Chapter Twenty-Seven

II

The day was dawning in a slow fire of the sky, burning the twilight into yellow, orange, pink, red and eventually deep blue as the sun rose and started its slow trek to fall again. Rising and falling, marking the days that passed, marking time. No stopping the sun. No stopping time.

No stopping age.

Catherine could feel it burrow its slow way into her body, leaving marks on her skin, her bones, her mind. Relentless as the sun and a burn just as surely. She could feel the embers of it fill her as she watched the day push forth, another day making her older. Making Lindsey older.

Nothing made you feel as old as watching your kid storm through the years. Nothing... Except perhaps realising how quickly that storm could come to an end. Life was risk, she knew in her blood. But every parent forgot this, had to forget it or be forever worried, despairing, hawking over their child.

And sometimes you were forcefully reminded.

A killer stalking her child. A part of her wanted to scream, another part had simply gone still with cold, freezing rage.

She took a deep breath, feeling the air awaken her body somewhat. They'd been working at the lab all night and she could feel exhaustion all the way to the marrow of her bones. She wasn't young anymore, her body was telling her in painful, large lettering.

At least they had built what would surely be an airtight case against Alan Keyes now. All they had to do was find him.

Unless he skipped state, hid somewhere, changed his identity, leaving her with the fear.

She sighed, rubbing her neck. She should head back into the lab, but her body felt still and cold even in the spreading sunlight. She wanted to sleep. She wanted Lindsey to be her child again, innocent and without the sting of the rebellion that lead to adulthood. She wanted Warrick to lie next to her on a warm beach, stroking her back. She wanted the smell of blood and death to stop lingering in her clothes. She wanted time to freeze for a lifetime, an eternity, for the sun to never set.

'I want,' she thought and stared at the sun.

"Catherine?"

She closed her eyes, fighting an urge to scream. Not this too now.

"Sam."

She turned to face her father with a calm she didn't feel, noticing the slight shake in his hands as he stood before her, his hair white as snow in the daylight.

"You didn't call, you didn't stop by... So I came to you," he said, his voice almost shaking. "You look tired. You work too hard."

"I have reason to," she snapped back. "There's a guy out there preying on women because of some twisted daughter fantasy and it's my job to make sure we find the evidence we need to know who it is and convict him."

"You don't need to worry about convicting him. I could deal with this guy. All you have to do is give me a name. He would never touch you again."

Sam's words were cool, sharp, like an offered knife. And in a way, it was. No trial for Alan Keyes this way. Only judgment and no more nightmares for her. But she would always know, and that would be a different kind of nightmare.

For a moment, she felt the temptation. One word from her would wield that knife. One word.

"No," she said and thought of Lindsey. "No. Leave him to the law, Sam. He hurt me, not you. Don't touch him."

Sam looked at her, and she could feel a strange kind of love in his eyes. "You're wrong, Mugs. He hurts me by hurting you. You are my daughter."

"Genetics, Sam. In the ways that mattered, you weren't a father at all."

"And you're not going to let me change that."

Sam as a father. Rich, hovering, caring in his own way. But a killer. Ruthless, dark, persuasive. Even now, even still.

"No," she said and closed her eyes to the sense of loss filling her. "I took your money for Lindsey, for her future and maybe it damned me, but I will not let you damn her. Let us be, Sam."

"Could you just watch your child live on without trying to make her safe?" he replied softly and she wanted to scream at him.

"I'm not your child!"

"DNA says otherwise, as you informed me. Catherine, when you were missing, I was..." He paused, throwing out his arms. "It was losing Tony all over again."

Against her will, she could feel sympathy well up in her. Not even a murderer should have to lose a child. "You know I'm sorry. But I'm not his replacement. You didn't lose him to win me. You can't make up for what wasn't."

His smile was a strange mix of pride and sadness. "You're as stubborn and determined as me. I'm not going to stop asking."

"I'm not gonna stop saying no."

