Rating: T for an allusion to child abuse and a few appearances by some naughty words.

Disclaimer: I don't own any of the characters or situations from 'CSI:Crime Scene Investigation', 'Persuasion' or 'Lady Chatterley's Lover'. This story was written and published purely for enjoyment and the love of the characters. No profit is being made.

Summary: "Everyone can see that Catherine's beautiful, it's undeniable but maybe I've found something better. Maybe I've found someone who thinks I'm beautiful, even though I'm not." Post 'Butterflied' Sara meditates on Debbie Marlin and why she'll never be beautiful. Then makes a discovery about why that may not matter as much as she thought. NS (Snickers).

Explanations: Anne Elliot is the main character in Jane Auten's novel 'Persuasion' and Lady Chatterley is the main character in D. H. Lawrence's 'Lady Chatterley's Lover'. They come up in this fic so I just thought I'd explain them for anyone who doesn't quite get the reference I'm making.

Anne is a woman who is persuaded out of marrying the man she loves because he is an unsuitable match but who doesn't ever marry anyone else because she loved him so much. She's more kind than beautiful and at 27 she has lost what beauty she had and is a spinster who will probably never marry, leaving her stuck living with her stupid but snobbish father and sister. 'Persuasion' tells the story of how she meets Captain Wentworth again (the man she refused) and how they fall in love again, not that either of the ever stopped loving the other. But that's not the point.

Lady Chatterley is a free, rather sexual woman whose husband is injured in the war and comes home paralysed below the waist, leaving her without a large part of her identity and meaning she has to look elsewhere for… ahem… 'satisfaction'. It's an exploration of class identity, gender, female identity, sexuality and the inability of men and women to understand each other (in my opinion it is, anyway!), in which she rediscovers her vitality through a rather torrid affair with her somewhat philosophical and overly-qualified gardener. Naturally they fall in love. That's all I can really remember because I read it a few years ago and I'm not a huge D.H Lawrence fan. I was rather captured by the phrase "You've got the nicest woman's arse I've ever seen" though.

The point is that Anne Elliot is saved and revitalised by love and Constance Chatterley is revitalised initially by sex which later becomes love.

More Moth Than Butterfly

It's a few days after the Debbie Marlin murder and I'm sitting in the locker room. Shift's over, its time to go home and I have two full days off with nothing to do. I have no particular plans for those two days but even so I should be rushing to get out of the lab before someone appears and begs me to pull a double. Instead I'm too busy thinking. I think if there's one thing that really scared me about the Debbie Marlin case it wasn't the experience of seeing my doppelganger laid out on a slab with her throat slashed, disturbing though that was. What scared me more was her life before she was killed, more specifically, the sheer sexuality of the woman. The idea that she had men falling at her feet, that it could be so easy for someone who looked just like me. Because that's not me. It never has been and at this stage I don't think it ever could be.

It's never bothered me too much before. I'm not the kind of woman who's ever needed a man to be able to feel complete. I'm self-sufficient, I'm intelligent, I have a job that I'm damn good at. My social life may be non-existent but I've always been more interested by my work than by other people. I feel like such an enormous traitor to every feminist author I've ever read for even thinking this but it's just that sometimes… I wish I could be beautiful. It would be nice to be the sort of woman who turned heads in the street. It would be nice to be adored.

It's a thought that only appears every once in a while and it never lasts that long but it's a persistent little sucker. It's just that I don't know what to do. I was always a tomboy growing up and by the time I got to the stage when I was a little older and I wanted to learn about make-up and flirting and how to just be a girl, I was in foster care. In group homes you learn to be tough, not cute. And I've always been observant. I noticed early on that while the pretty, happy girls always got picked out first they also came back more often, more broken than they had been before they left. Those couples never considered me. The couples where, if you watched carefully you could see the man steering his wife towards the prettiest of the girls. They were always the kind of men who wanted you to sit on their knee and call them daddy while they touched your hair with clammy hands and put their face too close to yours. Those were the men that I quickly worked out you didn't want for your new daddy.

I could never have asked any of the women who looked after me to teach me how to be a girl. It was just too personal, too embarrassing. I don't share my deficiencies easily and the fact that I'm at a complete loss outside of the soap and medicine aisles of a drugstore isn't something I shout around.

I thought about asking Catherine once, that night when she took me out for a beer after the whole Hank debacle. In fact I'm sure she'd like me better if I could show a little weakness in front of her. Never did though. Never would. Don't get me wrong, as beautiful as Catherine is I'd never want to be like her; all blatant sexuality, push up bras and flippy hair. That's certainly not me. It's just that sometimes my own face surprises me. I have a soft focus picture in my head of what I look like and sometimes when I wake up and catch a glimpse of myself in the harsh light of my bathroom it throws me for a second. Four years of death, desert heat, long nights, no sun, bad diet and chasing after a man who's more interested in blow fly eggs does a girl no favours. The youth seems to have dropped away from my face and I don't know when it went or where it's gone. My skin looks dry, I've lost weight, the lines around my mouth are a little deeper, my hair and eyes a little duller. I feel coarse and brittle, hollowed out. I think of Lady Chatterley talking about feeling dried up, diminished and sexless when her body lost it's plump femininity. I think of Anne Elliot losing her bloom. I think that for both of these women it was love, or at least sex, that gave them back the something they'd lost. Not much chance of that anymore.

