Disclaimer: I don't own 'em…
A/N: It's been a while since I've written, but a conversation with a friend put this opening scene in my head and I had to write something around it. Be patient with me and I'll try to update some of the other stuff I've started soon.
"Cath?" I asked tentatively as I ducked my head into her mostly dark office.
She didn't answer, but instead barely lifted her head enough for me to see that tears had streaked her cheeks and that her previously perfect makeup was now marred.
She quickly wiped at her eyes and tucked her hair back, trying to make herself seem less vulnerable, less broken.
I stepped further inside and pushed the door shut behind me.
I took a few more hesitant steps further into her office.
She never looked up, but I'm certain she knew that I was still there. I sat down in a chair across from her. "You okay?"
She turned her chair slightly which left me with a side-view of her and she looked out the lone window in her office. I sat there studying her, waiting for her to speak. I knew that something was bothering her and while I was uncertain just what it was, I knew it involved me. Or, more precisely, I was the source of it.
I was so lost in watching her and admiring how even when she was upset she possessed a radiance that most women never seem to attain that I nearly missed the sound of her voice as she finally began to speak.
"I don't know why I thought there was something between us. It's not like either of us ever talked about it. You know?" She turned her head toward me long enough to make eye contact before continuing. "We went from being angry and constantly bickering to spending more and more time together. I got to know you. You got to know me. And gradually, all of that angry tension went away."
She looked at me once more, as if inviting me to interject some feelings or thoughts on the matter at hand. I was too stunned by the fact that she had confessed to thinking that there was something between us. I wanted to know what this something was that she was referring to.
She brought her fingertips up to gently massage her temples before going on, "And now there's an entirely differently kind of tension. And you—you just act like you don't notice."
Finally, I found my voice. "Notice what, Cath?" I leaned forward, sitting on the edge of my seat.
Her eyes went wide and she spun her chair around to face me again. She opened her mouth to speak several times before finally chuckling lightly. "Un-freaking-believable. It figures that you—Miss Super Observant Scientist-- wouldn't have noticed."
I felt my defenses beginning to rise at her slight insult. This was Catherine though, and we'd moved beyond our earth-shifting bouts with one another. I took a deep breath and relaxed back in my chair, a silent invitation for her to continue.
She stared at me in contemplative stillness. "You hadn't noticed the amount of time we've been spending together?"
She waited for a response; I shrugged my shoulders.
"What about the fact that nearly every moment we have outside of work is spent in one another's company?"
Again, I'm unable to speak. I still have no idea where she's going with this.
She clenched her fists and slid closer to her desk, a look of sheer frustration on her face. "Just what have we been doing, Sara? Huh?"
I looked away from her and cast my eyes down at the floor, unable to answer her.
"Jesus, Sara. We go out for dinner and go to movies together. You spend time with Lindsey and how many nights have you fallen asleep on my couch with your head in my lap or mine in yours?"
Disbelief painted her features and suddenly, it was all starting to make sense.
"We never said it—never said what we were doing. I just thought it was unspoken. The touches were started to linger and your kisses had moved from my forehead to my cheek. You even called me baby last week."
It was much too quiet for my comfort. I was processing her words and the thundering quiet only brought to mind those lines from T.S. Eliot: This is the way the world ends, not with a bang but a whimper.
"Oh," was all I could muster with my Ivy League education. "Catherine, I…"
Her hands being raised defensively in the air cut my argument off before I could really begin in earnest to explain. A fresh round of tears began to fall across her alabaster cheeks. "Yeah, oh. Imagine my surprise when I hear about your date with Sofia. Sofia! Of all the people you could have gone out with," she began to shake her in an exaggerated fashion as she simultaneously wagged her finger in my direction. "You played me. You led me on. You knew what was going on. You knew. How could you not know? How could you not know that everything we were doing was what people who date do? Hmmmm….how could you not know? Answer me. How?"
Her questions came in such a rapid fire of succession that it was nearly impossible for me to keep up with them. And before I could answer, she had started again.
"Are you really that oblivious? Seriously? Are you? Light touches? Brushing my hair out of my face and tucking it behind my ear? Feeding me?"
She looked at me intently, both daring and waiting for me to answer.
Instead, I stood. It was all too much. What she was saying…she was implying that we had somehow been involved with one another, yet I had failed to notice it.
But had I? Had I really been so oblivious, as she had put it, that I hadn't noticed what was going on between us? Had I really failed to notice how my heart sped up at her proximity? Or that my skin would tingle for minutes after the slightest touch of hers against mine? Or that I always made time for her? Or that even hours after I had left her, I could smell her?
No longer hesitant, no longer questioning, I quickly moved behind her desk and pulled her to her feet, and for the first time, our lips met.
As I breathlessly pulled back from the kiss and rested my forehead against hers, I smiled triumphantly. "I guess on some level I knew what was going on between us, but if I had known having dinner with Sofia – not a date, but dinner—would have brought this all to a head, I'd have eaten with her months ago."
Before she could reply, I lifted my fingers and barely grazed her lips with them. Her eyes closed at the contact and her body relaxed.
"Does this mean that if I ask you out you'd accept?"
The little laugh that had brought many smiles to my face resonated around the room before she pulled back and swatted me playfully on the arm. "Yeah, but don't expect me to put out on the first date."
With that, she winked and pulled me back to her for a searing kiss that left no doubt in my mind that I wouldn't have to wait for the first date.