He unlocked the door and ushered her in. The cold air from outside and the warmth of their bodies eddied through the still, dark air. He hit the lights, and the shadows vanished. Shedding her jacket, she folded it neatly over a chair and followed him into the kitchen.

"Dinner is stir-fry," he announced and set about preparations with singleness of purpose, moving with easy economy around the kitchen.

Catherine leaned against the immaculate counter, watching him. No matter how long and how well she thought she knew Gil Grissom, some new incarnation of the man kept popping up, just when she thought she had him pegged.

"Can I help?"

"You do the rice," he delegated, leaning down to withdraw first a wok, then a rice cooker, from the cupboard.

"Wow! You really *do* have all the right equipment."

He gave her a sidelong glance, raising one eyebrow. "I mean," she verbally two-stepped, "who would have thought that Gil Grissom, entomologist and scientist supreme, would turn out to be a gourmet cook."

He smiled at her feigned innocence, the wide blue eyes. "Well," he countered, "novice or not, I don't think you'll find any, uh, human effluvia in *my* kitchen.

"Hot damn!" she shot back, patting her pockets in exaggerated gesture, "Where's my luminol when I really need it."

"I don't think you'll need it, Catherine, because if I cut myself, you'll see my red, red blood with your very naked eye." He pulled a couple of large chef's knives from the drawer.

"Ginzu knives!" she whooped. "My God, I hope you know how to use them."

"Beni Gil-Hana hasn't missed yet." He smirked, brandishing a knife in each hand.

"Well, if you do," she teased, taking a step back, "one of us is dead meat. And, if you show up for work tomorrow with a high squeaky voice, I'll swear I was miles from the scene of the crime."

"Listen up," he said, "while Grissom plays with knives, you do something safe with rice." He shoved the rice cooker, a measuring cup, and some Uncle Ben's her direction as he heated up the wok.

From the fridge, he withdrew a package of chicken breasts and two green onions.

"Hand me a couple of those cloves, would you?" Grissom motioned toward a rope of garlic hanging on the wall.

Catherine shook her head, again in surprise. "Expecting vampires were you Dr. Grissom?"

"No. I just know that you are supposed to store garlic at room temperature. You know, preservation is an art form, whether in the lab or in the kitchen."

"So I've heard," she replied, a little sarcasm coloring her voice. "Why, I understand that some of the ancient Egyptian tombs contain grain still fit to eat. . ."

Grissom didn't let her finish. "But you could risk some serious bacterial or fungal problems eating stuff that old," he began.

"Gil," she sighed, "I've got stuff older than that in *my* refrigerator now."

He grimaced and returned to mincing the garlic and onions. Pouring a small amount of peanut oil into the wok, he added the seasonings. They skittered on the hot elliptical surface, heady fragrance blossoming into the air.

Knife in hand, he began to cut the chicken into thin strips.

"Should we add vegetables?"

"Got 'em." And he produced a bag of already-chopped, ready-for-stir-fry vegetables.

"That's cheating," she said in mock horror. "You bought the veggies already packaged."

"Have to be practical," he countered, tearing open the cellophane and emptying the colorful mélange into the pan.

"Well, that compromises your standing as a Cordon Bleu chef."

"Makes me a sort of 'Cordon Gray,'" and he flashed a feral grin.

She rolled her eyes as he returned to conducting his culinary symphony of mushrooms, red pepper strips, and broccoli flowerets with a wooden spoon.

"We want these tender crisp," he instructed.

"Right," Catherine grinned, "Well, we sure wouldn't want anything flaccid."

It was Grissom's turn to roll his eyes.

"Perfect," he announced minutes later, and with a flourish, he emptied the vegetables onto a platter and poured another small cocktail of sesame and peanut oils and soy sauce into the wok.

Catherine leaned over to pick up the cutting board with the chicken strips, but Grissom caught her hand. "You know the old saying about 'too many cooks,' Ms. Willows," he reproved, dumping the chicken into the wok himself, where it sizzled.

