I interrupted a clearly, uh, romantic afternoon," and laughing, she closed the door behind her.