Fear can be a great motivator but mix it with alcohol; it'll drive a person… any person to death. Dark road in the middle of nowhere… no one and nothing can help. Sweat pouring out of your body, your head and your hands. Sweat on your hands making it impossible to hold the steering wheel. Sweat on the head trickling down your face and eyes, somewhat blurring your vision, but that isn't why he can't see. He knew he shouldn't have drank but he had to… especially after what he did to the young lady in front of her fiancée. All of his money, his house, his family and his friends went down the drain and for what? A little fling from a woman he couldn't have. Out of nowhere, a light came from behind temporarily blinding him. It was too late before he could comprehend what was happening. The car behind him started to push his car, which ultimately led to a car chase. But the Red Mazda that he was driving had a speed limit, so he couldn't outrun the guy behind him, which eventually led him to drive off the strip and through a chain link fence of a local factory. The car rolled over on its roof in a septic tank and caught fire.

At the Crime Lab

"Gris, any case you need us to work on today?" Nick asked, walking into the office with Sara.

"Yeah, got a 401 at the end of the strip for both of you to work on," he explained, giving the form to Nick.

"Hey, where's Warrick and Angel?" Sara asked

"On their date," he said.

Nick looked up from the paper he was reading, "huh?"

"Warrick's going to propose tonight, remember?"

"Oh, that's right! Totally forgot," he smirked. "Lucky bastard!" Grissom raised his eyebrows and Sara shrugged. "We better be off to the crime scene." Nick left the office and Sara followed.

Moments later, Catherine walked in, "Got anything for me?"

"Well…" he started off as Catherine raised her eyebrows, "I'm going to need your help around the office today."

"Doing what?"

"Warrick is planning to bring Angel here tonight after he proposes. He wants to celebrate their engagement with us," he said "I'm going to need your help getting the party started."

Catherine smiled, "I'm more than happy to help out."

At the Crime Scene

"What do you got?" Nick asked as soon as they arrive to the crime scene.

"An unknown male driving in a red Mazda with a California License plate. A couple of truck drivers saw the smoke and the silhouette of a car, called it in. It took the Fire department an hour to eliminate the fire," Brass explained.

"Thanks, Brass," Sara responded. "Let's just hope that Warrick and Angel have a better night than us."

"Right," Nick said, taking pictures of the crime scene.

"Hi, guys," David called out as he talked towards the dead body in the car.

"Hey, David," Nick called out. "We're waiting for you to clear the body." David went towards the body and coughed. "You okay?"

"Yeah, the smell is still strong," he explained, "From the look of his skin, I'd say that it's in between 2nd and 3rd degree burns. I can't give you an accurate TOD because the body's still hot.

"Nick, could you see if you can pop the truck?" Sara asked. Nick looked inside and saw the truck lock and pulled to see if it'll open and it did. Sara took pictures of what was inside of the truck. "Seems that our vic's livelihood was in the car. He has everything he needs in there… clothes and all of his personal belongings. I wonder why."

"Maybe he's moving to town?" Nick offered

"Or maybe he's leaving town," Sara said. After some time the heat cooled off and David was able to perform some preliminary tests before he could deliver it to the lab for a proper autopsy. "Anything distinctive?"

"The guy's caucasion," David said. He felt around the body. "Wait a minute, I got something," he said and pulled out a wallet.

"Brass?" Nick called out.

"What's up?"

"Got a wallet," Nick said and gave the wallet to him.

"A California driver's license indicates that this is a Michael Jones, 35 years of age," Brass read off the card.

"Find anything else, Dave?" Sara asked.

"I'll know more after the autopsy. The body's yours."

"Thanks, Super Dave," Nick said. He took pictures and cleared it before allowing the other coroners to wrap the body and bring it to the lab. They continued to process the scene until it couldn't help them anymore. "Let's head over to the lab… got to see what Doc says about the autopsy." Nick and Sara collected all the evidence, packed it into Nick's Denali and went to the lab. Once they arrived to the parking lot, they saw Catherine on the phone, talking to someone. Catherine motioned for them to stop.

"Okay, thanks guys… send it over to Las Vegas Crime Lab and ask for me. Yeah, Catherine Willows. Thanks again," she replied and hung up.

"I'm glad that you're here. Grissom's probably going to tell you anyway, but Warrick's going to bring Angel by later for a team celebration on their engagement. So try to do all you can with the evidence tonight before they come."

"Not a problem. We'll definitely do our best. We want to be there for them," Nick said and Sara nodded. The trio went into the lab and started doing the things they needed before Warrick came by with Angel.

flashback

"Hey, Poncho?" Angel asked as she saw him in the break room.

"When are you going to stop calling me Poncho?"

"When you stop calling me Halo Girl," she replied, knowing all too well he won't. They both grinned.

"What's up?"

"I just need to ask you for some advice… just some outside point of view on my relationship with Warrick," she said as she looked up to him. The look on her face concerned him.

"What's the matter?" he asked. He saw that she was hesitant and suggested, "Let's sit down first."

"Yeah," she said as they both sat across from each other. Once they were settled, Angel continued, "I'm not too sure as to how much Warrick's been telling you about us, but he's been acting weird as of late."

"What do you mean by weird?"

"He's not his usual self when he's around me. When he's around me, he tells jokes to make me laugh, he takes his time to explain things to me when I don't understand something… he's become less than overprotective of me but at the same time he's become more overprotective. It's hard to explain," she said.

