AN: Thank you guys so much for taking the time to review and share your thoughts with me. Much appreciated. As for the question about Nancy and the pics from last chapter (sbz), my way of thinking about it is most of the pics are of Sara using..plus one of Nancy finding the bottle when she was out on the porch…Cath concludes from that that Nancy knew Sara was using…confronts Nancy about it…who at that point comes clean to Cath and admits that yeah, she knew about it for awhile. Hope that makes sense.
Hope everyone is doing well – have a good end of your weeks.
Take care.
CHAPTER 18
CATHERINE POV
Raising my eyes to the clock, I let out a sigh.
6:47am.
At least I got a couple hours of sleep in, I suppose. More than I was expecting to get tonight, if I am honest with myself.
Looking next to me, I see that Nancy is still sound asleep, head buried under the covers.
Extracting myself carefully from the bed, I make my way silently out of the room, heading to the kitchen to pour myself some of the coffee I pointlessly made last night.
Turning to the side, I look out Nancy's kitchen window, taking in the streaks of orange sunlight just beginning to crest over the mountains.
Just as I am about to turn away, I catch sight of something else.
Silently making my way to her back door, I open it as quietly as I can, gently shutting it behind me.
Taking a cautious step, I sit myself in one of the chairs along her back porch, watching the person occupying the chair across from me.
Sara is curled tightly in her chair, her knees drawn up to her chest, her head resting against her folded arms. The hood of her sweatshirt is pulled up and her sleeves are pulled down over her hands to protect them from the chilly morning air.
In this moment, watching Sara with her walls down, I cannot reconcile the innocence portrayed across her features with the recent revelations of her character.
I cannot picture her sleeping with that woman in a shoddy hotel room.
I cannot imagine her ingesting a bottle of painkillers with bottles of whiskey to wash them down.
I cannot see her lying to me, telling me nothing is wrong when she is all but spiraling down into depths so low that I genuinely fear she may never come back.
But she did, I remind myself.
She did.
Perhaps feeling my gaze, Sara's expression grows troubled, her body pulled from sleep as she opens her eyes to look around her.
When they land on me, it is clear to see her walls getting put back up, her eyes uncertain as they take in both me and my expression.
"Everything okay?" she asks, her voice still husky from sleep.
Shaking myself from my thoughts, I nod. "Yeah, just saw you out here when I went to get some coffee."
Sara continues to assess me, clearly not sure what to say in response.
"You could have slept inside the house," I state, taking in her running shorts she is wearing from the day before, knowing how low temperatures drop at night this time of year.
"I know," Sara responds quietly, turning her gaze towards the brightening sunrise.
"I didn't want to wake people," she offers, giving me the truth.
For once.
"Nancy sleeps like the dead," I tell her, knowing she knows it already. "You wouldn't wake her with your nightmares."
"It wasn't Nancy I was worried about," she states honestly.
"Don't," I warn her. "Don't do that."
Turning her gaze back to mine, Sara's expression is impossible to read. "Don't do what?"
"Don't pretend like you care, Sara. Don't act like all of a sudden you're concerned about my welfare."
Shaking her head, Sara sends me confused a look. "I know I have no right to care about you, after everything I did. But I don't think I can ever stop caring about you, Catherine."
Her comment perfectly echoes back to me all of the thoughts running through my own head. All of the anger and resentment I have connected to those thoughts.
"Damn it, Sara," I whisper. "I need…"
My words trail off, lost somewhere in the cold morning air.
"What?" Sara presses, "You can say it."
Looking in her eyes, I see the truth behind her words. I see her permission to say what it is I need to say to her right now.
"I need you to let me hate you," I tell her honestly.
Eyes closing at my words, Sara opens them not a moment later, taking a deep breath and steeling herself against the bite of my admission.
What it means for her.
What it means for us.
"Alright," she says, clearing her throat. Taking another breath to gather the rest of her defenses, she nods her head. "Okay."
Pulling herself to a stand, Sara straightens her clothes as best she can.
"I'm going to take off," she tells me, forcing a look of neutral indifference on her face. "Tell Nancy I said thank you."
As she starts to turn away, I catch her arm.
"Sara, you don't have a car he-"
"I'll walk," she interrupts, shaking her head.
"Sara," I start, "You can't, your leg-"
"Catherine," she says quietly but firmly, effectively cutting me off a second time.
Her eyes are desperate when they lock with mine.
"If you need me to let you hate me, then you need to let me walk away," she says quietly.
After casting a pointed look down at my hand where it is still holding her arm, she brings her eyes back up to mine.
The emotions contained in their hazel depths, the pained emotions I can see swirling there that she is barely holding under control, causes me to immediately pull my hand back.
"I'm sorry," she offers in a whisper, stepping out of my reach. "I'll see you at work."
Giving me one last glance, she disappears into the yard and around the side of Nancy's house.
CATHERINE POV
Walking into the lab today, I feel absolutely numb.
Part of me knows what happened between Sara and I this morning was a pivotal point in our relationship.
In fact, I believe it was the point that effectively ended our relationship.
I think we both knew things were over, but needed one of us to finally say something out loud to make it official.
I knew it was bound to happen, knew that it had to happen in light of everything.
There was infidelity, there was dishonesty, there was secrecy.