He nodded, then looked over her shoulder. "I think your colleague is waiting for you."

She turned to see Warrick leaning against a car, far enough away not to listen in and still near enough to step in if he'd wanted. He gave her a tired smile as she met his gaze and she wondered just how long he'd been waiting on the edge of her life, always there, always just out of the corner of her eye.

"Yeah, he is," she said and turned back to Sam, noting a slight disapproval on his face. "What?"

"You could do so much better, Catherine."

Sam's daughter with Sam's money and all the things she might buy for it, for her, for Lindsey. She could make it her world - but nothing came without a price and Sam always got his money's worth. And this time it would be her, what she was molded into what he wanted her to be.

"No," she said firmly. "I could do differently, but not better."

He nodded slowly, but if in acceptance or just vague understanding, she didn't know. It had been a long night and her mind was tired of interpreting, noticing, searching.

"I should let you go," Sam said quietly, still looking at Warrick.

"Yeah, you should," she replied, imagining Lindsey saying the same to her and feeling her heart be shattered with the pain.

"He taking good care of you?"

She blinked, for a moment not even sure what he was talking about, then it dawned on her. "How...?"

"Had a guy keep an eye on you," Sam replied briskly. "You may not want to, but I protect what is mine and I'm not gonna let some murderer kill my daughter while the local cops are out getting a donut."

"Sam!" she protested, throwing up her arms, feeling her life invaded from all angles. A killer, a father, a daughter, a lover. Was there nothing left for just her? "My personal life is none of your business."

Sam was already ignoring her, striding towards Warrick. The morning seemed to get worse and worse and she hadn't even slept yet. As she hurried after, she felt the first faint traces of a wind pick up, shoving the heat ever forward.

Warrick gave her a quick look as she approached, clearly wondering what this was about. She could only give an apologetic smile, watching Sam introduce himself, even if it was clearly unnecessary. She wondered briefly if Warrick was even thinking this could be his father-in-law, then shot the thought down with force and speed. Way, way too early for that and yet... No, no.

"Take care of her for me?" she heard Sam say and she felt an urge to drop a car on him.

Warrick fixed him with an indeterminate glance. "No. She'll take care of herself."

"Yes, I will," she cut in. "Sam, I have to get back to work."

He nodded, looking at her again with what could almost be love, Sam-style. "Call me if you change your mind."

And with that he slipped away, striding into the sunshine and a waiting car. For all the anger, she felt a moment of pity too. It was possible to have all money could buy and still have nothing at all.

"What was that all about?" Warrick asked softly, though she suspected he had a fair idea.

"He wants to be in my life. Be a father, as if he can argue that right now with his DNA," she replied, trying to bite back the bitterness and failing.

"I know."

With anyone else, those words might have been trite, but not with Warrick. He did know. He did have a father by DNA only.

"DNA doesn't make you a father, just as you can be a father without the DNA," he went on. "I don't need DNA to love your daughter as if..."

He paused, perhaps feeling he'd said too much, looking at her with a slight air of hesitation.

'As if she were your own,' she thought and let the thought warm her.

"You don't," she agreed softly. "But one step at a time, right?"

"Right."

Being at work and being in a public place be damned she decided and leaned against him anyway, resting her head against his broad chest and listening to his breath. She had earned a rest. She had earned happiness, dammit, and no father or killer or both was going to change that.

It was a dangerous thought, she knew, since life rarely ever seemed to give what was fair, but she clung on to the thought anyway, feeling Sam's pain burrow into her as her own. And Georgina's father's, all the fathers who had lost their child, all the mothers, all the pain of the world. Even Alan's. And somewhere in the abyss of it was her own, lingering always because it was her, was her life.

No escape from pain and time and she was growing older with every heartbeat, every breath. Time went ever on, healing pain and adding to it all at once, fairly and unfairly, but eventually pain came to all.

And high above her, the sun traveled on, marking time as it went, rising only to fall again.