"Willows." Catherine answered her cell phone.

"Catherine, it's Jim." Brass stopped pacing and dispassionately identified himself.

"Hey, what's up?" She cheerfully inquired.

"I'm at Desert Palms. Grissom is in the hospital." He flatly stated, hating to ruin her good mood.

"What?" Catherine exclaimed. It was Gil's night off and he should be at home. "What happened? Was he in an accident?"

"No, he was assaulted in his condo." Brass was thinking `just the facts, ma'am.'

"What? When?" Catherine frantically asked. "Is he gonna be okay? How bad is he?"

"Earlier tonight…..…and, yeah, I think he'll be all right." Brass realized he was pacing again so he stopped and sat down. "Ah, he's not quite, uh, with it."

"You `think'?" Catherine suspiciously asked.

"Well, the doctor thinks he has a concussion." Brass sighed heavily then said. "Basically, Gil doesn't know what happened to him ­ he keeps asking if he was in an accident,"

"That's a typical concussion symptom." Catherine interjected.

"Look, they've got paperwork that needs to be filled out and,"

"I'm already on my way," Catherine interrupted then quickly figured their ETA. "I should be there in about twenty minutes." She'd scribbled `Desert Palms' on the back of a blank form and showed it to Matt early in the conversation. While Matt didn't know his way around Vegas very well yet, he knew exactly how to get to Desert Palms since his wife worked there.

"Who's hurt?" He inquired when Catherine shut her phone off.

"Grissom." Catherine answered and before he could start with twenty questions, she informed him. "Brass doesn't know much, other than, Gil was attacked in his home. You know how it is, when the victim can't tell you and there are no witnesses, you gotta wait for the scene to do the talking."

"You okay?" Matt asked, startling Catherine slightly.

"Sure," she responded turning a steady gaze in his direction. "Why wouldn't I be?"

"Just, uh, you guys have worked together along time………" Matt stumbled out, wilting under her stare. He was relieved when she turned to look out the passenger window without any further comment.

Catherine jumped out of the Denali then turned to issue instructions, "Log in the evidence from this scene. You don't have to fill out all the paperwork ­ just get it secured. Then, call Warrick. If they need help, he can give you directions." She slammed the door shut and raced up the steps into the ER.

"Where is he?" Catherine breathlessly asked. Jim Brass whirled around.

"They took to him to Radiology about an hour ago for a CAT scan and X-rays."

When Catherine turned on her heel to head down the hall toward the elevators and Radiology, Brass grabbed her arm and said. "Hey, hey! The best thing you can do right now is help with the paperwork." He steered her toward the admittance desk and asked, "I know his mother passed away, does anyone have his power-of-attorney?"

"As far as I know, I do." She answered. After she filled out the paperwork and asked a multitude of questions, Brass pulled her back to the ER waiting room. He poured them both a cup of coffee from an urn and stuffed a couple of dollars in the donation box sitting beside it. Settling on the chair across from her, he contemplated the best way to broach the subject of what Catherine might know. Before he could settle on a suitable introduction, the elevator doors whisked open and an orderly pushed a gurney bearing Grissom out. Catherine was on her feet immediately. Brass sighed and followed. He put a hand on her elbow when she stopped and gasped after catching sight of Grissom's face. They waited until the orderly had him comfortably situated before approaching.

"Hey!" Catherine greeted leaning over the bed to further assess the damage. The orderly had positioned him on his left side with a pillow behind his back to prevent him from rolling over. She could see red marks on his bare shoulder and arm that were rapidly turning purple. The right side of his face was swollen and beginning to bruise.

"Hi, pretty lady." Gil groggily answered grasping her hand. "How bad is my car?"

"Your car is fine. You weren't in an accident."

"Then why does my head hurt so bad?"

"I can answer that!" A perky young doctor with a thatch of thick black hair and wire frame glasses, dressed in pale blue scrubs and white lab coat whisked in. "You Sir," he began as picked up the clipboard off the end of the bed. "Have fractures in both the right Zygomatic and Parietal regions and a fairly healthy concussion." Perching on the bed beside Grissom, he retrieved a pen light from his pocket and requested with a gesture of his hand. "Look up that way, please." After flicking the light in and out of Grissom's eyes a couple of times; he pocketed the light and proclaimed. "Much better response. I'm sure he'll be fine."

"Alan Rains, Emergency Room Physician." He introduced himself to Catherine after scribbling notes on the chart.

"Catherine Willows, Criminalist and this is Detective Jim Brass." Catherine replied, taking his outstretched hand. She caught sight of bright blue eyes behind his glasses.

"They get younger all the time." Brass groused.

"Actually, we don't." Rains disputed then impertinently added. "It's just ­ your perspective ages."

"Great bedside manner." Brass observed sourly.

"You aren't in the bed." Rains parried then pointed at Grissom. "He's not complaining."

