DISCLAIMER: I own nothing, nothing at all. I receive no monetary gain from writing, just happy feels. All characters are property of their respective owners.
So, this is just another one of those side stories about what might've/could've happened at the end of an episode. Got the idea after watching 'Crow's Feet' 5x04. :)
Catherine stared at herself in the tiny mirror stuck to the inside of her locker, running her hands over her eyes. The dark circles sitting in crescent moon shapes below were puffy under her fingertips. The tiny creases at the corners stretched out farther than she remembered, and their numbers had increased since the last time she dared to look hard enough or long enough to catalogue their growth. She scrutinized the area around her mouth, the tiny, etched lines that crinkled when she smiled or when she laughed, and she realized, to her chagrin, that she hadn't been doing much of either lately.
Catching the person you're dating cheating on you with someone half your age doesn't do much in the way of making you feel attractive or desired. And she needed that. She needed to be craved, to be lusted after. She needed someone to look at her like the world had stopped spinning and the clouds had all fallen to the Earth. She needed someone to ache for her, to lie awake at night with visions of her in their head, unable to sleep from restless desperation flooding their veins, but she didn't know if those people were out there or that there was someone close to her who did every one of those things - and more.
She brushed a hand through her hair, letting the strands cascade across her face in waves of honey and cinnamon, settling on her forehead and cheeks, tickling her skin. She thought she looked okay, maybe even good, but she couldn't find the proof to call herself beautiful. She searched for it in the blues of her eyes and the fullness of her lips. She tried to find it in the strength of her cheekbones or the sleek curve of her jawline, but she didn't see it. She couldn't see it. All she saw was a woman who was getting older by the minute, a woman who was losing the sexual prowess that had defined her, a woman inching closer to death each day.
The doctor had been right. She had studied the before and after photos. She had read all the journals and researched all the procedures. She had done her homework, but she was vain. She wanted beauty on her own terms. She didn't want to be a pin cushion for the week's latest trend of injections. She didn't want to wake up from surgery looking worse than when she went in, and she was afraid someone would notice, that they would see through the veneer to the cracks underneath, that she'd be exposed for a fraud.
She stepped back from the open door in an attempt to see more of herself in the small mirror, running her palms over the arch of her chest, tracing the curves of her sides and hips down to her waist, and wrapping her arms around her abdomen. She wasn't as toned as she would have liked, and her breasts hung just a fraction lower than they used to, but she liked her ass. She liked the round cheeks that bounced when she walked. She liked the way men looked at her when she wore tight pants, when she bent over to pick up anything - or nothing. She thought it was the best feature she had, but even it wasn't strong enough to fight off the ravages of time. Sooner or later, it would start to droop as well, sagging along with the rest of her tired body.
She turned away from her reflection, not wanting to wallow in the imperfections she found in staggering numbers and too afraid that she would notice even more. The case had gotten to her, had rattled her self assured demeanor and shook her confidence. She felt vulnerable, and she hated it, but the worst part was that she was already doing the math in her head, adding and subtracting the numbers to see if she could afford to pay the wizard to wave his magic wand and erase the last ten years, or at least smooth out the edges of the decade.
She sighed with defeat and with shame, and she slammed the locker door closed, the mirror rattling against the metal as it shut. She started at the figure standing in the now open space left by the door. She hadn't heard any footsteps or felt any presence, but she had been lost in her dissection of herself, marking off her brutal checklist of flaws.
"Tough one?" She forced herself to put the pieces back in place, build up her walls with brick and mortar so she came across as though nothing was wrong and she hadn't just been kicking herself like a school yard bully.
"Unsatisfying."
"No arrest?"
"Not even an acknowledgment that he did anything wrong. Blamed the women instead and their quest for youth."
"Beauty always has a price."
"Yeah, well, it shouldn't be death."
"No, it shouldn't." The brunette shifted her weight, using her shoulder as leverage to stand up straight. She stared at the woman in front of her, stepping closer to breach the bubble of personal space, wanting to smell the hints of exotic flowers and spice from the shampoo she used, wanting to knock her off her guard. She felt brave and reckless, and she could sense the vulnerability, the waves of insecurity leaking through Catherine's pores, through the creamy, alabaster complexion of her skin.
"Sara?"
"You don't need it, you know." Catherine felt see through, transparent under the probing gaze, and she stared at the younger woman with something akin to fear in her eyes. Was she really that open of a book? Were her pages all written in large print? In bold face letters?
"Need what?" Sara smiled, a small, knowing smile that always seemed as if it were made for her lips, to rest on the soft curves of her mouth, belonging there and nowhere else. She reached out her hand, whisking aside the few renegade strands of hair covering Catherine's eyes and tucking them with feather light precision behind the red head's ear. Her skin was smooth and soft, and it reminded Sara of the finest silks, of elegant tapestries woven with the utmost of care, of everlasting beauty.
Catherine watched with a mix of confusion and intrigue as the brunette touched her, holding her breath in her lungs, too afraid to exhale for fear of disrupting the air around them, dissipating the static energy that was swirling through the room at a low hum. Sara's fingers were careful and tender as they brushed against her skin, and Catherine couldn't remember the last time someone had regarded her with such gentle affection, such unguarded admiration. It made her chest swell and tighten. It made her body long for something more than she had been receiving, something true and real, something that wouldn't let her down.
