Peaceful Easy Feeling
Nick/Sara
Romance/Songfic
Spoilers: Anything from 'Cool Change' to 'Bodies in Motion' are fair game.
On a rare night off together, Nick and Sara are stargazing at a park outside of Vegas. He reflects on how lucky that Sara came into his life.
A/N: I don't own Nick, Sara and the rest of CSI. That belongs to Bruckheimer. If I did own the show, Nick and Sara would be hooked and hitch. Also, I don't own the song 'Peaceful Easy Feeling', that belongs to The Eagles.
Open letter to Don Henley and the Estate of Glenn Frey, please don't sue me! I am a fanfiction author who enjoys writing stories. I just thought this song would be the PERFECT backdrop to this one story (except for the moment of Nick's stupid stunt). I am a fan, just go easy on me! Thank you!
I like the way your sparkling earrings lay,
Against your skin, it's so brown,
And I wanna sleep with you in the desert tonight,
With a billion stars all around.
'Cause I got a peaceful easy feeling,
And I know you won't let me down,
'Cause I am already standing on the ground.
Nick sat next to his wife Sara on the beach towel. He had his arm around her shoulder as they looked at a beautiful starry night. It was a rare night off for the two of them since they had gotten married a month before Ecklie split their shift: Nick went to Swing and Sara stayed with Graveyard. This time together was kind of special because it the first time that Nick was able to enjoy himself after he had been buried alive. Sara was the reason that he was rescued. She also helped him get through the physical (ant bites), mental and emotional traumas he endured no thanks to Walter Gordon. He kissed her gently on her neck.
"What was that for?" Sara asked her husband.
"I love you so much," Nick smiled.
"I know and I love you, too."
"It's amazing to see this gorgeous night sky with I don't know how many billions of stars."
"Let me guess, you have been sneaking some of those Discovery Channel programs during your recovery. Didn't the doctor tell you to lay off it for a while? They wanted to get as much rest as possible!"
"It was a documentary about space and it was very therapeutic, my dear sweet killjoy. I don't want to see anything on insects for a while."
"Well, if a program about the universe and its mysteries could distract you from what that asshole Walter Gordon did you, I welcome such a distraction."
"Hush, just take in nature's delight."
"Okay!"
And I found out a long time ago,
What a woman could do to your soul,
Oh, but she can't take you anyway,
You don't already know how to go.
'Cause I got a peaceful easy feeling,
And I know you won't let me down,
'Cause I am already standing on the ground.
As Nick had Sara in a gentle embrace, he was in deep reflection. Past memories of Heidi, his minute babysitter who molested him when he was nine, came flooding his thoughts. He just wanted that awful perverted teenager out of his conscience. Why was he even thinking about her? Yuck! Then came Emma, his first girlfriend. They started dating in the eighth grade and broke up after graduation. However, they remain the greatest of friends. During college, he had new girlfriend per semester. When he started working for the Dallas Police Department, he was romantically linked to Anya, his colleague. Unfortunately, that didn't last since she transferred to a crime lab in the East Coast. He hadn't heard from her at all and avoids her whenever there's a national forensics conference.
When he moved to Vegas, he did it to be his own person and to get away from the reminders of being the son of a judge and public defender. Since he was the baby of the family, he frequently referred to as the little brother of Bill, Jr., Michelle, Alicia, Emily, Christine and Hannah. He loved his parents, siblings and numerous nieces and nephews dearly, don't get him wrong. Yet, in Vegas, he was the only member of the Stokes family that was known here. Also, he wanted to escape any reminder of Anya.
Catherine Willows took him under her wing when he started working at the LVPD crime lab. She had become his mentor and friend, but never anything romantic. It had nothing to do with what her father, the corrupt hotel mogul, Sam Braun would do to him, but it was work and friendship (more like a surrogate aunt/sister/cousin to Nick). She was the first to learn what Heidi did to him years ago and recommend him a therapist that specialized in helping sexual abuse survivors. It helped him tremendously.
