Your Next Bold Move
"Sidle." Sara's voice was clipped and abrupt as she answered the phone, the call obviously interrupting her. Gil glanced down at his watch; it was at least two hours before she started work, so he didn't know what he could be interrupting.
"Sara? It's, um, Gil." He stumbled over his own name, unsure as to whether to use his first or last. Personal call, he thought , so make it personal.
"Gil?" The incredulous note in her voice startled him, and he almost hung up the phone right then and there. "What.... what are you...." Her words sputtered to a stop and he wished he knew what he had interrupted. Had he woken her? She wasn't normally at such a loss for words. "Why are you calling?" She finally got the harsh clip to her tone smoothed out into a quiet puzzlement. "Is something wrong?"
"Um, no, no, of course not." He had a sudden urge to take off his glasses and clean them, to give him time to think, as he always needed when he had to talk to Sara about anything beyond work. When confronted by her, he would remove his glasses, remove the slight fuzziness his reading glasses imposed on his vision of her, and try hard to read the undercurrent of emotion in her body and face. It had never worked; she had always taken him by surprise, but he kept trying anyway. But now, he was the one confronting her and he had spent the last hour planning what he was going to say, so the distancing maneuver was never more unnecessary.
"I just called to see how you were doing." He had done this twice before in the last three weeks, trying to be a friend to her again as he had been before she had moved to Las Vegas, and their conversations had been stilted, filled with awkward silences, but slowly seeming more natural and friendly.
Sara didn't sound friendly now. "Oh." A long pause punctuated her words. "I, um, actually, I'm in the middle of, uh, getting ready to take a shower. Can I call you back later tonight?"
"Oh, of course," he said hastily, now anxious to get off the phone.
"Ok, I'll talk to you soon," she said, obviously as anxious as he was.
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Catherine collapsed into giggles as soon as Sara closed her cell phone, laughing so hard she was soon gasping for breath. Sara glared at her for a moment, before reveling in the sight of Catherine naked, stretched out, and twisted in the sheets. "I'm glad you found that funny," she muttered dryly, setting off fresh peals of laughter.
"I can't believe you didn't," Catherine replied finally, wiping at the tears in the corners of her eyes. She recollected the way Sara sat straight up in bed, yelping out Gil's name, her eyes as wide as saucers, and she giggled again.
Sara shook her head in disgust. "As funny as a bucket of cold water at the same moment would have been." She shuddered, her expression comical in distaste. "That was like having my parents walk in on me having sex."
Catherine rolled over so that her head rested on Sara's smooth stomach, her fingers tickling her hip and still smiling broadly at the image of Gil walking in on them. "I guess that ruined the mood, huh?"
"A little," she admitted sheepishly. "And we should fix dinner and eat before we get to work."
Catherine shifted so she could meet Sara's eyes, a mischievous expression on her face. "What, you mean you don't want to stop for Chinese food again?" she asked, referring to the fact that they had grabbed something on the way to work every night for the last four shifts, and was rewarded with a blush heating Sara's face. Her face twisted, her frown slowly giving way to a cross between a grin and a smirk before a full-out smile. "How about an omelet?"
"Mmmm, sounds good." Catherine sat up, letting the sheet fall as she stretched, feeling Sara's eyes take in every inch. "I'll shower first, then." Deliberately ignoring her robe in the chair by the bed, Catherine headed to the bathroom to the sound of Sara's teasing groan of frustration.
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Work was quiet that night, especially since they had finished the case file review the previous night. Jerome was teaching Jeremy and Kesha a card game while Annemarie read a recent forensic journal while Catherine checked her email. She couldn't believe that she was leaving for Vegas in two days; although she missed Lindsey terribly, she knew she didn't want to leave San Francisco and Sara. They hadn't talked much since that first night together and instead had spent as much time together, touching, in bed, on the couch while watching tv, in the shower. It was as if they were trying to store up against when Catherine had to leave; Catherine felt like she was walking through a fog, wrapped in a fantasy with the hard edges of reality blurred and obscured. Talking about what was happening would break that feeling, and so they hadn't. Catherine tried to concentrate on replying to Nick's email with enthusiasm but she knew when she talked about returning to Vegas, it had to sound forced. Catherine took in Sara's closed office door again, and sighed.
Annemarie chuckled. "The only thing worse than a decomp is a slow night, huh?"
"Yeah," Catherine replied, a comical note of agony in her voice. Sara had tried to send her home when it became apparent that the suspicious circs was a cut-and-dry accident and that the suspect in their murder case from the previous night was either so stupid or guilt-ridden that he had neglected to throw out the bloody clothes or even scrub his hands thoroughly.
Sara's door opened, and everyone perked up, turning with looks of anticipation that turned into frowns when she smiled at their attention, but then shook her head. "Annemarie, how much overtime do you have this month?"
"Only fifteen hours so far," she replied, defensively, since it was barely into the third week. Her eyebrows knit together as she took in Sara's knowing smile.
