Déjà Vu All Over Again
Nick/Sara
Genre: Romance, Hurt/Comfort
Spoilers: Girls Gone Wilder, Who Are You?, Stalker and Grave Danger
Nick comforts his wife after the incidents at the forensics conference.
A/N: I don't own the characters of CSI, I only own my original ones.
A/N2: I apologize for not updating any of my stories. My life has been kind of crazy lately.
Nick Stokes rushed to get home. He just wanted to make sure she was alive and okay. Their colleagues told him that she was alive, but quite shaken. It was one of those moments when the brain is on autopilot and numerous scenarios are running around in there. When he finally arrived home, he exited the car and entered his house running.
"Daddy, you're home!" a little girl's voice distracted him from his own thoughts.
"Hey Samantha, where are your sister and mommy?" he asked.
"Christine is taking a nap and mommy is in your room crying. Daddy, what's wrong with mommy?"
Nick didn't know how to answer a question in a way that a four year old would understand. He didn't want to lie to his daughter, but she had some right to know about it as well as her two year old sister. They would have to learn about what their parents do for a living in complex terms eventually.
"She had a very rough day at work," Nick told his oldest daughter after considerable thought. It wasn't lying, but at the same time he didn't really sugarcoat anything.
"Okay," Samantha replied and went to watch her favorite kids' show.
Nick went upstairs to the master bedroom. He found her sprawled on their bed sobbing uncontrollably. She was trembling at the same time. He briefly remembered fourteen years earlier when a woman pointed a gun at him and more than a year later, his stalker did the same thing. Nine years earlier he came very close to killing himself while buried alive. He shuddered at his memories and had to put them aside, he had a visibly traumatized wife to comfort.
"Sara, I heard what happened at the conference from D.B., Julie, Morgan and Ecklie," Nick calmly approached her. "I didn't want to believe them until I saw it for myself. I am sorry Morgan, Julie and you were caught in this tragedy at the forensics conference."
Sara looked at her husband with her face reddened from crying and wiping her eyes and nose with numerous amounts of tissues. She sat up on the bed and allowed Nick to sit next to her. He pulled her into a comforting embrace and she wept harder than ever. He rubbed her back and kissed her in the cheek.
"Nick, it was just awful!" Sara cried. "The mass shooting at the conference was all Dr. Jane Snyder's fault."
"Who is Dr. Jane Snyder?" Nick asked.
"We were colleagues at the San Francisco crime lab. She is now working for the defense. She gave a talk on how to 'put on a show for the court'. Then, all hell broke loose. The gunman, Jeff Lasky, wanted revenge on Jane for destroying his family. She testified for the defense in a rape and murder trial in Dallas a few years ago and the son of a bitch who did it got off no thanks to her expert testimony. The man went to the Phoenix area, found Lasky's wife and young daughter and he raped and murdered them."
"I heard about that case from a former colleague with the Dallas Police Department and my mother. She didn't defend this bastard, thank goodness. After reading the verdict, it made her want to vomit since she is a mother of seven and a grandmother to thirty."
"If Jane hadn't testified on behalf of the defense, the Lasky family would have been alive and probably this would have never happened."
"You don't know that at all. Tell me about the incident with that Cliff Ballard guy."
"After Lasky was killed by SWAT, I received a text from what I thought was one of them letting me know that it was safe to go to the 18th floor. It was a trap, Nick. Cliff Ballard lured me so he could kill me. Since I am part of a commission to review suspicious looking investigations and verdicts, I was one of his targets. He blames the members of the commission for putting him in prison for tampering with evidence."
"Sara, that guy brought it upon himself, you did the right thing in putting him there."
"He had a gun pointed at me! He wanted to kill me for something he did and was punished for!"
"He got himself killed for doing so. Sara, I am happy that you are alive."
"Me too!"
"Ecklie and D.B. told me to tell you to take the day off. They also want you to go for your PEAP counseling."
"Ugh, I think I had enough of PEAPs to last me the next few decades."
Sara got up from the bed and went to the bathroom. She grabbed a tissue from the box, wiped her tears and blew her nose. She splashed her face a few times with cold water and dried it with a towel. When she returned to the bedroom, she saw Nick with tears flowing down his eyes.
"Nick, now you are having the waterworks?" Sara asked.
"I am sorry," Nick responded. "It just brings back memories of Amy Hendler, Nigel Crane and when I was buried alive. You could've lost me the way I almost lost you."
"Nick, we will get through this latest trauma together and with the people who care about us. We always have and always will."
"I know that, Sara, it's kind of the price we pay for choosing our profession."
There was an eerie silence after Nick's statement. He and Sara looked at each other with love and concern. This was a rough day, not just for them, but for the entire Las Vegas Police Department as well as all the participants of the forensics conference. Eleven innocent people were killed all because two men had grudges and vendettas. Only Dr. Jane Snyder put the gun into Jeff Lasky's hand because she let a rapist and killer go free to rape and kill again. It would be a while before anyone involved, directly or indirectly, would gain a different sense of normalcy.
"Nick, I was thinking," Sara finally said. "Neither of us feels like cooking or going out for dinner. How about we order a pizza to be delivered?"
"That's a good idea," Nick agreed. "How's that gourmet vegetarian pie sound to you?"
"You are such a mind reader."
When the pizza arrived the four Stokes were eating, talking and laughing. Although Nick and Sara still had today's events still fresh on their minds, the put them aside to enjoy time with their two little girls. Once Samantha and Christine were asleep in their room, their parents were in theirs watching some comedy. About two hours later, Nick and Sara were in bed, asleep in each other's arm in comforting embraces.
THE END