Catherine left the hospital as instructed, but she wasn't happy about it.
After collecting Lindsey from school and returning home, she had called Sara. With no answer, she had called Nancy. Then she had called Sara again. And again.
By the time she left for work that evening, barely uttering a word to her mother on the way out, her bad mood had deteriorated to a downright terrible one.
Of course, she understood that Sara was going to be feeling a little delicate and perhaps would not be up for a fight. To be honest, she was counting on exactly that.
In her mind, the ailing CSI shouldn't even be working tonight, but between calls to Sara's answer phone, Cath had phoned the lab to check the roster. For some reason, Sara was hell-bent on working in spite of her treatment.
She had a vague plan of action. Clearly, trying to force Sara's hand was not going to work. She needed to be calm, compassionate, but clear – there was simply no way they were going to let her go through this alone.
However, as she strode down the lab corridor at the start of shift intent on cornering the elusive brunette, she found herself as the one getting ambushed when Sara appeared from nowhere, grabbing her arm and spinning her into the nearest empty lab.
"Have you told anyone?" She asked urgently, her dark eyes flicking repeatedly into the hall in case someone were watching.
Catherine blinked, taking a moment to recover from the shock of being pounced upon.
"I've been trying to call you." She stated with a scowl at last.
"I know." Sara shook her head, dismissive of the fact.
"I left you half a dozen messages..."
"Have you told anyone?"
Catherine fell silent, attempting to read the multitude of emotions flashing across Sara's face. Primarily, she looked scared.
"No, I haven't." She exhaled. Even if her colleague had picked up the increasingly fraught voicemails, she obviously wasn't interested in acknowledging them now. "Sara, we need to talk about this..."
"I know." Sara held her hands up. "But, not here. Please?"
Cath watched her gaze disappear back into the hall again and sighed, realising with some reluctance that the younger woman was right; this was not the place for this conversation, no matter how desperate she was to discuss the matter.
"Should you even be here tonight?" She asked instead of answering the plea. Sara did not look well, the treatment having clearly taken a toll on her. However, predictably enough, she gritted her teeth and pushed her shoulders back, attempting to exude an air of strength.
"I'm fine. I'm just a bit tired, that's all."
Realising that she wasn't going to get anywhere while Sara's defences were up, Cath nodded slowly in resignation.
"Take your lunch break at Caesars, I'll meet you there." She declared. "We can talk then."
Sara looked like she really wanted to argue, probably to put the conversation off until after their shift was finished, but she took the compromise anyway.
It wasn't exactly what Catherine had planned, but it would give her a few more hours to strategise and prevent Sara from being able to sneak out unnoticed at the end of their shift.
When they reached the locker room, having agreed to put the conversation on hold, the guys were already there.
"Hey girls," Nick greeted with a warm smile, which quickly faded upon their entrance. "Hey Sara, you don't look so good; you feeling alright?"
Warrick turned, casting his own green eyes over their colleague and frowning with concern at her appearance.
"I'm fine." She cleared her throat, attempting to slide past them to her locker.
"You sure?" Warrick pressed, giving her a lingering once-over. "You do look pretty pale."
She could practically feel Catherine's knowing stare burning into her skull, but made a point of keeping her back to the blonde under the guise of busying herself in her locker.
"It's just a bug." She lied. "I'll be okay."
The boys were visibly unconvinced, but shrugged it off for the time being and excused themselves to go meet Grissom for assignments.
Alone again, Catherine stepped up to the girl, leaning close to her ear from behind.
"That story isn't going to wash for very long." She warned, placing a hand briefly on Sara's arm, before slinking back to her own locker.
Sara didn't respond, but she swallowed hard, rolling her eyes towards the ceiling in a silent prayer.
She sincerely hoped that Catherine was wrong about that, because right now it was the best story she had to offer.
x X x
Catherine spotted Sara first and waved her over.
The brunette sloped between the tables and slithered into the seat opposite, immediately sinking her gaze into the tablecloth.
Catherine had picked a table in the farthest corner, where they would have sufficient privacy to speak candidly without the likelihood of being overheard by passing customers and waiters.
"You managed to get away from Nick okay?"
Sara shrugged noncommittally, although her very presence here indicated that she had indeed managed to escape her crime scene long enough to steal a lunch break.
