Title: Another Year Older
By: lewis771750
Pairing: Cath/Sara
Rating: PG-13
Challenge: Cath's Birthday
Spoilers: none
Disclaimer: They are not mine. I know it, you know it, and they know I know it. I took them out to play and put a smile on their faces.
Words: 400
A/N: The angst came out to play from somewhere.

***

When I'd asked for the day off Gil almost asked me why, until he clicked why the date was circled in his calendar. Three months to the day she left me, and her birthday, although he never really approved of us, not liking romance in the workplace, he knew that I would be worse than useless, and since he normally had to fight me to take the minimum holiday the department insisted we took, even whilst she was still with me, he gave in quickly and gracefully.

I was relieved, I couldn't have fought him, can't really fight anyone since the day she left. It is as if my insides are still missing. Time is supposed to heal these wounds, and I guess it does, but fighting someone about this, not yet, maybe next year, but not now.

I still wake up and roll over, expecting to reach out and kiss her, to feel her snuggle against me and return my wake up kiss. The touch of her hand on my shoulder and the smell of her hair in my nostrils, the tips of the hair on top of her head tickling me are the things that I still miss most. I've got used to not hearing her voice, low and sultry, not feeling her lips on mine, although it still hurts when I stop think, home alone.

Not seeing Lindsey any more is hard too. When we started dating each other Lindsey was always a bone of contention between us, not something we ever really rowed about, but not an issue that we ever quite felt comfortable with, someone I never felt comfortable with. Now I missed her questions, her enthusiasm and her smile, but everyone missed her smile.

The idiot that ran them over is inside, he confessed but still got the book thrown at him, hitting Lindsey as well as Catherine outside the police station didn't do his case much good. Catherine fought to stay alive for over a week, but not even she could survive the wounds he inflicted, and on the day they told her Lindsey was dead too she apologised to me, kissed me for the last time, and gave up on us, on life. I can't blame her, in some ways I am glad her pain came to an end.

But she's gone, she'll never come back, and I will miss her forever.

***