Ritual

By Clara

Summary: He always makes sure her favourite tee shirt’s clean

Disclaimer: They’re not mine.

Category: CGR

Rating: PG-13

Archive: GraveshiftCSI, Shipperworld, Working Love, Catherine Willows and my site.

Author’s notes: This is going to sound odd. But I couldn’t get the line in the summary out of my head and this was the result. Thanks to SuzVoy for the beta!

Dedication: Debbie. Because I was talking to her while I started writing this during a particularly dull Systems Analysis Lesson. (I swear we do work occasionally)

***

It had become a ritual. Started just after her divorce had come through and she hadn’t wanted to be alone. Now it was a weekly event, always when Lindsey was with Eddie or in the year after he’d died when she’d been at a friends place.

No one knew about it and he sometimes wondered what they’d say if they knew, or if it would be something that would be deemed unworthy of a mention.

He always made sure her favourite tee shirt was clean and her favourite wine
was in the fridge; she teased him about it but had always seemed to appreciate
what she saw as his thoughtfulness - while he saw it as good planning and
worth the chance to see her smile.

That night was no different. Catherine had turned up having dropped Lindsey at a friend’s house and had let herself in with the key he’d given her to let herself in with when he’d gone to conference, needing someone to keep an eye on the large number of inhabitants in his house. Some how, he’d just never gotten around to asking for it back.

He’d looked up at her and smiled as he put the finishing touches to their dinner, while she poured the wine.

They ate in companionable silence, before cleaning the plates away and settling down on the couch, supposedly to watch a film, but it always become background noise long before it finished.

Then something changed. He wasn’t quite sure what it was, but all of a sudden they weren’t laughing together at some private joke, but were just staring.

His hand came up and cupped her cheek and when she didn’t pull away, he leaned forward and brushed his lips across hers, before pulling back slightly and looking into her eyes.

Seconds later his lips came down on hers again and the fact that the ritual had changed didn’t matter anymore because as her hand snaked down the front of his body, thinking became highly overrated anyway.

Afterwards he watched as she fell asleep in his bed, looking like she’d always been there. He marvelled that she could possibly want him just as much as he wanted her.

Leaning forward, he placed a kiss on her forehead before slowly letting himself fall asleep, a smile on his face.