Title: Coffee
Author: Mars
Pairing: Cath/Sara
Fandom: CSI
Rating: PG
Series: 1) Mirrors
Warning: abandoned WiP
Spoilers: not really
Word Count: 691
Disclaimer: if they were mine, it wouldn’t be fanfic, now would it.
Summary: First part of a sequel to “mirrors.” A teaser, really, I’ll be posting more soon. You don’t have to have read “mirrors” to get it, but go back a page and read it anyway.

***

“You owe me a coffee, Catherine Willows.”

Catherine actually jumped; she hadn’t heard Sara behind her as she sheafed and stapled a last few pieces of paperwork before clocking out.

“How do you figure?” She picked up the short pile of stapled packets and headed to the door. Sara made no move to get out of her way, and Catherine practically had to walk through her, shoulder and upper arm brushing against shoulder and breasts, to get into the hallway. An attentive and insightful piece of her subconscious, one of the things that made her such a good CSI, registered and filed away the easy intimacy that made the contact completely comfortable. “And could you be a little more rude?”

Sara was smiling, that quirky, genuine smile that they’d seen so rarely around the office in the past year. “Well, I could kick you off a scope in the middle of your work,” she said casually, following Catherine down the hall. “That happened to me today, and I thought it was very rude. The culprit tried to mollify me with an offer of coffee, but it was weak, tasteless, and above all, free coffee, so I wasn’t really mollified.”

They’d reached the proper inboxes, and Catherine dropped off her forms and turned to face her coworker, amusement warring with irritation. She was in no mood to be called out by the younger woman. But Sara was right; it had been a bitch move to kick her off the scope, and this was far more like the easy banter she craved with her friend than anything they’d shared recently.

“I see. And what are you planning to do with your righteous fury?”

“Well, it occurred to me that she didn’t specifically say she’d buy me a breakroom coffee. So, I thought I’d hunt her down and make her buy me that coffee after work.” Sara’s smile was huge now, and amusement won out. Truth be told, Catherine owed Sara a lot more than a coffee, and she didn’t really have anything to do today after work. And she certainly didn’t mind the company.

Sara was already changed – unusual, for her to be almost out the door before Catherine had even wrapped up her work – and she waited patiently outside the locker room for Catherine to get her things together. The blonde CSI could hear her humming in the corridor, something else she hadn’t done much lately. Sara was in a good mood today. And, to Catherine’s mild surprise, she realized that that fact made her really happy.

~Or maybe not such a surprise,~ the quiet back of her brain offered her. ~Remember this?~

She flashed back several weeks, to the afternoon after the Stern case. Sara had taken her up on her suggestion to find something to drink, and they’d ended up in a reasonably quiet family diner sucking down milkshakes. Catherine had, slowly, confessed to how unnerving Dr. Malaga had been and to her own perpetual fear about her appearance. Somehow, before she knew it, even without the lubricant of alcohol, the conversation had snowballed into a heart-baring ramble about losing Chris, loosing her looks and her fear of loosing Lindsey. And somewhere between apologizing to Sara for being such a lousy friend and Sara refusing to let her pay for her own milkshake, the younger CSI had looked frankly into Catherine’s eyes and said very seriously,

“Catherine Willows, you are quite possibly the most beautiful woman I have ever known. What’s more, even were you three hundred years old and horribly disfigured, you would remain so both on the outside and where it counts.”
Ah, yes, that was the moment. That incredibly heartfelt, impossibly sweet and perfectly worded little comment was the moment Catherine had realized how hard she had already fallen for Sara Sidle. And that voice in the back of her brain was quite right to bring it up. Apart, of course, from her standing decision to steadfastly pretend that no such thing had happened.

She laced up her shoes and strode out into the hallway. “Since I owe the coffee, I guess I’ll drive.”

***