The End of the Affair
Fandom/Pairing: CSI,
Catherine/Sara
Author's Note: Part
of the 'Variations on a Theme Series.' Catherine's frustrated
with Sara and makes a mistake.
Spoilers: Slight
mention of events in Season Five.
Years may go by
I think the heart
remains a child
The mind may grow
wise
But the heart just
sucks and it whines
And remains a child
Why don't you love
me?
-Everything But the
Girl
"Did you ever love me, Sara?" The question came out before she could think about it, censor it, but it was the question she had been wanting to ask for weeks, months even, so she let it hang there in the space between them.
The brunette swung to face her blonde lover, stunned. "You're asking me that? Really?"
The blonde shrugged, the casualness of the gesture at odds with the tension vibrating the air between the two women. "I want to know."
"You…" Her head shaking, "You… You cheated on me…" she said, amazed at the need to recount such recent, painful, history, "with that womanizing man-whore ex of yours—and you… you get to question my feelings for you? You have some nerve."
The blonde didn't back down, but sadness tinted her words as she asked, "Do you even want to know why I slept with him? And did you ever wonder why I hid it so badly?"
"I really don't care," Sara retorted.
The shorter woman kept speaking, ignoring the other's response. "I slept with him to see if you would notice, if you would react, if you would care…"
"Well, I'm leaving. Are you happy now? Satisfied? Did you find out what you needed to?" The brunette turned back to her packing, shoving clothes into the duffel as fast as she could, to hasten the end of the conversation.
"Just answer my question: Did you ever love me?"
Her hands stilled in their labor as she stared at the wall in front of her, her back to her soon-to-be-former lover hiding the sadness in her eyes. "How can you ask me that?"
"Because… you didn't show it… and you sure as hell never said it."
"WHAT?!?"
There was a pleading note to the blonde's voice as she explained herself. "I, I let you in, Sara, all the way. I opened my life, my home, and even my daughter's life, to you. I shared everything with you, all my feelings, my hopes, my fears, my ugly ugly past… I was an open book in this relationship. What were you?"
"So this is my fault? You slept with him because of me?"
"I spent the last six months trying to gain access to the impenetrable fortress that is Sara Sidle and I've gotten exactly nowhere. I don't know you any better now that we're sleeping together than I did when we were at each other's throats. I don't feel intimate with you." Sara's short snort of laughter pushed her to try to explain further, "not emotionally. I know your body. Nothing else. We're not close, we're fuck buddies. So yeah, I got frustrated. I got tired of giving and not getting anything back."
"And you have so much intimacy with Chris? And what the fuck was all the time we spent together? That was nothing to you?"
"You never let me in. I wanted to know you, all of you, and after months of dating, I never knew you. You're a stranger in my bed."
"Fuck you, Catherine. I gave too; I gave you my love and my trust, and you just pissed it away."
It was Catherine's turn to snort in derision. "Trust? TRUST? What trust? When did you trust me? When did you tell me anything about your life that I couldn't read on your fucking resume?" Sara's silence spoke volumes and the frustrated blonde struck out at the wall beside her, smacking her hand loudly against the wall. "You never trusted me. This may be over, but you don't get to pretend everything was great until I screwed it up. You know and I know what went down here and you don't get the luxury of believing that lie."
With a final shake of her head and sigh of frustration, she left the brunette to her packing.
