Sara walked back and forth gently rocking the baby. She had just settled down. Becca was really cute, and looked so tiny, but so loud. This was the first time that she had stopped crying long enough to fall asleep. In 4 hours Sara had almost lost her mind. She had tried everything she could possibly think of, and yet she just cried and cried. And, now Holly was running late.

This was Holly's first night out since Becca had been born, 7 months ago. While out with Danny, she had lost track of time and been late picking up Becca, just as Sara had predicted, which made Sara late for work. She ran around trying to get ready once Holly and Becca were gone, and then grabbed her keys and her jacket and ran out the door.

15 minutes later the entire team, except for Sara and Grissom were waiting around in the break room for assignments. Everyone was getting worried about Sara who never called out or arrived at work late. She was almost a permanent fixture in the lab. She was just always there, and her not being here seemed to throw everybody off. Nick was the most worried, he had worked the last case with her and mentioned to the team that she had taken it really hard. After another 5 minutes Grissom walked in, taking his sweet time. After a moment he took a sweeping gaze around the room and realized that Sara was not present. Knowing she only lived 20 minutes away he tried calling her cell phone. She could get here within an hour if she was still asleep.

"No answer." The team seemed to tense as they realized that something might be wrong.

Catherine's motherly instincts kicked in and she took charge. "Call Brass and have him put out an APB on her and a BOLO on her car. We should probably call the hospitals too." She said the last part in a whisper directed at her shoes.

"Who has a recent picture of Sara? I know I don't." Grissom looked around the room and Nick jumped up.

"I do." He pulled out his wallet and flipped through the many pictures he had stored in there of his family, himself and the team, and of course, Sara. He had to find the most recent; there were pictures dating back to the very first day that the two had spent time together outside of work. "Of course it was the last picture in the whole damn wallet," Nick murmured "it's from her birthday last week."

Catherine smiled at him and Warrick nodded and gave him subtle thumbs up, but Grissom took the picture and walked out of the room, his phone already at his ear. Nobody seemed to think it was weird that Nick had a picture of Sara in his wallet, or if they did they kept it to themselves. It wasn't odd for the team to hang out after work, or take each other out on their birthdays.

Just as the worry was really starting to set in, and Nick had started pacing, his phone rang. A small picture of Sara with frosting smeared across her cheeks popped up on his screen, and the ringtone he had picked out special for her calls played loud and clear.

Nick wasted no time in flipping open his phone. "Sara?"

"Good evening. This is Doctor Malone from Desert Palm Hospital, is this Mr. Stokes?"

Nick's face instantly fell. "Yes sir, this is Nick Stokes."

"Well, Mr. Stokes, I assume that you know a Miss Sara Sidle?"

He nodded then realized that the doctor couldn't see him. "Yeah I do. Is she ok? Has something happened to her?"

"She's been in an accident. She had you down on her records as a next-of-kin. Could you come down here as soon as possible?"

"Is she… is she dead doctor?" He managed to stutter, his throat suddenly on fire.

The team, who had been listening to Nick's half of the phone conversation reacted instantly; Catherine's eyes filled with tears while Warrick and Greg avoided each other's gaze, playing with their hands and invisible lint on their pants as they, too, began to tear up at the prospect.

"Oh no, sir." Nick let out a breath he didn't know he had been holding. "I can't release any details about the patient over the phone; however, I can assure you that all of the injuries she's suffering from are very minor. In fact, she should make a full recovery soon."

"Thank God."

"I'm going to need you here soon though, there is quite a bit of paperwork that still needs to be filled out, and as her next of kin, the duty of filling out her insurance information falls to you on her behalf."

"Yes, of course, I'll be there as soon as possible. Thank you." He wiped away the lone tear that had slipped down his cheek, and breathed a heavy sigh of relief as he hung up the phone. "Grissom, I have got to go. You can cancel everything you just put out, the APB, the Bolo, she's fine, but they need me there to fill out some paperwork. I'll call you later once I have all the details!"

He ran out of the room, his mind was going full speed with all the scenarios that could have put his Sara in the hospital. He needed to see her, and make sure she was safe for himself. He couldn't lose her. He walked and ran out to his car; he got to the hospital in record time, and remembered nothing of the drive. The receptionists made him fill out stacks of paper about her insurance and medical history; the ones that no one can quite decipher, especially when all they want to do is make sure that the person they're filling them out for is okay.

Once he had finished filling out all the information, and handed the clipboard back to the bored looking receptionist, Dr. Malone came out and asked to speak with him.