"Clock out, go home. Comp time." Annemarie scowled but then nodded. "Who else is over time?" Jerome didn't say anything; he just started gathering up his stuff, following Annemarie out the door.
"I'm not over that much," Jeremy said. "Yeah, me either," Kesha echoed.
"Ok, then, get caught up on your reading and see if there are any courses you want to sign up for in the next month. You both need more professional development activities for evaluation and promotion." Jeremy blushed a little and grabbed the journal that Annemarie had set down.
Sara leaned on the table by Catherine, taking advantage of her height to get a good look down Catherine's low-cut blouse. "Cath? You want to head home?" Catherine reveled in the effect she had as she stretched and leaned back and saw the appreciative look in Sara's dark eyes. She really didn't think she would ever get tired of that, she thought, as she felt a familiar tingle travel down her spine. And she really hoped Sara never did, as her fingers itched to touch her. "You need any help with your paperwork?" she asked, suggestively, as Sara threw a quick look at her young CSIs to see if they had picked up on Catherine's tone.
"Um, no," she replied, firmly, although a grin teased at the corners of her lips. "I actually finally caught Grissom on the phone."
"Yeah? What did he want?"
"He wants to come to San Francisco for a visit."
Catherine's chair snapped forward. "He what?" Her voice was louder than she had intended, and both Jerome and Kesha looked over in alarm, both heads ducking immediately back to whatever book they had at Sara's upraised eyebrow.
Turning back to Catherine, she sighed. "He's coming here for a weekend. After you get back to Vegas. He didn't ask to come," she explained hastily. "He's already booked his flight and hotel." Catherine opened her mouth a couple of times, about to say something, stopping herself each time. The confusion and anger she saw on her face was mirrored on her own; she had sat in her office for half an hour after hanging up with Gil, trying to make sense of the fragmented and awkward conversation and her own response to it.
"Why didn't you tell him to cancel his reservations?" She had asked herself the same question, and her answer had been the same: she shook her head helplessly, as she didn't understand herself. "I don't know." But deep down, she did. She wanted to see him. She cursed his timing, his audacity, but she couldn't help the tiny spark of hope that had flared when he told her his plans.
The blue of Catherine's eyes froze her heart. "I... see," she said finally.
"Cath..."
"You know, maybe I will go home. I'm suddenly very tired." She tried to make her voice sound conversational, but it sounded flat even to her ears. "Is that ok?"
Sara's shoulder's slumped as she studied Catherine's face. "Yeah, sure."
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She found Catherine at her house, pacing, a half-empty bottle of vodka on the kitchen island. "How could you?" Catherine's throat was raw from the alcohol and the yelling she had directed at the absent Sara. "HOW could you?"
Sara leaned against the island, her hands gripping so hard her knuckles turned white. "What could I have done?" Her tone was resigned, defeated. She felt trapped between Catherine and Gil, their wants, needs, and desires blocking her in; she couldn't figure out her own emotions right now, much less deal with Catherine's or Gil's.
"I don't know, told him not to come?"
"That would have been rude, Cath," she tried to explain, but her reasons sounded lame even to her ears.
"Since when has that stopped you?" Catherine demanded, oblivious to Sara's glare. "You want him to come," she accused through clenched teeth. She faced off with Sara, like a boxer, only it was her words that jabbed at the raw emotions churning in Sara's stomach.
"No! Maybe. I don't know. He's just coming here as a friend."
"Did you tell him that?" she snapped.
"What did you want me to tell him?" Sara snapped back, her own temper rising to meet Catherine's. "Oh, hey, Gris, come on up, but you should know I'm sleeping with Catherine."
"Sleeping together? Is that all we're doing?"
"Is it? You tell me." The words, and the venom behind them, stunned Catherine into silence. "We're fucking, but we haven't talked about what that means. Or tried to define it. Are we in a relationship? Are you my girlfriend? Should I tell Gil that? Can I?" The rush of words stopped as suddenly as they began, and her knees buckled; she was just a few minutes from a total collapse. She knew Catherine's reluctance to talk about what was happening between them had been wearing on her, but she hadn't realized how much it had bothered her.
"I... don't know." She raised her head slowly and met Catherine's eyes, surprised to them bright with unshed tears. Biting her lower lip, she swallowed past the lump in her throat. "Yeah, me either," she admitted. They took a step forward at the same time, hugging fiercely. Catherine pressed her face against the fabric of Sara's shirt and tried to keep from sobbing her hurt and frustration while Sara wrapped her arms around her shoulders and rested her cheek on Catherine's blond hair, inhaling the scent of her shampoo. "I'm sorry, hon," she whispered against the silky strands, "this just all came up so suddenly. Can we talk about this tomorrow?"
Catherine nodded against her shoulder. "Tired?"
A ghost of a laugh drifted down to her. "Exhausted."