Title: She's All That
Author: Dawny
Pairing: Catherine/Sara
Rating: PG-13
Warning: WiP
Summary: AU. The story was written in the style of "She's All That". Same prom queen/bet stuff.

***

She got out of the car. Man, it felt good to be back at school again. Esspecially because she was a senior now. "Cath!" Somebody yelled behind her. She turned aroud with a smile. "Jessie! Hi." She hugged the girl that came rushing at her. "How was your summer?"

"Oh it was great, we went to Italie! They have such cute boys!" Jessie laughed. "How was your summer?"

"It was okay, but next summer I'm not going to the Hamptons again! We've been there like 5 years in a row and I swear I will kill my brother if I have to spent one more minute with him. Besides I haven't seen Jake all sumer!" Catherine rambled, while they started walking towards the building.

"Cath, Jess!" A blond girl ran towards them.

"Hey Annie! Wazzup!" Jessie cried out, while hugging her friend to her.

"Oh, nothing. I see nothing has changed here." She said, while hugging Cath.

They continued their walk towards the school. Catherine was one of the most popular girls at school. It was not all because of her beauty and brains, but part of it was because of her very handsome, starplayer-of-the-school-footballteam-boyfriend. His name was Jake, and to many people he wasn't much more than an egosentric ass. But he was nice to Cath. And as long as they had fun together, nothing of the ass- thing was proven to her.

"So Cath, are you gonna run for prom queen this year?" Annie asked suddely.

"I gave it a lot of thinking -not- but I decided to just keep it to headcheerleader. It absorbes the most of my time anyway." She explained.

"But what if Jake is gonna be prom king?" Jessie said doubtful.

"I don't care. Okay maybe I'll run for it, but just for you guys." She laughed and scueezed her friends arm.

"Come to talk about Jake, there he is." Annie pointed out.

Catherine smiled. This was gonna be good. Really good. She started running in his direction, not noticing the irritated look on his face as he saw her.

"Baby!" She yelled, throughing her arms around him. But something happenen that she had not forseen. As she tried to kiss him, he pulled back.

"I think we need to talk, Cathy." Was all he said to her as a welcome.

**********************

20 minutes later she found herself in the girls room, crying her eyes out.

"Oh Cath, it couldn't have been that bad." Annie offered.

"She's right, hon'. What did he say excatly?" Jessie added, both girls were attemping to make their friend feel better. But they failed misserbly.

"He said -sniff- he met some other girl -sniff-. She was more beautiful than me -sniff- more intellegent -sniff- and according to him more 'experienced'." She cried out. "It could not have been worse!"

"Well, nobody knows yet, right? So it can't be that bad yet." Jessie said, drying Cath's eyes with a paper towl. "But we have to get to class, sweetie."

Catherine took one last look at herself in the mirror. "Oh good, I've just been dumped and I look like shit! Can this get any worse?"

She had bearely spoken the words when the school radio popped on. "WE WANT TO CONGRATULATE JAKE, OUR STARPLAYER, WITH HIS NEW GIRLFRIEND. WE WOULD LIKE TO SEE THE FOXY LADY A-S-A-P! SORRY CATHERINE! THIS ONE IS FOR YOU!"

'Don't you want me' by Alcazar started to fill the building along with the laughter. Cath banged her head into the wall. "I am going straight home and kill myself!" She groaned.

"No you're not. But who's the bitch anyway?" Annie asked trying not to sound interested.

"It's one of those skinny-ass bitches from 'The Real World'." Cath sighed.

"She's on tv?" Jessie asked stunned.

"Yeah, he said she would tell the guys he was her boyfriend and that his name would be said on national television." They continued their walk to class.

"He's an ass." Jess blurted out, making Catherine smile.

"It's just really shitty everyone is gonna look at me like 'you're Jake's ex, right?' and I am way more than that." She said very confident.

"Yeah, that's right girl. You can make any boy or girl populair." Annie said supporting.

"Better even: I bet you can make any boy or girl prom king or queen." Jessie smiled challenging Cath.

