Part 3

The sounds of peaceful slumber followed Catherine out the bedroom door as she stumbled through the unfamiliar floorplan, thankful for the streetlights illuminating the living room. She finally found her other shoe, and she perched on the edge of the couch to slip them on and glance in her purse to make sure she wasn't missing anything. Glad to hear a firm click as she closed the door behind her, so she at least didn't have to feel guilty about leaving the woman behind an unsafe, unlocked door, Catherine stared at herself in the polished silver of the elevator doors. Her hair and lipstick were mussed and her eyes were bloodshot from the smoke of the bars. She wondered, as the elevator dropped down to the city streets, if Sara had ridden this same elevator another night at 4 AM, staring into guilt-filled eyes and feeling like the sense of emptiness in the pit of her stomach was going to swallow her whole.

Catherine ran a hand through her hair and smoothed the curls, trying to restore at least a semblance of normalcy.

xxx

The smoke stung her eyes even before she made it through the door; it was late and hours of smoking had built up in the small, confined space, just waiting to billow out when Catherine opened the door. She thought she would be used to it by now, as often as she was making the rounds of the bars lately, but it didn't seem to get any easier. Nothing, in fact, had been easy in the last three weeks, since the bombshell conversation with Sara in the locker room. To Catherine, it seemed like the shock waves were still rolling under feet, making everything slightly off-kilter as she tried to recover her equilibrium, a task not helped by too many nights in too many bars to count, constantly searching for…

Sara. There, sitting at the bar, with her back to the door, Sara. Leaning into the personal space of a pert blonde who seemed to be bubbling on and on about something or other. Catherine felt an irrational anger rise as she got close enough to hear something about office politics at some chain clothing store, thinking that Sara must be stretching to consider this insipid airhead a suitable replacement for her. Sliding in behind Sara, Catherine shot the woman a look and snarled, "Get lost" as she rested her hand possessively on Sara's hip. Just that light touch sent a cascade of sparks down Catherine's spine and she shivered under Sara's gaze as the taller woman turned, puzzlement giving way to shock as the person standing there registered.

"Sara, I…"

The flash of anger in Sara's eyes stopped Catherine's words in her throat. "Catherine? What the hell…?"

"Can… Can we talk?" Sara was staring at her, wide-eyed, as if she were an apparition, and Catherine noted three shot glasses along the bar beside the brunette, and she wondered if alcohol was meant to bolster her courage or to dull the roar of the voices that whispered, "not her, not her." Perversely, Catherine hoped it was the latter, hoped that Sara suffered the qualms of conscience and the dull ache of guilt that ate at her daily since she had started this insane dance.

Sara finally nodded and Catherine caught her hand, leading her out the door of the club with relief. She could almost feel Sara's eyes on her as she lead the way in her club clothes, the skin-tight jeans that hugged her ass and the bare-backed blue halter; after all, she had worn clothes like this every night she had been out specifically for Sara, and Catherine wondered if Sara was the type of lover to rip her clothes off in haste or undress her slowly, carefully, reverently, with trembling fingers. Catherine had a sudden hope that she might find out soon.

Her hopes were dashed when Sara wrenched her hand from Catherine's, stopping them a few steps from the door. Catherine turned, surprised, and then suddenly breathless as Sara's eyes, darkened from a combination of red-hot anger and white-hot desire, transfixed hers. "What are you doing here, Catherine?" she growled.

"I…" Catherine cast an eye around the deserted sidewalk in front of the club, deciding that it was not the place to have this conversation, "can we… um, I want us to go somewhere quiet and talk. Please?"

"No, we're not going to go somewhere and talk. I'm going back in there as soon as we're done here." Even with her eyes painting every curve of Catherine's body, Sara didn't look particularly pleased to see the blonde, and Catherine worried that perhaps her assumptions all along had been wrong, but then she remember the petite blonde inside the club.

"What the hell are you doing here?" Sara demanded after a few seconds of silence.

"I… Looking for you."

"Looking for me?"

Catherine gathered all her courage and stepped closer to the brunette, invading her personal space and breathing in a citrus-and-desert-flower scent that must be the perfume Sara didn't wear at work. "I know who you are replacing," she whispered as she nuzzled Sara's neck, "and I wanted to tell you don't have to anymore."

Sara's hands found Catherine's shoulders, but instead of pulling her in, Sara pulled the shorter woman back to meet her eyes. "You're kidding me. Right? This… this is a joke."

"No, Sara. I, I never knew. about you. I always thought you and Grissom…" Catherine shook her head, not even wanting to get into that right now. "Anyway, that's not important. What's important is that I'm here, I'm right here."

"So?"

Catherine stared at her, exasperated. "So you don't have to keep doing this, finding substitutes…"

Sara exploded at that. "I told you to get over yourself, Catherine. This," she said, stressing the word and gesturing back toward the door of the club, "has nothing to do with you."

"Nothing? You are telling me that that blonde in there has nothing to do with me?"

Sara's mouth snapped shut and her eyes blazed, but she didn't deny it, and Catherine wanted to yell her triumph. But before she could say anything, Sara asked, "So what if it does have something to do with you?"

"What? What do you mean, so what?"

"I mean, it doesn't matter, Catherine."

"Of course it matters. If I'm the one you want, then…"

"Nothing can happen between us," Sara stated.

The world seemed to lurch under her feet, and Catherine could only stammer out, "Wha, what do you mean?"

"I mean, we can't have a relationship, Catherine. There's no possibility of anything happening here." Seeing the astounded look on Catherine's face, Sara explained, "I don't have anything to offer you, and you sure as hell don't have anything to offer me."

"Why not? And what do you mean, nothing to offer? You want me, I…"

Sara's harsh laugh cut Catherine off. "You've got to be kidding me. You think all this has occurred, what, because I've been afraid to ask you out? That this is some fairytale where all we have to do is confess our feelings to each other and we'll live happily ever after?" Sara shook her head, still somewhat laughing to herself. "Go home, Catherine. Or go home with your friend." She nodded her head in the direction of the parking lot, where Catherine could see her date from the other night.

Catherine turned back to Sara, staring at her pleading eyes, but Sara wasn't looking at her. "Just… leave me alone, ok?" With that, Sara disappeared into the smoky interior once again.