Not 100% happy with this chapter, but hopefully you'll like it. The fire starts in the next one (I had to split this chapter in half because it would have been far too long otherwise!)

x x x x

"Hey!"

Nick started, coming to a halt outside the trace lab where David Hodges was scowling at him impatiently from the door.

"Don't you ever check your pager?" The lab rat snapped. Ignoring the snipe, Nick followed him into the room. He had been on another lap of the labyrinth-like halls in search of the girls, but he supposed it could wait a few minutes longer.

"You, uh, you got something for me there boss?" The Texan asked, sauntering over to the bench. It was clear from his demeanour that David was thus far out of the loop with regards to the night's excitement. Hopefully he could keep it that way.

"Don't I always?" Hodges asked sarcastically, waving the sheet of paper in his hands dramatically. "The pollen on your windscreen was from a mimulus rupicola – a death valley monkeyflower."

Nick quirked a surprised eyebrow. "Monkey flower?"

"Yes, it's endemic to the Mojave desert in Eastern California."

"Okay, that's ... that's interesting. The car was in California recently." Nick frowned, trying to tie the new piece of information into his case. "Thanks H."

He moved back towards the hall, electing to worry about this once he'd located the women, when David's irritated voice held him back again.

"Have you seen Topsy and Eva recently? They're not answering their phones either. You know, I swear you guys do it to me on purpose sometimes…"

"I'm sorry, Topsy and who?" Nick cut him off, confusion flooding his boyish features.

"The Duncan Sisters? It's a great life?"

Nick shrugged helplessly, still not following. "Come on, two women joined at the hip…"

"Hodges what are you talking about?" He asked, exasperated. He'd had a bad enough day as it was and he didn't need this pretentious pain in the ass slowing him down right now.

"Catherine and Sara." The labrat sighed. "You know there's more to culture than sport, Nick. Why don't you try reading every once in a while or something?"

Nick's expression morphed into one of understanding as the penny finally dropped; although the insult washed straight over him.

"Oh, oh right." He nodded, still not sure what Hodges was wittering about but he at least understood who he was talking about. "Yeah, um. No, I haven't seen them. Actually I was just looking for them myself." He started to walk away again but stopped, cocking his head to the side. "Hey, what do you mean they're 'joined at the hip'?"

"You know, they're always together. Always know where the other one is." Hodges shrugged as if it should be obvious.

"So, you think that they're…"

"What? Everyone thinks it's true." The tech insisted, misreading the Texan's curiosity as scepticism. Glancing around them, he leant across the table conspiratorially. "Archie even saw them kissing once."

"Seriously?" Nick asked, his dark eyes bugging out of his head.

"Well, not like a proper kiss." David amended slightly. "I think it was on the cheek – but still, a kiss is a kiss!"

"So, everybody is in on this?" Nicky snatched his results off the bench and moved lazily towards the door, tapping the folder to his chin in thought as he absently mulled this news over.

"The pools up to $350. You're missing out." Hodges hollered at his retreating back.

X x x

"I told you so."

Warrick jumped at the ungainly entrance of his mate, who stalked up to him brandishing a finger accusingly.

"What now?" He questioned almost disinterestedly.

"Catherine and Sara." Nick placed his hands flat on the layout table. "I knew there was something going on."

"What, they actually told you that?" Warrick put his file down and turned his full attention to the other man. Nick pursed his lips.

"No, not so much." He shook his head slowly. "But Hodges…"

"Oh, come on." Warrick scoffed, disregarding the conversation and going back to his work. "Whatever Hodges thinks he knows, he doesn't know."

"Maybe not." Nick conceded. "But you've got to admit that they do spend a lot of time together, especially lately."

"That doesn't mean anything; you and I spend a lot of time together too but it doesn't mean that we're knocking boots."

"I don't know man," Nick shook his head, scrunching his nose up at the thought Warrick had just put in his head. "I mean, Catherine is the only person who always knows where to find Sara when she does one of her disappearing acts. And Sara gets away with murder around Cath; if I said some of those things to her she'd slap me. But Sara..."

"Sara what?"

The boys shared a guilty look, turning in unison towards the door.

The brunette was leaning against the doorframe, one eyebrow quirked. If not for the nervous glint in her eyes, she would have looked almost imposing at this moment in time.

Nick shifted his gaze back to Warrick, but the dark-skinned man held his hands up, making it quite clear that he was on his own here. Inhaling deeply, the Texan turned again to Sara, who continued to wait patiently for an answer.