"Even now Jake dumped me. I can make anyone prom king or queen." She said poking Jessie in the stomache.

"Oh ow, do I feel a bet here?" Annie giggled.

"So girl, you can turn anyone into prom king or queen? .Prove it!" Jessie said pushing her back.

"Okay, pick anyone, wait a few weeks and BAM prom king or queen." Cath said, standing still.

"Fine, but what if you fail?" Jess asked, looking straight into her eyes.

"I won't." She attemped to sound even more sure, but failed.

"If you fail, I get to be head cheerleader." Jessie said, completing the bet.

"What if I win?" Cath asked, curious.

"The next footballmatch I will run over the field, midway into the game. barenaked." Jessie promminsed.

"Oh you got a deal!" Cathy laughed loud. "Let's get our victem."

"NO! Let's do that after class! We are late." Annie whinned.

"Oh shut up, we're gonna find someone." Jessie laughed at her worries, while she started dragging Catherine over the school property.

"Okay let's do this fast." Annie said. "Him." She suggested, pointing at a guy with his girlfriend glued to his arm.

"Nah, him!" Jess smiled, looking at a boy with glasses the sice of his own head.

"Ow yeah, let's keep looking for a couple of minutes." Catherine laughed.

"Her! The blond." Annie atempted, nodding to a girl who was scratching her ass in public.

"Good one, but wait." Jessie fell silent, looking 'bout 10 meters further where a girl came rushing off the stairs, her arms packed with books. Her glasses where actually pink and her hair looked like it hadn't been washed in a week. Not even looking at her clothes because they could have been worn in world war 2. Making her way down to the ground her bag got stuck in the rail and her books banged down the stairs, all 20 of them. "I think we found our victem." Jessie smiled sattisfied.

"Lesbian chick?" Catherine said in disgust. "NO uhuh! Never!" She turned on her heels.

"Every girl or boy, Cath. I wouldn't be waisting my time if I were you." Annie added, laughing allong with her friend.

"UH! I hate you guys." Catherine hissed at them and walked towards the girl, still grumbling over it when she reached the girl. "Hi Sara, are you okay?" She asked, all sweet and friendly.

"Yups all fine." Sara said quickly, not wanting to say anything more to the populair chick.

"Let me help you." Catherine said, while starting to help picking the books up.

"No that's okay. Get to class." She snapped, grabbing the books from Catherine's arm.

"What's your problem, I'm just trying to help!" She shot at her. Shit, this girl was the queen of the nerds!

"Look, you don't like me, I don't like you. Get lost!" Sara added and grabbed her last book and turned around to run to her class.

Catherine turned around to her friends and smacked her own head. The two girl actually had to sit down to prevent themselves from falling down from laughter.

"This is gonna be harder than I had ever imangened!" Catherine sighed when she past the two girls.

***

Sara walked into the library after school. She loved that place. It was full of her favourite things in the whole wide world; books.

"Hey Sar. Thought I'd find you here." A voice came from behind her. She turned around with a huge smile on her face.

"Andrew! Hey!" She cheered, forgetting that she was in the library for a moment.

"Hi baby." He said hugging her to him. "How was your summer?"

"It was a lot of hard work. I had to work in my parents B&B." Sara admitted.

"Hihi you got shit out of your summer. I went to my dad, as you know, and I met a really cute girl there." Andrew informed her with a grin appearing on his face.

"Good for you! What's she called?" Sara was eager to get all the detail from her friend. He had never really liked a girl before; she was starting to wonder if he was gay. But the moment she asked him she knew it was a wrong question. She loved Andrew and all but he could ramble for hours and hours without breathing.

"Well, let me tell you all about her." And there it began. She knew she wasn't gonna get rid of him in the next hour so she made him sit down at one of the tables.

*********************

46 minutes and 12 seconds later, Sara was really getting tired of hearing about 'Lucy'. The girl seemed nice, so marry her already! She was just preparing to strangle her best friend when a familiar face came into the picture: Catherine was moving into her direction with determent steps.

