Thursday 3rd July, 2003. 5.30 am.

Grissom had stood at the back of the interrogation room watching the scene unfold. So far, he had let Catherine deal with the main line of evidence, and he was impressed. As he always was.

"We spoke to your buddies at the club," the voice of Jim Brass cut in to the questioning. "And they had one word for us. Can you guess what that would be?"

"What?" The well-dressed murder suspect sat across from Brass and Catherine, unsuccessfully feigning indignance and confusion.

"Abrogate." Brass looked smug. Grissom remembered how Catherine had smiled when she realised Brass was using words of a higher level of intelligence deliberately to provoke a response from the man in front of them.

"They revoked your membership."

"And they annulled my subscription too."

He suppressed a grin later on when he knew the suspect had realised Brass and Catherine were on to him.

Sitting with Catherine and Warrick in the break room, they made sure they had everything ready to present the evidence to the DA.

"To think he had tried to get away with claiming he had murdered the club president due to a post-hypnotic suggestion." Warrick laughed as he signed some forms.

"He probably thought he had a good case," Catherine agreed. "After all, it's not really something a lawyer could easily disprove in court."

"No, but he sounded desperate."

"We can't accuse someone just because of their tone of voice, Warrick." Grissom added his words of wisdom. Warrick rolled his eyes at Catherine.

"I know that, Gris. That's why we have all this in front of us." He gestured to all of the paperwork on the table, sweeping his arms wide to emphasise how much they had.

"I think you can tell a lot from a person's tone." Catherine looked up at Grissom suggestively, leaving him trying to hide his confusion and embarrassment. Going back to her work, she hid a grin.

"Oh, Grissom. Don't forget tomorrow." Catherine said, her eyes glued to her paperwork.

"July 4th," he said matter of factly.

"You've forgotten."

"It's not July 4th?"

"You promised Lindsey you'd go to her school Independence Day fair. You even took the day off for it." Catherine sighed. It would have been just like him to forget. "Well, you get to tell her. I'm not going to be responsible for putting that look of disappointment on her face."

"I said I'd go, so I'm going." He looked up at her, hurt that she thought he would disappoint the girl he looked upon like she were his own daughter. "It will be fun."

"Are you trying to convince yourself of that?" Warrick asked, joining in Catherine's teasing.

"You know what he's like, Warrick. All those people, the conversations. He'll be hiding behind the gym buildings quicker than it takes a hot dog to cook." She waited until Grissom returned his gaze back to his paper and winked at Warrick.

"While you two feel the need to insult your supervisor, I have to get something from my office." He stood, trying to pretend their words did not affect him, and walked out of the door.

"You get away with murder with him, Cath."

"Not that I push it, but yeah." Warrick raised his eyebrows at her. He knew how Catherine liked to play Grissom to get her own way. "Well, alright. Most of the time I don't push it. It's just comfortable working with him, and it's been that way for years and years."

"I wish it was that easy from my point of view."

"It can be. Grissom respects you enough to relax a little around you. If you just let yourself be a little more independent of `Grissom worship'," She smiled when he frowned, "Then you would be much more at ease yourself."

"So you're independent then?"

"I am now. Apart from Lindsey, I'm in the position to do whatever I want, whenever I want. I'm not tied down to a marriage, or to demands that I don't want. I could walk away from this tomorrow."

"Lindsey's not a demand then?"

"No." She smiled to herself at the thought of her precious little girl. "Lindsey's a pleasure."

"I'll remind you of that next time you shout at her." He ducked as she threw her pen at him. "You're a lousy shot."

"Thank you."

11.34 am

Catherine shut the car door just as Grissom got out the other side, made himself at home leant against the car door, and watched her. He had given her a lift home, but had declined her invitation of breakfast and coffee.

"You sure you can't stay for a half hour?" She liked their shared breakfasts and missed them when either of them could not make it.

"If I don't get this abstract mailed out today, I'll be in big trouble. Why I ever agreed to write an article on the life cycles of the Nevada Buckmoth is a mystery."

"So you're not just sulking because Warrick and I were picking on you."

"Not at all. I'm used to you." He was used to it. Sometimes he wished she would stop, whether she knew how close to hurting him she was, whether she knew when she did hurt him, and left him wondering if she really meant it. Sometimes, he loved that Catherine paid him so much attention.

"Right," Catherine looked sceptical, but left it at that.

"Come on. I'll make pancakes," she pleaded, one last try.

"You can actually make pancakes?" he asked, unable to keep the smile from his face.

"I suppose I deserved that." She made to go over to her door. "I'll call you, let you know what we're doing tomorrow."

