Title: Home Soon
Author: Jeanine (jeanine@iol.ie)
Rating: PG
Pairing: Sara/Warrick
Spoilers: You've Got Male
Feedback: Makes my day
Disclaimer: If it was in the show, it's not mine.
Archive: At my site Checkmate () , Fanfiction.net; anywhere else, please ask.
Summary: Sara makes a decision
Notes: For the LiveJournal CSReports "Female POV" challenge. Loosely based on the Melissa Etheridge song, "Come to my Window"
***
Sara enters her apartment, a woman on a mission. She goes straight to work, throwing out every takeout box in the refrigerator, the menus following suit. The catalogues that she recognised so easily in Donna Marks's house likewise find their way into the trash, and she sighs when she goes to her answering machine, sees she has no messages.
Not that she expected any; after all, if there's one thing she realised over the course of this case, it's that her work has become her life. It wasn't always like this, and she knows she has to do something about it.
She also knows just where to start.
Before she can talk herself out of it, she picks up her phone, dials a number and when she hears the familiar voice, she doesn't beat about the bush.
"Hey, it's Sara. I was, uh, thinking... You want to go out... somewhere?"
A moment of silence, then Warrick's voice, faintly puzzled. "You ok Sara?"
She laughs, in what she hopes is a casual manner. "I'm fine," she lies. "I was just wondering if you wanted to get together. That's all."
"Get together like we normally get together?" he asks, and she can almost picture his raised eyebrow. "Or go out somewhere." There's another pause. "Because they're not the same thing."
They've had this conversation before, but the difference is that he's normally the one pushing to take whatever it is they have to the next level, with her being reticent. "I know that," she says, her voice failing her after those words, and she hears him sigh.
"You want to tell me what's brought this on?"
"The case," she admits, but she's sure he already knows that. "And Nick told me that I need to get out more."
There's a smirk in his voice when he asks, "What does he know about it anyway?" and she smiles weakly, because there's a lot Nick doesn't know. She's not sure what to say suddenly, so she listens to Warrick breathing instead, just like she's heard him breathing beside her on so many nights. It's oddly comforting, but she realises now that she wants more than that.
"Will you come over?" she asks, hating the pleading tone in her voice.
"Sara…" He sighs, as if searching for words. "If I come over there… I won't leave."
Yesterday, that would have terrified her.
Today, it doesn't seem so bad.
So she smiles. "That's ok with me."
"We're gonna have to talk about this," he continues, and she nods. "You want me to bring food?"
She casts a glance at the trashcan, shakes her head. "Let's go out," she suggests instead. "Start as we mean to go on."
"I like that," Warrick says, and she can tell that he's smiling. It makes her smile too, and she almost misses his next words. "Sit tight… I'll be home soon."
When soon comes, she's waiting at her window, and she hurries downstairs to join him.
She doesn't look back.