Escape
By: Allison
Disclaimer: Not mine. Don't sue, I'm poor.
Fandom: CSI/The Pretender
Pairing: Catherine/Jarod
Rating: PG-13
Summary: She wants to be anonymous.


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'He was a good lay', Catherine Willows admitted to herself as she slipped her jeans on in the dark, unlit hotel room. Looking over at the man she'd shared a bed with, she wondered if he felt the same way.

He'd known her body... her turn-ons, turn-offs, every tender spot, what made her groan with pleasure, and she'd never seen him before tonight.

It was not one-night stand sex. At least it hadn't seemed that way.

It was filled with emotion, passion, understanding, caring...the sort of sex relationships are made out of.

Catherine didn't need that sort of commitment.

But she knew he did. She wondered if he felt betrayed.

"So naïve," she mumbled, searching for her bra among the mound of clothes on the floor. She knew she'd never be what he wanted, even if he didn't yet.

Catherine had met him at a local bar she frequented, a small place as yet untouched by the neon lights and techno music of the newer places around Vegas. Tall, dark, and mysterious...he'd wined and dined her buying her drinks for her as they sat at the bar...her rambling on about nothing in particular --he sipping draft beer and listening. Somewhere along the line, it occurred to her that she knew nothing of the man next to her. It didn't take long for her to realize she didn't really care.

But she asked him anyway.

"Where'd you grow up? What are your parents like? What do you do for a living? Who are you?"

For a moment, he didn't say a word. Just stared at her, far-off looking his eye before suddenly replying he didn't know. He never knew his parents, couldn't remember the place where he was born .

He was searching for his family. For love. For warmth. For so many things.

All Catherine was searching for was an escape, from everything.

And that's what he gave her. He wasn't Grissom offering sympathy and pity for the rotten cards that had been dealt to her. He wasn't Warrick lending a listening ear for things she'd rather not talk about.

She didn't know who he was; he didn't know who he was.

He was anonymous. And when he fucked her, she felt that way too.

'He'll understand,' she thought to herself. He wanted identity, she wanted anonymity; in some way, both had accomplished their goals. Now, it was time to move on.

It was an easy concept to grasp, really.

Idly, as she gathered the last of her things, she wondered when one-night stands became the one thing that stopped making her feel so empty inside. When they had started to fill the void inside her that nothing else could.

Solving puzzles nightly certainly wasn't doing it anymore.

Slinging her purse over her shoulder, Catherine scribbled a hasty note on the cheap motel stationary.


Jarod --thanks for the escape.

Hope you find what you're searching for.

--Cath.


Setting the note down on the pillow next to him, she walked out, and back to the life she'd been able to escape from; if only for a night.

--Fin.