Title: A Shift In The Night
By: coldbeer
Pairing: Cath/Sara
Rated: PG-13
Challenge: Darkness
Spoilers: None.
Disclaimer: Not mine.
Word Count: 250
Author Notes: Because I can't pass up on a challenge. Because drabbles are addictive. Because I can't sleep.

***

You wouldn't call it a problem, but the in-house psychologist may disagree. Your body adjusts effortlessly to the lack of sleep, and sometimes it's hard to determine whether you're half awake or dreaming.

You always make it home somehow, but you never manage to pass out. On the white plaster of your bedroom walls you follow patterns you'd like to trace on the skin of your female co-worker's back.

Your work doesn't suffer. If anything, you're more focused on the job. You're more focused on just about everything around you, now, and it's almost absurd how easy it has become to follow her every move even when you're not actually watching her.

At least you don't think you are.

She has always made you feel like she knows more about you than you would ever have been willing to tell her. She may have listened, over dinners with Gil Grissom, before he came a cold and unpredictable man. She may have asked.

She must have noticed. She has slipped out of your line of sight, and somehow you've lost her.

The A/V lab is dark, apart from the flickering blue light coming from one of the monitors. You're alone and disappointed, and when the skin on the back of your neck begins to tingle you're also confused.

It's not the sound of her voice that startles you; it's her close proximity and her warm breath against your ear. Catherine's voice is so low it's barely audible when she asks, "Why are you following me?"

***