PAIRING: Catherine/Sara
DISCLAIMERS: Hey, if I owned CSI, then by now, Catherine and Sara would have had their one year anniversary.
WARNING: Femslash. If you've read the first chapter you'll have guessed that and won't be reading this.
SUMMARY:. -Sara and Catherine don't get along. That's a fact the whole lab knows. Yet, is it really as straightforward as that? Or is there more to it?
Chapter 2-Forever a Scientist
She's a workaholic, forever a scientist. She's always there, day and night, in the labs, maxing out on overtime nearly every month. Me? I have a child to look after, so usually, I clock in when shift starts and clock out again when it finishes.
If I get in before shift starts, I head to the break room. Most of the time everyone is there already, even Grissom, who's immersed in some crossword puzzle. Warrick and Nick are on the PS2, and Greg's talking about well…something or the other, to anyone who'll listen. Sara, as ever, is sitting slightly apart from the others, head down in some journal on forensics. 'Forever the scientist' I think to myself, annoyed, although to be honest, I am impressed by her dedication as well, in spite of myself.
When I enter, Warrick and Nick turn that console thing off, and start talking to me, and Greg tones his voice down a little so he can listen in. Even Gil looks up and offers me a small smile, before returning to his paper. From Sara, there is no acknowledgment that I even exist.
Yet, even though there are so many people paying attention to me, still out of the periphery of my eye, I gaze at her. Every so often, she will glance up from the journal, and look in my direction.
For some reason, when this happens my heart jumps just a tiny bit, and I do not understand why. Perhaps, even though it feels like more, it is in the expectation that maybe she too, will finally put the magazine away and talk to me, a proper conversation, such as which we have never had.
Its my fault of course. The minute she came I saw her as an outsider, coming…sniffing around, investigating one of my best friends. It went deeper than that though. She was a woman. Not just any woman, but this bright, young Harvard graduate, and Gil's friend to boot. Holly wasn't a threat…Sara was. So my bitchy side took over, and the snide comments began. By the time I realised that she wasn't trying to compete with me, and all she wanted…wants…is to do her job…it was too late to build bridges. She had identified me, in her mind, as a bitch, no doubt a very logical conclusion, and everyone had classified our antagonistic relationship as simply another fact of life, much like Einstein's Theory of Relativity.
It is difficult, but not impossible to disprove a fact. Yet it can be done, such as when it was proved the world was round, not flat like everyone thought. So still a part of me hopes that somehow, someday, we can be friends. So, when the expression on her face is one of scrutiny, as if I am a piece of evidence which she wants to process, I am hurt. Before I can stop, another comment flies out of my mouth, and she quickly glances away again, back to the journal.
Meanwhile, the guys, who barely even notice those remarks anymore, are including me in their plans for the weekend. So why, while I am surrounded by them, do I keep her in my line of sight? Why do I care about the glimpse of hurt that passes across her features before they once more become inscrutable, so quickly that I wonder if it was there at all, or if she was still just analysing us all? Why do I care about her?
Please R+R.?