Title: Split
Author: L.
Feedback address: absolutelybarkingstar@yahoo.com
Date in Calendar: 7 June 2007
Fandom: CSI
Pairing: Catherine/Sara
Rating: PG
Summary: "Are you sure you know what you’re doing?"
Advertisement: Part of the FSAC:DD07

Disclaimer: "CSI: Crime Scene Investigators," the characters, and situations depicted are the property of Jerry Bruckheimer Television, Alliance Atlantis, and CBS Productions. This piece of fan fiction was created for entertainment not monetary purposes. Previously unrecognized characters and places, and this story, are copyrighted to the author. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author. This site is in no way affiliated with "CSI: Crime Scene Investigators," CBS, or any representatives of Jorja Fox or Marg Helgenberger.

AN I: This was written as part of the FSAC DD07. Minimum word requirement was 750, so that is what I did ... and then I did 750 more.

AN II: This was also written per request by Dr Deb. Don't ask me how it happened. She wanted me to write some Cath/Sara, so I did. Funny that. Thanks, doc, for that and the rest of it.

one

Catherine stopped maybe, oh I don't know, 10 feet away? She had a good view of him and that impish face of his as he was talking to someone in the locker room. "I'll miss you," he said and she immediately understood what was going on. She waited a beat after he’d disappeared down the hall before she walked up to the door and leaned on the post, peering in. Sara was sitting there, with one shoe half-laced, staring at the floor.

"You got plans?" Catherine said, and the minute the words were out she wished them back. Sara raised her head and looked at her tiredly.

"Only ones involving me getting real drunk, real fast."

"My kind then, let's do it together."

She slammed the car door shut with Sara slumped in the passenger seat, and as she turned to walk to her side an unmarked patrol car slowed down right next to her. Sofia Curtis buzzed her window down halfway and looked out.

"Hey."

"Hey yourself."

She nodded to the figure in the front, and said in that nonchalant tone of hers, "Are you sure you know what you’re doing?"

Her pilot rimmed mirror glasses hid her expression amazingly well. You had to admire the design of it all.

"I mean," she continued, "it sure looks like trouble to me."

Catherine sighed and smiled into her own duplicated face. Damn, I’m hot.

"Are you thinking about him, her, or you, Curtis?"

Sofia pushed the glasses down an inch and looked coolly over the rim.

"Actually, Willows, I was thinking about you."

"Thanks for the concern, but I know what I'm doing."

After watching Sara down her fourth shot of Jim B, she wasn't so sure.

Sara hadn't said as much as a word, only slipped her card to the bartender with a mumble that sounded quite a lot like the usual, but knowing Sara Sidle it could just as well have been for your perusal.

Catherine thought that was hilarious and she hadn't even started on her second G&T yet.

After only an hour of this, she decided enough was enough, and dragged the now eerily compliant Sara up and with her out to the car. Somehow, Sara interpreted this as some kind of come on and during the short drive to the Willows' house, she managed to get Catherine blushing and flushed and thoroughly pissed off. Well back at the house, she practically carried Sara up to her bedroom and dropped her not too kindly on the bed. As she bent down to untie her laces, Sara fumbled with her zipper as she slurred, "This is so not how I'd imagined this, Cath."

"This is so not happening, Sar', so relax. Go to sleep."

"Lindsey?"

"Don't worry about her, she's fine."

"This is SOO not how I..."

And with that she was out.

When she came to, a few hours later, Catherine was sleeping there with her. As she tried to slide out of bed, an arm shot out and stopped her.

"What are you doing?"

"Don't you want me out of here?"

"Then you wouldn't be here, silly," she tugged at her arm.

"Lindsey?"

"Lindsey's fine. Calm down."

Sara slumped back on the bed, and the death grip disappeared. Instead, an arm and a leg were draped around her and she shuddered. Catherine tightened her hold and mumbled, almost but not quite claimed back by dreams, "You going to be sick?"

"No, no..." Sara whispered. "I probably just need some more sleep."

"Then do that, baby... Sleep..."

