Unknown - driven

Cat fought the urge to look away. It wasn?t easy, but she had something to prove. To them both. “That?s why I saw the doctor,” she stated firmly. “If she would have said ?no?, that would have been it. But she didn?t. She even gave me this.” Hodge held up a clear facemask, the kind basketball players used when they?d suffered facial injuries during a game. “She said as long as I?m careful and wear this, I should be okay.”

“?Should? being the operative word.”

“Coach?.”

“Catherine, we?re not talking about some street corner blacktop game here.” Dylan?s hands gestured wildly, mimicking the turmoil of her emotions. “We?re talking about your career. Your life.”

“I know.” Reaching out, she clamped a firm hand on Dylan?s wrist. “And for both of those things, I need to do this. Not for Johnson, not even for you, but for me. I have to prove to myself that I can do this. That those bastards haven?t won.”

Their gazes met and locked for a long, intense moment.

“If I hurt the team, make even one tiny mistake, bench me. Hell, I?ll bench myself. But this?this I need.”

Though it went against every instinct that Dylan possessed, she finally nodded.

Cat?s face lit up like the sun. “Thanks, Coach!”

“Don?t thank me yet,” Dylan growled, mentally slapping herself silly for giving in to big green eyes and a pleading voice. “Just remember your word. If I see you playing just a hair off, I?ll bench you faster than shit through a goose. Understand?”

Cat?s nose wrinkled at the analogy, but she nodded. “I understand.”

“Alright then. Get out with the others and warm up.”

Cat grinned all the way to the court.

Cat made her way to center court wondering, not for the first time, if what she was about to do was all that good of an idea. Needing to keep her senses and wits about her, she?d eschewed even the aspirin offered up by the kindly Doc Norton, and now she was paying the price. Her head was ringing like a bell, but she could deal with that, having played through headaches before. It was her belly and ribs, however, that made taking a shot or making a pass an exercise in exquisite pain. She?d even caught herself flinching when one of her teammates had rifled a pass to her. Thank God Dylan hadn?t come out on the court yet. Cat knew she?d have been benched before the first whistle blew.

She met with yet another obstacle as she took her place on the court. Her old nemesis, Keisha Brown, drafted an ignoble fifth and starting for the LA Quake, took up a position beside her, sneering as she gave Cat a slow, head to toe glance. “So, butchie, what happened? Your girlfriend didn?t like the way you fucked her last night?”

Brown?s words caused a surge of anger to rise up in Cat, a surge she was hard-pressed to push down. She wanted to lash out, to hurt someone as she had been hurt, to make the pain go away by forcing it upon someone else. And Brown was there, in her face, all but asking for it, bringing back the memories of the night before with crystal clarity.

Then, as if a switch had been flipped inside her, she felt the anger recede behind a wall as cold and hard as the winter?s ground. Some of that coldness must have reached her eyes, because Brown took a half step backward, uncertainly flashing briefly across her features.

The whistle blew, and it was time to get down to business.

Cat played like a machine, as if the seeds of her talent had burst into full bloom all at once. The basket seemed to her the size of a swimming pool; her teammates, ten feet tall. She made passes without looking and shots without aiming, hitting the mark time and time again. It looked effortless, and to Cat, it was.

Her teammates, and even the opposition, watched with awe as she blazed through the court like a comet. Brown couldn?t touch her. No one could. She was, as they say, “in the zone”, and nothing, short of a natural disaster, could get her out of it.

It never came. The Badgers won by 19 points, and Cat finished the game with a career high 28 points and 17 assists. She was carried from the court on the shoulders of her teammates as they jostled and fought for the right to bear her up.

When they arrived in the locker-room, the women set Cat gently down and continued their celebration with handslaps and loud cheers. Though in the center of the melee, Cat felt strangely detached, almost as if she were watching what was going on from somewhere outside of herself.

The feeling worried her, but was quickly swept away under the tide of enthusiastic congratulations directed her way.

Dylan pushed her way through the celebrants, accepting congratulations of her own for the game plan she?d put into place. She wasn?t ashamed to admit that it had felt damn good to trounce her old nemesis like that. Said trouncing was a long time in coming, and it tasted sweet.

As she made her way to the center of the crowd, she laid a gentle hand on Cat?s sweat-soaked shoulder, smiling when the younger woman spun to face her. “Good game,” she said softly, knowing Cat could hear her.

“Thanks, Coach. Thanks for believing in me and letting me do this.”

“No problem.”

Dylan was about to turn away, but something stopped her. Something about the look in Cat?s vibrant eyes. It was a look she hadn?t seen from the young woman before, and had doubted she ever would. There seemed to be some sort of hard, savage joy there mixing with the honest pleasure of a job well done. It gave Dylan pause.

“Are you alright?” she asked, tone still soft.

Cat blinked, then smiled. “Sure. I feel great!”

Still, Dylan paused, unsure of what she thought she?d seen was a figment of her imagination or actually there. She wanted to say something, but wasn?t sure what. It left her uncharacteristically tongue tied.

As if sensing Dylan?s discomfiture, Cat broadened her grin and laid a hand atop the one on her shoulder. “I promise, Coach. I?m fine. I can?t even feel my bruises and I think I?ll be riding high for the rest of the night. Some game, huh?”

“Yeah,” Dylan replied, giving a half-hearted smile. “Some game.”

The moment was interrupted by Mac entering in to congratulate them both, and by the time Dylan knew what was happening, Cat had been swept away to the showers and she was on her way to meet Johnson for what she was sure would be falsely offered praise. Her gut twisted with worry for a brief moment, then she let it go as she allowed Mac to lead her to the skybox suite where Johnson was waiting.

The next several days went quickly and quietly, though not without note. Cat?s injuries had begun to heal, and she seemed none the worse for wear. She followed instruction precisely as ever and was sharp as the edge of a razor in practice. If anything, at least outwardly, the assault that had tested Cat?s resolve had left her stronger than ever before.

Still, Dylan was concerned, and watched her with a hawk?s eye. It was nothing she could point to and say “There! This is what?s wrong!” It was more of a feeling; a nebulous thing that told Dylan that things weren?t exactly as they seemed. Every time she asked Catherine how things were going she was put off?nicely, but put off nonetheless?with a smiling, polite “Everything?s great, Coach! Couldn?t be better!”

The look in those green eyes was sincerity itself.

Why, then, did she know, deep in her gut, that Cat was lying?

She spent her days frustrated, caught between the rock of wanting to know if everything was okay with her star player, and the hard place of not wishing to intrude upon Cat?s private life. Divining emotions from subtle hints was never her strong suit, and her frustration left her snappish and tense. She?d all but bitten Mac?s head off when he?d had the temerity of asking her to go with him for some lunch, scaring the big man out of a few years of life. He?d left her alone to stew then, taking great pains to keep from darkening her doorstep any more than he had to.