Falling for the Wrong One
Rating: Teen (May advance to Mature later on)
Disclaimer: I don't own CSI or any of the characters.
Summary: They were kinda, sorta friends... at least... she hoped.
Pairing: Gil Grissom/Catherine Willows
A/N: Here's chapter two! Hope you all enjoyed so far! Sorry for any grammar mistakes!
She sees him in passing throughout the lab, but never really gets to talk to him for another month. It's the end of October by now, and it's as if the crime has been non-stop in the city. He only barely remembers his lunch, packed away in the break room refrigerator, and decides to take a break on his current paperwork before he goes cross-eyed.
He's sure everyone else has eaten at this point, so late in the day, which is why he's surprised to see her there, sitting at the table with her own lunch in front of her.
She looks up in time to see him coming through the door, a spaghetti noodle hanging from her perfect lips.
"Time gets the best of everyone, so it seems." She watches as he quickly removes his food, heats it in the microwave. When the timer goes off, he pulls the steaming plastic container from the microwave and makes for a swift exit. "I don't bite. I'm not like your four-legged friends," she calls out, stopping him in his tracks. He turns. "Sit," she says, nodding towards the chair in front of her. Bold move for her to speak to her supervisor like that, but she figured no one else ever had… and that he wouldn't know what to do about it, anyway. They were kinda, sorta friends… at least… she hoped.
He sits. Across from her at the glass table. She peeks at his left-overs. Whatever it is, it looks delicious. And smells it, too.
"You cook that yourself," she asks, a mouth full of spaghetti as she points to his lunch. He's fighting with the packaging of the silverware, courtesy of the crime lab.
"I'm not completely inept." The chicken marsala is complete with sauteed mushrooms, wine sauce, and over a bed of rice. He stirs the contents of the container around, and when he looks up, smirks at her fixed stare. "Would you like to try some," he offers, holding out his leftovers for her. The blush that takes over her chest doesn't go unnoticed by him.
"Oh, no- I-"
"Please. I insist." He offers up his untouched fork, and she reluctantly grabs a full bite of everything on the plate; rice, chicken, sauce, mushrooms. "Another opinion is always welcome." She brings the fork to her mouth, savors the taste of the home cooked meal, and nearly moans. This was so much better than anything she had ever cooked. "Thoughts?"
"I don't believe you cooked that yourself, firstly," she says, after thoughtfully chewing the food. She hands the plastic fork back to him, fully expecting him to throw it away and grab a new one, but instead… he takes a bite for himself. "Secondly, you'll be packing my lunch from now on," she says playfully.
"If you'd like. I tend to have more leftovers than I need," he says seriously, and she gapes at him. Before she can say anything, though, her pager goes off.
"Ah, I've gotta get back." She shoves whatever food she can into her mouth, as gracefully as possible, and cleans up her mess. "Give me the recipe," she says as she leaves the room, pointing to his leftovers. He smiles, shakes his head, and finishes his lunch in silence.
And when Halloween comes along, they become busier than ever. She bounces back between the photo lab and evidence logging, barely showing her face around the lab. But as always, there's a break and everyone agrees that it couldn't have come a moment sooner. For once in a long time, the cases are solved, the murders are behind bars, and they're free to spend their Halloween to themselves. Some of the other lab technicians are going to a costume party, the older investigators who have a family are rushing home to see their children trick-or-treat, and they… they have no where to go, and no one else to be with.
She roams the hallways, nodding a welcome to the graveyard shift as they mumble under their breaths about what a night it'll be.
Rounding a corner, his office comes into view. His door it open, it's always open, and he sits behind his desk, head stuck in paperwork. He's only been here a little over a month, and still hasn't quite found his place among his team. It takes everything in her to keep her mouth shut when the lower level CSIs come into her lab, hounding her for results; talking about him while they wait.
"I still don't know why they didn't just promote you to his position," Adam, a hot-shot transfer from Reno, says. He's talking to another CSI, a level II, named Michael.
"Beats me. Brass says he's got the experience and the credentials. It's no skin off my ass. He'll trip sooner or later."
"He's just so… weird."
She could feel herself growing irritated with their presence, and with their topic of conversation. That was the problem with people around here; why the crime lab could never keep anyone worth keeping, because of pretentious assholes like this.
So she turns sharply, and holds the manila folder of lab results up to Adam. But before he can grasp them firmly, she lets them fall to the table.
"Oops," she says, eyes locked dead on the older man. "I've been so clumsy today. How… weird." Men like him have never intimated her, and they never would.
It had only happened a day or so after her encounter with Gil, one that left her to believe he wasn't as 'weird' as everyone else had made him seem to be. He was quiet, he worked hard, he stayed out of workplace drama- he was just himself. And since then, she had a new found protectiveness over him. Call it guilt, call it remorse, call it what you wanted, but she drawn to him now, and she knew that if her coworkers became aware, they'd never let her live it down… but fuck them.
She knocks softly on the frame of his door, his head popping up suddenly. He relaxes when he sees it's her.
"Hey," he says, his voice welcoming her in. She takes a few steps, looks around, taking her time to observe the new additions he's added for personal touch. There are things propped up on shelves that look like they've come straight out of a sci-fi movie, exoskeletons of bugs long passed, and framed butterflies. He watches her admire the collection of colorful insects, and smiles. "Pretty, aren't they?"
"I guess they're not so bad," she says finally, turning to lean against an empty shelf. Her eyes pass over the stacks of crime scene photos and witness reports. "I thought you guys closed that earlier this morning?"
"We did," he confirms. "Just going over the last of it."
