Disclaimer: I do not own CSI

AN: Thousand thanks to Rhee for being such an amazing beta reader! Thank you so much!

See, I did not lie when I said that I would update more frequently from now on ;) Okay, this chap is different than the other ones, actually different from EVERYTHING I ever wrote :lol: because for the first time in my 'fan fic writing life' I wrote Catherine as a nice person, lol.

Enjoy!

chapter 9

Okay, this had been a slap to her face. She couldn't deny that it had hurt her more than she had thought it would. But her pride was hurt more than her feelings. Who did Hank think he was? And how could she be stupid enough to let him do that to her?

He had been smart enough to be able to fool her; she really hadn't suspected anything at all. But now she knew where he had been whenever he had pretended to work a double shift, now she knew what he had been doing when his cell phone had been switched off, now she knew why he had sometimes been acting so weird when they had met some of his colleagues and she now knew why he had never introduced her to his friends. At least, she thought, since he had to keep their relationship – if it had ever been one – a secret, he hadn't been able to show off with it if front of his friends. That would have been even more embarrassing. In fact, she was more embarrassed than hurt.

She leaned back into the seat and closed her eyes. She was thankful that Catherine didn't talk much during the ride; she wasn't in the mood to talk about it, not yet. She had never really been getting along well with Cath, but today she was really thankful that it had been Catherine who became witness of what had happened between her and Hank.

Sara didn't have any friends outside of the department; actually only Warrick and Nick were her friends. Sometimes she also chatted with Greg, but he wasn't really on her wavelength. But she wouldn't be able to talk about this with Nick or Warrick; if one of them would have been working with her today she knew it would have felt worse.

Catherine must know how she felt right now, Sara thought. Gladly. Maybe talking with a woman might help forgetting Hank and getting over him as soon as possible.

When they entered the bar Sara couldn't help but think that Catherine definitely knew where to go when you need distraction. They sat down on a table in the corner of the room and Catherine ordered two beers. They didn't talk until the beers had been brought.

"How long were you dating him?" Cath asked looking at her.

"Over a year." Sara needed to bite back her anger, she was actually angrier that she had let him fool her than about the fact that he had fooled her.

"Right, I remember that I saw him with you in the diner while I was more or less fooled in that kidnapping case." Cath nodded.

"Yeah, you put a glass with a finger in it on our desk before you left." Now Sara had to chuckle. "I should have known right then that it was a bad omen."

"Sometimes men are just jerks." Cath downed half of the beer at once.

"Oh yeah." Sara agreed. "But you know what the bad thing is? I can't even hate him or be mad at him because I actually wasn't any better."

Catherine raised an eyebrow and threw an asking look at her.

Sara shrugged. "I just started seeing him because I needed distraction from the," She stopped and took a huge sip from her glass. When she was about to put it down on the table again she changed her mind and downed it all at once. She needed to overcome her inhibitions before she could continue. She pressed her eyes closed and swallowed hard. When she opened them again her vision was blurred for a second or two, but then she felt that she was able to speak again. "I needed to find a distraction from the man that I actually wanted to be with."

"Who was that man?" Catherine asked after a moment.

"Just someone." Sara said staring at her empty glass. "I need to get another one."

Catherine nodded and signalized the waiter to bring them two more beers.

"I thought I could get over him when I'd date someone else. When I'd sleep with someone else and would pretend that I love someone else."

"That never works." Catherine sighed and leaned back. "You still love that other guy?"

Sara nodded softly. "That is the ironic thing about all this. I started dating Hank and hoped that I could forget about… about the other guy. But I couldn't. Far from it. I just started to feel more for him. And it drove me insane that he did not even get jealous when he found out about me and Hank. In fact that hurt more than this does now."

"Does the other guy know about your feelings for him?"

Sara shook her head. "No, no I don't think so. I mean I doubt that he would treat me the way he does if he would know."

Finally the next beers were served and Sara again prepared to down it, but Catherine stopped her. "Getting drunk doesn't make it better."

Sara sighed; she knew that Cath was right. "You know I just wish that he would know what I feel, but I lack the guts to tell him. And it would probably not change anything at all. He wouldn't fall in love with me because I mean he would never want to be with me anyways."

"Why not?" Catherine asked slightly surprised. "Sara you are a young, intelligent, beautiful woman. Why would he not want to be with you?"

"Because… because he thinks that it wouldn't work." Sara said with a sad tone in her voice.

"Who is he?" Catherine asked once again.

Sara lifted her eyes from her glass to Catherine's face and bit down on her bottom lip.

And Catherine seemed to realize whom Sara was talking about. Her mouth dropped open and she was obviously surprised. It took a moment until she found her words back. "Sara, I think it would be a good idea to… to…"

"Move on? Get over him? Yeah that would definitely be the best I could do, but the bad thing is that it doesn't work." She said feeling really desperate for a moment. "Cath I don't know what else I can do. Whenever I think that I finally made the first step away from him something happens and… and I loose my way again."

"Gil is… he is not the kind of person who follows his feelings. He is only thinking with his head and never with his heart Sara. He asked you to come to Vegas because he trusts you, and while I am sure that subconsciously his intentions were deeper than he wanted them to be, I don't think that he that…"

"He's not going to act on it, I know. Damn I know that. I wish I could stop caring about him but the harder I try to care less, the more I care for him." She took a huge gulp of her beer. "I can tell myself again and again that he does not care about me, it just doesn't work."

Catherine bit on her bottom lip. "I know I am just adding more fuel to the fire, but he does care a lot about you Sara."

Sara threw an unbelieving look at her.

"He did not tell me, but when you thought about quitting the job it really tore him apart. He is bad with expressing what he feels because he doesn't want anyone to think that he has any feelings at all."

Sara couldn't believe it, this was not really what she had needed to hear right now her plans to get over him were destroyed once again. So he did care about her! To hell, why couldn't he simply show her that he cared?

"I guess I shouldn't have told you." Catherine said when she saw Sara's expression.

Sara shook her head and sighed. "Doesn't matter." She downed the rest of her beer. "I should simply give up the problem is that I am really bad when it comes to giving up."

Catherine nodded softly.

"I… uhm, I know maybe I… about what happened a couple of weeks ago, I really wish that I could have found something to."

"I was overreacting. Sara I know that when it comes to our job we can only do so much, sometimes we do everything we can and it's still not enough. I was stressed out and," She sighed. "I was just totally stressed out."

"How is Lindsey?"

"Not good, she still doesn't understand that she will never see her father again." Catherine swallowed hard. "To get back to the actual theme, Sara you should talk with him, it's not going to take the two of you anywhere if you simply hush up."

Sara sighed, she had hoped that they could change the subject, talking about Grissom with Catherine had felt relieving at first but now it made her feel more and more uncomfortable. She could simply tell Catherine that Grissom had made it clear long ago that there would never be more between them, but she didn't think that there would be any positive outcome from revealing their 'past' to Catherine. The effects would only be negative and she knew that.

"Well, we better pay now. Tomorrow is going to be another day full of work."

Sara nodded softly, thankful that Catherine seemed to understand that she wasn't able to talk about this any longer. This evening did not make them friends but it had changed Sara's attitude towards Catherine. And even though it had been anything but helpful in terms of her plan to get over Grissom, she couldn't help but feel better since Catherine had told her that Grissom did indeed care about her.

TBC

So what did you think about this?