Disclaimer: CSI is property of CBS. I own nothing.
A/N: Sorry for the wait on this…I finally got off my ass and decided to do something productive. I guess I'm a lil down cuz school is startin back up soon.
…--…--…
Chapter 3-
(2 days later)
"Are you positive you don't need me to come to Lindsey's doctor's appointment with you?" Sara asked and watched as Catherine dug around in the kitchen cabinets.
Catherine glanced at her briefly before returning to her task. "Sar, I told you. It's ok. I can do it. Besides, I'm actually offwork today. You're not."
Sara crossed her arms and mock pouted. "Thanks for reminding me."
"How come we have nothing in this house for a kid to eat?" Catherine gave up.
She shrugged. "Uh, I dunno, maybe because up until a couple days ago we had no kids in the house?"
"You're such a smart—" Catherine stopped mid sentence when she saw Lindsey out of the corner of her eye at the kitchen table. Sara chuckled and went and sat down next to her.
"Hey kiddo, do you like eggs?"
She shook her head; the ponytail Catherine had given her that morning swinging back and forth.
"Cereal bars? Fruit?"
"No,"
Catherine glimpsed at her watch and sighed.
"I'll just pick her up something on the way. We gotta go."
Sara walked the two to the front door and spoke up while Catherine helped Lindsey with her coat. "Ok, you positive you don't want me to come with? I don't mind."
"Hun…" She pulled her arm through her own coat then leaned over and kissed her lover. "I got it covered. Why do you keep pressing it?"
"Because I know how much you just love hospitals." The brunette emphasized the word 'love' sardonically.
"Yea, well you're not much better." Catherine muttered. "Look, after the appointment I'll take Lindsey grocery shopping, give you time to sleep before shift starts." She kissed her again before ushering Lindsey out the front door.
Sara let out a long aspirated sigh before heading back to her bedroom, silently hoping that Catherine really was going to be at alright at the hospital considering how much they both hated them with a passion now.
Back when Catherine and Sara had first started dating Catherine's ex husband, Eddie, had found out about them and went to Sara's apartment to confront her. Basically he demanded that Sara break it off with Catherine or else. Sara refused and that's when he just snapped. He attacked her then fled. When Catherine found her a few hours later she was lying on the floor bleeding to death.
Sara was in the hospital for almost a month because of what Eddie did to her. She was in a coma for a week. Catherine felt so bad she didn't leave her side once. When they finally caught Eddie he was sentenced to life in prison without parole. To this day neither woman could walk into a hospital without all those painful memories flooding back
…--…--…
(the hospital)
Catherine had only been sitting in the waiting room for half an hour when the hospital therapist came back out.
"Ms. Willows,"
"Catherine," She insisted.
"Catherine," He corrected himself and sat down next to her. "We can't get Lindsey to say anything. Have you been having this problem since she came to stay with you?"
She shook her head. "No, she wasn't talking to anyone at her house the night of her parents' murder either. As far as I know my partner Sara and I are the only ones she's spoken to since then."
The doctor nodded. "Alright, then maybe you can help us."
"Anything."
They both stood up. "Follow me, maybe you can convince her to talk. As far as everything else goes. We gave her a physical and found no signs of abuse."
"Always good news." The redhead sighed inwardly and followed the older man into a tiny exam room. As soon as Lindsey spotted Catherine she jumped out of her seat.
"Catherine!" She cheered and ran up to her, wrapping her tiny arms around her waist.
Catherine hugged her before getting down to the girl's level.
"Linds, remember what we talked about in the car? About how important it was for you to talk to the doctors?"
"But I don't wanna talk to them." She objected and crossed her arms.
"You have to. They need to make sure you're ok."
Lindsey took a minute to contemplate this before speaking up.
"Can we leave after that?"
"Yep."
The little girl nodded. "Ok."
Catherine smirked. "That a girl." She stood up and walked over to the chair opposite the doctor's desk and sat down, Lindsey crawled onto her lap.
"Thank you Catherine,"
"No problem."
"Ok Lindsay, I'm going to ask you a few simple questions."
Lindsay nodded.
…--…--…
As soon as Sara got into the lab that night she went and found Greg sitting in his usual area lip syncing to Marilyn Manson while tapping his hands on the counter top to keep the beat. Sara shook her head and turned off the CD player. Greg spun around when he noticed the music had stopped but he was still singing.
His ears turned bright red when he saw Sara.
"Hey Sar,"
"Hey Greggo, nice singing, I got your page. You said you got somethin on the Sheridan case?"
He instantly switched back to work mode and pulled a few pieces of paper out of the printer. "Yea, Nick found a couple hairs on Matt Sheridan's clothes that didn't match anyone in the family, so, I ran it through the database to see if the DNA could get a match. It came up with a Karen Garcia."
"Who's she?"
"She…my dear…is Matt Sheridan's ex wife."
"Are you serious?"
"Why would I joke about something like this?" Greg smirked but hid it when Sara looked like she was about to slap him on the back of the head.
"We interviewed the ex already."
"She have an alibi?"
Sara nodded. " Had a conference in New York. Came back two days after the murders. According to her, she hasn't seen Matt in over a year."
"Then how'd her hair get on his clothes? On his pajamas no less."
"Beats the hell out of me. She's probably lying. Got anything else for me?"
"Actually…" The young CSI beamed and practically bounced to another counter where he grabbed a manila then came back and handed it to the brunette.
"Coroner's Report…seems our family man had a little drug problem. Mainly cocaine, nasal cavity was so torn up it was a miracle his nose didn't collapse on itself." He chuckled at the last part, when Sara didn't he got serious again. "Uh, anyway, Doc also found lethal traces of cocaine in the wife's system, but as far as he could tell she didn't snort it…"
"…She ingested it." Sara finished for him. "Someone forced her to ingest it rather."
Greg nodded.
"Exacto-mudo…The weird thing is that she died from strangulation."
"Drug overdose took to long, murderer got restless…so they choke her?"
"That's what I'm guessing."
"The husband died from the stab wound to the abdomen, right?"
"5 stab wounds, actually." Nick corrected as he walked up next to Sara.
Sara furrowed her brow in confusion. "So why try to OD the wife only to strangle her in the end, and stab the husband?"
Nick shrugged. "Maybe there was more than one killer present. Maybe, while Matt was being stabbed Claire woke up and tried to get away but the other perp choked her."
Just then Sara got an idea. "Hey Nicky, would you mind comin with me to the crime scene? I wanna get a look at Lindsay's bedroom."
"Sure…why?"
"I'll explain on the way."
TBC……--…--…
Cliffie! Ok, so that didn't have much Cath/Sara interaction but I was trying to focus more on the case…oh and if you're wondering how come Sara was working Catherine's case it was because Grissom gave Catherine a few days off to watch Lindsay.
Now…we all know that one thing that keeps stories like this going: Reviews! Well, that and my love of Catherine…but that's a whole other story. Hehe…
Reviews make my world go round…and round…and round…
Nicole.