"Ok. If I get finished, I'll call first about dinner."

"You won't."

"Finish? Or call about dinner?" He watched as she shook her head.

"Go write, Gil. I'll speak to you later." She finally made her move and went in through her front door, leaving Grissom to admire the view.

4 pm.

Lindsey came running out into the garden where her mother was sitting reading through some papers.

"Mom!" She came to a stop by the table. "My essay won first prize at school."

"That's great, sweetie." She pulled the girl up onto her lap. "What was it about?"

"You know, the one where I had to write about someone who I thought was independent."

"Ah. Who did you write about?" She frowned as her daughter smiled at her.

"I can't tell you now. You'll have to wait until tomorrow. I get to read it out loud on stage at the fair." Catherine could not help but smile with her daughter.

"Did I ever tell you how proud I am of you?" she asked.

"I think you said that last week, Mom," she replied, rolling her eyes.

"Well, I mean it. I'm very proud of you, sweetie." She pulled her into a hug. A book on the table caught the young girl's eyes.

"Mom, what's that about?" She pointed to the book and Catherine blushed. It was called `Champagne Wishes and Caviar Dreams', one of those trashy romance novels that came from a shelf too high up for her daughter to reach. Catherine loved to read them. They were easy, and a complete removal from real life.

"Umm, it's a book about two people who fall in love, Linds."

"Sounds romantic. Can I read it?"

Catherine smothered a choking sound. "No, sweetie. It's a little too grown up for you." She watched gratefully as Lindsey just shrugged, book discussion over.

"Is Uncle Grissom still coming tomorrow? He promised." She had a look of hope and anticipation on her face. Catherine knew that if Grissom could see her now, he would never say no.

"He said he was. Let me up, I'll go and call him. Make sure he knows what time to come pick us up."

She left the happy girl in the garden and picked up the phone. She knew his number from heart; she had dialled it so often during the early days with Eddie when she had needed him to calm her, and every day after the divorce when she needed his reassurance that life would indeed be fine.

"Grissom."

"Hello Gil." She heard him let out a breath at the other end. "How is it going?"

"Next time I agree to do anything like this, you have my permission to physically restrain me."

She had to shake her head to remove the images that had formed. She smiled.

"I'll remember that." She tried not to laugh at the absurdity of the situation playing out in her head.

"Cath?"

"Oh yeah, reason I called you. Right." She heard him chuckling at her. "The fair opens at 5pm, so if you come pick us up at 4.30, that would be great."

"Why so early?"

"Lindsey is reading one of her assignments and I guess she'll have to be there early to know what to do. She won a prize for it."

"That's great! Tell her I'm proud of her."

"I will." She glanced back out into the garden to see Lindsey playing in her sandbox. "I'd better go. Any ideas about dinner?"

"It's a little early yet. Let me see."

"Ok. Speak to you soon, Gil." She listened to his goodbye and ended the call. She sighed and leant back against the wall, mentally berating herself for her thoughts, no matter how much she enjoyed them. After a few moments, she stood and headed for her bedroom, suddenly needing to lie down.

9.25 pm.

Grissom's eyes were going funny after staring at the computer screen for so long. He did not get up though, he knew that if he could just get this sentence right, the rest should just fall into place. The trouble was, he had been working on this one sentence for over an hour, and it was driving him crazy. He was beginning to think that the sentence would have been easier if he were a fluent speaker of Swahili, when a knock at the door finally gave him an excuse to get up. He casually walked over to the door and opened it to reveal...

Nothing.

He looked around, confused. No sign of anyone at all. Sighing, he pulled back to shut the door and noticed the brown bag sitting on the floor. It had a note pinned to the front of it. Completely puzzled he plucked the note up, noting the nice fragrant smell that emanated from the bag making his stomach rumble. He read it aloud.

`Gil. Knew you wouldn't be done by dinner, so I thought you would appreciate this. I didn't want to disturb you. Hope you finish soon. Oh, and make sure you get some sleep! I know you. Enjoy. Love Catherine x.'

He pulled the bag up and walked over to the window, catching a glimpse of the back of Catherine's car pulling onto the road. Grinning, he shut the curtains and deposited the Chinese food in the kitchen, rooting around for chopsticks. He sometimes wondered what he would do without Catherine, and how the hell he had gotten along before they met. She had so much on her mind, so much to deal with day to day. A job, a family, and she took it upon herself to sort him out too whenever he seemed to be going astray. She knew what he liked to eat, how he took his coffee. All the little things that he took for granted. He would not have described it as dependence, but it was times like these when he wondered how he coped alone without her.