Sara turned her head slowly to look at the woman now snoring beside her. She had never seen anything that beautiful, and she said so. And when she said she loved her, that was true as well.

The next time she woke up, the sun was out and the love they made was tender and careful and utterly devastating.

So later still when Sara awkwardly pulled her jacket on and backed down to the cab waiting, Catherine waved and smiled and said she was fine.

"Maybe four weeks is what it takes," she thought.

"Maybe that'll be enough this time," she reasoned.

"Maybe this time, I'll..."

Maybe this time she would do what it takes to keep her, was that it? Hell, I don't know. All I do know is that for four weeks, Catherine Willows did the one thing she does best. She fucked herself blind, hoping that maybe, just maybe this time it would do the trick.

two

Sofia watched the car drive away. She'd really believed what she'd said that time, that if you want her you can have her? Seeing it was another thing altogether though.

"Imitating love," she said. It's that simple. She'd also believed it, when she said he deserved her. That she deserved him, and she deserved her, and she deserved her...

Can't one make it simple, or at least simpler?

The thing was, she admitted as she put the car in gear and slowly rolled out of the parking lot, she'd been this close to fall into the temptation of Cath. To buy into the promises she could see in her eyes; promises of... Joy, and easy... Whatever it's called. Just let it be that for a moment. Let it be different than this, at least for a moment.

why can't it be that way for just one moment?

Because that is not How We Do Things. We make choices, promises, and then we stick to them and that's that. Because if we don't, then what would we be?

Without being aware of driving there, she'd followed them to a bar, and now she watched them get out and slowly stroll to the entrance. Catherine said something she couldn't make out, but it sure made Sara smile.

God, I love it when you smile.

She turned on the radio and adjusted her seat. She had a feeling it wouldn't take long, but you never knew about these things. She pulled out her notebook and grabbed a pen.

I am writing this on a hip pocket pad, a waterproof one
but I am not crying, never crying

She leaned back and pushed her fingers down her front pocket, finding a tooth pick. The wooden kind that comes individually wrapped in crispy plastic, with a faint taste and smell of artificial menthol? She put it in her mouth and started chewing, thinking of all the times she'd done this: surveillance in a car outside some dive, waiting for some fucked up jackasses to make up their damn minds and ...

There they were, it'd gone much faster than she'd thought. She watched Catherine more or less wrestle Sara to the car, and she instantly recognized the cocky, drunken groping.

She was careful not to let the other driver spot her, and kept several cars between them. She did after all have a fairly good idea of where they were going.

Pulling past the Willows' house then making a U-turn, she picked a spot with a good overview of the front lawn. Turning the engine off, she reached for her worn out pad, and wrote:

the waterproof cost me extra
the words are extra; they don't come with the pad
the crush, the love is extra
and you are extra.

She put the pad down on the seat next to her, and took a few deep breaths. Someone on the radio told her that I just made you up to hurt myself, and you know what? It worked. Yes, it did! She laughed and opened her door and got out to stretch. She jogged a little on the spot, and cracked her neck this way and that way, then climbed back into the car. Switching the radio off with one hand, she popped the buttons on her jeans with the other. She took a final glance around and wriggled her hand down, and she waited. Looking at the front door and the windows, she waited.

three

"Sara."

"Hey, you’re back?"

"Yeah."

I am covered in Catherine, Gil.

"... a garbage dump?"

I have her in my mouth, my nostrils, all over my hair, under my finger nails, stuck between my teeth.

"It's so obvious, isn't it?"

She's always so very wet and just thinking about it makes me want to run back to her and taste her all over again.

"You, um..."

Her office is a crime scene, Gil, you'll find fluids hairs discarded tissues fluids everywhere.

"You look good."

Collect the evidence, please.

"Did you put the cocoon in my office?"

Yes, and then I told Catherine about it and we laughed like mean high school girls.

"Cool, dry, not a lot of light, it seemed like the right place for it."

I'm finally the jock, Gil. Made the cheerleader come while making fun of the geek squad.

"I think you’re going to be surprised when it hatches."

"I’m going to go clean up now."

Wipe me dry.

"I’ll see you later?"

"Yeah, you will."