The Sara Evans Challenge
Perfect - Warrick/Sara
She snooped around his life because Grissom said jump, accused him, was proven wrong. She never accepted defeat gracefully.
He threw a phone book in disgust, it landed at her feet. Fate made him miss. He always missed.
There were others, smarter than him, less dangerous. He watched, made jokes. Inside, it secretly burned.
He was too different, she thought, she liked familiar. There was nothing she could see in him that she wanted, needed. It was impossible, she knew, because he was addicted and she was suspicious, always had been.
There was nothing perfect, nothing rational.
Love never is.
The Disaster Challenge
Disaster! - Greg fic
Mom was first - she had laughed. Loudly.
Aunt Francis was next. Cackling was heard all over California.
There was only one person left...Delia Smith.
Unfortunately, there wasn't a section on Rescuing Collapsed Sponges And Silencing Smoke Detectors. He felt there should be, as he swore at the incessant beeper and hit it with the whisk.
A cake for Sara's birthday, he'd thought, how hard could it be? For putting up with him, she deserved *something* special. Like Valium.
Blushing crimson, he presented the icing-covered charcoal to her warily, but she just beamed at him.
Maybe not a disaster after all.
Train wreck - Greg fic
(Post 'Playing with Fire')
People talk about emotional train wrecks. Do they understand what they're saying?
They mean after, when everything is broken, in pieces. They think about before, 100mph in the wrong direction, sudden, blinding, instant.
They forget the other times, when there are no warnings, no suddenness at all - just mixed signals, little forgotten things, nothing important until it goes wrong.
There were no klaxons, no flashing lights - just waking in white, drifting into routine. Small things went wrong, noises too loud, the smash of glass in every sound.
Here everything's broken and the track's gone, but the sirens are still silent.
The Man from U.N.C.L.E Challenge
The Dippy Blonde Affair - Greg fic
"So...you come here a lot?"
She fixed him with a look, but he didn't catch on. She sighed - it was going to be one of *those* nights.
"Greg, I work here. So, yes, I come here a lot."
"Saaara!" he whined, turning big puppy eyes on her. Damnit - he was going for the eyes, "I need to practice. For, y'know, the *party*."
"No one uses that, my friend," Nick shook his head, chuckling.
Greg stared pleadingly at Sara. She rolled her eyes.
"You want some advice, Greg?"
He grinned widely and nodded.
"Girl comes at you with a scalpel? Run."
The Deadly Toys Affair - Warrick/Catherine
Scattered across the basement, bright colours and polished wood belied the poison beneath. Resin laced with nightshade, spikes on springs - a trail of death no one had understood, until the last girl died with 'teddy' on her lips.
Then led to now, and to kneeling beside a doll with a pullstring; just like Lindsay's, she mused, exactly the same. She pulled the loop lazily - it embedded a nail in her finger.
That's how Warrick found her, bleeding over the doll, crying. He wrapped his arms around her, holding her close, sucking the venom from her soul.
"They're...children's toys."
"I know."
The Reservations Challenge
(Yeah, I know this isn't really what the theme was meant to be. Yet that's what jumped out at me *shrug*(Gil/Cath))
"Aureole Las Vegas, how may I help you?"
"I'd like to book a table for two, 9pm."
"Certainly, ma'am. And the name?"
She pauses, suddenly floundering. Gil will insist on paying, he always does, and they've had more than one confused waiter staring at the name on the credit card. She always books the table, he orders the wine, she pays for the taxi, he pays for the meal. Their tradition.
Suddenly, she remembers the reason she's picked this restaurant, this night. Her fingers brush over the velvet box in her pocket, and she smiles.
"Grissom. Mr and Mrs Grissom."
Challenge 7: WILCO Titles
Too far apart - Sam/Josh
They brooded in the half-dark, Josh clutching at reports he'd stopped reading hours ago and Sam pretending not to notice. It had happened for weeks, this attempt at *something* - the errand boys of congressmen wanting to feel wanted, needed, no longer shadows.
But always the distance, the formality; even when they tried to laugh, it froze, like cutting ice. There were lines, political lines, society's lines, never crossed.
Now, they stood at the end of everything, of Sam's dream, and nothing had changed. They had hoped time would close distances, but they still stood too far apart.
Damn lines.
In a future age - Josh/Donna
When she closes her eyes, she sees it perfectly.
There's a garden with roses, and she's laughing, a light sound, free.
He's lying beside her, looking at her with eyes that say everything, and always will.
A child calls her, maybe two, and they run to her embrace, protected with her.
She ruffles brown curls and they smile with dimples, and then they run, safe, hers, theirs.
"Donna?"
He calls her back, and she opens her eyes to the chaos, to his eyes that won't say everything yet, but will, yes.
She knows it, because she dreams and she believes.
Challenge 8: Random Pairings
Not the type - Mandy/Ainsley
She was a bitter woman in a bar, the kind that reeked politics and who Ainsley would always avoid. But there was something in the eyes, dark and shifting, drawing her in.
She sat, and bought her a drink, studying the rounded lips. The lips that lied about her past, her future, and Ainsley didn't care, because with eyes that sparkled drunkenly and bitten lips just asking to be smoothed, who would?
But she was not a woman
who approached ex-politicos in bars, who kissed them in darkened hotel rooms,
who stayed with the dawn and wanted more.
Was she?
Challenge 9: Love or hate
Retreat - Josh/Mandy
(Set after ITSOTG)
It was quiet when I stole in, watched him breathe, live. I couldn't bring myself to touch, but I stared for a while, knowing he still hated me, resented me.
I could've ended their administration, their future. But yesterday, his almost ended for real, pathetic politics fading to grey as reality dawned.
I watched as he hated me in his slumber and I tried to quell the small voice inside insisting that love never fades, never quite goes away.
He hates me, and I may still be in love.
Silently, I retreated, out of his town, his life, his future.