Author's Note: No update yesterday due to FFN being bitchy. Read and Review as always, I'll try and return the favor. The first chapter of Collateral Damage, sequel to the kidnapping story Slither (starring Sara Sidle and Greg Sanders, with supporting roles to Nick Stokes and the rest of the crime lab) will be posted Monday/Tuesday. Collateral Damage started as an angsty romance fic and quickly spiralled into a little action adventure when I got a little caught up in a case I had previously introduced for one plot device and ended up making it a central "secondary" plot line to the romance. Needless to say if you like to read about lots of angsty Sara stuff and poor Greg getting the worst of pretty much everything, it ought to be pretty enjoyable. GSR and Sandles alike can fight for the outcome of the story, as it's also a love-triangle thing. I love shameless plugs.

"What?" Catherine whispered.

Sara was leaning over a crib with a camera poised. She was looking over her shoulder and grinning wildly, as though she had just learned the secret to life and was going to tell no one. "Hello, Catherine."

"What time is it?" Catherine asked desperately. "How did we get here?"

Sara turned back to the crib and took another photograph. "I drove us," she replied. "It's 3:45."

"And you're alive…" Catherine breathed.

"You expected maybe a mummy?" Sara inquired with a raise of her eyebrows.

"A ghost, actually," Catherine replied, deciding not to look a gift horse in the mouth. "Alright… So you're alive."

Sara giggled in a way that reminded Catherine of the red-headed Annabelle. "I don't know what you did, Catherine, or what she said to you, but you did it."

Sara's words made Catherine's frown deepen. "What are you talking about?"

Sara abandoned the camera and walked over to Catherine, pulling up her shirt to reveal a small bruise on her belly. "A reminder," she said, "to tell us that it wasn't all a dream. I remember as vividly as you do."

Catherine was stunned. "I thought… she said you wouldn't remember."

"'Naught but you and the dead,'" Sara quoted. "And you forget the state I was in at the time."

"That means Lindsey…" Catherine felt very cold. Sara put a hand on her arm to comfort her.

"Lindsey is sleeping now," Sara reminded her. "She will awake in the morning thinking it was all a terrible nightmare."

"And what about the rest of the day?" Catherine asked. "Greg's party, Warrick, the bones… Oh God, Sara, the bones…" Sara nodded as a scream came from downstairs. Catherine's eyes widened. "We have to save her—"

Sara caught Catherine's arm to stop her. "We can't stop what's already happened."

"He's going to kill himself…" Catherine muttered.

"We weren't brought back to interfere with that," Sara replied. "You understand that this shouldn't have happened. They broke the rules for us because what happened destroyed everything and it was their fault. It's a clean slate for us. But not for them. Their fate is already sealed. If we interfere now, they'll only die some other way later."

Catherine was confused. "So we can't do anything?"

"We can recover the bodies of the McCormicks," Sara replied. "And Daniel Weaver. There's a family plot that they wanted to be buried in, but never were."

Catherine smiled and nodded. "Right," she said. "They would have wanted that."

Sara moved to the door when Catherine caught her arm. "Wait," she said. Sara looked at her curiously and Catherine smiled at her. "I'm really glad you're back, you know?"

Sara returned the smile and put her hand over the one Catherine had resting on her arm. "Me too."

The two women embraced and Catherine had never felt so grateful for anything in her life. She felt a tear fall onto her shoulder and she broke the hug, looking at Sara curiously, who was wiping her eyes and looking embarrassed.

"I'm sorry," Sara said, blushing. "I just… I thought it was all over, and there were so many things I hadn't done, things I hadn't said. You don't get second chances ever. It just feels so good, to be able to hug you like that again. I… I don't remember anything really, least of all how long I was gone, but I do remember that I missed you Catherine. All of you."

Catherine sighed and pulled her friend into another hug. "Me too, Sara," she whispered. "Me too."

After finishing at the scene, they returned to the lab and brewed some coffee. All smiles, Greg Sanders strolled into the break room and handed them each an invitation.

"Let me guess," Sara said, eyebrows raised suggestively. "A devious scheme to get us leied?"

Greg chuckled. "Cute," he said. "You guys coming?"

Sara grinned. "Wouldn't miss it for the world."

Greg nodded excitedly. "Fantastic!" He turned to leave, but Sara caught his arm and pulled him into a passionate kiss.

