Something

Title: Something.
Author: Venom_69
Category: Romance, thoughts, nostalgia.
Pairing: Cath/Gil
Rating: PG, swearing.
Summary: Something more.
Spoilers: Uh….anything about Cath’s past.
Season/sequel:
Archive: SJ, Heliopolis, my site. Anywhere else, sure, just let me know where so I can come visit.
Disclaimer: Don’t own them, never will. Promise to put them back in the state I found them.
Author’s notes: So. First fic in a new fandom, eh? Hmm….
Feedback: Hell yeah! Don’t make me beg, hit reply and stroke my ego please.
Dedication: As always, for LEW. For

uberaeryn, she inspired me, though she doesn’t know it yet!
Date: 25/11/04
Copyright © to Venom, 2003

***

Look for the girl with the broken smile,
Ask her if she wants to stay a while.
And she will be loved

***

Your arm is linked with Chris’ as you walk through the bright streets of the strip. He’s talking to you, but you’re not listening, not really. You think he may be discussing something about his work, but you’re too focused on the feel of his arm against yours.

The contact is welcome.

A warm body near your own? A warm, *breathing* body? It happens so rarely that sometimes you forget what it feels like.

With all of the shit that you see at work, the bodies, the unanswered questions, the distraught families, it’s nice to have something else. Something more. Something, and some*one*, to spend time with. Someone that doesn’t see the crap you do.

Chris is a nice someone. He isn’t *the* someone – is there is such a thing?- but he is a nice someone for now. He is something more.

Eddie was something more, for a while, too. He was something more than taking your clothes off and degrading yourself in front of drunken and disgusting men. Men who wanted to grab you and fuck you five ways from Sunday. Then pay you. You have not, will not, could not ever be a hooker.

You would dance and strip and smile and wink and be sexy and take their money And you would go home to your tiny apartment and wind down.

Then came Eddie, and he became your something more.

He wanted to take care of you, knew how to sweep you off your feet. Eddie was a ladies man, a charmer. He was wild, you were young.

The first time he got you to try cocaine, you said no. But he was persistent, he was nothing if not persistent. And you gave in, because he was your something more and your something more isn’t supposed to hurt you.

He isn’t supposed to get you knocked up and then disappear for three months when you tell him. He isn’t supposed to dump you in rehab-At the insistence of Grissom, no less-and then abandon you and not visit you once throughout your withdrawals. Your something more isn’t suppose to dote on your daughter and marry you and give you the fairytale life only to take it away three weeks later.

Alcohol changes people, you know that. but it only brings to the surface whatever is bubbling inside. Eddie was a wife-beater. He beat you. Your something more put you in the hospital more times then you can count.

Your something more wasn’t supposed to do that to you.

Chris nudges your shoulder and you turn, smile at him, and tell him that you’re ok.

Just thinking, you murmur.

And he continues his monologue.

He isn't boring, you’re just lost in your thoughts of something more. You wonder if your something more, *the* someone, could be Chris? Is it something that you have to work at? Something you have to earn? You’re no angel, and you’re not exactly the girl-next-door-take-me-home-to-meet-your-mother kind of woman, but you do the best you can.

So what do you have to do to find *the* someone?

Questions, questions, questions. Where are the answers?

Your cell phone begins to vibrate on your hip and you smile apologetically at Chris before answering. It’s Grissom. There’s another case, another crime scene. There’s children. He doesn’t usually give you cases with children. He knows that it hit’s too close to home for you, but everyone else is out on cases of their own, and he needs you.

Without hesitation, you kiss Chris on the cheek, promise to call-will you?-and run to your car, speeding the entire ten minute drive to the address Grissom gave you on the phone.

He’s waiting at the entrance, his face white. The children hurt him too. He isn’t a parent, but they hurt him just as much as it hurts the mother in you.

Walking up to him, you note that he hasn’t even registered that you’re there. He’s shaking, and you touch a hand to his arm to get his attention.

“What is it?”

“She’s….” He trails off with a deep, hear-wrenching shudder, and you are immediately concerned.

“Gil?”

“Blonde hair, blue eyes, about 10.”

You swallow, roughly, and picture the little girl that he is seeing now. He thinks of her as his own, as do you. Lindsay loves her Uncle Gil. Not to many men want anything to do with a single mother, and especially a mother of a soon-to-be-teenager to boot.

Gil doesn’t walk away from anything about you.

He met you when you were a stripper, and he wanted to be your friend none-the-less. He knew you through the coke-days, he was there after Eddie’s beatings. He came and saw you every day when you were in rehab. He was at the birth of your daughter, when your husband was, you now know, involved in a threesome with two brunettes.

Gil held your hand, let your swear at him, threaten to castrate his slowly with a knife. A butter knife. He just sucked it all up and then hugged you when Lindsay was born. He held her first, and proudly passed her to you.

Like the proud new parent Eddie should have been.

“We’ll wrap this up and then you and I have a date with your scrambled eggs and my screwdrivers.” You tell him, and he nods softly.

There are two constants in your life. Your Daughter and the man before you. He is more than most men, he is different. He is something.

You pulling into your arms and you both close your eyes, disturbed at the possibility of it being a very familiar girl in that house instead of the unnamed one. You will put a name to her soon enough, but for now you will hold him, and you will know the truth.

Eddie was someone.

All of the men before and after him were someone’s too.

Chris is a nice someone.

Gilbert Grissom is *the* someone.

You smile against his neck, inhaling his scent and wonder why you never told him before.

Today is the perfect day to make him see that.

***

She will be loved.

***

*Twiddles thumbs nervously* Well, how’d I do?

Finito.