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x X x

He had opened his mouth three times, yet so far hadn't managed to utter a single word. She waited patiently, letting him gather his thoughts.

Finally, he sat forward and folded his hands on the desk.

"Why didn't you tell anyone?" He asked. "Grissom, or me? Or, one of the guys even?"

"Sara didn't want anyone to know." She reiterated, getting a little tired of repeating herself on this matter.

"I know, I get that." He waved a hand at her, wiping his other one across his mouth in a telltale sign of stress. "But you must have known that you were breaking procedure by storing the evidence without processing it ... by failing to list it as an open case ..."

"Of course I knew." She agreed softly. "I ... I didn't know what else to do."

"You should have told us." He echoed his previous point.

Catherine shook her head slowly, casting her eyes towards the ceiling.

"Despite how hard it is for everyone to believe, I know Sara." She said firmly. "I know her better than anyone else. And I knew that, if I told anyone what had happened, she'd never trust me again. I couldn't lose that."

Ecklie inhaled and exhaled a deep breath, watching her closely as she attempted to keep her emotions in check.

"And her trust means that much to you?" He nodded, beginning to understand her motives a little better.

She met his gaze, her own eyes wide and earnest.

"Yes. Sara's friendship ... it's very important to me. I wasn't about to jeopardise that for the sake of convicting the guy, no matter how much I wanted to see him behind bars." She closed her eyes for a moment, before meeting his stare again. "I just hoped that, one day, she'd be ready to press charges. That's why I was so desperate to preserve the evidence."

He sighed, sinking back into his seat.

"And she's not ready?" He clarified.

"No." Cath shook her head sadly. "She knows what can of worms that would open for the San Francisco lab."

"Well, I can't argue with that." He hummed. "And she has access to support? Victim Services information, everything like that?"

Catherine smiled at his clumsy attempts to express his concern and held up her hands to stop him.

"Sara has all the support she needs."

"Yeah," he drawled in agreement, picking up on the nuance in her voice. "I bet she does."

She held his gaze for a moment, before offering an optimistic little smile.

"So, we done here?"

"No." He cleared his throat, getting them back onto the real reason he had called her into his office. "IAB finished their report on you."

x X x

She couldn't hear what was being said, but she smiled anyway at the sight.

Sara and Warrick were on the couch, with the young woman slouched against Warrick and his arm slung lazily around her shoulders.

Greg was perched on the arm of the sofa opposite them and Nick was sat on a chair facing the group, regaling them with a story that had all of them in fits of giggles.

As she continued to enjoy the scene from the other side of the glass wall, she caught a glimpse of another reflection standing beside her own and sighed.

"If you've come to lecture me, save it." She said without sparing him a glance.

"Why? Too tired?" Grissom deadpanned. "Maybe you should take some speed."

The careless comment caused her to flinch and she shot him a dark scowl.

"That's not funny." She pointed out sternly.

"It wasn't meant to be." He agreed calmly, stuffing his hands in his pockets and fixing his attention on his team.

Catherine stared at him for a long moment, debating how to defend herself, before shaking her head bitterly.

"You know what, you wouldn't get it."

"Get what?" He asked half-heartedly.

"How it feels to ..."

She trailed off, letting the sentence hang but his curiosity had been peaked and he turned to face her again, cocking his head to the side.

"To screw up." She finished at last. "You know, someone I love nearly died because of a mistake I made. And you cannot possibly understand how much that hurts, because you live in your perfect little isolated bubble and you don't let anyone get close enough for you to love them."

She had turned back to the window, but Gil continued to blink at her, startled by the aggressive character assassination.

He wanted to rebut the assertion that he didn't have the capacity to love anybody. It simply wasn't true; he loved his team dearly, including Catherine herself, despite her current attitude towards him.

But seeing the look in her eyes as she watched the young guys in the next room – and one of them in particular – he realised that perhaps he genuinely didn't understand her point of view.

She had risked a lot in the name of protecting her friendship with Sara. She had agreed to break the rules and compromise her professional ethics, even though she hadn't necessarily agreed with it, simply because Sara had asked her to.

That was a standpoint that he couldn't wrap his head around. He wasn't sure there was anybody in his life that he felt that kind of love for. To his own surprise, he found that that made him a little sad.

The look on her face right now made him sad, too. It was a pleading sort of expression, like she was offering up a silent prayer to somebody unseen. He had witnessed that look before, on the faces of grieving family members. It was the look they got right before you told them that their loved one was dead. A fleeting moment of hope, before everything came crashing down around them.

And perhaps she was right to be wearing that look – after all, everything almost had crashed down around them. They nearly lost Sara; and if Catherine's expression right now was anything to go by, he doubted that she would have been able to live with herself if that had happened.

Whatever guilt he was trying to place on her shoulders, it was nothing compared to the remorse she was already piling on herself.

So, instead of arguing back, he coughed and shifted the subject slightly.

"You know, just because IAB have cleared you, it'll stay on your record. A good defence lawyer will be able to dig it up and use it against you in court. It's going to be a permanent mark against your credibility."

"I know that." She agreed, apparently nonplussed by the thought.

"That doesn't bother you?" He frowned, drawing a small laugh from her.

"Of course it bothers me." She countered lightly, never taking her eyes off of Sara's face. "But it's a fair trade off for her being okay. So I can live with it."

x X x

"How many beers do you think we've shared over the years?"

The question, asked out of the blue, dragged her from her thoughts and she tipped her gaze towards her companion.

They were stretched out on sun loungers in Catherine's back yard, basking in the last few drops of sunshine.

It was late September and the weather was just starting to turn. Soon, the long hot evenings of summer would turn into dark chilly desert nights and they'd trade sunbathing by the pool for curling up on the couch in front of a movie.

But for now, the sun was low and red and the gentle breeze dawdling over the water caused the colourful reflection to ripple and dance in the rapidly fading light. It was beautiful and peaceful and perfect.

"Not nearly enough." She replied, causing Sara to chuckle.

"Hey, do you remember the first time we did this?"

"Sure." Catherine answered easily. Turning her head, she peered accusatorily at Sara over the top of her sunglasses. "You were planning on running out on us."

Sara laughed this time; a bright, infectious laugh.

"Yeah, I was." She agreed casually, chewing on her lower lip for a moment. "Tell me the truth – would you have let me go?"

Catherine had settled herself back into her lounger, her gaze – shielded by her dark glasses – transfixed on the surface of the water. However, her lips spread into a sly grin.

"What do you think?"