Unexpected
Rating: PG, Crossover
Pairing: Josh/Catherine (West Wing/ CSI)
Spoilers: In The Shadow of Two Gunmen (West Wing)
Notes: For the LiveJournal CS Reports Crossover Challenge. For Bekki, who asked. Demanded. Ordered even.
When Catherine enters the break room, she knows straight away that something's wrong, purely by the way that everyone there - far more people than there usually are - is gathered around the television set in silence. Warrick is at the edge of the crowd, so she goes to him, taps his shoulder to get his attention. "What's up?" she asks, and when he turns to her, his eyes are dark and serious, and he doesn't mince his words.
"The President's been shot," he says, and her breath catches in her throat.
"How bad?" is her first thought, eyes going immediately to the television, where Paula Francis looks paler than Catherine's ever seen her, and a news ticker makes its way across the bottom, offering more updates.
"We're not sure yet," Warrick replies. "He's in surgery."
Catherine shakes her head, pats Warrick's shoulder once more, going to the coffeepot. Now more than ever, she needs it. She's listening and pouring at the same time, and she's only taken her first sip when the newswoman's voice mentions a name she knows.
"Also shot was the White House Deputy Chief of Staff, Joshua Lyman."
The only sound she can hear is her heart pounding in her ears as she spins back to the screen, and the picture there sends her spiralling back in time, to a week of her life in another lifetime, a week when she was still dancing at the French Palace, and he was a fresh-faced college student in town for a week with his buddies. He came to the club on his first night there, and she noticed him in the crowd, that wild curly hair, the dimples when he smiled.
She'd always been a sucker for those.
He couldn't take his eyes off her when she danced, though that was something she was used to, and he approached her when she was finished, asked if he could buy her a drink. She was used to that too, but she never said yes, never drank with a customer.
Until him.
The first night, they just talked on her breaks, and when she danced, she maintained eye contact with him.
The second night, he came back, and she went back to his hotel with him, something that was repeated every night he was in town. She enjoyed herself, so did he, but she didn't hold any illusions that they were the world's greatest lovers; it was a fling, nothing more. So she kissed him goodbye that last night, knowing she'd never see him again, but she had no regrets.
She never did see him again, until she saw his picture on that TV screen, and her cup falls from her hand, shattering on the floor.
She knows that people are looking at her, but she doesn't care, and when Warrick asks her if she's all right, she can only shake her head. Because she's not all right, and she won't be until she knows that he is.