misscam: (C/Wbehere by justapassenger_)
[personal profile] misscam
Today I am a busy writing bee, it seems. You can also read it here or here if you so prefer.

Metamorphosis

by Camilla Sandman

Disclaimer: Not my characters, only my words.

Summary: It wasn’t supposed to end like this, the friendship of Warrick and Catherine. (CWR, post-Grave Danger.)

Rating: PG

Author’s Note: For [livejournal.com profile] falena84, as asked for. Minor reference to Grave Danger.

II

‘It wasn’t supposed to end like this,’ she thinks, and kisses him.

The morning is dawning, flames reaching for the sky, colouring the clouds as they go. The air is clear, a faint hint of the night’s cold still lingering. She breathes it in as she breathes in him, feeling his arms go around her, pressing her against his tall form.

It wasn’t supposed to end like this, the friendship of Warrick and Catherine. If she had envisioned an end, it was by the death of one of them, killed at work, the other left to mourn what was and had never been.

It wasn’t supposed to end in a kiss.

His lips are soft, yielding to pressure to let her taste him and she realises it is her who has initiated this, she who is changing another constant of her life. She doesn’t want to, yet desire betrays her and she doesn’t pull away.

Perhaps it is almost losing Nick to a madman. Perhaps it is her age creeping up on her again. Perhaps it is Lindsey getting mysterious phone calls from a boy and smiling at nothing when she thinks no one is looking.

Perhaps it is Warrick, always so near and tempting.

”Now what?” he asks softly as she breaks the kiss.

”I don’t know.”

He breathes and she breathes, the earth breathes a wind that catches her hair and throws it loose. He stills it with his hands and looks at her.

”Would you like to meet my grandmother?” he asks and she nods slowly, not sure what he is really asking, but trusting him to tell her soon enough.

He leans his forehead against hers, end and morning and change all around them as they stand still in the earth’s breath.

II

In the end, he takes not only her, but Lindsey too. Lindsey’s idea, strangely, and Catherine doesn’t quite dare to consider what it means as they drive through the unyielding heat.

The neighbourhood is not rich, and she can sense weariness and struggle in the flecked paint of the houses they pass. No easy ways here. The grass is dying before the heat, here and there patches of green lives on, defiantly. Even poor soil will breed survivors, she knows.

Warrick’s childhood home is tired and have seen better days, but the grass is well looked after and the paint is new. She knows without asking that this is Warrick’s work, and she wonders if it is given out of gratitude or guilt.

”You must be Catherine,” the older woman says as the door opens, Warrick’s eyes framed in a face with lines of age and fatigue.

”Yes. This is Lindsey, my daughter.”

Youth and age meet and the two smile at each other, Warrick’s grandmother and Catherine’s child and it is almost like a family meeting and Catherine has to look away, the image too alluring for her to dare dwell on.

She watches the sun breathe its heat on the earth from the darkness of space, burning through atmosphere and clouds and skin all the way to her heart. That is why she feels warm. No other reason.

”Cath?” Warrick asks, and she meets his gaze, feeling it burn away even the sun. “Don’t you wanna join us inside?”

”Yes,” she manages and takes his offered hand, stepping into shade and his cradle, feeling the act more intimate than any kiss.

II

Grandma Brown is a well of stories about Warrick growing up, stories that Lindsey find endlessly amusing and Catherine strangely reaffirming. It is almost as if she has heard them before, perhaps as faint echoes in Warrick’s voice.

When he shyly shows her some pictures of himself as young, she wonders if she finds him beautiful in them knowing what he is to become or if he simply will always be beautiful to her, whatever the shape. He brushes away any sentiments of beauty, but Grandma Brown smiles knowingly at her from across the room.

Lindsey insists on playing some basketball and Warrick takes her, the two trading good-natured insults about who will beat who. Catherine already knows Lindsey will win, though perhaps not as much due to skill.

She is served cold lemonade and offered a deck chair in the garden, and she takes it, listening to Warrick’s grandmother humming a song in the kitchen, reminding her of her mother and a different song, a different grass. She feels almost young again, remembering how she supposed her life would be, the day drifting onwards with the wind.

II

The sun is falling as Warrick comes to join her, the fading light brushing the shadows off his face. The faint sounds of Lindsey’s voice drifts out the kitchen window, a tantalizing reminder of youth now long gone. Sometimes, Catherine thinks she may envy her daughter. Sometimes, she thinks she may not, knowing all the lessons of life waiting.

”Hey,” Warrick says, kneeling down by her chair. She watches him watch her, gentleness fused into his skin, hesitation in his eyes.

”Now you know me,” he says quietly, indicating the area around them.

”I’ve always known you,” she replies, resting a hand on his, feeling his skin under her palm. Rougher than hers and different colour too and yet it feels almost as her own.

”And?”

”And I’m still here.”

”So you are,” he says and he kisses her softly, the shape of his life all around for her to trace, all the shapes of him laid bare for her already.

’It wasn’t supposed to begin like this,’ she thinks, ‘the relationship of Catherine Willows and Warrick Brown and yet it is and that is all life ever offers.’

”What are you thinking?” he whispers against her lips, his breath hot with the dying summer day.

”About what you and I are,” she replies honestly, and lets herself lean against him, feeling friendship metamorphose into relationship, youth into age, day into night, Catherine and Warrick into Catherine and Warrick, her hand into his.

It is.

FIN

Date: 2005-06-29 06:05 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] dawning-star.livejournal.com
Simply beautiful.

