Title: Seasons Of Our Love
Author: cjacsifan
Pairing: Sara/Catherine
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: CSI is owned by CBS and Jerry Bruckheimer
Summary: Sara remembers her life with Catherine.
Spoilers: Mentions of 'Crash and Burn' and anything after that
A/N: In my story Catherine talks to Sara after the events in 'Nesting Dolls'...Story is from Sara's P.O.V.

SPRING

I can remember as if it were yesterday; "Drive." was all I said and Catherine and I went out for a couple of drinks so I could vent about being 'the other woman' in Hank's life and it was there I knew I had fallen hard for Catherine.  The only problem was that I was unsure how she felt so I kept it to myself until that one fateful night.

It was the night that I told her about my abusive father and how my mother had killed him right in front of me, she actually came over to confront me and demand an apology after I accused her of using her sexuality on cases and she was questioning me on how I knew the victim had been abused by her husband and that is when I told her everything, not only the abuse but also my feelings for her from the first time I saw her.

She actually surprised me because after telling her my story, she came over and hugged me and promised me that no one would hurt me ever again because in her words "No one should have to deal with something like that alone and from now on you won't be....because I love you too Sara, and we will go through whatever life puts in our way together."

Things from then on were wonderful, I moved into Catherine's house and to this day the day she told me she loved me was one of the happiest days of my life 

SUMMER

Catherine and I lived together for about 4 years before I got up the guts to ask her to marry me, and to no one's surprise she said yes.

It was a beautiful ceremony; Brass gave her away, Greg was my best man, Warrick, Grissom and Nick were my groomsmen,Catherine's sister Nancy was her matron of honor, Lindsey was the flower girl, Catherine was nice enough to have the girlfriends of the guys as her bridesmaids.

It was just before the ceremony that Catherine came and talked to me that she wanted me to adopt Lindsey as my very own and of course I said yes.  I told Catherine that I would like to have one of my own someday and she said she would be honored to be a mother to my child.

It was only a year later that I told everyone at the lab I was pregnant, Catherine and I secretly got invetro fertilization done and we found out it was going to be a boy and nine months later little James Samuel Willows was born.  He was named for is two grandfathers, Sam Braun and because my father was dead and I wanted no part of him or his memory in my life I asked Brass to be a grandfather to our little boy, tears welled up in his eyes when he said yes and he told me that ever since I was on the team he looked at me like I was his daughter because his relationship with his own daughter was not all that good, which made me happy that I was now part of a real family.

FALL

I couldn't believe it when Lindsey graduated high school Magna Cum Laude and she told me that she wanted to Harvard like her '2nd mom' did to study criminalogy and become just like her two moms

Six years later James graduated high exactly like his sister, but instead of being a criminalist he went to business school at UNLV to be like Grandpa Sam, thankfully he turned out all right.

Lindsey had been out of college and on her own for two years when she came home for her brother's graduation and she told us that she was working as a CSI in Boston, We were so proud of her

It was on the eve of our twentieth anniversary that Catherine got the devasting news; she had breast cancer.

WINTER

Catherine fought back tears as she told me the prognosis, it was advanced and we weren't sure how long she had to live so we lived life to the fullest those final years.

We retired from the CSI team, which Greg was now is charge of with Lindsey as his second in command, she moved back home after hearing about her mom and was immediately hired by Nick who was head of the lab.

Six months ago our Lindsey got married to a nice young man who is a business partner of James's and his name is Richard Brown, he happens to also be Warrick's nephew.  Even though Catherine was going through a hard time due to chemo and lost all her hair, we were able to get a wig made that looked very close to her natural hair and she looked lovely as a mother of the bride, I played father as I walked Lindsey down the aisle, it had to be THE proudest and one of the  happiest moments of my life.

The saddest came just a few days ago when my angel and love of my life Catherine finally gave up her battle and I lost her to the cancer she had been fighting for five years. Everyone came to the memorial service and I did what I promised her so many years ago at our wedding ceremony, to always be by her side and I always will.  She was creamated according to her wishes and her ashes are on the mantle at home in a beautiful urn that was hand painted for Catherine by Warrick that has her face on the front, smiling that beautiful smile of hers for all to still see as they and I remember her.

As I sit here with Catherine's urn in my arms, I realize through our life together Catherine and I had our fights, our good days and bad days, happiness and sadness but as Catherine promised all those years ago when we professed or love for one another, we went through it together.