"That's `cause his brain's been scrambled." Brass grumpily remarked then asked. "So, you wanna tell me what's wrong with him in English?"

"If you please?" Rains gestured to the door. Once they were out of earshot, he said. "Ah, the right cheekbone is fractured. The other fracture is about here." He touched the right upper side of his head. `The concussion is serious, but not life threatening. There's no cranial hemorrhaging but I'll probably recommend another CAT scan just to be safe. The other injuries are relatively minor. He'll have some nasty contusions on his right arm and shoulder but nothing was broken. All in all, I'd say he came out of that beating in fairly good shape."

"Beating?" Catherine questioned.

"That's what it looks like to me."

"Any idea of the weapon used?" Brass inquired, surprised by the doctor's assessment.

"I've seen similar injuries inflicted with something like a sap." Rains noted. He paused with his brow furrowed. "It's mostly soft tissue damage so it was probably caused by one of those leather wrapped lead powder saps. If it had been something harder, like a blackjack or billy club, I have would expected a fracture of the ulna from the blow he took there."

"Nice deduction." Brass conceded. He pulled out his notepad and jotted down the doctor's opinion.

"I did my Residency on the south side of LA." Rains divulged. "If you can hurt someone with it, I've seen the results."

"So, what happens now?" Catherine asked.

"Umm, we'll transfer him to the regular staff ­ get him settled in a room fairly soon. I'm going to recommend observing him for twenty- four hours and, like I said another CAT scan. Barring any unforeseen complications, he'll probably be released tomorrow morning."

"What kind of, ah, treatment?" Brass inquired.

There's not much to recommend except bed rest." Rains glanced at Grissom's chart then looked up at Catherine and asked. "He's single ­ lives alone?"

"Yes."

"Personally, I'd prefer that he has someone who can stay with him for a couple days." Rains confided.

"We can take care of that." Catherine reassured.

"Excellent!" Rains enthused. "In the meantime, I've prescribed a sedative and some pain relievers."

"What about his memory?" Brass interjected.

"Concussion victims frequently suffer short term memory loss. He'll probably recovery most of it within a couple of days." Rains advised. "Right now, the best thing for him is sleep. So, if you want to talk to him before lights out, you'd best get to it."

"Asshole!" Brass grumbled at Rains' retreating form.

"He just doesn't like you!" Catherine responded, then turned to visit with Gil for a few more minutes.

"Hey!" She said easing onto the bed beside him. "I'm back."

"Umm……" He groaned and tried to smile but winced in pain. "I'm glad."

"You're gonna be fine." She soothed, lightly stroking his hair. "You've got a hot-shot young doctor and he's already annoyed Jim to no end."

"That's good." Gil murmured then roused up. "Catherine, I'm sorry."

"This is not your fault." Catherine admonished then she asked. "Gil, do you remember anything from last night."

"Nothing definite ­ it's confusing."

"Well, let's start from Friday and work our way forward. Do you remember the arson scene?" She gently prodded.

"Warehouse on Industrial." Gil recalled then added. "Greg was off. Nick and Warrick had other cases and Matt worked it with you and I. The arsonist used paint thinner as an accelerant instead of gasoline."

"Very good," Catherine said then asked. "You called me three times yesterday morning. Do you remember why?" A nurse entered bearing a needle on a tray and injected it into his IV.

"You weren't home." He replied in a voice tinged with regret. "It was Sunday and I thought, maybe, I could take you and Lindsey to a movie or something in the afternoon."

"How about breakfast this morning?" Catherine had no idea what he did for breakfast and knew it was a falsely leading question.

"I don't think I had breakfast." Gil replied after spending a moment concentrating. "Did we go out somewhere?"

"No, we didn't." Catherine answered. "Do you know what time you left the lab or what you were working on before you left?"

"I think, I worked a hit and run with Greg." Gil said after a couple of minutes then after a big yawn hesitantly added. "I think I was studying tire tracks."

"You go to sleep and I'll see you later." She promised.

"Don't leave………..until I'm asleep."

"I'll be right here." She affirmed then watched as his eyes fluttered and finally closed. After a few minutes of observing his steady breathing and the reassuring pulse from the monitor, she noticed Warrick had slipped into the room. Brass was in the hall on the phone.

"What's up?" Catherine asked.

"Gotta process him." Warrick informed. He dropped a duffle bag in a nearby chair and set his kit on the end of the bed. "I brought him some clothes."

"That's good," Catherine noted. She didn't want to watch so she offered. "I'll see if I can find out where the clothes he had on ended up."

"Catherine." Brass called, closing his phone and catching up to her in the hall. "I've got a couple of uniforms on the way over to stand guard and I just got off the phone with Sophia. We need to sit down and go over this stuff."

"Okay," Catherine agreed. "I narrowed down his memory loss to within the last twenty-four hours. Right now, I'm going to locate the clothes Gil had on while Warrick processes him. How about we meet at the lab in an hour?"

TBC