"Alright." He stepped towards her. "Sara, about what that woman said outside …" he paused, trying to find the words. Unfortunately they found him first and spilled out in a less than smooth manner. "Are you gay?"

After her unexpected moment with Catherine, Sara had been en route to Grissom's office, planning to take his earlier advice and go home early. She needed to think.
Instead, she'd caught the tail end of the boys' conversation and panicked.

Had they seen the kiss? She had just literally run out on Catherine a moment ago, but she knew from experience that it didn't take long for word to spread around here.

"I…" She swallowed, catching sight of someone at the end of the hall and suddenly losing all control of her senses.

"Sara." Warrick held his hands up, his forehead creased into a concerned frown at her sudden obvious panic. "It's okay."

She, however, barely heard him as she stumbled back into the corridor without answering.

Nick turned to Warrick, throwing his hands out as if her behaviour had just proved his point.

Warrick rolled his eyes, gathering his notes up.

"Well done, genius." He dripped sarcastically. "I can't for the life of me understand why she doesn't trust us."

X x x

Sofia did a double take, pausing in the threshold.

It was only twenty minutes ago she had told Catherine that Kirsty had not been in the station all night. And yet there she was, large as life, pouring herself a cup of coffee. And it was just convenient timing, Sofia realised, as she glanced down at the stack of folders in her arms. One, in particular, was of relevance.

Taking a deep breath, she straightened up and sauntered as casually as she could into the room, attempting to look threatening.

"You got a minute?" She asked coolly, waiting for Kirsty to turn around.

"Always." Kirsty replied with a cocky smile. "What can I do for you, detective?"

Without a word, Sofia slammed the folder down on the table. Kirsty stared at it with a blank expression, clearly not understanding it's significance.

"You put that smoke bomb in CSI." Sofia stepped as close as she dared to the taller woman. "And Sara found out about it."

Kirsty's face contorted into a mix of concern and anger, but she quickly covered it with a dry laugh.

"What is this?" She chuckled.

"She was going to expose you, so that she could finally be free." The detective continued coldly, not giving her an opportunity to deny it. "But you couldn't let that happen could you?"

Kirsty lunged unexpectedly forwards. To anyone outside the room, it would look like they were just having a private conversation, but Sofia was close enough to see the glint in her green eyes.

"You don't know what you're talking about." She muttered in a low voice. "And whatever you think you know about Sara, you're wrong."

"I know that she's scared of you." Sofia retorted. "And somehow you managed to stop her from telling us the truth. What did you do? Beat her into compliance?"

"You don't know anything." Kirsty spat, prodding her superior roughly in the chest. "And you can't prove anything."

"Oh yeah?" Sofia challenged, batting her hand away. "Watch me."

She turned to leave, but a callous laugh stilled her movements.

"Do you find this funny?" She hissed, moving back to her previous position.

"No, of course not." Kirsty insisted in a mock-wounded voice. "Although, while you're here there is something I'd like to ask you about."

"Really?" The detective drawled sardonically.

"Yeah," Kirsty licked her lips slowly, tilting her head to the side in an almost curious action.

She'd been thinking about this ever since she'd laid eyes on Sara's secret phone. The idea had struck her several times, but she'd always discarded it as going too far. However, after her confrontation with Catherine tonight she was out for blood and this would certainly cause some pain.

"I would like to make a complaint." She said with barely disguised excitement.

"A complaint against who?" Sofia pressed edgily through gritted teeth.

"My girlfriend. She's been abusing me."

X x x

Catherine had frozen after her impromptu kiss, long enough for Sara to escape.

By the time she recovered her senses enough to follow; she only caught the briefest glimpse of brunette hair disappearing out of the layout room. And once again, Sara disappeared into the ethers.

She was just about to give up her search when a loud clattering from the locker room caught her attention. Lead by her gut instinct, she followed the sound.

"Sara?" she questioned nervously, stepping into the dimly lit room.

Sara froze for a moment, flicking her eyes around the open locker door before hurriedly resuming her activity.

"What are you doing?"

"Leaving." Came the abrupt response.

"What?" Cath moved quickly across the room to grip her arm tightly, although she was quickly shrugged off. "You can't leave."

"I can't stay." Sara contradicted. "I can't do this, not now everyone knows. It's too hard."

"Sara, you're just panicking. It'll be alright once you calm down and look at it rationally."

"No, no it won't." Sara shook her head.

It was rare that she acted impulsively, but when she did she really went for it.

Abandoning her attempts to physically restrain the younger woman, Catherine dropped despondently onto the bench and stared up at her with sad eyes.

