Thanks to Samantha and her 1040's... and her expert accounting advice. Yes, she's that good.
The printer buzzed to life and startled Catherine so badly that she almost fell completely off of the stool she was sitting on. "Jesus Christ!"
She was sure she hadn't clicked the print button, but watched as the machine blinked its little green light happily at her and began the tedious process of warming up. Looking to her left and to her right, she saw no one else in the room; not that she had suspected that she wasn't alone, but after working for three straight hours in front of a computer screen, she couldn't be entirely sure she hadn't begun to hallucinate.
The machine paused in its buzzing and then began to click as it spit out page after page. Rubbing her eyes, Catherine sat back and watched as a new page emerged, followed by another and another. After twenty or so pages, the printer hummed, clicked a few times and then fell dormant.
After taking a sip of coffee, she waited for whoever had printed the document to come running into the lab (as people were prone to do when they had time-sensitive evidence on their hands) but no one came. Well, that was odd. Quirking a brow, she sucked down the rest of her coffee and stood, stiffly. If the pages were still there when she came back, she would look at them.
Maybe. (Definitely.)
Catherine bowed at the waist and pulled her arms over her head, working out the kinks that her muscles had all-too-easily taken on. Her eyes were pulled back to the pile of papers and she had to tear them away. There was time for that later.
She left the room to retrieve another cup of coffee, having to adjust her eyes to the glaring light of the hallway. It was still beyond her why they kept the A/V lab so dim; it made absolutely no sense. Surely OSHA would have something to say about it. Making a note to prod Grissom with that fact, she stirred in some non-fat milk and downed half the beverage before she made her way back to the lab.
Sliding herself onto the low stool once more, Catherine glanced over at the printer and noticed that the document printed had yet to be retrieved. Perhaps it was her slightly-nosier-than-most nature or the fact that she was seriously looking for something to distract her from pouring over more surveillance tapes, but she'd slid back off of the stool
and made her way over to the patiently-idling machine.
Careful to avoid paper cuts, she slid her hands around the pile of papers and flipped them over, eager to see who they belonged to. After all, she could steal an extra few moments away from the computer screen to deliver the packet, maybe chat whomever it was up. Maybe requisition a little extra help...
At the top of the page, a large header emblazoned with 'Stern, Jackson, Burns & Brown Accountancy Corporation' greeted her with the reminder that she had yet to file her own taxes. Cursing under her breath, and counting the days until April 15th, she flipped the page and after ignoring all of the numbers in the middle of the paper, she sought out the name.
Gil Grissom.
Blinking, she wondered how he could leave such a sensitive document resting in the printer for so long; that wasn't like him at all. And then, of their own accord, her eyes were pulled down the page, skipping over the tiny print in favor of the real information. State election campaign fund, check the box if you or your spouse would... Filing status, married, filing jointly. Exemptions, personal exemp-...
Married? Filing jointly?
Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa and wait.
Catherine blinked again, thinking that her brain might be a bit too fuzzy to process simple information. Perhaps she was reading that blatant, bold X next to the marital status box entirely too wrong. People could get that wrong, right? Catherine rubbed her eyes-eyeliner be damned-and looked again. Married, filing jointly.
It wasn't entirely out of the realm of possibility that he'd checked the wrong box in his haste to get his returns completed. But he wasn't one to look over certain details, wasn't one to rush through things. There was a chance that he'd read the options wrong, or that his accountant had accidentally assumed… But accountants didn't assume, they were far too meticulous. Was it even possible that his account had checked the wrong box?
Husband? Gil Grissom: shift supervisor, entomologist, fashion-challenged nerd and husband?
Oh god, she had to be hallucinating, had to be. There was no possible way that Grissom hadn't made a mistake. He'd made a mistake, had to have. That small X on the stark white page taunted her, nagged at her, begged her to go and ask him if it was true. She needed to know, needed to know.
For a second, Catherine wondered why this one little fact was such an incredibly large deal to her. Then, she surmised, this wasn't a little fact at all. Gil Grissom… was married. Wedlock. He was someone's ball and chain… or was it the other way around? This fact was large, incredibly large. If the fact was a physical thing, she was sure it would be something like an elephant or a heard of stampeding bulls. Maybe an earthquake or a small typhoon.
But no, the bulls…
Yes, if the fact were physical, it would be Pamplona.
Plopping zombie-like onto the stool, she put the papers on the table before her and stared at the X, just stared. Who? If he hadn't made a mistake (he had to have, really, there was no other explanation) then why was the box for spouse's name blank? It made no sense to her.
Curiosity besting her, she allowed her eyes to skim down the page, noting where the accountant has x'ed some figures out and scratched others in, noting to Grissom to look them over and fax the paperwork back.
And then, at the bottom was a small note, followed by an arrow, directing, "Your wife needs to look at this, figure itemization."
Thus it was settled: Gil Grissom was a married man. A married man with a phantom wife someone who he was filing a goddamned tax return with. And he was-WOW! Was he really worth that much…
Catherine had to strain to focus. Married, Grissom… Wife, house, babies… Babies? She was getting ahead of herself. Or was she? Oh god! Was she!?
Pulling at the edge of the paper, Catherine took a large, deep, calming breath and wondered how to go about asking him about it, asking him who and what and why and when. Whenwhyhow!?! But it had been nearly five minutes since the papers were printed and he could have been coming for them any minute.
Shifting them together, she smacked them on the edge of the table and pushed them back into the output tray on the printer and returned to her seat, staring at the monitor before her with no interest whatsoever.
Her hands shook and she couldn't stop tapping her feet; the base of her skull began to tingle and Catherine brought her hand up to scratch quickly at her hairline.
Like she'd just had a premonition, Grissom came strolling through the door, seeking out his papers. Attempting to sound uninterested, Catherine asked, "Printer in your office not working?"
Her hands began to sweat.
He shifted just as he shifted the papers, "Uh, I guess so, something about network connections and… I'm not sure." He only looked up at her briefly with a half smile and then walked slowly into the hallway.
The last thing Catherine saw before Grissom disappeared around a corner was him handing the paperwork to Sara, pointing out the little note that the accountant had addressed to her…
His wife.