Chapter Seven

Dinner had been a tedious affair that night at the Willows household. Sara had appeared distinctly uncomfortable and Catherine had tried to let the conversation flow. But with her own caution regarding the specific topics to talk about, coupled with Sara's reluctance to open up and Lindsay's sullenness , things didn't go smoothly. Catherine already dreaded the approaching days. She was grateful she had her work to hide into.

As much as Sara denied it, Catherine observed that she was exhausted. She ordered the woman to bed. By the stubborn curve on Sara's mouth, the older woman knew she wasn't used to listening to others. Miraculously, Sara didn't protest. Catherine was relieved for that as she returned after half an hour to check on Sara. The brunette was comfortably tucked in between the sheets, one hand covering her eyes.

She walked into her own room next door and lay down on her massive bed alone. When she had bought the house with Eddie, she had decorated it with dreams of a beautiful future where she would grow old with her family. And then Eddie had gone ahead and crushed those very dreams under the weight of his infidelity. Now she was left with Lindsay who was always angry with her. Of course she had her work and the people she worked with. She had to admit that those very people had become closer to her than any of the friends she had ever known. All except Sara. But she was determined to change that.

With thoughts of Sara, Catherine drifted off to sleep.


The first thing Catherine did when she woke up was to check up on Sara. She was shocked to find Sara not in her bed. The bed was neatly done and the room almost looked as if there never had been a Sara sleeping in it. She felt a quick rush of panic and raced down.

In one moment, her breath stopped with a slam when Catherine found Sara standing by the large French windows in the living room. Well, she wasn't really standing, more like leaning against the cane the doctor had asked her to use temporarily. She had a far-away expression on her face though Catherine found her occasionally squinting as her eyes caught something of interest. The windows faced east and therefore the morning rays focused with full force on the woman. The hair, which usually appeared almost black in the darkness of the graveyard shift, was aflame with specks of brown in the sun. She had always been fascinated by the intense look of thought on Sara's face. On any other person it would have appeared a part of moodiness. On Sara, it just blended in with her personality.

Finally forcing herself to stop staring at the sight in front of her, Catherine cleared her throat.

Sara slowly turned at the noise and gave one of her trademark smirks.

"This is a beautiful morning."

"Yeah, after a while you notice such things." Catherine replied, walking to stand opposite Sara. "I hope you had a good sleep."

"One of the best." Sara smiled. "Thanks." She hesitated and then: "Catherine, can I ask you something?"

"Go ahead."

"Were we… close friends?"

The question took Catherine by surprise, especially considering the truth was far from it.

"Why do you ask?"

"I don't know…" Sara shrugged. "You are offering to have me at your place. I'm not used to people being so nice to me."

The redhead saw a flash of sadness in those dark eyes before it disappeared. She thought of a safe way to answer the question.

"Well… we are colleagues and you are an extremely valuable member of the department. And besides…" Catherine grinned. "Whenever we worked on a case, we made a great team."

"Really?" Sara looked pleased which increased Catherine's pulse up by a notch.

The two women stood quietly for a while. Catherine noticed the thoughtfulness return on Sara's face and found herself once again staring at it.

"Tell me about my attack." Sara spoke suddenly.

"Uh…" She wet her lips. "Well, don't you think you should wait until your memory returns?"

"But maybe talking about the attack would help my memory return?" Sara reasoned.

Catherine had to concede that the woman had a point. She sighed, "It's a very long story. You may want to sit down."

"I'm better here, thanks." Sara shook her head.

"Ok." Catherine crossed her arms in front of her chest. "You and Nick were working on a rape and homicide case. The victim was a student at Shadyside High. The case was a forensic dampener simply because the guy appeared to have cleaned up meticulously afterwards. But there was one thing that was of immense interest. You found a rough sketch of a solar eclipse on the victim's torso. Now the previous day, the March of 29th, there had been a total solar eclipse in certain areas of West and North Africa, Central Asia and Greece. Now get this, the victim was called Aliyah Badem. She's Turkish. Turkey was one of the countries to witness the total eclipse."

"So…" Sara frowned. "This guy chose his victims according to the places where the eclipse was seen?"

"That would be a reasonable assumption." Catherine nodded.

"Then why only Turkey? Why leave other countries?"

"We don't know as of yet that he has left the other countries." Catherine replied grimly. Sara's eyes widened fractionally.

"Before this, there was a total solar eclipse on December 4th of 2002. In the week following that day, we found three bodies, all of girls in their mid and late teens. One was the daughter of refugees from Angola. One had just returned home after a vacation in Australia. One had a mother who was a US ambassador in Zimbabwe." Catherine explained.

"All were countries which saw the solar eclipse." Sara surmised.

"I was working on that case then. We didn't find any evidence. We just found the sketches of a solar eclipse on the torso. The sketches weren't even that good so we can't assume our guy was an artist. We tried to track down any cults that believe in the powers of the eclipses and such. You'll be surprised how many there are." Catherine snorted. "But none had any affiliations with the dead girls. Either they were just picked on random or this killer knows the route our minds would take."

"So the case was unsolved?"

"Yes." Catherine murmured with embarrassment. "Frankly we shouldn't have forgotten about it and we should have been alert for this eclipse."

"So, what are you guys doing about it?" Sara waved her hands in question.

"Well, I think you were making some progress. But your notes were in short hand and none of us could decipher it."

Sara gave a short laugh. "Yeah, an old habit. Maybe you can show me the notes. I'm sure I'll remember my codes."

"Hmm… you are right."

"But now that my brain's a mess…" Sara stroked her forehead. "Who's working on it?"

"The entire lab." Catherine replied. "At least most of them are trying to balance it with other assignments. But mostly, it's me and Nick full time on this one."

"Anyways, it doesn't explain how I got attacked." Sara reminded her.

"Oh yes, well, I'm not really sure what but you had got a lead on the case." Catherine answered carefully, skipping a whole lot of details. "Your lead took you to the Hilch Motel. The rest Greg must have told you."

"No, he didn't." Her eyes were fixed with concentration.

"We sent Greg to accompany you." Catherine winced inwardly at the lie. "He found you struggling with someone. He tried to save you. In the process, he got attacked and the culprits took you along. You were physically assaulted and then abandoned in a car which Warrick and Nick found."

"Oh" was all she said.

"That's pretty much it." Catherine whispered.

"And if I wouldn't have forgotten, I would have been able to give you a face, probably a name of those guys." She stiffened. "But does that mean that we are actually looking for two guys?"

"It would definitely appear so. Greg couldn't get a good look of the guy he saw with you when he entered the room. Though, he did give a fair description. The police sketch's in the lab."

"I'd like to visit the lab." She decided after a brief silence.

"I'll ask Grissom about it." Catherine told her.