"You don't have to do this, we can work something out."

"It's too hard." Sara repeated bluntly, throwing her meagre possessions into a bag. "The guys, I can't deal with them all talking about me like this." She paused, flicking her eyes briefly to Cat's face. "They think we're together, you know. They're talking about you too."

"I don't care about the boys' feelings." Catherine stated bluntly. "Right now, I don't care about your feelings; I want you to stay. And so do the guys, they're just in shock at the moment."

"Yeah, well, they can come to terms with it without me here complicating things."

Catherine stood up, gripping her arm firmly and swinging her around to break her intensive packing.

"We need you here; this is where you're meant to be."

Sara turned her eyes away, clearly not buying the desperate pleas. Running out of ideas, Catherine – for the second time in less than an hour – did something potentially stupid. She pinned her young colleague against the lockers and pressed a kiss to her lips.

X x x

This time, it was Catherine who ran off.

Though it didn't take Sara long to locate her, pacing anxiously on the roof.

The strawberry-blonde paused, throwing a glance towards the door when it opened.

"You're still here." She noted nervously. "That's a good sign."

"That was your plan wasn't it?" Sara commented, striding towards her. "Confuse me enough to make me come after you."

"No, it wasn't like that." Cath frowned, a look that Sara mirrored.

"You threw me against the lockers and kissed me. What exactly were you trying to prove?"

Catherine pursed her lips bashfully.

"I panicked. I couldn't think of anything else to say to make you stay."

"You do know that's the second time you've done that today." Sara added, stalking past her and leaning casually against the railings. Eventually, Catherine followed her.

"Yeah, I know." She breathed, her breath misting in the cool air.

"Why did you do it?" To Cath's relief, Sara didn't sound angry about it. Just confused.

"I don't know; like I said, I panicked." She groaned weakly.

"Twice?" Sara quirked an eyebrow, drawing a smile from Cath.

"Alright, so maybe there's more to it than that." She conceded. Sara turned to her, utter loss written across her face. In the fading light, her skin looked ghostly pale. Catherine smiled, taking her hand where it rested on the railing.

"Sara, hon … I, um…"

At her inability to co-ordinate her thoughts and Sara's growing bemusement, she gripped the girl's hand tighter and flicked her blonde hair over her shoulder.

"Alright, in the interest of full disclosure." She swallowed. "Recently, I've developed feelings for you that I can't really explain."

"Cath, I…" Sara started to back off but found herself held tighter.

"No, listen." The older CSI placed her hands on either side of Sara's face, stroking her hair affectionately before moving her hands down to rest on her shoulders. "Sara, you know that I love you, right?"

"Yeah." Sara answered somewhat uneasily, instinctively leaning away.

"I know I haven't always shown affection towards you but you're one of my best friends. You're about my only female friend – I know how to act around the boys but with you, I never knew when I was crossing a line. And recently those lines have been crossed anyway, kind of accidently."

Sara nodded in understanding, dropping her head in shame as the memory of all those tender moments flooded back to mind.

Cath tugged her closer, determined to catch her gaze again. She had come to recognise Sara's evasive expressions in recent weeks and she didn't like the thoughts visible on her face right now.

"Sara, you're beautiful. And you're sweet, and … and I need to stop talking now." She mumbled, noting how Sara's eyes were wide in shock as they peered up at her from beneath long lashes.

"No." Sara frowned. "No, I … I don't want you to."

Catherine's lips turned into a shy smile and she closed the gap between them until their bodies were almost pressed together and they could feel the body heat emanating off each other in the chilly air.

"I want to be able to show you how much you mean to me, I just don't always know how."

"Well, that was certainly one way."

They shared a small laugh, feeling some of the tension drain away.

"So, was it enough to make you stay?"

"Catherine, I …" Sara paused, licking her lips. Catherine felt her stomach twist at the unconscious act but she clamped down on the rush of feelings. "I like you, but you already knew that." Sara sighed. "But, with everything that's going on with Kirsty, I just …"

"Forget about Kirsty." Cath interrupted. "Sara, I've been struggling with these feelings for a while now and … how long can we wait? Until Kirsty leaves you? Until she kills you?"

Sara flinched at the words and Catherine softened her voice.

"Besides, Kirsty already thinks we're having an affair." She pointed out with a sly smile.

"Yeah, as do half the lab." Sara added, stepping away and dragging a hand through her hair.

"So," Catherine followed her, manoeuvring Sara against the railings so she couldn't move away this time. Her lips hovered inches from Sara's, her hands sliding around her back. "Why don't we prove them all right?"