"Mom." Catherine said thoughtfully. "You know, a while ago, you said that there was something missing in my life and that until I figured out what it was, I wouldn't be happy?"
"I said that?" Lily replied absently, never tearing her gaze from the newspaper. Catherine rolled her eyes, a small optimistic smile dancing in the depths of them.
"Yes, you did. And I think you were right."
After a beat of silence, Lily finally lifted her head long enough to raise an eyebrow.
"Well?" She enquired. "Are you going to tell me?"
"What?"
"What's led to this epiphany. Have you found what you're missing?"
Catherine pursed her lips in a coy smile.
"Maybe." She conceded. "But I can't tell you yet."
Before Lily could challenge her secrecy, the sound of movement down the hall caught their attention and Catherine's expression suddenly turned pensive.
And reasonably so, for, when the kitchen door opened and Sara stepped inside, it was plain to see that she had been crying.
"Honey, are you okay?" Catherine asked, pushing herself to her feet and moving instantly to her side. Taking the situation as her cue to leave, Lily picked up her handbag and stood up as well.
"I'd best be going." She said, sending a discreet signal to Catherine to call her once she was available. However, the message went completely unheeded, as Cath was too focussed on Sara to even register her mother's quiet departure.
"Sara, what's wrong?" She asked more firmly, affectionately brushing sleep-tousled hair aside.
"Belinda was suspended?" The brunette whimpered around the tears that had already started to fall again.
Catherine's expression must have belayed her quiet horror at the fact that Sara was aware of this development.
"You know?" She asked guiltily.
"Yes, I know." Sara demanded. "Why didn't you tell me?"
Catherine took her arm, coaxing her down into Lily's vacated seat and taking the one beside her.
"Honey, I only found out today. I was going to talk to you about it once you were up." Cath reassured her gently. "Did she call you?"
"No." Sara sniffed, wiping at her eyes. "Greg texted me."
Cath internally cursed the young man. Logically, she knew that he would not have intentionally done anything to upset his best friend, but she had really intended on doing this her own way. Had he bothered to ask, she could have explained that to him.
Of course, Greg didn't know the full story. He probably had no idea what kind of turmoil he could be causing when he sent that text.
"Sweetheart ... things are still up in the air at the moment. We don't really know very much, except that she was reported to the hospital and they informed the police, who suspended her."
"The hospital?" Sara frowned, calming down slightly. "She ... she was reported to the hospital?"
Before Catherine could answer, they were interrupted by the trilling of her cell phone.
"Ignore that." She waved a hand dismissively towards it. "Nobody really knows anything yet."
"So, nobody knows that ... that it was me?" Sara sniffled, visibly relieved.
"No." Cath picked up her hand and caressed it gently. "Nobody at the lab knows anything about your involvement with her."
"So, who ..."
Her question was cut off by further urgent ringing, which they both scowled at.
"Who reported her?" Sara continued over the sound.
"I don't know, sweetie." Cath lied. "But it's okay, it doesn't matter right now. All that matters is that she isn't going to be at the lab anytime soon and she's not going to be able to get to you here. So for the time being, you've got a reprieve.
When the cell phone rang a third time, Catherine huffed and snatched it off the counter.
"What?" She snapped impatiently. "Gil, this isn't a good time, I ... what?"
Sara caught the sudden chance to the tone of her voice and looked up with concern. Catherine's face had completely paled as she hung up the call.
"It's Greg." She said softly. "He was attacked in the lab parking lot; he's on his way to the hospital."
x X x
Hand in hand, they raced through the hallway, dodging nurses and porters without ever breaking their grip on each other.
"Gil," Catherine called once she spotted the pacing entomologist. "What happened?"
He turned sharply on his heel, bracing himself for both women to slam into him. Fortunately, they managed to stop in time, dragging each other to a well-timed halt.
"He's got a head injury." The boss explained tensely. "Someone jumped him by his car."
Before they could even begin to make sense of this piece of information, Nick and Warrick appeared around the corner.
"Hey Sara," Nick breathed, placing a caring hand on her arm. "You doing okay?"
"I'm fine, thanks." She smiled weakly, leaning into his touch. "Any word on Greg?"
"Nothing yet." Warrick answered with a heavy sigh. "They've taken him for a scan."
"I just don't get it," Nick scowled, sinking into a seat. "Who the hell would want to hurt Greg?"
"Any chance it was random? Robbery gone wrong?" Catherine asked, although it sounded stupid even in her own head – what kind of idiot would try to rob somebody in the crime lab parking lot?
"No, as far as we can tell, nothing was taken." The Texan exhaled. "It just seems so ... pointless."
Catherine was about to respond, when she felt a small tug on her sleeve and found herself dragged over to a quiet side of the hallway.
"Sara," She queried softly. "Are you okay?"
The brunette was wringing her hands nervously, her eyes darting back and forth.
"What if it was Bel?" She asked urgently, keeping her voice low. They guys had noticed them shuffle out of earshot, but didn't appear to be paying their absence much attention yet, too busy discussing the possible reasons for the cowardly attack on their affable colleague.
"Belinda?" Catherine blinked. "Why on earth would she attack Greg?"