It was a trick roll investigation that he met Kristy Hopkins. She was a prostitute who drugged a married man and stole a few of possessions. He saw something in her that she wasn't living up to her full potential. She was smart and deserved a better life than what she was dealt. He had to intervene on a couple times when some guy was harassing her. The night before she was murdered, she invited Nick to talk about her career change. The next day he left a message as he was on his way to a crime scene. Little did he know, it was her house was the crime scene and she was dead. Ecklie accused him of the murder, but Catherine proved him innocent, found the real killer and Nick still kept his job.
Holly Gribbs was a newly hired criminalist at the crime lab. Although Nick didn't have any real interaction with her other than staring at her, she indirectly changed his life forever. His friend and colleague, Warrick Brown, was assigned to shadow her at a crime scene. He left her alone to place a bet for a corrupt judge. The suspect returned to the scene and shot her. As she was in surgery, Nick and Warrick's boss, Gil Grissom, contacted his friend and former colleague at the San Francisco Crime Lab – Sara Sidle. Grissom didn't want Internal Affairs involved in investigating Warrick, so he decided to bring an outsider to probe into why Holly wasn't shadowed. After Holly died, Sara reported her findings and recommended to Grissom that Warrick should be fired for his inaction. Despite her recommendation, Grissom chose to give Warrick a second chance.
When Sara met Nick, it was really love in first sight. They accused each other of usurping a crime scene they were processing. When Grissom and Nick brought the same chemistry set for Catherine's daughter, Lindsey, Sara commented to Nick that he should keep his that he might learn something. He told her to stop flirting with him. When they both worked on the death of a fraternity pledge, they started to like each other. After returning from an anger-provoking crime scene, last thing that Sara wanted was to talk to anybody. When she arrived at the locker room, she saw Nick sitting on the bench trembling and sobbing. She needed to put her own anger over her own case to comfort her friend and colleague. He told her that a woman pulled a gun and threatened to kill him after her husband was arrested.
Nick couldn't pursue Sara, yet. She was seeing Hank, whom she met when she and Nick were processing a scene involving a decomp in a duffel bag. That didn't mean that they stopped caring about and for each other. Nick had encouraged Sara to get out more often, have hobbies outside of work. When Nick was tossed out of a second story window by that stalker, Nigel Crane, it was Sara that took care of him after his house became a crime scene.
It was around the time that Sara learned that Hank was cheating on his girlfriend with her that she was heartbroken. She found out about it while talking to a young woman, Elaine, who survived an accident involving a dying elderly woman and the restaurant where the some people working at her insurance company were having lunch. She saw a picture of Hank with Elaine. When she confronted Hank, she told him that she didn't tell Elaine anything about them. It was Catherine who took Sara for a beer and allowed her to angrily vent. Nick was kind enough to give her space after Catherine told him what had happened. When Sara appeared to ready, Nick took an opportunity to try to set her up on a 'blind date'. She resisted at first, but eventually agreed to it. When she arrived at the designated meeting place for the date, it turned out that Nick was the blind date. She had an awesome time with him.
A year into the relationship, Nick proposed to Sara in a strange way and she almost killed him for it. Warrick woke her up with a phone call telling her that she had to get over a crime scene and it was all hands on deck. Sara rushed over with her processing kit and was greeted by Warrick, Grissom and Catherine. She wondered where Nick was and Grissom took her to an area that was covered with a blue tarp. Underneath it, there was a human form, someone around Nick's height. David Philips saw Sara and started to cry. She wanted to know what was going on and Grissom told her that Nigel Crane escaped from prison and attacked Nick killing him. She demanded to see his body while her colleagues comforted her. David obliged and what happened next caught Sara by surprise. After the tarp was lifted, Nick was still lying down virtually motionless with his eyes closed. Sara went down on her knees, hugged him and began to cry. Suddenly, she felt a pair of arms, Nick's arms, hugging her back. She stiffened and looked at a very much alive (and unharmed) Nick Stokes. She released her embrace and slapped him in the shoulder.
