Still holding out for you

By Clara

 Summary: They didn’t kiss goodbye.

Spoilers: Lady Heathers box

Disclaimer: Not mine.

Category: CG, character death (tissue warning)

Rating: PG-13

Archive: Working Love, Shipperworld, Graveshiftcsi, Infinitely Better, my site and Catherine Willows.

Author’s notes: Inspired by ‘Shedaisy-Still holding out for you’ I recommend listening to the song while reading this.

Dedication: Jo, since I kinda made her cry with this!

***

~Never thought I'd be in this place
It's someone else's life I'm living
Wish I were living a lie~

 She’d never thought this would happen, not to her. She saw death everyday, but it wasn’t meant to touch so close, not when things were finally the way she wanted them to be after 16 years.

 heir line of work had always held an element of risk, but it wasn’t supposed to end with his death, they were meant to deal with already dead bodies and help find the living who had hurt them. They weren’t supposed to fall to the same foe as the victims they tried to help.

She dropped to her knees and placed her hand to her mouth, trying to hold back the tears but to no avail.

 She hardly noticed when Warrick wrapped his arms around her, trying to quieten the sobs that now wracked her body, all she could focus on was the fact that he was gone and no amount of praying or crying would bring him back to her.

 She’d been in a rush to pick Lindsey up and had barely had time to shout a goodbye through his door when their shift had ended, so he’d gone back alone to the crime scene they’d been working. The rest was still being pieced together, but he was gone.

 So many things she’d change. She would have kissed him goodbye and warned him to wait for her before it did anything. Told him she loved him and to come over for lunch later. Anything that would have stopped him from going out alone.

 When she did look up it was only to see Sara standing at the door, Nicks arm around her, tears streaming down her face. How were they going to get through this a second time? Holly’s death had been so hard to move past and she had been new and none of them had had the chance to get close to her. Gil was different, he was their boss, their friend, their mentor and her everything.

 She had to tell Lindsey next. Tell her the man who she’d hoped would become her stepfather, was never going to come through the front door again. She knew this was going to be the hardest part. Gil had had so much to do with Lindsey learning to deal with her father’s death, Catherine didn’t know how she’d come with this.

 She could still feel him from the last time they made love. His hands running over her skin making her shiver, his breath as he whispered he loved her and his lips as he kissed her softly, again and again.  

Catherine let out a shuddered breath and tried to keep some control, but the tears continued and she shut her eyes again against the pain, not sure how she was ever going to face life without him.

She knew he wouldn’t want her thinking like that and she could hear him telling her stay strong and stay with her daughter.  

Knowing what he would have wanted didn’t translate into fact though and the numbness began to settle in as her tears started to fade. She needed him and despite her daughter and the 3 friends stood around her, she’d never felt so alone.

~Some things a heart won't listen to
I'm still holding out for you

Holding out
Holding out for you~

Full lyrics can be found at: http://www.quicklyrics.com/lyrics/Shedaisy_Still-Holding-Out-For-You.htm