"And that can't wait until the morning?" He tilts his head at her, slowly removing his glasses and placing them down on top of the photographs. It's Friday, and tomorrow would be the first Saturday he's had off in a while.
"I suppose," he says after a while, leaning back in his chair and pushing himself away from the desk slightly. There's a comfortable silence between them, and as she looks over him, Adam and Michael's words replay in her head.
"Come on," she says finally, motioning for him to get up from his chair. "We're going get dinner," she announces, and it's not a question, leaving him not much room to turn her down. But she's surprised when he doesn't try.
One of the nightshift lab techs, a friend of Catherine's, looks up from her microscope in time to see them leaving the office together, and smirks.
"You're driving," she says, looking sideways for his reaction. He just purses his lips, shakes his head, and grins. It makes her smile.
They end up at a place downtown; a hole in the wall, a place free of tourists and outsiders. It's got good food, but better drinks, and that's exactly how she describes it to him before they get out of his car, and grab a table. There's a small corridor lined with string lights that opens up to the back of the building, revealing an intimate area with a few tables.
The heat has died down significantly, and as they sit, she fights the wind chill that passes. Wordlessly, he stands, sheds his jacket, and drapes it over her shoulders. She had been rubbing her arms, checking her skin for goosebumps, when he does it. Her head shoots up, and in the dim light, he smiles at her.
"Thanks," she says softly, over the sound of a Tears for Fears song. He nods, sits down, and relaxes back into his seat.
"What here is good," he asks, eyes scanning the menu from where he sits. She suggests the homemade burger, complete with a fried egg, and the onion rings. And when the young waitress comes out, it's what she orders… and he seconds it. Complete with Screwdrivers.
A new song echoes down from the speakers, and she taps her foot along time with the music.
"I can't imagine why you say the things you do. Maybe in time I'll understand."
She smirks, refusing to break eye contact with him. Fitting, she thinks.
Their drinks are presented first, and his eyebrows arch at how much alcohol he can taste through the bitterness of the orange juice.
"This is straight vodka," he says, watching her lips curl up into a smile. A beautiful one, at that.
"Told you their drinks were better," she says, before taking her own sip.
"You come here often," he asks, setting his drink onto the table. There it is, she thinks. There's the socialization coming out, and who knew all it would take was a little bit of vodka.
"I used to," she answers honestly. There hadn't been much reason to come, enveloped by work and school. "You know how it is. Classes start back up, everyone kind of… filters out," she says, but then realizes that maybe he doesn't know how it is. "Kind of pathetic to come here alone." Foot in mouth, again, she thinks. He chuckles to himself at her words, finding comedy in them, reminding him exactly how different they were. "That's… not what I meant. I'm sor-" He holds up a hand to silence her.
"It's okay." Even still, she looks worried.
"Why are you laughing," she asks, dreading his answer. She had finally gotten him to come out of his shell, and now he was going to retreat back.
"I'm just… we're different, you and I." He says, pointing between them.
"Is that a bad thing?"
"No, no," he's quick to dismiss her worry, shaking his head as he answers her. It seems to relieve her a bit. "I like it, is all," he says finally.
Their food doesn't take long, and between bites and sips of alcohol, they talk. About what, he doesn't really care. But it's easy… and it comes without force. He's learned that she's approximately three years his younger, at 27 years old. What she doesn't tell him, though, is that she has one last shift at the Palace. That although she's almost done with school, there had to be a way to pay for school. She would tell him, she promises herself, but not now… not yet.
"Another round," she asks, finishing up the last of her drink. Their empty plates had been cleared away nearly half an hour ago, and they contently sit there. He nods at her suggestion, watching as she brings up her feet to tuck underneath her legs in the chair. "Good. I'm not quite ready to go home yet," she says, cheeks flushed with the effects of alcohol.
"Me either," he says boldly, sure of himself that she hasn't heard him.
"If you keep coming out with me like this, people back at the lab are going to think we're friends," she says into her new glass of orange juice and vodka.
"Worse things could happen," he shrugs, catching the way she smiles into the glass.
Another hour passes before their drinks run dry, and when it's time to call it a night, he offers her a hand to help her out of her seat. His skin is hot to the touch, and she misses the contact the second his hand slips from hers. He doesn't ask where she lives, doesn't want to send her the wrong message, so instead… brings her back to her car. But only after ensuring she was sober to drive.
"I'm fine," she promises as he opens her door, helping her out of the front seat. She closes the door and leans against it, arms crossed over her chest. He's standing in front of her, taking note at how the city lights cast a glow against her skin. Her eyes are nearly sparkling. "Did you have fun," she asks confidently, as if she already knows the answer.
"I did," is his reply, his hands in his trouser pockets.
She's still wearing his jacket, a dark gray, twill collared jacket that's sizes too big for her.
He doesn't ask for it back.
"I um… I just wanted to say," she starts slowly, nodding as if it'll help her to get the words out. "I just wanted to say that I'm glad you're here." He looks down at her, in such awe, that it makes her feel as if a follow-up is needed. "I know that not everyone here can be… welcoming, but… we need you."
She swallows, wondering if she's crossed a line. She was a lab tech, for crying out loud. If anyone was going to give him the encouragement, it should've been Jim Brass, or hell… even Adam or Michael.
But it means that much more to him that it's coming from her.
"Thank you," is all he can muster up. She nods, licking her lips nervously, and he reluctantly moves to the side, allowing her to enter her car. He can't quite make himself turn around to watch her start the car, but the sound of her rolling down her window makes him crane his neck.
"Hey," she calls out. "Enjoy your day off tomorrow." He nods once, and finally turns to face her.
"Goodnight, Catherine."