Men don't look at me when I'm standing next to Catherine. Why would they? It's like a moth standing next to a butterfly. She's a living, breathing playboy bunny and I'm… well, let's just say that I'm well aware that when I first arrived there was a pretty sizeable book running among the local cops as to whether or not I was a lesbian. Which probably says more about them than about me, but still.

Sex is sex and work is work. I'm not going to start tottering to crime scenes in jeans too tight to bend down in and tops that flash the whole world an eyeful when you're looking for trace on a carpet, the way that Catherine does. I'm well aware that my hips don't sway when I walk, the way that hers do. If there's one word to describe my walk it's probably 'rangy' and there's no way I'm going to start wearing heels to the lab. I do own a pair though. Just one, at the back of my closet, the soles are perfectly in tact because I've never worn them outside of my apartment. They're not something anyone would ever imagine me wearing. I can't even believe I own them. They were an impulse buy, back one time before when the urge to try being pretty hit me and I thought I might have a go. I figured I might as well go the whole hog, which is why they're red and satin with a stiletto at the back and a peep toe at the front. They're what my college roommate Linda used to call 'fuck-me shoes'. Dancing shoes. The kind you wear when a man takes you out for dinner, dancing and the time of your life. Something, incidentally, which has never happened to me. They're the kind of shoes I know Catherine would kill for and probably be able to put to good use. Me, I just spent a weekend wearing them around my apartment, learning to walk in them without falling over. In the end I realised that it was pointless. They did put a little swing in my hips but there was still a certain manliness to my walk that just made me look ridiculous. And they gave me blisters. I still had nothing to wear them with, nowhere to wear them to and no one to wear them for. Plus, they make me as tall as Warrick. And I still didn't know how to do my own make up or buy a dress. So really there was no reason to be disappointed. I was though. I guess on the inside I'd been hoping that when I slipped the shoes on some hidden switch inside my brain would flip and I'd suddenly become feminine. Radiant and glamorous like a 50s film star. Fat fricking chance.

I experiment with my hair sometimes. It even looked pretty good a few times but it's too much effort to do every day. I've tried experimenting with make up too. I can handle lipstick. Kind of. I can choose it and put it on, anyway. It's just that it always makes my mouth feel uncomfortable and it rubs off or smears by the end of a shift. It took me enough courage to turn up at work wearing lipstick for the first time, I can't imagine how hard it would be to start heading to the ladies' room every couple of hours to do touch ups. Mascara just smudges because this town's so damn hot and every time I wear eyeshadow I feel like a clown and wash it off halfway through the day. Besides, I know the limits of my own face and body. I have to come to terms now with the fact that I'm never going to be beautiful. I have freckles and a gap between my front teeth. I'm too tall and too pale. I'm bony where I should be slender and I'm angular where I should be rounded. My shoulders always slump and there's a touch more roundness to my stomach than I care for. My face is sharp rather than defined and, at the end of the day, most of the time I just don't care enough to start getting up half an hour earlier to beautify myself.

I can pluck my eyebrows though and about a year ago I taught myself how to blowdry my hair straight, I think to myself with a little grin. Which is when I realise that I've been sat there for God knows how long, clutching spasmodically at a sock and contemplating my lack of femininity. I'm also not alone any more. Nick is standing at his locker. He doesn't seem to realise I've returned to earth because I notice he's watching me. I can see him out of the corner of my eye and it takes my breath away more than a little because he's looking at me in a way no one ever has. There's a little half smile on his face like he's thinking hard about something but he isn't staring into space. His eyes are totally fixed on my face, I can tell by the way they're moving ever so slightly, like he's trying to take everything in and remember it. He's looking at me like…

Like he thinks I'm beautiful.

Which makes me take a sharp little breath in because Nick's just plain gorgeous. And gorgeous, kind, intelligent men who make me laugh do not think I'm beautiful. They think of me as a sister. Or one of the guys. Or a damn lesbian.

The intake of breath seems to make Nick realise he's been staring at me because his head snaps round and he's suddenly very focussed on rummaging about in his locker. When I look over at him I'm pretty sure I can detect the hint of a blush on the back of his neck and it makes me think. I've often noticed that when I turn to talk to Nick, he's already looking at me but when you're working together and there's only one bit of evidence to analyse, there's not exactly much to look at except the other person. I know that I'm always studying his face, watching him to see if he's noticed something or had an idea. Of course, sometimes I study his butt too but that's not really my fault. When you're sleep deprived, all you have to go home to is a fridge full of takeaway boxes and you're 14 hours into a shift working with someone who looks like an underwear model, it's kind of involuntary. He does have a great ass though.

