"Oy!"
Catherine stalled in the hallway, spinning around towards the approaching voice.
"Where did you disappear to?" Nancy demanded, catching her up. "I've been trying to find you."
Catherine's lips spread into a Cheshire cat smile and she delved into her pocket, producing Sara's house keys.
"I had some packing to do." She declared.
Nancy stared intently at the keys dangling off her finger for a moment, before raising one suspicious eyebrow in question.
"You haven't?"
"What?" Cath shrugged flippantly. "You were the one who gave me the idea."
"I did no such thing." Nancy scowled. "All I have done is give you advice about the kind of care she needs."
"And I'm very grateful for that." Catherine agreed, folding her fist around the keys and spinning around to continue on her path towards Sara's cubicle, with her little sister trawling behind. "But I can't just sit back and watch her suffer quietly. If she's going to carry on working, which I have no doubt she will, then she's going to need someone to monitor her more closely, just like you said. And I can't do that from her apartment."
"So you've moved her into your house, without even asking her?"
"Yes." Catherine nodded curtly. "It's the only way I can be sure that she's okay. Now, I just need to convince her that this is a good idea."
Arriving at her destination, she tugged the curtain back, before squeaking in surprise at the sight on the other side of it.
Thankfully, the elderly male now occupying Sara's bed continued to snore to himself, blissfully ignorant of the intrusion.
"You're going to have to find her first." Nancy pointed out calmly, walking away.
Catherine blinked at her sister's sassy retreat.
"Hey!" She called, yanking the curtain closed again and storming after her. "Where is she?!"
x X x
"You could have told me that she'd been moved before I did that." She continued to complain, trailing her sibling into the oncology ward.
"That's true, I could." Nancy agreed, nonplussed.
Catherine rolled her eyes at the non-answer, crossing her arms defensively.
"Is she alright?"
"She's fine." The nurse came to a stop outside a closed door. "We just wanted to check her medication levels before she got discharged."
"And..?" Cath pressed, beginning to get impatient.
In response, Nancy jerked her heard towards the room beside them.
"She's free to go. But I can't guarantee that she'll go with you when she knows what you've done."
Catherine exhaled moodily at the comment, but elected not to fire back a retort. If she was going to convince Sara to move in with her, then she was going to need all the composure she could muster, and arguing with Nancy did nothing but aggravate her.
Peering through the glass in the door, she could see Sara sat on the bed looking decidedly sorry for herself.
Taking a deep breath, she straightened up and pushed the door open.
x X x
"Sooner or later, you're going to have to accept that you can't do this alone." Catherine shot her a brief glance, before setting her gaze back on the road ahead.
Sara, with her eyes closed and a small frown on her face, hummed something non-committal. She was clearly in no mood for this lecture, but too tired to fight back.
"I still don't understand why you tried to hide it from us anyway." Cath continued, unsympathetic to her plight.
"We've been through this." Sara mumbled half-heartedly.
"Yeah, I know, you wanted to keep your work life as normal as possible." Cath recited dutifully. "But this didn't just happen overnight. At some point you must have become concerned that something was wrong – enough to get it checked out. That must have been really scary to go through on your own."
Sara shrugged, still refusing to make eye-contact.
"If you'd have told me then, I could have been there for you through it all – the tests, the waiting, the diagnosis..."
"I wanted to handle it alone." Sara breathed, finally opening her eyes and wincing at the afternoon sunlight streamed into the car.
Catherine shook her head, but let the subject drop for the time being as she swung the car into the driveway and killed the engine.
The brunette clambered clumsily out of the car and took two steps towards the house before coming to a sudden stop and turning to Catherine for an explanation.
"I thought you were taking me home."
"You are home." Catherine explained calmly, striding up to the house. Sara followed tentatively, watching her colleague rifle through her bag and pull out a set of house keys.
"Cat, I can't ..." She began, before trailing off. The older woman glanced over her shoulder at the silence and started to find her friend had suddenly gone quite pale.
"Hey, come on." She grabbed Sara by the waist and guided her into the house. "If you're going to collapse again, do it inside this time."
Sara found herself standing in the hallway before she had regained her senses sufficiently to argue. Bracing herself against a nearby table, she took a few seconds to let her vision clear, before trying again.
"Catherine, I can't stay here." She managed to say at last. Cath locked the door behind her and turned to face Sara with her hands on her hips.
"I don't recall giving you a choice." She pointed out.
Sara opened her mouth to counter the argument, but stalled when a little white ball of fluff scampered over and began yapping excitedly at her.
"Maverick?" She queried, cautiously crouching down to stroke him. "What's he doing here?"
"Well, I figured if you're going to stay here than he'd have to come too."
"You went to my apartment." Sara realised aloud, spotting a couple of bags sitting off to the side. Her bags, from her home ... most likely filled with her things.
"I did." Cath agreed, leaning down to take Sara's arm and carefully coax her back to her feet, so she could lead her into the lounge.
"You can't just go into my apartment and move me out!" Sara tried to extricate herself from the loose grip, but her head was still spinning somewhat and it was slowing down her motor functions considerably.
"I haven't moved you out." Catherine replied, unceremoniously dropping Sara onto the couch and taking a seat in front of her on the coffee table. "I just packed up a few of your things – and your pup – and brought them here for a while. You can go home when you're better."
Sara emitted a bitter laugh, visibly unimpressed by the proposal.
"And if I refuse to stay?" She threatened. Unfortunately for her, Catherine had been braced for that question and her answer came fast and blunt.
"Then I'll have you put on administrative sick leave and put a temporary freeze on your lab privileges."
The words were like a slap to Sara, who recoiled, searching Catherine's face for any sign of sarcasm and finding none.
"You couldn't do that."
"One phone call, Sara." Cath countered, softening her voice. "That's all it would take. You wouldn't be allowed in the lab, or the field. You wouldn't have access to your emails or any of the systems. With one phone call to Ecklie, I can force you to take mandatory sick leave for the duration of your treatment."
A look of despair crossed Sara's features and Catherine felt a pang of guilt for having put it there; but she held fast, knowing that it was for the greater good.
"Or," she continued, sitting forward and placing her hands on Sara's knees. "You can agree to stay here under my care; and I will let you continue to work as long as you're able to."
"Under your care?" Sara quirked an eyebrow, sensing there was a caveat to this offer somewhere. "Which means what exactly?"
Catherine reached up to tuck an escaped strand of hair aside.
"Honey, I talked to Nancy. What happened today wasn't because of your treatment; it was because you're not looking after yourself properly. You're not eating, probably not sleeping. And you've missed some of your medications."
Sara's gaze had slipped off to the side, but she pursed her lips. It wasn't an admission, but it wasn't a denial either.
"If I think that you're okay to carry on working, then I won't stop you. But I do not want to find you unconscious at the bottom of a flight of stairs again. What would have happened if you'd passed out while driving?"
"I know." Sara mumbled sheepishly. That thought had occurred to her too, but she'd been hoping that Catherine would be too stressed out about what did happen to start thinking about alternative outcomes.
"Honey, I know you're fiercely independent – it's one of the things I love most about you. But you simply can't carry on working full time and continue to live alone right now. It's not going work."
"I don't live alone." Sara pointed out, nodding towards Maverick. Cath rolled her eyes towards the dog, who had claimed the fireplace rug as his own and was stretched out on his back, paws in the air and tongue hanging out.
Shaking her head in amusement, she offered Sara a knowing smile.
"If you want to convince me to let you go home, you're going to have to do better than him."