"Wow," Catherine said. "You two want the room to yourself? Because remember, there are still windows."

Breaking away from the kiss, Sara smirked at Catherine, still holding Greg's arm. Greg seemed to be in some sort of blissful daze. "Like you cared about windows earlier."

"We will never speak of that incident again," Catherine said sternly. "But this I will laugh about forever."

"Oh believe me," Sara said, wrapping her arms around Greg. "It will be spoken of again, if only amongst us. I will hold it against you for ever and ever."

"But this actually happened," Catherine pointed out.

Sara smirked at her. "But yours was so much worse."

"What are we talking about?" Greg asked, shaking the daze from his eyes.

Sara laughed and kissed him again. "Yesterday."

"What happened yesterday?"

"I decided to tell you that I love you," Sara replied.

Greg shrugged. "I guess I can roll with that." He kissed her again, then pulled away, looking confused. "This isn't some sort of prank, is it? Nick isn't hiding somewhere with a camera to see how far I'll go with this, is he?"

Catherine tried to hold it back, but she couldn't help but laugh. "I'm impressed," she said to Sara. "He resisted me much more."

"Yeah, well you were possessed," Sara replied, passing it off as though it was nothing. She looked at Greg, who was frowning at the two of them. "Relax, hon, girl talk."

But Greg held up a finger and pointed at Catherine, then Sara, one eye half-closed. "This is a scheme. You're scheming and it's going to be mean and cruel to me, isn't it?"

Sara cradled Greg's face in her hands. "Honey. I love you. I want to say that now, in case…" she glanced at Catherine, then rolled her eyes. "I just want to say that now, alright? And Catherine and I… We bonded. A lot. So just deal with the code talk, would you?"

"That must have been some case in Henderson," Greg said. "Because it sure did a number on you. You weren't like this before you left."

Sara kissed him again. "Greg, I'm telling you I love you. Can't you just accept that?"

A slow grin spread across Greg's face as he nodded. "Sure can," he replied. "I've loved you for like, oh, I don't know, seven years?"

"That's what I wanted to hear," Sara said. "Good boy."

"What am I, a dog?" Greg cocked an eyebrow.

Sara smirked at him. "Do you really want me to answer that?"

Greg rolled his eyes and fell into a nearby chair. "I guess not," he replied, sounding dismal as he sorted through his invitations. Sara looked about to reassure him when Hodges entered.

"Catherine?" Hodges waved a manila envelope at her. "Results back on your soil sample—"

"Let me guess," Catherine interrupted. "High traces of pollen."

Hodges blinked. "Uh… yeah… Also, great fertilizer… I guess that doesn't matter… Decomp does that." He looked like she'd just stolen his thunder. Catherine felt sorry for him.

"Great job, Hodges," she said, "but those bodies are way too old for us to do anything about them."

"I already called the anthropological society," Sara said. "They're going to give the bones a proper burial in a family plot. Turns out they belonged to the McCormick family who used to live on the land that house was on." She glanced at Catherine. "Who'd have guessed?"

Hodges didn't know what to say. "Well if you knew all this, why did you make me analyze the soil?"

Catherine shrugged. "We had to go through the motions," she replied.

Hodges rolled his eyes. "You know, I have more important things to do then mess around with pointless goose chases."

"We know you do, Hodges," Catherine said in a very understanding way. "Now go do them."

He nodded at her, then turned to Greg. "Don't think that I don't know that you're having a party today. Or that I'm not invited."

Greg looked at the invitations in his hands and shoved them behind his back. "It's in the mail, bro!" he called after Hodges as he left in a huff.

Sara entwined her hand with Greg's and grinned down at him. He looked up at her with a furrowed brow. "What are you grinning at?"

"Oh, just… I know something you don't know," she replied.

"Oh yeah, and what's that?" Greg asked.

Sara looked over at Catherine knowingly as she kneeled down next to Greg in his chair. "Just that this day is going to end far better than it did yesterday."

"Yesterday I ended my day with pizza and a Jackie Chan flick," Greg told her. "All in all, I'd say it was a good day."

"Maybe so," Sara acknowledged. "But you didn't end your day with me."

