Disclaimer: I don't own CSI/Sara/Cath/Any other character. They are the property of CBS/Bruckheimer. This is just me playing with someone else's toys. But don't worry, they are most certainly having fun and I promise to put them back unharmed when I'm finished. Seriously, no copyright infringement intended folks.

Authors Note: I know I owe you guys an apology for taking so long to update. There's no point in me going into all the why's because I know everyone has ups and downs but I am truly sorry you've had to wait so long. For me, it's been really hard to write again so I hope it's come out alright. Thank you to everyone who has stuck with it and thank you especially for all the reviews. I know I've not managed to answer every single one but it doesn't mean I don't appreciate them. I really really do!

There's a special word in there for the Divine Miss Kelcie… let's see if she can spot it. And I've given Billie Holiday a decent airing… to me, she rocks so that needs no further explanation ;-) The songs I've borrowed are… 'All Of Me', 'They Can't Take That Away From Me' and 'Cheek To Cheek'. Well I'll let you read and I hope you forgive my tardiness.

Warning: This story contains sex between two consenting females. It has been rated M for its sexual content. If femmeslash is not your thing or you are not old enough to read this, don't go any further.

High-Five

Chapter 18

As Catherine pushed through the main door she caught sight of her tall, elusive colleague perched on the hood of her department Denali, elbows on her knees and palms tucked under her chin. Taking a deep, steadying breath she walked towards her vehicle.

Sara seemed to be in a world of her own staring at the buildings opposite watching the sun's rays creep over them slowly as it rose further into the early morning sky. Catherine's stomach clutched as she took momentary advantage of Sara's distractedness and ran her eyes over the younger woman. Her mind supplied her with any number of what-if's in the few seconds she stood there able to observe her beautiful colleague unnoticed, her favourite also being the one that most took her by surprise: 'what if I just drive her home with me right now, take her in my arms and make love to her all day long'? She shook her head to clear her thoughts and bring herself back into reality.

"You ready to go?"

Sara offered nothing in return, she just hopped off the hood of the truck and walked to the passenger door.

They settled in their respective seats in silence, Catherine quickly turning the key in the ignition bringing the engine to life. As they pulled out of the lot onto Westfall, Sara finally spoke. "Did you have somewhere in mind?"

"Um… well not really I guess… nowhere special anyway, why?"

"It's just there's a small, kinda out of the way bar I go to sometimes when I crave that after-shift beer. I don't know how, but the minute you set foot in the place you don't feel like you're in Vegas anymore… all the glitz and trashy falseness gets left behind at the door."

Catherine glanced at her colleague whose eyes were firmly fixed out of the passenger-side window as she spoke. "Sure, it sounds perfect…"

Sara turned to meet her gaze, a gentle smile on her lips. "Just head for Fremont and I'll direct you from there."

-- -- --

Catherine chose a seat with a good view of the majority of the bar and sank into it, her eyes getting to work with her usual well-honed inquisitiveness. The place was small but it wasn't cramped by any means and as Sara had suggested the atmosphere was the farthest from pretentious or trashy that it could be. If she was honest, Catherine hadn't believed there could be such a place in Vegas.

There were old, comfy sofa's and chairs, none of which matched each other, dotted around willy-nilly along with wooden stools in varying heights to be drawn up to the rickety tables, the vast majority of which were being levelled with two or three beer-coasters under their legs.

There was laughter drifting over from the three-quarter size pool table situated at the far end of the bar where three lads and a girl were enjoying a rather laid-back doubles game. At the other end of the bar two older gentlemen in rumpled suits were seated on high-back stools sipping coffees and exchanging the odd word or two. Then, in another little alcove, an old-style juke box nestled, right next to a chintzy three-seater which looked like it had come straight out of granny's retirement condo. The contradiction made Catherine chuckle.

The air was filled with the unobtrusive Jazz melodies of Billie Holiday. On the walls there were large photographs, mainly black and whites in simple black frames, most of which seemed to depict the natural wonders of Vegas: the desert, the mountains and the canyons that surround Sin City. It was surreal. In fact the only thing about this place that screamed Vegas was the fact it was open at nine o'clock in the morning.

Sara smiled as she watched Catherine taking in her surroundings in wonder. This place was an enigma, so much about it shouldn't work, yet it was perfect and she could see that realisation dawning on her colleague too. She lifted their drinks from the counter and sauntered over to join the blonde who had unknowingly chosen to sit at Sara's favourite table, the one with the best view of the whole place to watch the comings and goings. Ah, the inquisitiveness of a CSI.