"Well, Mr. Stokes–" The doctor began.

Nick cut him off, ever the Southern gentleman, trying to be polite even while he was more than worried about Sara's health. "Nick is just fine."

The doctor smiled at him and nodded. "Nick, I see that you're listed as her next of kin. How are you related to Ms. Sidle?"

"Oh! We're not biologically related. She's well… she's special to me, I love her very much."

The older man looked at Nick and saw the light come back into the man's eyes for a brief moment as he mentioned the young girl, and with a slight smile told him, "Anyone that would fill out that mountain of insurance paperwork on someone else's behalf has to be in love. Her room is just through this set of doors, if you wouldn't mind following me. I can also go ahead and update you on her condition now, or I can wait until after you've seen her, if you'd prefer."

Eagerly Nick nodded his agreement and moved to follow the doctor toward Sara's room.

"This way please."

The doctor led him to a room just off of the ICU waiting room, 223. He would have to remember that for when he called the team to give him an update, if he could ever get one. Nick walked in expecting to see her awake, hopefully sitting up, and maybe a small smile. But she was unconscious. He shot a glare towards the doctor, tears welling up in his eyes.

"You said she was fine!" His tone was accusatory, and the tears building up in his eyes were threatening to fall.

"Ms. Sidle is in a medically induced coma. She wasn't responding well to all of the pain and we had to put her under so we could complete all the necessary tests to check her condition, without her responding in a negative way."

"Don't you need permission to do something like that? As far as I know, Sara's medical record indicates that she doesn't respond well to drugs as a whole, including whatever sedative you used to knock her out, doesn't it?" Nick asked, already knowing the answer.

"No, sir. Perhaps that was the case the last time you were with her; however, I have a statement in her file form the last time she was here, that in the event of an emergency, and there is no one here on her behalf, we can proceed as necessary to save her life." The doctor explained.

"I'm sorry, sir. I know you haven't briefed me on her condition just yet, but looking at her, it doesn't seem as if she's suffering any visible life-threatening injuries, so unless you're not telling me something, I don't see how this was classified as an emergency. Sara hates medicine, and if I had been notified of your decision as her next of kin, earlier, I would have been able to tell you that."

"I'm sorry Mr. Stokes, but you weren't here and it was important for her mental health as well as her physical health. We couldn't have her in pain while testing her for brain damage, and the like. I'm sure you realize we wouldn't do anything to endanger your friend."

Nick ran his hand through his hand and tried to calm himself down, realizing quickly that being angry wouldn't help Sara any. He lowered his voice to an eerily quiet tone that did little to cover his true feelings on the situation, "Fine. You're the doctor, and I'm sure whatever decision you made was the best one at that point in time; however, from now on, I expect any and every decision about her health to go through me. No matter how trivial it may seem, if you have the time and ability to ask me for input, I expect you to do so."

Grissom and the team walked in, shift having just ended. They stood behind Nick and heard his little outburst.

"It would be in your best interest if you calmed down, Mr. Stokes. We can certainly try to garner your input on some issues from now on, but some decisions will obviously still be out of your control. After all, we are the trained professionals."

Nick balked at the man's obvious arrogance, and could no longer control his ever-growing anger, "Excuse me. You medicated my fiancé into an unnecessary coma, without my permission, and you're telling me to calm down? What if she doesn't wake up?" He added the last part in a harsh whisper.

"Mr. Stokes, I think we know what is best for our patient. If you love Sara, you need to calm down and respect the decisions that we made as doctors for her well being."

Hearing the doctor speak to him as if he were a child sent him over the edge again, and he exploded at the doctor. "Do you know that she's allergic to pine tree sap? Or that she can't eat strawberries because they make her hands itch? Or that she hates hospitals because the smell of them makes sick to her stomach?"

"No, Mr. Stokes, I didn't." The doctor admitted in a tired tone, wary of what Nick might say next.

"That's right, and you don't know enough about her to know what's best for Sara. Perhaps if you had checked with her or me, you would have known that she would have rather suffered the pain than take unnecessary medication."

"As I said before, we can have some of these kinds of decisions come through you in the future…"

"Not can, you will." He turned on his heel and very nearly walked right into Grissom standing with the team, not even 10 feet from where he had gone off on the doctor. He instantly blushed, realizing that the majority of his close friends had seen his burst of anger in the middle of the hospital corridor.

"How much of that did you hear?" Nick asked, embarrassed.

Greg, who looked like he couldn't contain himself any longer blurted out."You're engaged to Sara?"