Title: Chatrooms
By: lewis771750
Challenge: Technology
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: Not mine, Jerry and the people at CBS would never be quite this twisted:) But it is all just for fun, honest.
Spoilers: No
Words: 945

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Sara sat staring at the screen in disbelief. Some months ago, since meeting people in real life didn't seem to work out for her, she'd decided to try and find some romance in her life through a chatroom.

It wasn't hugely satisfying physically, but it met an emotional need that she couldn't really admit to herself, something that she couldn't actually verbalise. {Tallnslim}, her username, was anonymous enough that she could and did say things that Sara could never quite manage to bring herself to say. Things had been going along smoothly, when all of a sudden there was a new user in the mix who was shaking things up, Redcat.

In Sara's fantasies she'd used both names as nicknames for Catherine, so when Redcat appeared Sara jumped a mile. She read the posts, hoping for enough personal details to come out over time that she could prove it wasn't Catherine, but as time went by this proved impossible.

Redcat clearly knew Las Vegas well, and her knowledge was current because she was moaning about road works and building sites on the day they were current.

Redcat refused to be drawn precisely on her job, but admitted to working for the sheriff. Well that could be a CSI or a cop, or a civilian support officer.

Finally the clincher, the thing that decided Sara to investigate further, Redcat had a daughter – last night she had had to log out because her daughter had just started puking.

Sara sat back and thought about what to do.

An obvious thing was to see if Lindsey had been ill when she got into work later, or see if Catherine took the day off to care for her daughter.

Another thing she could do, was to catch the IP address of Redcat and get Archie to give it a look, if anyone could *he* would be able to tie it back to a living person. Perhaps that should be a step of last resort – it was misusing departmental resources after all.

She could also drop her own username into conversation, see whether or not Catherine reacted. It was a big step, but it would help prove things one way or another.

- - - - - -

Catherine missed the next shift, called in saying Lindsey was ill and she couldn't leave her. Everyone grumbled, Sara included, because they had to work even harder on what was a busy night, but deep inside Sara's heart was singing. Now, she was almost convinced that Catherine was Redcat.
After that shift Sara went and logged on. She screwed up her courage to try and get to Redcat directly. As the chatroom opened Sara clicked on the options to show who was online at the moment. There was Redcat. Sara clicked on the PM option and Redcat accepted the message.

The messaging started gently, checking that Redcat's daughter was OK and that Redcat was OK, but Sara had another target in mind. She wanted to flirt, hopefully seducing Redcat online, and the hopefully in real life too. Gradually Sara checked out whether Redcat might be interested in a flirty conversation, and she was. Sara had a lot of fun and Redcat seemed to enjoy herself too.

Eventually, Sara felt ready to take another giant step: she suggested a RL meeting. She thought that Redcat might run like she'd been scalded at this point, but hopefully not.

In fact, Sara was stunned at the reply she got:

{Redcat} Hey Sara, you know where I work, let's go for a drink after shift, what do you say?

- - - - - - - - - -

A year and a day later:

Sara and Catherine lay in bed together, looking at each other, drained after celebrating their first anniversary. So much had changed, Sara had moved in with Catherine and Lindsey about 6 months ago. Sara's physical needs were well attended to, as well as her emotional ones. Catherine had changed too; she was happy and relaxed most of the time in reality as well as presenting that front at work. Things would still get to her, but the cases that got to her never caused her to lose it in front of witnesses any more.

Although they'd wined, dined and loved Sara had an extra surprise for her Cat. Reaching under the pillow she pulled out a small box and twisted, sliding up onto her knees on the bed. The sheets slid down her tall frame, exposing her before Catherine, but Sara was happy and relaxed with that. She held out the box to Catherine who looked startled, then a little unsure. The box looked like it would contain a ring, and she wasn't sure either of them were ready to be that out in the world.

Sara saw the quick look of panic and reassured Catherine: "It is a ring, but it isn't that sort of ring. Open it, go on, you'll see what I mean."

Reassured, Catherine took the box and opened it. Inside was a ring, quite small, but with an unusual looking set of stones on it. It was pretty though, not that that was a surprise from Sara. Looking a little closer there were three red stones, probably garnets, and between them two small black and amber stones. Suddenly Catherine realised what they were and what it meant. Turning the ring slightly she looked up before hugging her lover.

"If my eyes are any judge, that's Red Tiger. So, Redcat, huh? Hmmm, are you ready for me Tallnslim?"

With a giggle the pair of them settled back, holding each other and drifting off to sleep wrapped in each other's arms.

AN: Just in case you're not a geology buff, and I'm not either but I do remember that much, the black and amber stones in the ring are Tiger's Eyes. The pun is truly terrible. Sorry.

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