The World's Biggest Missery

She was feeling ill. Not very ill, but for once she wished she could stay in bed and indulge herself. But a head cold wasn't going to be good enough. Lindsey needed to be picked up from ballet, fed, interacted with. Although she wanted to see her girl, what she wanted more was to tune the world out and fall back asleep.

Peaceful silence.

She sighed one more time before sitting up, pushing herself to the edge of the bed and dangled her legs down the side.

She sat for a second. 'Come on.' Then she fell backwards and closed her eyes. Oh it felt so good to lie down. And it didn't feel good to sit up at all. 'Oh come on, you big wimp.' But she staid down a little longer to indulge her inner wimp, there was no one around to see it.

The shower felt good, made her feel almost human and she enjoyed it for several long minutes longer than usual.

Eventually she made it down into the kitchen, dressed and ready to leave with a few minutes to spare. She wanted coffee but drank tea instead, wanted toast but had a grapefruit, wanted some cookies, but took extra strength Tylenol and vitamins instead. She was decidedly sullen when she left. A pair of sunglasses helped her eyes stop watering as soon as she came outside and hid her bad mood a little. She hoped.

By the time she made it to work that night, she really didn't have a mood anymore. Her body felt numb and tingly at the same time, it didn't feel like her body at all. More like she got a temporary replacement, a test model which had been lent out a few times too often. But she could still walk, talk and think reasonably well, so no reason to stay home, no reason to call in sick.

She took a deep breath, tried to look like her body was her own and stepped out of the car.

'Hey Catherine.'

'Hi Sara.'

'You feeling all right?'

And for some reason that was exactly the right and exactly the wrong thing to ask. Tears logged in her throat and she couldn't answer without dislodging the treacherous things if her life had depended on it. This temp body was really crappy. What on earth were the tears about?! Jees! She was sure none had spilled, but Sara suddenly hovered next to her anyway, clearly concerned.

'Something serious?' Sara asked tentatively.

The only thing Catherine could do was shake her head once in answer.

'What is it then?'

And Catherine just couldn't answer. Bursting into tears and sobbing 'I have a cold' was just NOT an option. She was staring at the ground trying to get herself together when she suddenly felt two warm arms wrapped around her. She was pulled into the soft body. And oh, God, did it feel good! Like all her body parts were put into their right order again, her muscles relaxed, her breathing eased and her headache began dissipating almost immediately.

'I don't mean to offend,' Sara whispered softly into her hair, 'but you look like you're not feeling too well.'

'When you make me feel this good, you can offend me anytime you want. I wanna work with you tonight.'

She could feel Sara's temperature rise and her body stiffen a little. Okay so maybe her brain wasn't working as well as she thought it was, that probably was a bit too much... seeing as how they really weren't the biggest of friends. But she'd said it and she'd meant it.

After a few seconds Sara relaxed. ‘You don’t feel like you have a fever, do you think you can work?’

‘Of course,’ she disentangled herself from Sara, ‘it’s nothing, just a cold.’

‘Then let’s go and twist Grissom’s arm. I’m working with you tonight!’