"A tease…
"…bitch…"

Novak's words kept ringing through her ears with the force of a freight train as Catherine took another long sip of her amaretto and coke. The sweet taste helped blend the borders of the alcoholic buzz and her own depression together easily. The soft glow of the L- Spot's dance floor didn't help her tired eyes though, and she kept her eyes on the mahogany wood of the counter for focus.

`I'm exaggerating' she thought to herself grimly, `that asshole isn't worthy of me getting obsessed over.' Instead, she found herself replaying every moment that Grissom had looked at her during that case after he had found out about her involvement with Novak. He had been angry with her, justifiably of course, and disappointed in her inability to be more forthright with him. But it was the underlying emotion in his voice, the looks that he had shot her.

`You hurt me,' his eyes said without meaning to.

Her uninhibited instincts were rearing their ugly heads right now. What right did he have to be hurt? He hadn't shown any interest in her relationships beyond the occasional inquiry, the occasional…

"Excuse me…" a throaty male voice said from behind her and she turned slowly on her bar stool. A handsome young man, maybe ten years her junior, was staring down at her with full-blown charm radiating from his brown eyes and wide grin. "Can I buy you a drink, hear your story?"

`Had it been 72 hours ago, kiddo, I would have been flattered,' she thought grimly before smiling sadly at him.

"Sorry, I'm hear to drown my sorrows by myself. Thanks for the offer though," Catherine countered softly, hoping that she sounded more sincere than she felt. He gave a half-hearted shrug and moved on to the next single woman in the nearest vicinity. Unwittingly, Catherine watched him in the bar's slanted mirror. He wasn't her type.

What the hell is my type? I don't have a type. Catherine began to toy with the tiny straw still partially imbedded in an ice cube. I suppose the dark haired, dark eyed thing is appealing…

"When I can't have what I used to want," she muttered aloud to herself. The bartender cast her a quick look of confusion before dismissing her just as quickly. But Catherine's impromptu speech had her frozen in her place. The startling truth of it was that she was going for men that were like `sex-on-a-stick-slam-bam-thank-you- ma'am' jerks. She was punishing herself, she knew that much. But God… it wasn't worth that.

Was it?

She stared at her drained glass with a slight woozy feeling, desperately wanting to fix the ache inside her. Unlike the previous nights, this wasn't an ache solved by twenty minutes in privacy by herself. It was a sudden hard stab of loneliness, one that cut her to the core.

"Did you want another drink?" someone asked and she looked up, not seeing the bartender anywhere close to her. Shutting her eyes, she willed it not to be some random Joe and someone who actually served drinks. Turning halfway in her seat, she opened her eyes and dragged them over the leather jacket lapels and dark dress pants to meet a pair of concerned blue eyes.

"I thought you weren't really ready to talk to me," Catherine muttered, turning back around and crossing her legs. Beside her, Grissom took the available seat and faced her as if he were prepping to investigate a suspect. Her posture, her body language…even the way she was swirling her drink radiated hostility. Without meaning to, he felt his own frustration welling like a bitter pool in his stomach, rising quickly to his throat.

"We need to talk…one of us has to be open with the other in this situation." Catherine made a scoffing sound, her fingers tightening on her glass.

"What situation? We barely work together as it is," she hissed.

"I've known you for long enough, Catherine, to know that when we need to talk, we need to talk," he said carefully.

"I don't feel like it right now. So either buy me a drink or leave me alone. I know how you hate human contact," Catherine ground out, her eyes turning to his face. Grissom shot her a weary look.

"I only hate it when I feel like I'm losing that person," he murmured softly, ignoring her sudden look. The bartender came toward him and he indicated Catherine with a nod of his head. "Get her another and I'll take one as well."

