Harder not to try

A/N: I`ve not posted anything CC-related in some time. My life is a chaos and it doesn´t seem to get better... But still, here is a little bit of random humor. It´s old. I still like it.

Summary: Who would have thought he would be tempted like that. He shouldn´t, he knew. It wasn´t right. Still, he couldn´t help himself. OneShot.

Warning: Humor.

Set: Series-unrelated, since I haven´t watched Cold Case for half a year now. The plight of not having a TV.

Disclaimer: I don´t own Cold Case.

It´s really harder not to try, Detective Nick Vera thought unhappily and stared onto his desk without actually seeing what was in front of him.

This kind of thing seemed to happen to him quite often lately: His thoughts just went astray, without reason, without aim. There was no sense in fighting it, no use in trying to fill up his mind with other things because every time he made the feeble attempt to distract himself, the same mental image would jump out at him.

Whatever he was doing: If he was abroad, doing his job, if he was sitting at home in front of the television screen, if he was at work, brooding on some particularly boring case files. The image had grown so vivid in his mind he could see it on the inside of his lids whenever he blinked – or whenever he closed his eyes.

When had this insanity started?

He couldn´t remember clearly. But since it had, time was flowing as slow and gooey as cold honey. Again, he threw a look at the clock hanging on the far side of the wall: 11.27. Still one hour left until lunch break. And after that, it wouldn´t be better, it would rather start pestering him even more. And time just didn´t pass, enjoying to torture him.

Angrily, he grabbed the forms he had already started to complete, crushed them into an uneven ball and threw them in direction of the wastepaper basket. He missed by inches, despite his good starting position and no wind, swore deftly and ignored the accusatory evidence on the grey floor. Instead, he took another blank and started filling it a second time. Yes – when had it started? When he still had been married, he had been able to cope with it quite well. At that time, such a stupid thing wouldn´t have thrown him off balance like that. At that time, there had been nothing which had made him feel that insecure and self-conscious, and, even worse; there had been nothing that had stopped him from directing a word to Kat – to Miller. But since he was divorced, everything was different.

Hell – he wouldn´t be killed by asking a simple question, would he? Asking something was neither forbidden nor hurt and she wouldn´t eat his heart just for him daring to open his mouth. But still, he avoided looking into her direction pointedly, only watching his colleague from the edge of his vision. Kat, with her dark, curly hair, was typing on the keyboard of Rush´s personal computer with total concentration edged into her features. As soon as the Ice Queen would get to know her best friend had been playing around with her computer… Nick had a vivid imagination. But he didn´t even want to imagine whatever consequences Kat would suffer. He didn´t want to imagine Rush getting angry – and he certainly didn´t want to experience it.

Nevertheless, he kept silent and continued to stare at his paper, trying to ignore her and failing miserably. But however much he told his head not to think about it – his body couldn´t be cheated that easily. He sighted heavily and sank back into his chair. He knew very well he shouldn´t be having such thoughts. Neither was it appropriate nor would the result he hoped for be good for him... Nor for his colleagues. They´d not be very happy. There were enough negative examples for such a thing… Sighting again, he discarded the second blank. It went to stay with its brother on the floor, next to the paper basket.

He had thought it would be easier to just give up on this craving as something impossible instead of being haunted by it every second. But now he realized giving up was even more difficult than thinking about how he might be able to make her see what he was feeling. Not trying was hardest.

The greatest temptation was the little voice inside his head, telling him that she might as well say yes. There was no harm in trying, right? But on the other hand, even if she said yes, the consequences he would be facing could be even more distressing than this entire situation. He could dimly remember Rush saying something concerning that topic. She had definitely looked in his direction. Why the heck did this woman always know exactly what you were thinking? That was creepy. How could Valens stand to be her partner… So even if Kat didn´t care what her best friend thought. Maybe she´d say yes, but most probably, she´d refuse. And he didn´t want to live with whatever came after this refusal… He sighted for the third time and bend over the next blank form on his desk.

„Vera!"

Alarmed, he looked up guiltily.

Kat was still sitting at Rush´s desk, her eyes focused intently onto the screen – it seemed she had found something interesting. But she was definitely talking to him.

"Yeah?" He asked, feeling like a child caught with its hands in the cookie jar. With his left foot, he tried to shove the paper balls of blanks under his desk so she wouldn´t see them but her attention wasn´t focused on him at all.

"You´re really pitiful."

Her voice changed to a curiously soft tone.

"Go get that damn last piece of cake."

Hi, hi^^ I like them a lot! I also like that crazy attorney whom seems to be dating Kat in season 6… Let´s see where that will take us! Reviews are love, if you have time at your disposal. Thanks for reading!