"Shit!" Sara cursed. Andrew watched her with confused eyes.

"Did I say something wrong?" He asked, receiving a smile from Sara.

"No, but this morning Catherine Willows helped me pick up my books, and look she's back." Sara muttered.

"Really? Catherine Willows? She's like the most popular chick in the entire school." He said confused.

"You know she got dumped by the Jake-dude, right?" Sara whispered, because Catherine was close to their table now. A giggle came from Andrews' side of the table when Cath approached.

"Hi Sara, and Andy right?" She said, flashing Sara a huge smile.

"She knows my name." Andrew whispered to Sara, making Cath smile.

"That's not your name!" She said vicious, kicking him under the table., than turned to Catherine. "That's not his name."

"Oh, sorry. But I came to apologise for this morning. I didn't mean to snap at you." Catherine said, looking embarrassed.

"You didn't?" Sara said it without thinking. Stupid? Hell yeah! But Catherine had to laugh at it anyway.

"Of course not. But I came here to make it up to you in the first place." She told her.

"Than you can go now. You don't owe me anything." Sara snapped at Catherine.

"Sara.!" Andrew hissed at her, trying to reason with her in silence.

"What?" She mouthed back.

"C'mon girl. I feel guilty. Can't we just have a drink tonight?" Catherine said sweetly.

"I can't make it. I have class after school." Sara almost smiled happily at her excuse.

"You have class after school?" She sounded more than surprised.

"Yeah, the kid's dragging me to one of her seminars." Andrew sighed, already looking bored. But suddenly his eyes lit up. "You can go instead of me."

"What?" Both Sara and Catherine screamed at him, making a couple of people hiss at them.

"Oh Sar, you know I don't care for forensics." He pledged.

"Forensics? I care for forensics." Cath said smiling like the Cheshire cat.

"You do?" Sara was the one to be surprised this time.

"Of course I care for forensics, it's really exciting. Can I come?" She said, without breathing.

"If you really care."

"I do!" Came a quick answer.

"Good, let's meet in front of the school at eight." Sara gave in. And even more quickly as Catherine had expected, maybe forensics was her week spot.

"Okay, I'll see you tonight." She greeted, leaving Sara and Andrew at their table. When she was almost out of the door she heard Andrew curse, she turned around to find Sara slapping him. All she could do is smile. Sara was fun.

**********************

That night Sara was waiting for Cath outside of the school, like they had agreed. She was 10 minutes early, like usual. She'd just sat down on a bench with a book on the lecture she wanted to attend, when she saw Catherine's smiling face above it.

"Hi, you're early." She said, more as a statement then anything else.

"So are you." Catherine laughed at her surprise.

The two girls walked towards the school, leaving each other in an uncomfortable silence. Pretty much because neither of them knew what to say. Until they stopped in front of the board which said where the lectures were given.

"So, what are you in the mood for?" Catherine asked, sounding a bit flirtatious, while letting her eyes run over the possibilities; DNA, fingerprinting, entomology and collection.

"Well, the last time I've been to fingerprinting." Sara thought out loud.

"Can we go listen to entomology?" Catherine asked. "I know what the others are, so."

"Yeah, sure. I don't know much about it. I do know, it's about bugs." Sara giggled, while they made their way to the class.

They sat down somewhere in the middle, still obsessing about what it might be. When the room was pretty much full, a man in his mid thirties walked in. His hair was already turning silver, but life sparkled in his blue eyes. Catherine could never forget that face, she had known this guy like. forever. She bent over to Sara whispering: "That's Gil Grissom! I know him."

Sara's jaw dropped. "You do? That man is like my freaking idol. He's the hottest guy on this earth."

"Hey. I thought you were gay!" Catherine whispered back before the man, now known as Gil Grissom, made his name official and started talking.

**********************

"So, emmm, that was. interesting." Catherine said. Grissom had finished his lecture, they had been listening to this intelligent man for almost two hours.