Date: 2005-06-29 06:17 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] misscam.livejournal.com
:) Thanks. Though you might prefer the GSR one I wrote earlier today.

really like it!

Date: 2005-06-29 07:25 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] pirrayah.livejournal.com
Realized I should stop lurking and comment on one of your fics for once! just lovely! And a special "hej!" since we are in the same timezone and all..

Re: really like it!

Date: 2005-06-29 07:35 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] misscam.livejournal.com
Heisann nabo :P

You're up just as late as me, I see. And thanks - glad you enjoyed.

Re: really like it!

Date: 2005-06-29 08:00 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] pirrayah.livejournal.com
I just cant sleep at night, much better to stay up and study a bit ;). Almost time for bed now..

Re: really like it!

Date: 2005-06-30 04:29 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] misscam.livejournal.com
Heh. Well, whatever works for you, I guess.

Date: 2005-06-30 12:04 am (UTC)
falena: illustration of a blue and grey moth against a white background (Default)
From: [personal profile] falena
I love waking up in the morning, going online and reading one of your story. It's a good way to start the day, oh yes it is.

Grazie mille!!!

Date: 2005-06-30 04:29 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] misscam.livejournal.com
You're welcome - ask and ye shall recieve, the say does go.

Date: 2005-06-30 04:30 am (UTC)
falena: illustration of a blue and grey moth against a white background (Default)
From: [personal profile] falena
Don't tempt me or I'll have you ficslave for me 24/7 ;P

Date: 2005-06-30 04:34 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] misscam.livejournal.com
You'd get bored with my writing.

Date: 2005-06-30 04:37 am (UTC)
falena: illustration of a blue and grey moth against a white background (Default)
From: [personal profile] falena
It can't be more boring than French lexicology so it would be an improvement anyway ;)

Date: 2005-06-30 04:47 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] misscam.livejournal.com
I don't know about that. If I tried very, very hard...

Grissom walked into. He saw Sara. Sara smiled at him.

"Hello Grissom," said Sara.

"Hello Sara," said Grissom.

He smiled at her. He took a seat next to her. She felt giddy at this.

Date: 2005-06-30 04:51 am (UTC)
falena: illustration of a blue and grey moth against a white background (Default)
From: [personal profile] falena
Mmm, at least it's English. Which surely doesn't give me a headache, as French does somtimes.

Now, if you wrote CSI fic in Norweagian, that would be a different can of worms :P

You really shouldn't say these things, you know

Date: 2005-06-30 05:00 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] misscam.livejournal.com
Det var enda en varm dag i Las Vegas da Sara kjørte inn på parkeringsplassen. Innvendig sukket hun allerede. Nok en dag med Grissom. Nok en dag med frustrasjoner.

Det var dager da hun angret på at hun hadde reist hit for å etreforske Warrick, ikke bare fordi Warrick hadde vist seg å bli en venn. Nei, å komme hit had åpnet for hva hun virkelig ville ha av Grissom - og så stengt det brutalt igjen.
falena: illustration of a blue and grey moth against a white background (Default)
From: [personal profile] falena
Damn my big mouth...now I have to email this stuff to my uni friends who study Swedish (assuming that the Swedish and the Norwegian language have something in common...)
falena: illustration of a blue and grey moth against a white background (Default)
From: [personal profile] falena
Taking a wild guess here...Any chance the first part is about Sara trying to park her car (and getting frustrated because she can't find a parking space..or maybe just gettting frustrated at Grissom -which makes a lot more sense)?
From: [identity profile] misscam.livejournal.com
Not bad. She is indeed parking her car, though without trouble. And she's being frustrated with Grissom.

A grudingly awarded star.

(And Swedish and Norwegian are quite similar. We mostly understand each other.)
falena: illustration of a blue and grey moth against a white background (Default)
From: [personal profile] falena
Feel very proud of myself.

parkeringsplassen and frustrasjoner were a bit of a giveaway.

I'll see what my friends can come up with...Also am very curious to see how they'll react when they learn of the existence of the mad, mad world of fanfiction...
From: [identity profile] misscam.livejournal.com
Now that is a scary little world to first be introduced to... Poor things.

I'll be curious to see what your friends come up with too, hehe.
falena: illustration of a blue and grey moth against a white background (Default)
From: [personal profile] falena
I'll email this to a friend right now...if she hasn't the time to translate it right away I think she'll be able to get back to me Tuesday (we're taking the same bloody French exam)...I'll be sure to let you know about it...

Hi

Date: 2005-06-30 04:36 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] edhel-scribe.livejournal.com
Hi. I'm sorry I didn't comment immediately after friending you to introduce myself, but I was unable to read your Livejournal for some reason.
I am a a Bush-basher and a lover of anything British. I admire your unique attitude. My name in the rest of cyberspace is WarriorElf, and I adopted Arangorn the mini-balrog. He's doing well, though he got me in some trouble when he seriously reduced the fangirl populace of my school.
Later,
~EdhelScribe

Re: Hi

Date: 2005-06-30 05:35 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] misscam.livejournal.com
Oh, no worries. I get friended by quite a few people and not that many introduce themselves formally in any way. They just jump in after a while.

Good to hear the mini is doing well - they get so sad when they're not fed well, poor things.

And disliking Bush will get you a long way in this LJ, as you've probably noticed.

Re: Hi

Date: 2005-07-02 10:44 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] edhel-scribe.livejournal.com
Yes, I did notice. Did you read about Bush's speech at the military camp where he got no applause what-so-ever? What did you think of that?

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