Happy New Year to all my readers! Wishing you all the best for 2020!

x X x

She had no idea how long Sara had been stood there, nervously hovering in the doorway to her little office, but when Catherine looked up and spotted her, the brunette visibly started.

"Oh, hi." Cath smiled, choosing not to call her out on her loitering. "Something I can do for you?"

"Um." Sara cast a glance over her shoulder into the hallway, seemingly regretting having gotten caught. "I ..."

When she trailed off, Catherine put her pen down and fixed her subordinate with her full attention.

"What's wrong, Sara?" She asked, leaving no room for avoiding the question.

Realising that she was cornered, Sara shuffled further into the room and took a few seconds to compose herself.

"Yesterday, after ... after I talked to Helen ... you offered to make a referral to Victim Services." She managed to say eventually, in spite of the stutter she had inexplicably developed. "I know that I turned it down, but ... is it too late to change my mind?"

Catherine blinked, visibly surprised.

"No, no it's not too late." She gestured for Sara to sit down, already reaching for her desk drawer.

As the younger woman tentatively lowered herself into the chair opposite the desk, Catherine produced a pamphlet and a business card from her drawer. She had gathered the literature together anyway, even though Sara had said no. Just in case.

Clearly, someone had been listening to her prayers.

As Sara accepted the pamphlet, Cath took a second to scrutinise her. The brunette looked calmer than yesterday, but not necessarily in a good way.

She looked deflated.

"Can I ask, what changed your mind?" She asked tentatively.

Sara fidgeted, toying with the corner of the leaflet.

"I ... I guess I hadn't realised how much of my childhood I was blocking out." She said, choosing her words carefully. "The bad, and the good. And I'd like to get some of the good memories back, but I don't think I can do that until I deal with the bad."

Catherine smiled weakly. It wasn't exactly the answer she had been expecting; it was better. Evidently, Sara's little breakdown yesterday had been a long time coming and had awoken more than just her tormented emotions.

As she was considering her young colleague's apparent epiphany, Sara reached into her pocket and extracted a photograph, which she caressed for a moment, before handing it over the desk to Catherine.

The little girl in the photo was obviously Sara, and Catherine assumed the male to be her father. There was a clear resemblance – she had his smile.

"I miss him." She offered quietly. "I don't let myself think about him very often, but ... I don't want to forget him."

Catherine felt the same tightening in her chest that she had when she was silently listening to Sara pour her heart out to Helen. Her relationship with Sara had never been particularly tactile; but right now, she just wanted to take her into an embrace, to tell her how proud she was that she was dealing with this and to promise her that it would be okay.

Unfortunately, she didn't get chance to do any of it.

As soon as she opened her mouth to offer some words of comfort, Grissom blundered uninvited into her office with a folder outstretched.

"Catherine, do you have the results for..." Upon seeing Sara sat in front of the desk, he stalled mid-sentence. "Oh, hi."

"What do you want?" Catherine snapped brusquely, causing him to flinch. He flicked his gaze between the two women, slowly realising that he may have interrupted something.

"Ah, I can come back." He started to back out, but Sara leapt to her feet before he could, clutching the pamphlet protectively to her chest.

"No, it's fine." She gushed with a false smile. "I need to go get ready for the start of shift anyway."

"I'll, uh, make that call." Catherine called after her, receiving a small nod of acknowledgement before the girl was gone from sight. Cath turned her gaze towards her unwanted visitor, offering him a petulant scowl.

"Haven't you ever heard of knocking?" She snapped.

"Sorry," he blinked. "I didn't realise I was interrupting."

"Well, you were." She exhaled with frustration.

He stepped tentatively closer to the desk, a coy smile beginning to dance on his lips.

"The joys of playing supervisor starting to wear off, are they?" He guessed playfully. She shot him a dark look, snatching the folder he was offering out of his hands.

"No." She answered curtly.

"Not so easy though, is it?" He pressed, jerking his head in the direction that Sara had disappeared. "Getting them to talk."

Cath exhaled again, brandishing the folder at him.

"Hey, you had your chance with them." She challenged. "I'm doing this my way, so why don't you go back to your bugs and leave me to it."

He did as requested, but flashed a cocky smile on his way out.

She rolled her eyes, tossing his folder onto her already over-crowded in-tray.

Let him think that she was struggling with her little team, what did it matter? In reality, she was the only person in their team who really knew what made Sara the person she was.

And, now that she thought about it, the same went for Nick.

Both of her guys were hiding a secret from the rest of the group, and it turned out that it was the same secret.

Catherine picked up Sara's photo again and studied it. It was creased and faded and had a small tear in one corner. Sara may have been trying hard to forget her father for a long time, but at some point in her life, she had spent a lot of time looking at this picture. Probably when she was in foster care, Cath mused. She would likely have tried to hold on to any family connection that she could.

Of course, Nick didn't have to cling to such feeble mementos to get him through his trauma – he had a large and loving family around him. Still, it was a family who were oblivious to the abuse he had suffered as a child.

Placing the photo carefully on her desk, she picked up the business card for Victim Service's and dialled the number.

x X x

"Hey boss," Nick greeted cheerily, striding into the office. "Got your page. What's up?"

"Sit down, Nicky." Cath smiled warmly, hoping to put him at ease. His brow creased slightly, but he did as asked.

She handed him a pamphlet – the same one she had given Sara – and watched as his expression changed while he studied it.

"Why are you giving me this?" He asked with a boyish grin.

"I've put in a referral to Victim Service's for you." She explained slowly. "For what happened to you when you were a child."

For a whole moment, Nick just stared at her, before her words finally registered and he visibly recoiled.

"What ... what are you talking about, Catherine?" He demanded, half-angry and half-bewildered.

"Nicky, you were abused and you never told anyone about it. I think it would do you good to talk about it with a specialist. Someone who can help you deal with it."

"But, why ... why now?"

"Why not?" She challenged calmly. "What can it hurt to talk to someone?"

"Catherine," he shifted uncomfortably. "I don't need to talk about it. And you ... you had no right to do this behind my back!"

She extended a hand across the desk towards him, but he sat back out of her reach.

"Nicky, these things don't just go away because we want them to." She explained gently. "Look, I can't make you do this. But the contact details are on there – just think about it. Please?"

He looked at the pamphlet again, where he now saw that she had scribbled a name and phone number on the top corner.

Sucking in a deep breath, he stood up and offered it back to her with a cold look on his face.

"Thank you for the offer." He said in a clipped tone. "But I don't need to talk about this – not with you, or anyone else."

As he strode back out, forcing his shoulders back and his head up in a stubborn gesture, she felt her heart sink and tossed the leaflet back onto the desk with a resigned pout.

One out of two wasn't bad, but somehow that didn't feel like much of a consolation.