"Glad to be of help" came the sardonic reply. "You'll let me fix any old complicated plumbing problem, meat grinders and all, but the Mighty Cordon Gray Grissom won't let me touch *his* knives or sauté *his* chicken."

"Ah, but I hear you're a sous-chef without parallel when it comes to rice," he mocked.

Catherine was quiet for a moment, watching Grissom perform his kitchen alchemy, enveloped by steam and the savory bouquet of cooking meat.

At length, she pursed her lips thoughtfully. "Have you ever wondered--or even dreamed about--what life might be like if you *were* something else, Gil? Say, a master chef." Her voice trailed off.

"Nope," he replied heedlessly. "That would be about tantamount to my being an exotic dancer."

The words slipped out of his mouth before he had time to bite his tongue. His head came up quickly, and he looked her directly in the eye, assessing the evidence, the damage, if any.

Her face was inscrutable.

"Sorry," he said softly. "Classic case of mouth-moving-faster-than-brain."

He held her gaze. She looked down first.

"Sometimes I wonder what other things I could or should have done." Her voice was small.

Grissom moved the wok off the heat. "I thought that you had no regrets, that you don't look back. . ."

"When we have a really nasty case, I sometimes do think about going back to dancing. . ."

"No!" The word seemed to come from his gut more than his throat, surprising them both.

"I mean," he recovered, "why would you go back?"

"Why not? It's not so different from what we do, night after night."

Grissom took a breath. "How is dancing naked around a pole anything like what we do?" The words sounded harsh and unforgiving even to his compromised hearing.

"What *we* do is every bit as obscene sometimes as exotic dancing," she said slowly, her face suddenly strained--every vestige of the last few minutes' light banter gone.

"How?"

"Come on, Gil. We see people stripped of their dignity at life's end. And, our work--our paycheck--hinges on lust, Grissom, real lust. Somebody's lust for power, for money, for revenge. Someone always steps over the line because of that lust. . .

Her eyes grew shiny.

"I didn't realize this bothered you so much, Catherine." Grissom reached across the counter, placing his large, warm hand over her small, chilled one.

He knew better than to challenge her outright, so he offered an alternative view.

"We do provide the last kind of dignity some people ever find--closure to the families left behind."

"I hate that word, *closure."* She winced. "It always sounds like someone's closing up a department store after an inconvenient shoplifting incident."

"*Peace* then," he amended, "some modicum of peace. Some sense that justice does exist in a frequently indifferent universe. In a way, what we do is very worthy, Catherine."

She didn't answer.

But an answer came to him anyway. In an instant of blinding clarity, he understood perfectly and irrefutably what she was doing. She was obliquely trying him, testing him, measuring his support, and maybe more.

"And if I *did* go back to dancing?"

He tilted his head. "Well, I guess I'd just have to show up every night."

The half-glib answer was not at all what she had expected.

Her face softened a little. "Then, I'm not sure I could dance."

"Why not?"

"Knowing you were there would make it too personal."

"And dancing in front of scores of men you don't know doesn't make it personal?"

"No. I can dissociate myself from them. I don't know them. They don't know me. I'm protected from them by a margin of fantasy. Oh, I'm dancing in my skin all right, but *I'm* not really exposed to any of them."

Gil listened carefully.

"Well, then I would come for sure, Catherine, just to keep you *from* dancing."

"And if I went ahead and danced anyway?" Again, pressing the hypothetical.

"Well, then I would have to come kill all those randy spectators."

She looked up at him, and he could tell she was teetering somewhere between amusement and melancholy.

"That would end *your* career," she said finally.

"And yours as well," he retorted.

She turned her hand over underneath his, so that their palms touched.

"I don't think I really want to go back to dancing. . ."

He laced his fingers through hers, feeling the warmth return to her finger tips.

"I don't think this was really about dancing," he murmured.

She exhaled, as if she had been holding her breath for a very long time. "Maybe not. . ."

He waited. Then, "I promised you dinner."

A tiny smile played at the edges of her mouth. She looked at him, studying the familiar face of the man who was more than friend, more than mentor.

"Then, you had better deliver, partner." she said simply.

<fin>