"I get it. I'm sure that it's nothing to worry about. He loves you. Everyone here at the lab sees that. He worships the ground you walk on and talks contstantly about you whenever we're together. Maybe it's just one of those times where he has a hard time expressing his love for you," Nick said, trying to help calm her nerves. He knew exactly what was going on with Warrick but didn't realize that it was also affecting her too.

"Everytime I talk to him about us or about marriage or anything, he clams up. I thought that maybe you could talk to him and see what's wrong," she said, looking at him, hoping that he could help out.

The look on her face got to him, "Hey, I'm sure it's nothing serious, but I'll talk to him and see what happens. If it's something really serious, you'll be the first one to know, okay?" he said softly.

"Thanks for listening. I didn't mean to bring all of this to you," Angel replied, wiping a stray tear off her cheek.

"You can talk to me about anything, you know that," he replied. They both got up and he hugged her tightly. He was wondering why Warrick was keeping the engagement ring a secret. "Come on, let's go back to work… hopefully that'll take your mind of him for a while." They were working on the case together at that time.

end flashback

"Earth to Nick, you there?" Sara asked, waving her hand in front of him.

"Sorry, I was thinking about a conversation that Angel and I had last week," Nick explained. They had already dropped DNA evidence to the lab as well as Trace. They were both at the locker room changing clothes.

"What was the conversation about?"

"Just something between me and her," Nick replied.

"This isn't you, Nick."

"What isn't me?"

"You being all secretive."

"Just something that Angel brings out in me. Just want to protect her, that's all," he said as he left the locker room, leaving Sara privacy. In all the years that they've worked together, she couldn't help but feel a bit jealous of Angel and how she immediately got the guys to be overprotective of her. She's always been jealous of her. She specifically asked not to work with her and to Sara's surprise, Angel offered no objections.

Nick went to the collaboratory room where the box of evidence from the car accident was placed. He knew that Doc Robbins just received the body and needed some time to develop a full report. He looked over the evidence he collected and carefully place each and every evidence on top of the table and trying to examine the cause of the accident and the death of Michael Jones. Once he developed a pattern, his cell phone went off and saw that he got a text Autopsy's done. Robbins. Sara came in moments later, "What's up?"

"Doc just finished the autopsy report and needs to see me. Come with me." Nick and Sara went to the coroner's office to talk with Doc Robbins. "Hey, Doc."

"Nick, tell me something… what do you get when you mix alcohol, drugs, fear, high testosterone and sweat while you're driving?"

"Him?" he asked, pointing to the man on the table. "But how did he get high testosterone?"

"Well, something like him…" Doc said which caused Nick to raise his eyebrows.

"What do you mean something like him?" Sara asked.

"Let's just put it this way… there's a possibility that he's a pedophile…" he started off

"Or a boyfriend who likes to masturbate a lot?" Nick suggested.

"He got high testosterone because he was physically excited by something," Doc explained. Nick raised his eyebows. "His gentials may be inactive but the remaining bodily fluids that weren't burned off from the fire are still running high."

"What's the COD?" Sara asked.

"An OD between drugs and alcohol, but that was just the start down the path of death; since he was driving and got into some kind of car acciden, he ended up getting a blunt force trauma from hitting the steering wheel which he hit hard enough to cause the skull to crack and bleed. That was the official COD," he explained.

"Then what's the factor of the fire?" Nick asked.

"Nothing but post-mortem damage. I sent DNA samples to Tox to get a more detailed report on the alcohol and drug use."

"What caused the fire?" Nick inquired.

"That's your job to find out," Doc Robbins said and Nick smirked.

"Thanks, doc," he said as he and Sara left the room.

"Not a problem."

On the way to the collabratoy room, Nick's cell phone rang. He opened it and saw a text message. Car's in the lab. "Sara, you up for looking at the car?" Nick picked up his kit that he left in the room.

"Yeah, sure," she said. "Got to process the car to find out what caused the fire, huh?"

"Let's do it," he said and put his kit on one of the side tables. Just when they both were ready to start processing the car, both of the pagers beeped. "My office now. Grissom" Nick and Sara looked at each other puzzlingly. "Guess this has to wait." Sara nodded and they both headed towards Grissom's office.

"What's going on that needs our attention?" Sara asked.

"Sara, I know that you're not going to care much about this situation, but please do show some kind of emotion on this, okay?" Grissom asked; he looked very concerned.

"What's going on?" Nick asked. He noticed that not only was it him, Sara and Grissom, but Catherine and Greg were there.

Grissom noticed Nick's expression. "I know that all of you were wondering what's going on, but I just got a 427 on Warrick and Angel," he started off, everyone except for Sara gasped. Nick had the look of pain and anger on his face.

"Do you know where they are now?" Greg asked.

"Brass is getting the info now and will be informing me shortly. Nick, we'll find them, okay?" Grissom said.

"Are you saying that to convince me, the team or yourself?" he asked, his voice strained.

"All of us… we got to believe that we can find them," he said and Brass walked in.

"Found them, they're at the Hilton Hotel at the end of the strip. The paramedics are on their way," he explained. Everyone was relieved that they were alive, but they just didn't know how they were physically.

"I need everyone on this case," Grissom said.

"What? You expect for Nick and me to put our evidence on hold?" Sara asked.

"It wouldn't matter if Grissom told us to or not. I'm going to help them," Nick explained.

"What about our victim's family? Don't they deserve to know what happened to him?"

"They do, but this is my friends and I'm going to be there for them," Nick explained hotly.

"And as your supervisor, this isn't negotiable. You're helping out," Grissom ordered. "Let's carpool... I want Sara and Greg in my car and Catherine and Nick together. We'll follow you, Brass," he said as they all followed each other out to the parking lot.