My Thanksgiving
Chapter 2: Sometimes I think about you….
A/N: Thanks to everybody who has been enjoying this story. I hope it lives up to your expectations. Thanks to Ann for the chapter titles, and pushing me to keep writing. Angie and Autumn for beta'ing my work. You guys rock. And Marita for just continually being there for me. Warning, this part does contain flashbacks
Spoilers: A Little Murder
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Sometimes I think about you.
I wonder how you're doing now,
And what you're going through.
~ ~ ~ ~
She had seen him. Whipping her head around, blonde hair flying, she had picked him out of the crowd. Desperately he tried to stay calm. ~It's just Catherine. Why am I so nervous?~
Her face held no shock upon seeing him there. It almost looked as if she was hoping to find him. Grissom, once again, felt as if he was glued to the floor. She stood proudly, staring at him, waiting for him to act; and yet at the same time she seemed almost scared.
At first Grissom wasn't sure quite what he should do. Should he go greet her? Welcome her back to work? Yes, she deserved that much from him.
~ * ~ * ~ *
"Hello Catherine… welcome back."
"Thanks. It certainly beats sitting around all day." In his presence Catherine could not cease her fidgeting. She clenched her hands together, fiddling with her thumbs as she spoke. "Though I am grateful for the time I was able to spend with Linds."
"I'll bet she took very good care of you."
"She certainly tried too."
The awkwardness between them was evident. Grissom was standing nearly two feet away from her attempting to hold a conversation.
"You look …..… better."
"Grissom, 'better' is a euphemism for 'you've been sick, you look like hell'."
"I'm….I don't really know what to say." He replied softly his eyes focused on the floor.
"Grissom, what's left to say?" Spinning on her heel she turned abruptly in preparation to rejoin the party, wondering how they had come to the point where they couldn't even hold a simple conversation.
"Catherine. Wait." His hand was on her shoulder. Sliding slowly downwards until he caught her fingers and wrapped them in his. She halted abruptly and registered what had just happened before turning around to face him.
"I'm surprised Gil Grissom. You actually are capable of physical human contact. Because for the last few months I have been wondering." The touch no longer meant a thing, her thoughts consumed with the memories of the last few months, anger dancing in her head. " I don't know if you realize this, but I am not a disease. I may have been sick but that certainly doesn't give you the right to treat me like an outsider." Once again she turned her back on him, not looking back until she was in the hallway, Grissom right on her heels.
" I was only protecting you. This wasn't my idea. You were the one that decided to keep your private life private. I didn't want to jeopardize that."
"Hell of a way to protect someone. Shutting them out."
"If you had told the rest of them that you were—"
"You can say the words Grissom. Cancer. I have cancer."
~ * ~ * ~ * ~
He never knew how much the words affected him until he heard them come from her. Only vaguely did he recall the moment she had first told him of her illness. Acute Myelogenous Leukemia. Not because he had simply forgotten, but because he could simply not believe it at the time.
*****
Catherine looked ragged. It was nearing five a.m. and no new cases had come in. She was in the break room, furling her brow and chewing on her pencil as she finished her reports. Catherine hated reports, that fact he knew about her, among others. But tonight she seemed especially irritated by them. As if somehow they were the cause of every problem she had ever faced.
He remembered the altercation she had had just a few weeks prior. The suspect that had attacked her at the crime scene. Grissom had hoped she would have spoke to him about it, at least informed him of what had occurred. Instead he heard it second hand, from Warrick at the end of shift. Not once since that night had she mentioned it to him, shrugging off his advances as if nothing was wrong. Still she seemed distant, almost cold. Could that be what was on her mind?
The pencil snapped in her hand. Dropping it from her limp fingers, he heard a small sigh as she put her head in her hands.
"Something on your mind?" He asked moving into the room. No answer.
"You look exhausted. Go home. Get some rest."
"Rest is for the weak-hearted, I learned that one from you and Sara." She replied lifting her head up just enough to make eye contact with him.
"You would pass out right there if you could…So either tell me what's wrong, or I will take you home, by force if I have too."
"You wouldn't."
"Cath, I know there is something, I don't know what, but something, going on with you."
"It's nothing." She stood up to face him, teetering slightly. Pain was evident, her face contorting slightly as tried desperately to fight it. "It's just a headache Gil."
She was hiding something, and he knew it. He noticed her inch slightly in the direction of the table, her eyes darting from him to the work she had been doing, and then back to him. Obviously she did want him to see what she was working on.
"Catherine, what are you doing?"
"Since when have my actions been any of your business?"
"Since you made me care about you."
*****
Catherine's anger reverberated throughout the hallway they stood in, her foot tapping rapidly on the floor. How Grissom wished she would stop that. His nerves, already on edge screamed at him to take action. ~Say something, anything.~ Reaching up he touched her hair, now shorter, but still a beautiful golden blonde.
"I sort of like it this way." He admitted, bringing his hand back down to his side.
"Grissom, don't."
"Catherine, I'm sorry."
"It's just to late for that Grissom." And then she was gone, the sweet smell of her perfume the only memory that she had ever been there in the first place.
~ ~ ~ ~
The last time I saw you,
We were playing with fire.
We were loaded with passion,
And a burning desire.
For every breath,
For every day of living,
This is my Thanksgiving….
~ ~ ~ ~
To Be Continued….
--- More unanswered questions? Well at least I solved one of the big ones for you in this chapter. The others will be revealed as the fic progresses. I hope you enjoyed it, and please review!