I've never had a chance to study him while he's looking at me before and now that I have I'm starting to re-evaluate things a little.

Nick turns around from his locker to face me, obviously not realising I caught him staring, and gives me a grin, asking about my plans for the next two days. I grin back, just a little bit wider than usual and give him some bullshit answer about catching up on forensic journals before beating a hasty retreat to my truck. My thoughts are still reordering themselves as I drive home and as I shower and change into a pair of baggy pyjama pants and a tank top. Things are still clicking into place later that evening when the delivery man arrives with my box of egg foo yung.

On impulse I run to my closet and find those perfect, unmarked red shoes way at the back. Slipping them on and wobbling my way back to the couch where I flip on the TV. My thoughts have finished rearranging themselves and I feel a little bit flushed and giddy, which may have something to do with the glass of red wine I've been having with my food. All evening I've been thinking about the way that Nick was gazing at me and I've come to a realisation or two.

I'm not beautiful the way that Catherine is and I never will be but maybe that doesn't matter the way that it did a few hours ago. Everyone can see that Catherine's beautiful, it's undeniable but maybe I've found something better. Maybe I've found someone who thinks I'm beautiful, even though I'm not. When a man tells Catherine she'd beautiful it doesn't mean anything, it's just a statement of fact. If Nick ever tells me I'm beautiful it'll mean everything because no one's ever said it before, because it's never been the truth before.

I feel vaguely ridiculous sitting alone in my house watching TV in ratty pyjamas and a pair of unworn fuck-me shoes, a glass of red wine in my hand and a half eaten box of takeaway on the floor in front of me. It's OK though because I'm not beautiful but I'm pretty sure my most handsome co-worker thinks I am. And I'm also pretty sure that sometime in the next two days I'm going to work up the courage to phone him up and ask him to go out with me. If I'm feeling really brave I might even go out to buy a skirt tomorrow, maybe even a dress, and ask him to go for dinner and dancing. If he's really lucky I might wear the fuck-me shoes, if I spend the day trying to teach myself to walk like a girl in them without falling over. Maybe I'll drink a little red wine and get a little flirty. It's not really my style and I'm sure by the morning I'll have lost the courage. I'll probably just ask him over for pizza and movies. If I do, I'll leave the shoes out somewhere where he can see them, though.

Maybe it's the wine or maybe it's the whole host of new possibilities that've just opened up in front of me but when I see my face in the bathroom mirror before I go to bed I'm surprised by my face once again. I still need to put on a little weight, my hair still can't decide if it's curly or straight, I'm not as young as I used to be and I could do with some sleep, some sunshine and about a gallon of moisturiser to counteract the dry Nevada air but something's changed. There's a splash of colour on my cheeks and a hint of a sparkle in my eyes. The lines of my mouth seem to have softened a little. My whole face just looks… softer. Maybe I'm even more like Anne Elliot than I thought, maybe my bloom's coming back. It could just be the wine but maybe, just maybe, I'm a little bit in love. Not with Nick, yet, but with the way he sees me. For the moment I'm just heavily attracted to Nick but I get the feeling after 4 years of flirtation and friendship it's not going to take much to tip the balance, especially if he keeps looking at me the way he did earlier today.

I slip into bed, turn out the lights and let out a little giggle, which is definitely the wine because Sara Sidle does not giggle. I'm giggling because I'm wondering just how long I'll be waiting before I find out if I'm as much like Lady Chatterley as I am like Anne Elliot. I think back to all Nick's flirting and the look on his face when he was gazing at me like I took his breath away. Maybe not that long.

FIN

Hope the references to Anne and Constance made sense. I rather like this as it is, in its potential-snickers form but I'm considering writing a follow-up. After all, I want to know how the date goes! I can just imagine Sara being all scientific and going on the internet trying to research how to walk in heels and put on makeup. Any opinions would be gratefully received.

And just for the record, I think Jorja's much better looking than Marg because she has far more interesting features and doesn't look like she's had a ton of plastic surgery. But knowing how hard we women all are on ourselves I thought I'd up the ante a little. Although I do wish sometimes that I could sort out her wardrobe, hair and makeup. I swear that woman has the worst taste in shoes I have ever seen and don't even get me started on that heavy eyeshadow she keeps wearing, it makes me want to take a wet tissue to her face and then frogmarch her down to the nearest Schuh or Office or something. It's the same feeling I get when George Eads wears those hideous polo-neck sweaters that make him look like a Russian submariner circa 1980. Sigh. Anyway, rant over. Thanks for reading.