"Yeah, let's say I never looked at bugs in this way." Sara added, sighing.

"Can I go talk to him for a sec?" Catherine asked, jumping from one foot to the other.

"Yeah sure." She replied.

Catherine turned around on her heels and started bouncing off the stairs. Mr. Grissom had to have noticed her long before her feet touch the ground.

"GIL!" She yelled, launching herself at him.

"Hi Cath!" He smiled, while the girl came rushing at him. He caught her in his arms and spun her around, causing a half of the room to wonder what this was about. Sara watched them from her place midway the room. Smiling to herself, Catherine wasn't that bad.

"Have you been in here my entire lecture?" He asked putting her down again.

"Yeah, you've gotten even better since your last one." She smiled.

"Thank you. But tell me something I don't know." He said with a blink. That moment Sara had gathered her stuff and walked towards Catherine.

"I'll go now, thanks for joining me." She said with a shy smile.

"Oh don't go, I want you to meet Grissom!" Catherine said happily. "Grissom, this is your biggest fan, Sara Sidle. Sara, this is my friend Gil Grissom, which you already know, but to keep things formal." She added the last part because she suddenly remembered that Grissom was already introduced by his own lecture.

"Hello Miss Sidle, nice meeting you." Grissom smiled sweet.

"Nice meeting you too doctor Grissom." She said as polite as could be.

"But, Catherine, tell me, how's Charlie?" He asked interested, leaving Sara to wonder what the hell he was talking about.

"Oh he's fine. He actually made it to kindergarten without getting killed." She smiled. "But Stacey moved out, so it's all up to me now." She said, looking at the floor while she said the last part.

"Poor kid, you will call me if you're in trouble, right?" He asked, gently lifting her chin up to meet his eyes.

"Yes I will, but I have to get home before 10 so I can watch the little muffin while my mom's home." She said, patting his arm, and hugging him again.

"Good luck! And I hope I'll see you again, Sara." He yelled after them, as they left the room.

"Bye dr. Grissom." Was followed by a sweet; "Bye honeybee!" This made Grissom smile wide.

The night had fallen over Las Vegas.

Stars were twinkling in the sky, like little sparkly diamonds. Catherine stood still to admire them for a second, waiting for Sara to join her. "How are you gonna get home?" She asked suddenly, waking Sara from her trance.

"I'll walk." She simply replied.

"You'll walk?" Cath asked, mocking her.

"Yes, I'll walk, I do it all the time." Sara fired back at her.

"I'm not gonna let you walk home at this hour. I live only a block away, let me drive you home." She offered.

"I thought you had to get home before ten." Sara threw in the part she understood of their conversation.

"Ah, correction, I have to check home at ten. I don't have to be home at ten." Cath laughed.

"Okay then." Sara gave in easily, not wanting to walk either.

Their walk to Catherine's home was indeed short, it lasted only 5 minutes. To Sara it was a big mystery why Catherine took the car to get to school. Catherine stopped in front of a small house, with a garden around it that hadn't been mowed in what seemed a year.

"Nothing fancy, but it works for us." She smiled at Sara. "Just to be safe, stay on the porch." She instructed when both girls walked to towards the front door.

Catherine took a deep sigh before opening the door. She gave Sara a quick look before she stepped in. A small boy came rushing at her within two seconds.

"Cathy, Cathy! Mommy's home!" He cried, burying himself into Cath's strong arms. She swooped him up from the floor and closed the door after her in one quick motion. A scared look took over her lightning face.

"C'mon Sara, let's get out of here." She said, while she started to run towards the car, holding the little boy close to her. Catherine opened the door front the backseat and roughly put the kid down. "Sara hurry up!" She yelled sounding desperate. Sara just closed the car door when a woman opened the front door.

"There you are, bitch!" She yelled. Sara presumed it was Catherine's mother. She was obviously drunk. Not answering the woman, Catherine floored the gas and the car flew out of the parking space. The woman did a couple of attempts to get to the car but than decided against it as she saw she couldn't reach it anymore. Cursing some words Sara didn't even know excised, she entered the house again.