"Well, she never really liked my friendship with him." Sara explained, subconsciously running through their various arguments on the matter in her mind. "She thought we were too close – maybe she thinks it was him who reported her?"
Catherine's trained senses picked up on the nuance in Sara's statement and she pursed her lips.
"Did Greg know about you and her?"
"Yeah, he did." Sara hummed, completely missing the look that flashed across her companion's face at this revelation. "But I can't see him reporting her, not without talking to me first."
"You, uh, you never told me that Greg knew about it as well." Cath mused, attempting and barely succeeding in keeping the hurt out of her voice.
"He knew before you did." Sara frowned softly. "I told him right after Bel tried to get me to quit so that we could be together openly. I was ... frustrated. I needed someone to talk to."
"You could have talked to me." Cath pointed out.
"I tried. You were in the middle of a hot case, or something." Sara shrugged it off. "Belinda was really annoyed when she found out that I'd stayed at Greg's after work. She practically accused me of having an affair with him."
"Okay." Catherine exhaled, pushing her guilt and burgeoning jealousy to one side and refocusing on the situation at hand.
Casting a surreptitious glance over her shoulder, she noted that the boys still weren't paying them any undue interest.
"You know that, if it was her, we're going to have to tell them what's been going on." She pointed out carefully.
To her surprise, Sara didn't appear remotely distressed by this possibility. Instead, the fearful look that had plagued her dark eyes for the last few days had been replaced by a slow-burning anger.
"If she did hurt Greg, then it was because of me." She stated coldly. "And I'll deal with that. But she doesn't get to just walk away from it. Not this time."
x X x
Pushing the door shut with a quiet click, she took just a moment longer than necessary to steady her nerves, before turning around to face her impatient audience.
"Thank you for this, I know things are a little hectic at the moment."
"Well, it didn't sound like we had much choice." Ecklie pointed out, crossing his arms. "So, what is it that couldn't wait?"
Flicking her eyes from one to the other, Catherine licked her lips slowly before answering.
"Belinda Bell."
Grissom cocked his head to the side, trying to place the name.
"The PEAP councillor?" He half-guessed. "The one who was suspended?"
"Yes." Cath agreed, walking between the two of them and leaning her back against the desk. "She was suspended due to a relationship with a patient..."
"Wait," Ecklie held up his hands to stop her. "I thought you said you had information pertaining to the assault on Greg?"
"Yeah, I do." She pressed her lips together tightly, waiting for them to pick up on the absence in her statement. And despite their shared lack of social skills, something finally clicked for the two men.
"Catherine," Grissom frowned softly, trying to put the pieces together in his head. "Are you saying that Greg was the patient Belinda was seeing?"
"No!" She spluttered, realising how it must have sounded. "No, not Greg. But you're close."
"Oh God." Ecklie dragged a hand over his face, scrunching his eyes tight closed. "Sara?"
She nodded imperceptibly, inhaling and exhaling a deep breath while they took a minute to absorb this.
"Sara was the patient that Belinda Bell had an affair with." Ecklie repeated, more to himself than anyone else, shaking his head at the potential ramifications of this development. "How ... when did this happen, exactly?"
"Fairly recently. The relationship started a few weeks after Sara began seeing her professionally. It ended a couple of months ago – before Sara's suspension."
"Right around the time that Belinda came to see me about Sara." Ecklie paraphrased, his anger at the situation beginning to build.
"Yeah." She nodded sadly. "Sara broke up with her because Belinda wanted her to quit her job and she refused. Coming to see you was an attempt to get her out of the lab, so they could be together without impacting Belinda's professional ethics."
"Oh God." Grissom hadn't uttered a word until now, but his quiet exclamation drew their eyes to him as he lowered himself stiffly into a seat. "After she was shot, we sent her back there."
Again, she just nodded, waiting for the penny to drop.
When it finally did, Grissom looked up at her with narrowed eyes.
"You warned us not to send her back there." He recalled. "You said it wasn't the right thing for her ... because you knew about this."
"Yes, I did." She cleared her throat. "I found out after they broke up, but since Belinda has been continuing to pursue Sara, I've been monitoring the situation for a while. She agreed to keep me in the loop, but she didn't want it making public knowledge."
"Were you the one who reported her?" Ecklie asked, causing her to wince. Something told her that, once this information reached the lab grapevine, she was going to be fielding that question a lot.
"No, I wasn't, although Belinda did accuse me of it."
"So, she knows that you know about the relationship?" Grissom clarified.
"Yes, she knows. We've had a few run-ins over it. For a shrink, she's got quite a temper on her."
"Does anyone else know about this?" Ecklie asked, already attempting to create a damage-control plan in his head. He could only hope that this could be contained without the whole department – including his bosses – finding out about it.
This was the question that Catherine had been braced for – this was the reason that she had brought them here, after all. But it still made her stomach lurch to admit it.
"Only one other person knows." She replied. "And if Belinda confronted me about it, there's a good chance she confronted him too."
She knew the instant it hit them and she could tell from the pained look on Grissom's face exactly what he was thinking in that second. The image of Greg's blood, pooling on the parking lot ground, had flashed into his mind and suddenly the dark look that had been in Sara's eyes at the hospital materialised in his too.
"Call Brass." He said hoarsely. "Put a BOLO out on Belinda Bell."