No person, in a relationship that harbors such darkness and deceitfulness, could be blamed for ending it. Ending the misery and the pain of what that relationship had come to be.
Still, the pain Sara brought to me lately is now replaced with the pain of losing her in my life for good.
I think back to when we first started our life together, how excited, blessed, and honestly untouchable I felt.
Never in my wildest dreams, would I have pictured it ending like this.
I will never have Sara in my life again like she once was. I will never have her arms to run to when I need comfort, never having her steady presence pull me back from the edge when I am feeling overwhelmed, never have her soft and loving touches to bring the rest of the world to a halt, never have her warm body lying next to me through the dark hours of the night.
In the end, I think that is what hurts the most.
Not what Sara did to me, but what she took away from me.
My chance to be happy.
My chance to be happy with her.
Exiting the break room, I check my watch.
Only an hour or so left of shift, then I can get the hell out of here.
Having to see Sara this morning when I arrived at the lab was torture, having to pretend like we are nothing but acquaintances now. Having to pretend like I didn't care that we are only going to be nothing but acquaintances now.
Hearing a commotion down the hall, I immediately lift my gaze and hasten my step.
Making my way through the lab, I see a large number of people gathered in the back layout room.
Looking around, I spot Ecklie near the front, talking sternly with someone from day shift.
Making my way up to him, I meet the eyes of Nick and Greg on my way, furrowing my brows at their pensive expressions.
"What's going on?" I demand, fixing Ecklie with a look when he shifts his attention to me.
A smile crosses his face, and in that moment I know that I am not going to like anything about to come from his mouth.
"Catherine, perfect." Looking around him, he smiles even broader to see the extent of his audience, the number of people about to witness what it is he is going to tell me.
"We got a break in that murder case," Ecklie says. "You know, the one we questioned Sidle for?"
"I know what case you were referring to, Conrad," I grind out through clenched teeth, trying like hell to maintain my professionalism.
"Turns out we may have been correct in our suspicions," he says cheerily.
Shaking my head, I cross my arms against my chest. "She had nothing to do with it, Ecklie."
His smile renewed, he holds out a paper to me. A paper which I take but don't even cast a glance at.
If he has something to tell me, he is going to say it to my face.
Smiling, he gestures to the ignored paper in my hands. "We found the gun the woman was murdered with. Ashleigh Connors, by the way. Thought you might want to know her name."
Ashleigh Connors, I think, playing the name through my head, the woman who helped ruin my life.
Focusing back on Ecklie, I shake my head, "You found the gun? So what?"
"Sooo," he draws out, "Gun was cleaned pretty well, but we found a partial on the magazine. Got a match."
I shake my head, still confused.
Fixing me with a piercing glance, Ecklie's face suddenly holds no humor, only malice.
"Turns out we weren't wrong about Sidle. We were just wrong about which Sidle."
Eyes widening, I finally look down at the results in my hand.
Immediately, my eyes are drawn to the name listed there in bold, red letters.
Liam Kenton Sidle.
Heart slamming to a near stop, my eyes dart back up to Ecklie.
"Liam? Sara's brother, Liam?"
Nodding, Ecklie's face quirks curiously to the side. "I suppose you wouldn't know anything about this, would you? I know you and Sara were…close."
Shaking my head in disgust, I look around me at the people in the room trying desperately hard not to meet my gaze.
"Where's Sara?" I demand, immediately noting her absence.
"We questioned her for awhile, as is standard procedure," he says casually, but his eyes tell a different story.
His eyes tell me that her latest interrogation was just as 'standard procedure' as the last.
"She claims she knows nothing about his whereabouts, so I sent her home for the rest of shift. Instructed her that she is to call us if she…learns anything new."
My heart dropping, I nearly shove the printout in my hands back into Ecklie's chest.
The pictures, the person watching us hell-bent on ripping our relationship apart, insistent upon driving a wedge between Sara and everyone she loves.
Isolating her from anyone who could help her.
It all makes perfect sense now.
It was never about us.
It was about a personal vendetta against Sara. A vendetta carried out perfectly by someone who knows all the best ways to hurt her.
Her own brother.
Shoving past everyone standing between me and the door, I storm down the hall and out of the lab.
I don't care that my shift isn't over, I don't care if Ecklie has me fired for this.
The only thing I care about is finding Sara.
CATHERINE POV
Barging into the house that we once shared, I look around me. I saw Sara's Tahoe out front, so I know she is here.
Somewhere.
"Sara!" I call out, growing panicked as I get no response.
Stepping further into the house, I draw up short when I see the shattered glass littered across the kitchen floor.
Then, almost at the same time, I see the blood.
There are smears of it across the carpeting, drops of it splattered against the wall.
Immediately, my hand goes to my side and I draw my gun.
Looking cautiously around me, I step slowly towards the counter, feeling glass crunching beneath my shoes as I do so.
Keeping my eyes forward, I reach into my pocket and pull out my cell phone to call for help.
No sooner does my finger reach '9' that I sense a shift behind me.
Before I can even turn around, complete my call, raise my weapon, do anything useful, I feel a hard object slam harshly against the back of my skull.
Pitching forward, everything goes black before I even hit the floor.
AN: Thanks for reading.