The tension grew between them, Sara's thumb tracing the outline of Catherine's ear, her touch trailing lower, nimble fingers dancing down the older woman's neck, coming to rest in the hollow just below her throat. Sara could feel the heartbeat under the skin, could see the veins pulsing just below the surface. She wanted to own the moment, to know that the seconds slipping through her grasp were as tangible as the woman in front of her, was willing to pay whatever cost to keep the time for herself, but things are never as easy as they seem, and love and desire are never guaranteed.
Catherine's blood was caustic, virulent and untamed as it surged through her veins, scorching her muscles, boiling inside her body. She didn't understand the sequence of events unraveling before her, couldn't comprehend the feelings thrashing behind her rib cage, and reason was a staccato voice screaming in her head, but she didn't want to listen. She wanted to give in to the temerarious notions that were clawing for release. She wanted to know how Sara tasted, how she felt, what she looked like dripping with sweat and tangled in cotton sheets.
She leaned forward on shaky limbs, her knees two unstable foes that threatened to give way without notice, but Sara had already found her waist, and the younger woman pushed her back against the row of lockers, placing them both out of sight of anyone that would happen to pass by. She paused only a fraction of a second before claiming Catherine's lips, and the kiss was returned with fervor, with desperation, with an ache she had so often felt herself.
Catherine's hands crept into the thick, silky tresses of Sara's hair, twisting curls around her fingers and tugging, pulling the brunette closer, craving more of her smell, of her feel, of her taste. It was intoxicating to be so desired, to have someone want her, and Sara did want her. She wanted her more than she ever remembered wanting anything. She wanted her even more than she wanted to breathe. The thought was dangerous and unhealthy, and she knew somewhere in her gut that they shouldn't do this, that they couldn't do this. Trying to hold fire is for fools, and Catherine was a million flames blazing brighter than any supernova the sky had ever known, burning hotter than any lava that had ever flowed over ground. Loving her would be suicide.
Catherine raised a leg, wrapping it around Sara's lower waist as her hips surged forward, grinding against the heat she found, and when Sara moaned into the kiss, she knew she wanted all of her. Every inch of skin. Every broken breath. Every piece of her she could touch. She yanked at the taller woman's jeans, working to loosen the belt buckle, but Sara pulled away suddenly, disentangling herself from limbs and lips and stood in front of Catherine exhaling ragged breaths, her eyes ravenous and brimming with feral desire.
"What are you doing?" Catherine's voice was deep and sultry, lust saturating every syllable.
"I can't."
"What do you mean? You started this." Sara could sense the other woman's frustration, her confusion. She could almost hear the thoughts swirling in Catherine's brain, the thoughts that even she didn't want her.
"I…I just can't." Sara turned away from the blistering blue eyes that were trying to draw her back in, away from the creamy skin that felt like velvet, away from the heart she couldn't have.
"Sara." Catherine's hands reached for her, stopped her, held her in place with firm resolve. "Talk to me."
"I want you, Cath. God knows I want you, but we can't do this. It would mean more to me than it would to you. Hell, it would mean more to me than I want it to, and that's not fair to either of us." She looked down at the fingers curled tight around her bicep, watched as they loosened their grip then slid away, and she risked a glance back at Catherine, regretting it immediately. Two piercing blue diamonds met her gaze with the smoke of rejection clouding their brilliance, and she felt, rather than heard, the small 'oh' that fell from between the redhead's kiss swollen lips. She felt the seemingly innocuous word slam into her gut, slicing into her skin like the dullest knife, twisting and shredding her organs as both of them stood in silence, allowing the truth to coat their skins with its unwelcome arrival.
Catherine felt as if she had been shot, stunned by the unexpected sting, too afraid to look down to survey the damage, and she wrestled with the tears that loomed precariously on the edge of her eyelids. She was determined to not let one salty, traitor slip free. She hated that she felt so unsure of herself, so emotional over something she didn't even know she wanted until right then. She wanted to believe it was just the case getting to her, crawling under her skin and nesting in the muscle, laying seeds of doubt, but the subtle, almost imperceptible pang in her chest belied the thoughts in her head.
"I didn't know-" Sara quickly closed the space between them, her hand cupping Catherine's cheek, her thumb pressing gently against soft lips to quiet the words she knew would only make the ache inside her worse. This had all been a mistake. She hadn't meant to take things this far. She had only wanted to offer comfort or reassurance, but when she saw Catherine's face, saw the demons of insecurity obscuring her beauty, the reigns she held herself back with had snapped like twigs.
"You're beautiful, Catherine. You don't need anything filled or lifted or tucked. You don't even need makeup to be the most gorgeous woman in any room. You're perfect, just the way you are. You always have been. You always will be. Don't forget that." She didn't wait for a reply or even a nod, and she raised herself up slightly on the balls of her feet to place a chaste kiss on Catherine's forehead before exiting the room without looking back. It had to be that way. If she stayed for another minute, even a second, she knew she would regret her decision, end up eating her own words and choking on the aftertaste.
Catherine stood still, allowing the moment to simply be. She listened to the sounds around her, breathing in the scent of the younger woman that had slowly begun to fade and dissipate into the ether. She touched her own lips, letting her fingertips flit across the skin, trying to capture a piece of Sara that she could hold, something of the brunette that she could call her own, but the memory would have to suffice.
She gathered herself the best she could, smoothing out her clothes with her palms, running still shaking fingers through her disheveled hair, inhaling and exhaling measured breaths as her body descended back to reality. She surveyed the space around her with new eyes, a different perspective, nodding to herself as she made her way through the rows of lockers and benches. She gave in to the urge to turn around before exiting the room, and she swore that she could see her and Sara together in the corner, their shadows still tangled in the moment, haunting the space with their leftover energy, two ghosts left floating in time.