by maven

STANDARD DISCLAIMER: Characters owned by CBS Television, Jerry Bruckheimer and a few other production and distribution companies.

RATINGS DISCLAIMER: PG Rating. Catherine/Sara. Just two people talking. A few bad words.

CONTINUITY DISCLAIMER: Season Five spoilers and setting. No real case specific spoilers.

CREDIT WHERE CREDIT IS DUE: This is the answer to Femvamp's snowbound challenge where Catherine is to fall back on her coke habit and Sara is to find out. Couldn't quite do that.

RESEARCH DISCLAIMER: I watch the show, I read an article in the Toronto Star and this website http://members.aol.com/remiped/csi-news-realcsi.htm. That's about it.

STORY SPECIFIC NOTES: None

FEEDBACK, COMMENTS AND FLAMES: Email at maven369@sympatico.ca

It's a large building but not that large. If you want to find someone it's pretty easy. If you want to find Sara Sidle it's dead easy. Check her favourite lab, then check the break room to see if she's reheating her coffee and then check back at her lab.

"Warrick, you seen Sara?" Warrick is rooting through the fridge, tossing anything green into a nearby trashcan.

"Nah. But it's an hour until her shift."

"She came in early to cover Nick. Ecklie sent her on something and the evidence is in her lab but no Sara."

Warrick gingerly carries something to the trashcan and covers it with a double handful of paper towels. "Not a clue. Try the garage, though. She sometimes just hangs there. Think she likes the smell of oil or something. But Catherine, if she's there you might want to wait until she comes back up."

"Thanks," I say, hearing but not understanding his words. I double-check the lab before heading down to the garage.

At first I think the garage is unoccupied. There's a few cars in the bays awaiting test results before further processing but the lights are off. Then I hear it, a repetitive thump from the second bay. A thump, thump, thump, crunch. Trusting the ambient light I move closer. Again, thump, thump, thump, crunch.

The missing Sara is standing with her back to me, head bowed on her right arm as her left hits with disturbing rhythm onto the wall. Years of misuse and tight budget has left the wall dented and stained grey and brown and there's little structural integrity left in the plasterboard. The source of the thump is obvious. I'm wondering about the crunch when it happens. Her arm pistons forward and I realize two things almost immediately.

The red stains are blood. The brown stains mean it's happened before.

+++++ Sara +++++

I'm staring at the stains, wondering how big a one I'm going to leave today when I hear her.

"Sara? What the hell is going on?"

The second I hear the words I wince. "I'll just be a minute," I mumble, hoping she buys it and leaves.

"Is something wrong?"

"Everything's fine," I grit out, deciding that concern is much more irritating than aggression. I give the wall a thump, trying will her away. Doesn't work, I can hear steps coming closer. I push myself slightly away from the wall, propping myself up with just my elbow and I burrow my face into my hand. I try to will her into silence, into leaving.

Thump. "You don't sound fine," she says.

"I said," I repeat, "I'll be a minute," Thump. "And I'm fine."

Maybe if my eyes weren't closed or maybe if I'd turned around or maybe if I'd stuck my hands in my pockets when she came in or maybe or maybe or maybe but then she's between me and the wall and I'm hitting, punching, striking, hurting…

There's a hissing exhalation of breath. "Not the brightest thing you've done," is the last thing I hear.

+++++ Catherine +++++

The thing about dancers, about good dancers, is their sense of rhythm. Of moving instinctively with the beat. I move with the percussion track without thinking, twisting in the space between the wall and her fist so that when the 'crunch' comes it's more a 'thud' against my ribs. My breath hisses out.

"Not the brightest thing you've done, Willows," I tell myself. "Sara--"

In that brief second Sara has somehow levitated three feet away from me. She's mumbling something but I can't understand it, holding her hands up as if to ward me off. I wince at the scraped and raw knuckles. She looks beyond scared, well into the realm of terrified.

"Sara?" It clicks in.

Sara is in shock. I've seen it at enough crime scenes, arriving before the witnesses or the victim is removed. Cold sweat, shivers, blank look. I push the stool towards her and manhandle her onto it. "Sit. Stay. Don't move."

Like I said, it's a large building but not that large. If you want to find someone it's pretty easy. If you want to find Ecklie you just head to the sound of stressed out voices trying really hard not to yell. Two birds with one stone; Ecklie's victim du jour is Grissom. They interrupt themselves when they see me.

"Have you seen Sara?" Grissom asks.

"Why?" I ask.

"Mr. Ecklie gave Sara an assignment," Grissom said.

"Sidle is covering for Stiles," Ecklie says. "As the shift supervisor was on a call I handled assignments."

"What was the case?"

"The assignment was an apparent suicide," Ecklie says cautiously.

"Apparent?" I ask; realizing I'm going to have to break it into little, bit sized pieces if I want any information tonight. It's like asking Lindsey about her day at school.

"I was just bringing Gil up to speed on it. I figured since his CSI caught the original and we were about to switch--"

"It was my shift, my case and Sara was acting as my investigator."

He glares at me. "Very well, you two sort it out," he says. He does the power play thing, taking up the centre of the corridor and forcing me to either move to the side or risk being bumped into. I turn and take a step backward and my side pulls from where it was hit. He looks at me sharply but says nothing.

I’m not so lucky with Gil. "What happened?" he asks when Ecklie is out of earshot.

