DISCLAIMER: Checks. Nope. Still don't own them.

AUTHOR'S NOTE: Post-ep for Burden of Proof.

"I don't understand," Nick said flatly, his mind whirling, trying and failing to piece together words, thoughts, facts to make some kind of sense of what Sara had just told him. He looked at her, as though he thought seeing and studying her face would provide him with the crucial link, something to stop his mind from flailing about in search of whatever he was missing. Wherever the key was, though, it wasn't in her face. She at least displayed no obvious signs of triumph or of being pleased with what she'd done, which was some kind of dim comfort. "What were you thinking?"

"I don't know," she confessed, suddenly clearly miserable.

"Were you thinking?" Nick asked, his voice softer, more human. Had it not been for Sara's face, written over with some unnamed pain, he would've been angrier than he was now. He was angry with her, yes, but he was also frustrated, disappointed, confused, scared. Something held the anger back, perhaps because shouting at Sara now would be too much like shouting at a wounded animal, and everything in Nick, everything that forced him to care so deeply for others recoiled from what he felt would border on self-centred cruelty.

"I don't know," Sara said again, her voice helpless. "I have no idea."

"Hell, Sara." Realising that he was still standing awkwardly in front of the sofa on which he'd found Sara curled up and moping, Nick manoeuvered her legs out of the way, sat down, and pulled them across his lap. "I can't believe this." He didn't want this, didn't want to believe this, not now. He'd come here looking for comfort after all that had happened in their latest case, not to be told that Sara had, for whatever bizarre reason, handed Grissom an application for a leave of absence and then threatened to quit. Determined at least to figure out what had been going through her mind - because someone who thought as much as Sara did could not do everything required to file a leave of absence without thinking something - Nick rested one hand on her leg and said, "Well, what happened to make you sign that form? I thought things were getting better."

Sara sighed audibly, and didn't look at him.

"Sara."

She sighed again and said, reluctantly, "Grissom."

Nick shut his eyes. There was that name again, that shadow which had dogged every step of their tenuous relationship. Even the insidious Hank Peddigrew, who had recently reappeared on the scene, had nothing on Grissom. Controlling himself, and his nagging fear and jealousy, Nick said, "Could you explain that?"

"I just snapped," Sara replied bitterly. Nick rubbed her leg, a response to her tone just as much as to her words.

"Why?"

Sara began a long, impassioned tirade, about all the things Grissom had said and done ever since she'd come to Las Vegas. It was a slightly surreal experience to have someone he saw as his girlfriend ranting about the slights and failings of another man. And, though he knew she didn't intend it, it hurt.

Keeping his hand on her leg, when she'd finished, he asked, "Where do I fit into all this?"

"What do you mean?" Sara sounded slightly startled.

"I thought we had something, Sara." Nick swallowed, trying to contain the pain, prevent from reaching his voice. He knew it was probably a futile exercise. "Especially after you told Hank after that dinner last week that you were interested in someone else."

"Nick."

"I just want to know where I stand, Sara. You're all upset because of Grissom, you've just told me you want to take a leave of absence or quit, and go to Washington to find out about the FBI lab, and I think I deserve some kind of explanation." She couldn't do this to him. She couldn't take all his hopes and dreams and crush them into nothing. Oh, he didn't believe she was doing this - or would do this - intentionally, but Sara was so single minded she was capable of focusing on one thing to the exclusion of everything else. Sometimes he loved that quality in her, but right now he was bemoaning it. He didn't need that on top of everything else.

"I know. I told you, I didn't think. He's just so insensitive and he made me so mad I couldn't think."

Nick knew that was probably very true, but it didn't help matters much. He swallowed, again, and was insanely grateful that the position in which she was lying prevented her from seeing his face clearly. "I don't want to take second place to Grissom, Sara." He wanted to say if you cared about me you'd stop thinking about him so much, but something stopped him. After about five seconds, he was relieved he hadn't said it. It would probably have made matters very much worse.

"I don't blame you." Sara's voice caught. "You can leave - if you want to."

Nick did not want to do that. As well as being afraid she'd go through with her threat, he also wanted to get this sorted out once and for all. He wasn't going to let her treat him as Grissom had treated her - pushing and pulling with no logic or reason.

And, besides, he'd caught that hitch in her voice. She wouldn't mind if he stayed.

"I'm not going anywhere," he told her firmly. "I just want to know..." Nick took a deep breath and said it. "Are you in love with Grissom?"

Sara's "No!" was so quick that either it was the truth, or she was startled at having her secret discovered and had automatically denied it. Nick's instincts suggested the former. He decided to go with that, anyway. It was less painful. "So why do you care so much about what he thinks?"

"Because he taught me half of what I know about forensics, he brought me to Las Vegas, and I'd like to think he respects me personally. Do you know what he said when I handed in my leave of absence? 'The lab needs you, Sara.' He doesn't care whether I'm there or not."

"I think he does," Nick said, aware that he was treading on possibly dangerous ground. "Sometimes I think he sees the lab as some kind of extension of himself."

"Maybe. But don't you see, Nick, I'm not interested in someone who uses the lab to hide their own feelings. Maybe I was. Once."

Reassured slightly, and to acknowledge her honesty, Nick rubbed her leg again.

"Are - are we all right?" Sara asked. Nick noticed the hesitancy in her voice, and understood it.

"Yeah," he said.

Next shift, Nick caught Sara staring at a pot plant. When he asked for an explanation, she showed the card, written in unfamiliar handwriting: From Grissom. "He didn't even pick it out himself," she said, and shrugged. "Plants die when I look after them."

"Well, I'll help, then. It's a nice little plant. It doesn't have to die just because Grissom's incapable of normal relationships."

Sara smiled. "By the way," she said, "I've taken back my leave of absence form."

"Oh, good."

THE END