Greg leaned his forehead against Sara's. "Now that is true. I don't know what's come over you Sara, but I gotta admit, I like it. And you'll really be impressed by the party. I think you'll like it. You, uh, don't have to dress for it or anything, but—"

"Of course I'll dress the part," she said. She kissed him on the forehead and looked him directly in the eye, dead serious all of a sudden. "Never change, Greg."

"I don't plan to," Greg replied.

"I'm going to go find Warrick," Catherine said. "There are a few amends that I need to make too."

She didn't need to search long. Warrick was walking down the hall, looking for her. "Catherine!" he said. "Good, I've been meaning to talk to you—"

"I'll save you the trouble," Catherine said holding up her hand. "Yes, your wife is a lesbian, no it's nothing against you as a person or a lover, yes you should go talk to her before attending Greg's party, and I have been insanely in love with you for, oh I don't know, ever, so why don't we skip the dance and the charade and just sleep together to get this sexual tension out of the air, because I have got to tell you, Warrick, I am not as patient as I used to be, I can't just wait around for things to just fall into my lap, I have to fight for them, you know, are you getting all this or am I talking too fast?"

Warrick blinked at her and opened his mouth, hesitating a moment. "Uh… no, I think I got all that."

"Whew," Catherine said, sounding like she just ran a mile. "I'm glad, because that was hard to say with one breath."

Warrick was confused. "How did you know about—"

"Tina?" Catherine asked. "Call it women's intuition. A lot of it."

"And you want to—"

"Have sex?" Catherine interrupted. "That's what I said, isn't it?"

"Why are you telling me all this?" Warrick asked. "And… now?"

Catherine took his hands in hers and looked at them, her thumb running over his knuckles as she smiled. She looked up into Warrick's deep blue eyes and smiled. "Because Sara's right. You never know when you'll run out of time. And you don't always get a second chance."

Warrick's hands closed around hers. "Catherine, I… I'm married, I can't…"

"I'll wait," Catherine answered, kissing his fingers. "So long as it's not forever. And so long as you know. I can wait as long as you need."

The lights went out. A slew of obscenities could be heard coming from Grissom's office. Somewhere further down the hall, Nick tripped. There was a gunshot from the interrogation room. But when the lights finally came on again, Warrick and Catherine were caught in the thralls of a deep and passionate kiss, completely unaware of a world outside each other. She was dead to everything but his embrace.

The only difference was that this time, Catherine wouldn't have had it any other way.

Catherine left work early in order to get in a few hours sleep before Greg's party and potentially see Lindsey when she got home. At around two o'clock, she got a call from Greg making sure she was still coming to Sara's "surprise" party, and she reassured him she'd be there, even if she would be a little late. At three o'clock, she saw the school bus drive up and Lindsey hop off of it, her bag slung over one shoulder. She hesitated on the sidewalk, staring at the door pensively. Catherine figured she was probably having a terrible sense of déjà vu.

In order to dispel this fear, Catherine went to the door and opened it, smiling at her daughter who was surprised to see her.

"Mom?" Lindsey called at the end of the driveway. She took a step back. "What are you doing here?"

Catherine held her hands out so Lindsey could see there was nothing threatening in them at all. "I just wanted to say hello before I jet off to a party, honey," she replied. "Would you give your mother a hug?"

"Everything today was so weird…" Lindsey said, cautiously. "At school, we had a test in math and I… I knew all the questions already."

"I know, baby," Catherine said. "But don't worry about it. Everything's OK now. Everything is how it should be."

Lindsey smiled and ran to her mother, throwing her arms around her neck. Catherine breathed in her daughter's scent, mingled with the aroma of her mango shampoo that Lindsey always insisted on buying. Lindsey had never seemed so beautiful to Catherine as she did in that moment.

"Oh sweetheart," she whispered, tears escaping her eyes and falling into her daughter's hair. "I love you so much."

"I love you, too, Mom," Lindsey replied, her own eyes shut tight. "I had the worst nightmare—"

"Sh," Catherine hushed her. "We don't need to talk about that now." She pulled away from Lindsey and took her by the shoulders, looking her up and down. "You are so beautiful," she said. "You're going to do so much with your life."

Lindsey grinned. "Thanks, Mom."

An understanding seemed to pass between the two of them as an overwhelming sense of warmth rushed through them. And with one last hug, Catherine and her daughter went inside to prepare for the rest of what would prove to be a very, very good day indeed.

THE END