Thank you so much for your reviews, so glad you're enjoying it so far. Here's chapter two:
Chapter Two
It was somewhere between my four hour sleep, making dinner for Lindsey and driving to work that I realized I would have to apologize to Sara. Apologies rarely slipped my lips, and never had one been spoken to Sara, whether I had owed her one in the past or not. But this felt different, maybe it was the fact was so lonely, or the fact Sara had seen my loneliness when no one else had, but I couldn't leave this one unspoken.
I hung my coat up in my locker, closing it as Sara came into the locker room and opened her own metal locker, pulling out her CSI jacket.
"Hi." I smiled at her.
She returned the smile, doing up her jacket's zip.
"Sara, I want to thank you for earlier... You really helped the case." I didn't know why I was struggling so much to get the right words out, but I was.
"You're welcome." she frowned a bit as I shuffled uncomfortably, biting my bottom lip as I held her gaze.
"...And i wanted to apologize for snapping at you when you asked if I was okay." I watched her face for a reaction.
She smiled again, reaching out to rub my arm softly. "Don't worry about it, Cath. But if you do want to talk, you know where I am. Okay?"
I nodded.
"Sometimes it's good to talk." And with that she left the locker room.
I stood there, glued to the spot for a second as I contemplated her words. Talking through my problems wasn't one of my strong points. I couldn't remember really talking to anyone about my divorce from Eddie, or his death.
Grissom interrupted my thoughts as he stood at the doorway. "Are you using lab three? You're booked in on the sheet, but..." he motioned to my presence in the locker room.
"I'm using it." I frowned. I was only a few minutes late into her booking of the space. Grissom was dreadful with people, always had been, that was probably why he surrounded himself with bugs, and why he'd never done anything about his feelings for Sara. It'd been nearly three years since he'd sent her a plant as an apology for his behavior to her one shift, I'd helped him order it, and he'd explained to me his feelings for her. How he yearned for her constantly, cared about her, felt her in his heart, but couldn't bring himself to make his feelings known, even when offered a dinner date with her, he had turned it down. I had watched him struggle as she dated Hank, watched him become torn at her upset at the end of her short-lived relationship, but even after all this time, he still couldn't bring himself to say a word about his feelings for her.
"Sure." was all he had to say before he wandered off down the corridor.
I left the locker room and made my way to my evidence room. I flicked the radio on and closed the door behind myself. The glass walled room filled with the sounds of general pop music and I tucked a strand of my blonde hair behind my ear as I undid the tape seal on my evidence box. Hours passed as I noted the additional evidence Sara and I had collected from the victim's house, sending fibers around the lab for identification. Sara had also lifted a print from the bedside table phone, I knew from inspecting it under a magnifying glass it wasn't the victim's, so i made my way to the AFIS computer down the corridor.
I entered the room to see Sara sat the computer, she had her elbows leant on the desk, her head in her hands.
"Hey, what's up?" I asked gently, approaching her and tentatively placing my hand on her back. I rubbed my hand up and down her t-shirt covered back and she let out a shaky breath.
"A woman was raped and murdered in her car, and the only print I found that isn't hers isn't getting a hit... This is all I've got on him and it's a dead end." she looked up at me, her eyes red from crying.
I didn't know what to say. I couldn't tell her something would definitely come up, because sometime it didn't, sometimes we didn't catch the bad guys. I just kept my hand on her back, occasionally moving my palm up and down a little. I hoped it was comforting to her, as well as it feeling good for me. I found myself getting lost in the warmth of her body under my hand, I let my fingers drift across her back, I could feel myself react with the feeling her body against mine. It was only when I realized how lost I had become in my touches to her that I shifted my hand to her shoulder and kept it there.
We waited nearly thirty minutes in silence before AFIS beeped with a match. "James Addison, twenty eight years old, previous arrest for assault." Sara read from the screen before hitting 'print' on the computer. She rose from the seat quickly, and after grabbing the printout she left the room. I took her seat and scanned my print in to the computer. My mind, and my body, felt overwhelmed with Sara, although I had no idea why, I just knew I wanted more. Focusing on my print as the computer searched its database, I took a deep, calming breath.