Chapter Four

Sara choked on her champagne.

Grissom frowned, his brow furrowed.

Nick's mouth fell open.

"Hodges, you son of a—" Catherine took a step forward, her arm already pulling back, ready to punch.

"What the hell?" Warrick's words overlapped Catherine's as he grabbed her shoulders pulling her back. The last thing they needed to do tonight was work the scene of Hodges murder.

Besides, there were too many witnesses.

Hodges held up a hand. "Hear me out." He paused, his eyes darting back and forth. "Sara," he began his rehearsed speech. "Did you, or did you not say Nick's name at the alter, taking him as your lawfully wedded husband?"

"No, I—"

"Sara," Nick stopped her. His eyes took on a distant look as he thought back, straining to remember. "I—I think he might be right."

Sara whipped around. "What?"

Nick had everyone's attention. "I think you did say my name, not Grissom's."

"Well, that shouldn't—"

"And," Hodges interrupted her "I believe you both signed the marriage license? And I'm sure that Stokes being the upright, law-abiding citizen that he is, didn't forge Grissom's name on a legal document. Did you?"

Nick stared at the floor. And slowly shook his head.

"Well, then." Hodges said, enjoying his moment to the fullest. "I believe in the eyes of the law—and the eyes of God—the two of you …are man and wife."

Sara turned to Grissom and clutched his arm. "Gil, we didn't…I mean…. We couldn't have…" she looked to Nick for help. "Could we?"

"Yeah, Sara." Nick's eyes lifted from the floor and met hers. "I think we did."

"So much for anti-stupid." Greg muttered quietly.

The party dwindled quickly, as they will do when the reason for the party no longer exists. Catherine handed out the coats at the front door, saying goodbye, and reassuring some of the more upset guests.

Hodges was the last to leave, lingering, watching the effects of his announcement.

Catherine stood by the open door; one arm snaked up above her head, resting on the edge of the door. She pointed outside with her other hand, looking Hodges directly in the eye. "Get the hell out."

Hodges gave her a hurt look, and Catherine straightened her shoulders, wondering what the hell Hodges had going on in his head. The nerve he had, the gall to look hurt after what he did.

Slowly the lab tech stepped toward the open door. He paused when he reached Catherine's side. "I was only…"

"Shut up." Catherine hissed and tilted head toward the outside.

As soon as he crossed the threshold, Catherine gave the door a push, and it crashed closed letting Hodges know it was closed for good. Good riddance, she thought. As she turned around, she surveyed the situation in her living room.

Discarded glasses sat all over, some in remarkable places. A week from now, Catherine would find the final one lying on its side in the leaves of a large potted plant next to her sofa's end table. Some empty, some partly full with abandoned champagne, left in the glass after the drinker heard Hodges' revelation and realized there was nothing left to celebrate.

Catherine's eyes traveled from the glasses to the people in the room. All were alone within themselves, mulling over this new twist in their lives. They were all just as abandoned as the glasses.

Expect for Sara's occasional hiccup from where she sat on the couch, flanked on either side by Grissom and Brass, their whispers low, the house was silent.

Greg stood leaning against the bar, contemplating the bottom of his beer bottle.

Nick was in one of the folding chairs, elbows on his spread knees, his head hung low.

Warrick stood in the entry to the kitchen, and as their eyes locked, a shiver ran up her spine; he'd been watching her for a while before she'd realized it.

Catherine was at a loss as to what to do next. She'd always been the strong one. She might call herself Grissom's right hand, but in truth, she thought herself more his backbone. Mother to his father. Not that she thought of any of these people as children, far from it. They were in fact, older than most people she knew. Aged in the knowledge of human frailty. Parents kill their children. Lover's quarrels turn to murder quickly. Strangers slay strangers over spilled coffee or stolen parking spaces. They'd all seen so much. Fought like hell to keep the scientists detachment, a privilege that sometimes evaded their capacity. And now here they were, tangled up in a mess that was usually a prologue to a crime scene.

Her hands twitched with the need to start cleaning up, the need to do something that would put the world back into some kind of order. But beginning the clean up would put unnecessary pressure on her friends to leave. She didn't want that. Instead of gathering the party debris, Cath walked over to Warrick, commanding her feet to only walk and not run to him. She pressed herself to him, his arms gently folding over her in a comforting life affirming embrace.

Nick stared at his feet; listening to the whispered sounds coming from the two men he admired most, after his own father. He listened intently, with his heart beating hard in his chest, as they discussed his marriage.

He was married.

To Sara.

With his head still bent low, Nick smiled.

Sara wasn't listening to the two men as they talked to each other, forming a battle plan. She was deep in thought. Thinking about dead bodies, long distances, Ecklie's rules. Fate. Everything that had kept her and Grissom apart year after year. And now, a misspoken name. Sara felt like a character in one of the historical romance novels she kept secretly hidden underneath her mattress, driven to heartache after heartache by the unseen writers' typing fingers. She'd always held to the belief that the moments of joy in a life were purchased by equal moments of despair. Sara had believed that her despair had stock piled like so many vacation hours. But now, as she sat sinking into Catherine's sofa cushions, her faux father on one side of her, her husband… fiancée …Sara didn't know what to call him anymore, on the other. She gave up her belief that bad comes with good. The silver lining faded before her unfocused eyes.

"I'll get a detective to find the minister," Brass told Grissom.

Grissom nodded. "Right. Let's make sure Hodges is correct before we start jumping to conclusions."

Brass stood up from the couch and reached out putting a hand on Sara's shoulder. She looked up at him. "Don't worry," he told her. "We'll get to the bottom of this."

Grissom stood up and held out his hand. "Thanks Jim."

Brass smiled softly. "You know, the two of you still have the week off, you shouldn't let this stop you from going on your honeymoon."

Grissom paled. "Honeymoon?"