Dedicated to all my fellow Nick/Sara shippers! ) I hope you guys like it.
Sara Stokes.
Sara. Stokes.
Sara Stokes.
She frowns slightly as she turns those two words around her head, a strange, secret mixture of thrill and apprehension at the sound of her new name. Her brow furrows into that concentrated look that she usually reserves when she is processing a particularly delicate piece of evidence.
He, however, wouldn't miss it. He's CSI himself, and it's his job to know things, to see things and to understand them. But it wouldn't do to put Sara Sidle under a microscope and study her, and mistake her as another specimen. That was where Grissom went wrong. He knew long ago that Sara responded with good old homemade honesty.
"What's up, Sara?" he finally asks, breaking the hour-long silence between them while processing evidence. His face is carefully neutral, and he does not look up from his review of the different shoeprints in the database, shoeprints that may lead them to the perpetrator. They were assigned a relatively simple case, some punk kid breaking and entering in a series of townhouses. How dayshift never solved this case, he'll never know. Once another breaking and entering entered their turf, Grissom spent no time--of course, with the approval of Catherine-- in assigning the case to him and Sara.
She looks up, an aggravated smile playing on her lips. "Don't you think this is kind of bizarre?" she asks.
"What is?" he looks up and can't help but smile at her, whatever it is she thinks is bizarre.
She beams back. He likes it when she smiles without holding back. No, he corrects itself. He loves it when she smiles like that. "We're getting married in a week, Nick. Exactly one week, and here we are, in the lab, so routine like it's not going to happen."
He glances back at the computer screen, an instinct, to check if he's gotten any hits. None. He glances out to the hallway, no one's there. No one would begrudge him if he had a little talk with his fiancé, right? In the clear, he responds teasingly: "Is that a hint? A bad omen? Should I start getting worried?"
She rolls her eyes and holds back a giggle, looking down onto her files, not really reading them. She has never felt as silly and giddy and comfortable and self-assured as when she is with Nick. She had never been like this with Grissom, whatever they had in the past. "Don't take it badly, Nick, I just find it weird, the idea that I'm going to be Sara Stokes in a week..."
"Hmm." He appears to give it some thought. "Stranger than the idea that we're leaving Vegas soon after that?"
That sobers both of them immediately. They had both decided to quit their jobs in Vegas, agreeing that it was not the city they wanted to raise a family in. Sara recalls Grissom's reaction to this, one surprise after another: First, the relationship, then the plans on getting married, and now moving away. He had seemed resigned, surprised but not really. For some reason she could not explain, Sara was grateful that Grissom did not comment on her relationship with Nick when he could have.
Noticing Sara's silence, Nick added, "You know, Sara, you don't have to change your name when we get married."
He knows, of course, about her past, and it made no difference to him. She had been afraid of having children of her own, questioned her ability to become a mother, but he assured her he would be there every step of the way. He saw no shame in her last name, a name that tied her to a bloody past; he made it clear that he wanted her. Just her and everything about her, all the dark secret things--her strengths, her weaknesses.
Sara had never known such love.
She feels grateful that he even asks, amazed that he even senses it, her hesitation. Of course, it comes out in a sarcastic drawl: "Thanks for being updated on political correctness on the brink of marriage, Nick." she says.
Nick bursts out laughing. "Anytime. I was starting to consider going for 'Nick Sidle,' actually."
She makes a face. "Ugh. Don't. Terrible!"
They share a small moment of warmth before settling down to work again. The computer gives a small beep, indicating that it has found a match. Nick wastes no time in printing it out and getting the print's make. Sara knows that he'll soon be out of the door, and she doesn't know when she'll have the nerve to tell him this --
He is nearly out the door. "Nick." she calls quietly.
He pauses and turns to her, a questioning look on his face.
She stands up straight and smiles at him. "I want to take your name." she announces. "I was just -- I was just getting used to it. I haven't had a family for a longest time." Perhaps there is a better way of saying it, but it currently escapes her, the right words. But it does the trick.
Nick's eyes soften, and she knows he is going to kiss her.
He crosses the distance between them.