Author: Regency

Title: Breathless & Shaken

Crossover: CSI: Miami/Criminal Minds

Word count: 230

Pairing: Erin Strauss/Natalia Boa Vista

Rating: PG for mentions of blood

Summary: Erin was having a hard time breathing.

AN: Answers the challenge by darkbardzero and sofia_lindsay: Inappropriate couples.

~!~

                She was shaking again. Her door had slammed shut not five minutes ago and though, such a pedestrian sound should not have sent her lunging for cover, she had only just stopped hyperventilating long enough to return to her chair.

                The BAU would have thought her a joke, would have mocked her for her inability to separate herself from the moment that had very much changed her mind about the nature of fieldwork. She could still feel the blood accumulating beneath her fingernails, spurting with every pump of the victim’s heart.  Natalia Boa Vista was dying under her hands and all she’d had was a steaming sidearm and a badge that made no difference.

                Miami hadn’t been her turf; she didn’t know the right numbers or the right faces. By then, she didn’t even remember why she’d come. She only knew, with absolute certainly that she’d never see anything but blood if this woman died.

                Natalia didn’t die.

                Three months later, Erin’s fingers still felt sticky and she felt like she left phantom handprints on everything she touched.  When she heard a loud noise, she ducked, if only slightly.  There were days when she could barely breathe.

                And that was before Natalia had called and said, “I’d like to thank you. Can I take you to dinner?”

                She was having a hard time breathing, but now for entirely different reasons.