"Nicholas Stokes, you scared the fucking shit out of me!" Sara shrieked. "This is the dumbest stunt you have ever done! I thought you wouldn't stoop so low!"
"Sara Sidle, just let me explain," Nick sat up and took a small box out of his jacket pocket and opening it to reveal a simple diamond ring. "I wanted a crime scene themed way of-"
"What do you mean?"
"I wanted a way to pop the question that is different from the clichéd ring in the flute of champagne at a fancy restaurant."
"Still, it is a very tacky way to frame it."
"Sara, I am sorry for this and your reaction. Just let me do this, please!"
"Okay, say it!"
"Sara, we had been through plenty the past few years. When I first fell in love with you, I knew that you were the woman that I wanted to spend the rest of my life with. You are the woman I would like to have a family with and watch our children grow. You are the one that I want to grow old with. Will you marry me?"
"Yes, I will marry you!"
After Nick put the ring on Sara's finger, he picked her up and spun around once. Those who saw the proposal take place applauded, cheered and whistled. The impromptu celebration was disrupted when Grissom's phone rang. A few moments later, he stated that there was a 419 and Brass will be waiting for them, except for Nick and Sara. He sent them back to the lab to help out with the paperwork and write their reports on their most recent investigations. That earned him a loud groan from the newly engaged couple. Judging from their reaction, Grissom knew he had to sweeten the deal with giving them the rest of the shift off. Nick and Sara's groans had quickly turned to expressions of gratitude. As they left for the lab, they received congratulatory hugs and handshakes. Grissom had reassured them Nigel is still in prison outside of Nevada, a maximum security prison to be exact.
I get this feeling I may know you as a lover and a friend,
But this voice keeps whispering in my other ear,
Tells me I may never see you again.
The month before Ecklie split the team, Nick and Sara became husband and wife. No, the wedding didn't take place at one of those wacky wedding chapels such as the ones that Sara and Nick investigated while investigating the death of a man in an alien suit. Nick's parents, Bill and Jillian, would have killed them both for doing such a thing. It was a beautiful ceremony at a church. Sara wore a simple cream colored sheath gown with an Empire waist and three-quarter lace sleeves. Nick was dressed in black trousers, tuxedo, bowtie and cummerbund and white shirt. They wrote their own vows and exchanged vows and rings. After the pastor pronounced them husband and wife, Nick and Sara kissed and presented as a married couple. They had a fun reception that consisted of an open bar, a sit-down dinner, champagne toasts, dancing galore, cake and dessert bar, speeches, a Conga line and some idiot from Swing shift that inhaled some helium causing him to talk funny. For their first dance as a married couple, Nick and Sara danced to The Eagles 'Peaceful Easy Feeling'. The music consisted of rock, pop, some country and jazz. Their honeymoon was in Paris.
When Nick was kidnapped and buried alive, his shift and Sara's came together to find him. His parents came when Sara told them what happened to him. She was comforting them and keeping her cool while everyone else was losing theirs. After Nick was rescued and taken to the hospital, Sara was waiting for word on his condition. As soon as everyone knew he was going to be okay and would need to recover from the ant bites and other trauma, Sara collapsed into her mother-in-law's arms and cried. Ecklie wanted to talk to her, but after seeing her crying, he decided to give her some time until she was ready. Nick received a lot of visitors while at the hospital, but Sara stood by his side even after his parents returned to Texas.
Now, here they are stargazing and taking in the wonders of the universe. Nick had made a full recovery physically, as for mentally and emotionally, he wasn't quite 100%. Sara helped him through his recovery. He nicknamed her Mrs. Stoic for being grace under fire when everybody else was breaking down or at each other's throats. She was his true hero. Whenever he was with his wife, he felt that peaceful easy feeling and loving every moment of it.
'Cause I got a peaceful easy feeling,
And I know you won't let me down,
'Cause I am already standing
I'm already standing
Yes, I am already standing on the ground
Oh, oh
THE END