She was ignoring him again when he turned to face her. Catherine, despite her fiery personality, was starting to become more recluse than even Sara. Despite her invitations to them all at some time to go for drinks or chat, she was starting to spend more time away from the lab, away from them all. It wasn't time spent with Lindsey or her mother though, it was time spent alone. Grissom always thought of the two of them, he would be the one sealing himself off from the rest of the world. Not his vibrant, beautiful friend. He twisted uncomfortably in his seat when he realised that she wasn't just shutting the lab out of her life…

She was shutting him out. It was why her lie had struck him so hard. He had wanted her to feel comfortable telling him anything that she needed to tell him. It was what had made them so successful in the beginning together. She was one of the few women he could be completely comfortable with, one of the very few that had earned his trust and respect almost instantly. He had been one of the first that Catherine had come to with her problems with Eddie, with her pregnancy, her divorce, her coke habit…and she had trusted him. But the past year had been more than difficult.

He found himself comparing it to a marriage more often than not. They had been the reliable married couple that fought passionately but never meant the cruel words that were sometimes tossed about. Lately, though, they had turned to bitter separatists that showed their anger easily. He knew that his reaction to her taking Sam Braun's money hadn't eased that tension but had thought it past when they had gone to Ecklie's promotional dinner. She had flirted with him as easily as he had with her, and they had been comfortable together. Nearly the same old couple they had been once. But Ecklie had separated them all, and while the challenge of training a new team was fine with Grissom, he knew that this put him in direct competition with Catherine and her team.

Grissom took a small sip of his drink, almost grimacing at the sweet taste. He knew why she had ordered it. It was easier to get drunk on something that seemed like a soda beverage, and his mind began to click away at him. Shoving guilt onto him. He was as bad as she was when it came to shutting people out.

"I wasn't fair to you when I decided not to talk about…Novak," Grissom said softly and she snorted.

"Uh, yeah, I can agree with that. But it's no big. Water over…under the bridge. I'm used to you shutting me out when I need you," she whispered tightly and he touched her arm hesitantly. The tension radiated between them as Catherine looked over at him.

"You're shutting me out too, Cath. What happened to the time when we could talk to each other?" he asked. She gave a hard sigh of dismay and rotated her neck gently, her skin shining slightly in the dim light.

"It seemed to have ended just when you decided that you couldn't trust my judgement," Catherine answered, her blue eyes cold and distant. Despite his resolve not to pick a fight, Grissom stared hard at her.

"And when you decided that you couldn't trust me."

It hung between them. The issue of trust had always been uneasy ground for them. Grissom was always closed off, wrapped in his self- imposed hermitage by choice. But Catherine's loneliness was from circumstance. They both knew this, but neither could accept it for what it was. It was what had made their relationship together…but it was also what was breaking it for them. Catherine was the first to look away, head dipping toward her chest in embarrassment. Grissom sighed unhappily and touched her cheek gently.

"Catherine. We can't keep fighting like this, especially when we know that it interferes with our work," he started.

"Gil, I don't care about our work right now. I spent how many years consumed by my fucking work that I could care less if I got fired next week," Catherine snapped and he jerked his hand away as if her words had burned him.

"You're drunk," he offered quickly and she gave a shallow laugh.

"Some people? They don't have regrets. Me? As much as I love that job, I would probably love working at some smaller lab so I could actually see my daughter more then just the weekends or those scant moments in the day. My work rules my life, and I regret it immensely," she said, her eyes boring into his.

"So you regret the day I had them hire you?" Grissom whispered. They both knew the underlying question: `regret the day I met you?' He took another swallow of his drink, wincing at the taste.

"Maybe I am drunk, Gil," she said, dodging the question. "Maybe I just need to get laid on a more consistent basis and I wouldn't be teasing men at bars. Maybe then I wouldn't be a bitch."

The rewording of Novak's description of her made Grissom's jaw tighten. "You can't take what he said to heart seriously, Catherine. He doesn't know you."

"And you do?" she asked challengingly. He stared at her. "To some point, Grissom, you do, but you don't know everything about me." Grissom turned in his seat. "I don't know everything about you even."

"Try me." The challenge hung between them like a red flag, and Catherine had enough liquor in her to want to hurt him badly. Not physically, she doubted that could ever happen. But emotionally, they both knew that she could do the worst damage. With a grim smile, she grabbed him by his jacket lapel and leaned in until they were only a breath away.

"Do you know how I like to be fucked?"