Setting the bottle in front of Catherine, Sara tucked her long legs around a stool and sat down. "It's something else, isn't it?" she whispered.

Catherine drew her eyes from her study of the place to meet Sara's, her breath catching at the gentle warmth she saw in them. She nodded bringing the bottle to her lips. "How did you find this place?" It wasn't as though it was on the beaten track. In fact you'd completely miss it if you didn't know it was there. It was tucked in a tiny, dead-ended side-street with no announcement to the world that it existed, in fact with the faded paintwork and the small flaking sign painted above the entrance, it was almost as if it was trying to discourage would-be customers from coming through the door.

"A friend brought me here once." She picked absently at the corner of the label on her bottle. "It took me all of ten minutes to fall in love with it. It's everything Vegas isn't." Catherine noted how instantly relaxed Sara seemed here and she'd be lying if she said she didn't feel it too.

"Lindsey came home from camp yesterday. It was so good to see her, I'd not realised just how much I'd missed her till she whirl-winded back into the house." Catherine grinned as she remembered the way her daughter had run at her and hugged her tightly. The time apart had done both mother and daughter good. "She loved her present by the way..."

Sara smiled and took another sip of her beer. "It reminded me of you."

"…she took down a whole shelf of furries so she could give it pride of place in her room and that in itself is… what?" Catherine looked up unsure if she'd heard the whispered words correctly.

"It was beautiful… it reminded me of you." Sara was wearing a delicate pink blush and focussing somewhere over her left shoulder as Catherine stared at her open-mouthed her heart beating erratically in her surprise. After several long moments of silence Catherine remembered she had to breathe and tried to stutter out a response but Sara interrupted her. "It's ok Cath, you don't have to say anything, I was just stating a fact."

Billie, still singing softly in the background, began a new song.

The very thought of you and I forget to do, the little ordinary things that everyone ought to do…'

Both turned to look at each other at the same moment.

"Sara…"

"Cath…"

"Sorry, you first…"

"No, you go…"

Catherine took a deep breath and stretched her hand across the table nudging her little finger under Sara's. "About what happened in Miami… I…"

"Cath, I understand…" Sara swallowed trying to ease the pain in her jaw, she desperately didn't want to regret what had happened between them, it was the closest she'd come to feeling alive in so many years, "what happens in Miami stays in Miami." She chuckled weakly at the irony of adapting the popular Vegas phrase. "I won't tell Warrick."

Catherine frowned at Sara's words shaking her head. "There's no reason to tell Warrick…"

A small furrow crept onto her brow as she swiftly pulled her hand away from Catherine's and let out a sardonic sigh. "Exactly…"

"No, Sara, there's no reason that Warrick would need to know anything about you and I…"

"I get it…" Her jaw set further, twinges of pain shooting up her face. "I said I won't say anything to him… and I meant it."

"No, you don't get it… Sara, there is nothing going on between Warrick and me, so there would be no reason to inform him of what happened between you and me."

"But…"

"What you saw in the locker room the other day was not what you thought it was."

"It certainly looked like something… the way you were holding each other, the way you pulled awkwardly apart the moment I came in? Why didn't you say something sooner?"

"Because you rushed off to your scene and I didn't see you in days and then I saw the… well I'm telling you now." Catherine withdrew both her hands into her lap and stared at them. "Warrick asked me not to tell anyone."

"Not to tell anyone what?" Sara wasn't really following Catherine's explanations.

"I knew what you'd think but I couldn't ask him if it was okay to tell you because then he'd wonder why I needed to tell you and I didn't know if you'd be okay with me telling him that and…"

"Catherine…" Catherine stopped wittering and looked up to meet the confusion in Sara's eyes. "…you're making no sense."

"I know, I…"

"Look, I'll get us another beer to give you time to collect your thoughts… okay?" Catherine nodded and looked back into her lap.

A minute later Sara returned to the table and waited for Catherine to speak.

"Tina has cancer." Catherine looked up resolutely. Blunt and to the point was the only way not to dig herself into a hole of her own making. She could see the question marks twirling above the brunettes head at her opening but she knew she had Sara's undivided and silent attention. "Warrick met her two months ago, they really hit it off… he confided in me before we went away that he thought it might really be something. They found out the day we flew back that she has colon cancer. Sara… she's dying. He asked her to marry him. She said no. She said that she didn't want to leave him a widow. He didn't want anyone to know."

Sara processed the information calmly and silently but there was a wealth of pain in her eyes for her friend.

"I couldn't tell you because he asked me not to say anything and I didn't want to explain to him why I needed to tell you because I didn't want to betray you."

"But you've…?"

"…I've told you now… yeah I know… I asked him."

