DISCLAIMER: I don't own either of them. Just having fun.
AUTHOR'S NOTE:Post-ep for Suckers.
Warrick sits in shadowy darkness on the locker room bench, slowly and deliberately changing his shoes. They don't need to be changed, but it gives him a reason to be here and a reason to linger, waiting.
He tries to tell himself not to expect her. Maybe she's already gone. Maybe she'll just come in and grab her coat and handbag and leave and not see him sitting here in the shadows, waiting for him. Even so, hope does not fade or die in him. Even in the face of horrendous odds he's always believed he could win, and now that old hope clings to him in the face of his own uncertainty.
She comes in, the light from the corridor outside spilling through the locker room before the door closes and all is dim again. "Hey Warrick," she says, her voice quiet and not at all as it is before others. She is not brash or even competent when he is around. He knows this means she trusts him.
"Hey," he says.
She doesn't ask what he's doing, just comes over and sits down beside him, as he's known - or hoped? - she would.
"I thought you'd gone home," he says, even though he didn't really think so.
"Lindsey'll be in school," she says. "No hurry. Anyway, I need to think of the best way to make her promise me she'll never try to become a vampire."
"Huh," says Warrick, laughing a bit because he knows she wants him to, though it's obvious she is more than a little disturbed by the prospect. With all that they see every day on this job, he wonders how she keeps going, the only one of them with a child. "Lindsey's smart," he says.
"Yeah." Catherine sounds a little doubtful, a little worried, and Warrick reacts instinctively by putting his arms around her. A second passes, and another, and then she leans back against his chest. Warrick can feel a heart pounding somewhere - his? Hers? Both of theirs? It doesn't matter, not now that she's resting her head on his shoulder and Warrick knows that if there really is a line between friendship and something more then they're probably crossed it just by being here like this.
Here. In the locker room. It's not exactly a great place for a romantic rendezvous, but this isn't a rendezvous and maybe for Catherine it's not romantic. Warrick has just started to worry about whether she feels the same, about what happens next, when she rests her hand on top of his and sighs with what he's fairly sure is contentment.
"Cat - " he says, finally, because somebody has to say something and because, sooner or later, someone is going to come in the locker room and this is going to look really suspicious. He doesn't want anyone to be suspicious until he knows that there's something for them to be suspicious about.
"I know," she whispers, turning her head to look at him. He can't help it anymore and he kisses her on the forehead, just for a second, and pulls away, still feeling the touch of her skin on his lips. He is acutely conscious of his body, what he now knows is his own heartbeat and his own breathing, both of which seem so overpowering, and he's also conscious of the nearness of hers. Just for a second he thinks he's done something really stupid, but then she stands up and pulls him up too and smiles and says, "Breakfast?"
THE END