"You tell me."

He sighs. "It was called as a simple suicide. When the scene was processed other bodies were discovered."

"By? Who was there other than her?"

"By Sara. Just the two uniforms guarding the scene."

"And it was bad." I don't need to ask.

He pauses a bit. "David used the term horrific."

"And he sent her?"

"Ecklie told he doesn't play favourites. As he cheerfully pointed out: it looked like a single suicide. And if he had to, and I quote, 'mollycoddle the CSIs he'd have a lab of people who could process burglaries and not much else'. End quote."

"Damn it, Gil."

"And based on the facts either one of us would have done the same," he says. He gives me a second to silently agree. "You want me to take it?"

"No," I say. "Despite everything she'd kill us if we took her case. I gotta get back to the garage." I pause and turn back and try to hide another wince.

"Gil, do you know why? Why she's the poster child for post traumatic stress?"

"Yes," he says, "But I'm not at liberty to say."

"You're not a priest and you're not a shrink, Gil."

"Catherine, did Sara strike you?"

"I'm not at liberty to say," I reply and then I half lie to him. "No, she didn't."

Back in the garage I'm not too surprised to see that she hasn't moved an inch. Sighing I pull one of the first aid kits from the wall and drag another stool over. I find the stingy stuff and gently flatten her hands out, palm down on her knees, before cleaning them out. Her fingers twitch a bit and I look up to see her wince.

"Sorry," I murmur. "Stuff stings."

+++++ Sara +++++

The roaring in my ears, the internal movie in my mind clears and I'm sitting. My left hand stings like a son of a gun.

"Sorry. Stuff stings."

I look around the immediate area; gaze low so I don't have to look her in the face. "Where are they?"

"Who?" Catherine asks, sounding confused.

"The uniforms?"

There's a slight pause and then the cool stinging returns. I can't look at her in the face so I focus on her hands on mine. They're smaller and manicured and soft. Pretty much everything mine aren't. She spreads my fingers and traces the knuckles on both hands, touching each hair thin scar, each half moon scar before turning them over and examining my wrists and inside forearms.

"No uniformed police. No report to Ecklie. No report to Gil. It was an accident."

"What are you looking for?" I know I should be saying thank you but I don't feel grateful. I feel about six emotions and none is gratitude.

"More scars," she answers.

"You won't find any more. They're all under the skin. That's the beauty of cutting with blunt force trauma instead of a blade."

Her hands tighten on my forearms tightly. "You should see someone."

"My hand's not broken," I say, pretending to misunderstand.

"I didn't mean a medical doctor."

"I told you, I'm seeing a therapist." This is strictly true. Once per year is still seeing.

"Do you want to? I mean, is it mandated or do you want to?"

"What difference does it make?" I ask, trying unsuccessfully to pull out of her grip.

"It's been my experience that if you don't want to -I don't know, heal- then you don't."

I want to say something biting -something with the words 'addict' and 'kettle black' and 'interfering bitch'- something bitter to hurt her. This time I stop myself.

I finally manage to look up at her. "I should leave."

"The case? This job? Las Vegas? Nevada? The country?"

I laugh. It doesn't sound very cheerful. "That covers it."

"You have a case to process."

"How can you just business-as-usual this. I hit you."

"You have a case to process. Greg's processing our scene so I'm free to assist you if you--"

"I hit you!"

"It was an accident."

"You don't know that. I could have twisted, stopped punching the wall when you came in or--"

"It was an accident."

"I don't know that, Catherine," I twist my hands so that now I'm the one holding her forearms. I hold her tightly, careful with my nails and the pressure. I calm my voice; try to make myself seem reasonable so maybe she'll actually listen. "I don't know that I didn't want to hit you and therefore made it happen. I don't know."

"It was an accident," she repeats. As if saying it enough times makes it so. I know it doesn't. Words like 'accident' and 'sorry' and 'never again' lose their meaning the more you say them.

"I won't be some stereotype entering a cycle," I mutter. "I won't be a statistic. I won't--" be the child of my parents but even now I can't say that aloud.

"Sara," she says softly, squeezing my forearms and I look down. Double arm clasp, like a trapeze team after the aerialist has been safely caught. A wave of vertigo hits and I look up, focusing on her face until it passes.

"Give me the God damn bullet with my name on it. And let me leave," I whisper.

+++++ Catherine +++++

I hear Sara's words but it takes a few heartbeats for the exact meaning to sink in.

"You can't leave," I tell her firmly.

"Why not?"

"You have a dollar of mine."

"What?" she says, tone and expression bewildered.

"It's Las Vegas. You know what happens if you leave town without paying your debt."

"That's not exactly what I meant by leaving."

"I know what you meant. Doesn't matter. You would not believe the contacts I have in this town."

"Catherine--."

"You have a dollar of mine," I repeat.

"You want it back?"

"No."

"I can give it to Warrick. Or Greg, for the love of God."

"No," I tell her. "I want you to hold it."

"So I owe you a dollar but I can't give it back to you or give the marker to anyone else?" Her tone is that scratchy one half way between irritation and humour. The one she uses on witnesses she knows are lying to her.

"That's right."

"Why?" she asks and bewilderment has taken over and I feel the tension in her arms finally ease.

"Because, as screwed up as you, me and we are, you're the only one I trust with it."

END

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