They drove in silence a few minutes before Catherine pulled up at the side of the rode and turned to her brother. "Are you okay, baby?" She asked, pulling the boy over to the front seat. He lay his head on her shoulder and nodded.

"It was bad this time, Cathy. Very bad." He said, closing his eyes.

"I know, honey, but she'll be sorry in the morning." Catherine whispered to calm the kid down. A few minutes of cuddling and sweet talking later the boy had fallen asleep in Cath's arms. "Maybe walking doesn't seem so bad after all." She joked, but Sara looked more serious.

"What was that all about?" She asked, not like most people would ask. She was really worried about the Willows' family at this moment.

"That. was my mom." Catherine sighed. "She's an alcoholic, as you have noticed. It's not usually this bad."

"Catherine, what would she have done to you if she had gotten to you?" Sara's question was meant as a wake up, but she was afraid of the answer.

"She would have beat me up and yelled at me." Catherine said, without having to think about the question. "But she's always sorry in the morning and promises to never drink again."

"But she never does, does she?" Sara asked, carefully.

"No." She whispered, laying down the boy on the back seat. "I don't care to much for me. I'm just worried about Charlie. He's only 4 years old, he doesn't deserve this." She added sighing.

"Do you?" Sara asked, starting to feel like a doctor already.

"No, but I learned to deal. She started this when our father died, 3 years ago. My sister and I took care of Charlie than. But Stacey moved out a month ago." She told her.

Sara didn't know what to say to her anymore, she would have never thought that something like this was going on at Catherine's home. You wouldn't notice anything from the ever lightning girl. Not knowing what to do, she wrapped her arms around Cath and pulled her against her, softly petting her hair as the tears started falling. They stayed in that position until Catherine's cries turned into snobs.

"Look, you can stay at our B&B for a while." Sara offered, while Catherine pulled back from their embrace.

"Oh no, Sara. I couldn't do that." She shook her head.

"Yes you can! I'm not letting you go back to that house. You can call your sister in the morning, but for now, we're driving to my home." Sara said determent.

And like Sara instructed, they drove to their B&B in silence. Catherine parked the car and lifted Charlie gently from the back seat. The poor kid was so tired he didn't even notice it. Sara stepped into the building, every move she made, made it obvious she had been here a thousand times before. She jumped onto the counter.

"Hi Peter. Can I have the keys to room 26?" She asked, giving the man a kiss on his cheek.

"I need to know what for Sara, my dear." He said, looking a bit sorry.

"This is Catherine Willows and her brother Charlie, their mom is out of town and they got locked out." Sara said quickly, while looking at Catherine. She gave her a thankful look back.

"Oh, I don't know, honey." Peter continued.

"Please, please, please, pretty please. Cath is a really good friend of mine, she'd never leave me out in the cold. " She begged, grabbing his tie in her hand.

"Well, alright than. As long as you need it." He gave in.

"Thank you so much! You don't know how much I love you." Sara smiled, kissing him on his cheek again and hopping of the counter. She motioned a c'mon gesture to the silent couple.

They walked through the hallways towards the room. Sara seemed to even find it with her eyes closed. She opened the door, stepping a side to let Catherine through. The room was nice. The walls were painted a soft colour of yellow, there were two big two-persons beds on one side and on the other stood a small table with two chairs. There was a door, which Catherine assumed, leaded to a bath room. A white closet, which contained a TV, concluded the sight.

Catherine walked over to one of the beds and carefully lay down the sleeping boy. She turned around to face Sara, but than found out she didn't have the slightest clue what to say to her. So they ended up just staring at each other.

Finally she found some words that seemed appropriate. "Thank you. for everything." She said blushing.

"You're welcome. I'll let you two alone now. Get some rest." Sara said, turning around.

Catherine nodded and walked to the bed again, but turned around on her heels and said: "Please stay with." She cut off her sentence to find and empty room staring back at her. "Me."

 

***