Sara shook her head again as another flurry of confusion descended upon her. "But…?"

"…I saw the letter…"

"What lett…" Sara's eyes widened in surprise as she realised what letter Catherine was talking about. But how could she? That was private and addressed to Grissom and she'd left it on Grissom's desk.

Catherine took a deep breath and continued. "I was taking Grissom the file on the Hudson case for sign-off and I saw the envelope with your handwriting on it and…" Catherine saw Sara's expression change as anger flashed into her eyes, she headed trouble off at the pass by quickly babbling, "I didn't open it, I didn't read it!" Sara put her head on one side, waiting. "Somehow I knew what it said, I can't explain it, I just knew. Grissom came back and caught me looking at it. I didn't know what to do so I just said if the letter contained what I thought it did not to process it immediately… to let me talk to you first. He opened it, he read it… to himself by the way, not to me but he nodded to confirm my suspicions. I… I had to talk to Warrick. I had to ask him first. I needed to be able to tell you that what you saw in the locker room wasn't about him and me. I didn't want you to think I was like Calleigh. I didn't want you to go because of me. I don't. I don't want you to go." Tears pooled heavily in the troubled blue eyes.

Sara reached out motioning for Catherine to raise her hands onto the table. Clasping the smaller trembling palms in her own, she paused, organising her thoughts, eventually whispering, "Why do you not want me to go?"

Catherine looked aghast, a hundred emotions flitting across her face as her vision blurred and she lost the battle with her tears… again. Damn! What's with my emotions of late? She looked left and right before finding a gouge in the table to study intensely. "Because… because I don't want what happened in Miami to stay in Miami…" she whispered around the lump in her throat. Sara's grasp on her hands tightened.

"You don't?" Catherine shook her head causing her tears to zig zag on her cheeks. "…but in the taxi...?"

"…I didn't know what you were thinking. You were kinda zoned out and it seemed like you needed some space. Plus we were heading to work and I knew that work wasn't the place for continuing whatever we had going… I thought we'd have chance to talk about it afterwards." Sara was squeezing her hands so tightly now that it was almost painful but she didn't complain or pull away. She waited for her to process what she had said whilst trying to stem the flow of her ridiculous tears. This is not Catherine Willows. Catherine Willows does not just 'cry' like this… get a grip on yourself woman!

"Dance with me?"

"What?" Catherine sniffed blinking away her tears so she could focus on Sara's face.

"Dance with me Catherine… please?" Sara stood lifting both Catherine's hands with her. Catherine stayed rooted to her seat as she looked round the place uncomfortably. "You once said you used to strut, sway, shimmy, and shake your ass off… so…" Sara adjusted her stance and swaggered a couple of steps, "Captain Jack would like the pleasure of dancing with you. Dance with me?"

A small smile crept onto Catherine's delicate features and she finally allowed herself to be pulled from her seat. "Hey Benny," Sara shouted across to the bartender and motioned for him to turn up the music with a grin. Benny just grinned back at her and within moments Lady Day was easily filling the air with her dulcet tones.

'The way you wear your hat.

The way you sip your tea.

The memory of all that.

No they can't take that away from me.'

Leading her partner to a small empty space just behind where they'd been sitting, Sara took her bow making Catherine smile and blush and then pulled her in towards her as she started to sway, mouthing along with the words as if she was singing to her.

'The way your smile just beams.
The way you sing off key.'

Sara sent her dancing partner a little wink at that line.

'The way you haunt my dreams.
No they can't take that away from me'

Nobody but the affable Benny was paying the slightest bit of attention to them and he was simply drying his coffee cups and grinning like the Cheshire cat. Catherine finally relaxed and gave herself up to the moment, falling naturally in step with the younger woman. Sara spun and twirled her around the tiny dance-floor, throwing in moves that would have even caused raised eyebrows from the likes of Fred and Ginger, until both of them were giggling.

'…and I seem to find the happiness I seek, when we're out together dancing cheek to cheek…'

Sara felt her heart trying to beat out of her chest as she pulled the smaller woman closer, pressing her lips against her ear. "Will you go out with me Catherine Willows?"

Catherine melted against Sara, wrapped her arms around her neck and rested their foreheads together. Sara had just asked her to go out with her as though they were two teenagers in the schoolyard. Both women grinned some more at each other until Sara arched an eyebrow prompting for her answer. "Yes…" she whispered on an exhaled breath. If it was at all possible her grin got bigger. "Yes I'll go out with you Sara Sidle."

Thanks for reading... I'll get my nose back to the grindstone so I can get another chapter out for you as soon as possible.