"I still don't want your help." She declared in place of a response. Catherine attempted to hide her surprise at the blunt statement. Apparently, Sara had decided that they could forgo the small talk.
Taking a deep breath, Catherine attempted to remain in control of her emotions and reached across the small table, gripping Sara's hand before the brunette had a chance to pull it back.
"Look, I know that you think you're superwoman and you can beat this thing on your own." She said carefully, dragging her thumb back and forth over Sara's knuckles. "But you can't."
Sara frowned, insulted by the insinuation, but Cath pressed on.
"Honey, do you really think I'm just going to stand by and watch you get sick without doing something about it?"
"I'm getting treatment." Sara pointed out, finally reclaiming her hand from her colleague's grip and tucking them both securely in her lap, out of reach. Cath frowned sadly at the sudden loss of contact, but it didn't deter her from continuing to make her point.
"I know, and that's good." She agreed encouragingly. "But Nancy told me what you're going to go through over the next few months. I can't let you deal with this on your own – I won't."
Sara sighed, casting her gaze off to the side.
"Look, I appreciate that you want to help, but I don't want people at work knowing about this. I'm not stupid, I know things are going to be tough, but I want that part of my life to stay normal, for as long as possible at least."
Catherine shook her head, a sympathetic smile on her face at this optimistic idea.
"Honey, you know you're going to have to tell Grissom about this."
"Why?"
"Because he's your boss." She stated firmly. "He needs to know, from a welfare point of view."
"Surely that should be my call?" Sara argued. "I'll tell him as and when I decide that I need his support; but you don't have any right to make that decision on my behalf. I'm sick, not incapacitated."
Despite her best efforts, Catherine found it hard to argue with that point, so she elected to change tack.
"When did you first know something was wrong?"
Sara straightened up, surprised by the abrupt shift in tone of the conversation.
"A few weeks ago. I found a lump..." she subconsciously reached up to touch her neck, inadvertently revealing that it was her lymph nodes that had given the game away. "And I was struggling to stay focussed, I was constantly tired."
"And you didn't mention this because..?"
"You guys were all busy." Sara shrugged half-heartedly. "You have Lindsey to worry about; Warrick lost his grandmother recently; Nick..."
"Sara, we're your friends." Catherine cut her off sternly. "You're supposed to tell us things like this!"
She paused, another thought creeping into her mind.
"What about your family? Do they know?" She asked, watching as Sara's trademark defences rocketed into place at the very mention of them.
"No. And they're not going to either." The young woman answered, a warning edge to her voice which Catherine blatantly chose to ignore.
"Your parents will want to know about this, Sara." She insisted. "You're their daughter, they have every right to be involved, to..."
"My father's dead." Sara interrupted bluntly. "And my mother...we don't speak. I haven't seen her in years."
Catherine chewed over this information, deeply intrigued, but knowing that this was not the time or the place to start enquiring into Sara's family history.
"Then you certainly shouldn't be pushing us away right now." She pointed out instead.
Sara smiled tightly, realising that she had walked right into that one and internally cursing herself out for the mistake.
"I don't want people worrying about me." She maintained. "I want to deal with this in my own way, why can't you understand that?"
"Because it's not how this works." Cath argued, her voice soft but firm as she reached across the table again, despite no longer being able to touch her friend. "You don't get a say in whether or not we worry about you – it's going to happen irrespective of whether you give us permission or not."
"That's exactly why I didn't intend on telling any of you."
"And you didn't think we'd notice on our own?" She almost laughed at the idea. "It's what we do, Sara! The guys have already worked out that something's wrong and today was only your first session."
"Exactly." Sara huffed, fidgeting. "It's only the first treatment; I'm not used to it yet. It'll get better."
"No, Sara, it'll get worse!" Catherine raised her voice, her patience finally having reached its limit. "You'll get sicker and more tired and eventually you won't be able to work through it anymore."
Cath had been determined not to lose her temper, knowing that it would only push her stubborn young companion away. And sure enough, Sara shoved her chair back from the table and stood up, refusing to listen to her rationalising any longer.
"This has nothing to do with you Catherine." She declared. "Just stay out of my life."
Cath watched her walk away, a helplessness falling over her face.
"Dammit!" She swore to herself, the tears she had been fighting finally breaching her barriers and trekking down her flushed cheeks. "Dammit, Sara, why won't you let us care about you?"