My vision glazed over a little... Standing by the windows in the PD main lobby, staring out the windows at the city lights so late at night, I suddenly realized something.
A whole year was almost over. A quick glance to the clock told me it would only be half an hour before a new year would begin. I didn't quite know how to feel about that. I wondered if I should really feel anything at all. After all, how many things in life really panned out exactly like they were supposed to?
For example, how many people actually liked seeing their extended families over the holidays? Not many, as far as I could tell... It seemed to be one of those things nobody wanted to admit but that nearly everybody felt.
How many people spent the holidays with their loved ones? The ones outside of the family, I meant... And not just the "holidays" we usually think of when someone uses the phrase – like Thanksgiving, Christmas, and the fast-approaching New Years. I was thinking of the holidays, all throughout the year. Valentine's Day, for instance. People usually rush home and lock themselves up in their houses... pretending not to be alone for the day. At least, everyone I knew did.
Or maybe, just maybe, that was only me.
No, it couldn't be. Grissom had spent all the major occasions for the last two years since I arrived with his bugs. Catherine's daughter disappeared off to her's dad's... although, it looked like that was about to change – her father's sudden death would make it hard for poor Lindsey to spend any time with him. Warrick would usually visit with his grandmother – not the best of ways to spend most holidays, though.
But Greg had his family, and Doc had his wife. I laughed to myself when I realized Hodges would have no one but his mother. And the way I understood it, Brass had driven everybody out of his personal life with his hard-nosed bullshit. God only knew what Ecklie did when he was away from home any time...
Okay, so a pretty even split, I guessed.
The only person I knew since I'd come to Las Vegas who was a shining example of what people are "supposed" to be like during the holidays was Nick. Charming, happy-go-lucky, family-oriented Nicholas Stokes. He practically radiated with holiday cheer every time one of them came around. A bit annoying, if I was honest with myself. Neither of the last two years had passed without Nick trying to draw me in to the holiday spirit of whatever event he figured I should be celebrating. And he never did it with anyone else. Which, I supposed, was because everyone else knew him enough to know by now he was relentless when he got stuck on something enough. So they just played along, pretended to care... and he left them alone after a while.
I couldn't help grinning a little when I remembered my first Christmas in Vegas. The plans had been simple: crash on the couch in my new apartment and sleep. The schedule was a lot more demanding in the Las Vegas Police Department than it had been in San Francisco. I was so worn out that year...
Nick, apparently, had other plans. When he showed up with cards, cookies, and lights to hang all over the place, I quickly learned it didn't work telling him to just go away. Within twenty minutes, half of what looked like a hundred lights were all over my living room...
"Hey, Sara!"
I gave a jolt. How many times had I told people I didn't like that?
"Greg," I greeted with a formal smile. "What brings you all the way to PD?"
"Heading out," he answered with a simple shrug. "Gotta get home, my parents should be there soon." He looked at his watch. "Yeah, real soon," he added.
And then his brow furrowed. "Wait... you're missing the party?"
I could feel my eyes narrow in the slightest. As if I were viewing my face from the inside out. "I was just... thinking," I replied.
"Oh?" He leaned against the wall with one elbow. "What about?"
"Oh, just... Christmas with Nick."
I hadn't meant to answer honestly, but thinking about him grinning across the table at me with a up of hot cocoa in one hand and the other squeezing mine undermined my fibbing abilities.
Greg, however, raised one eyebrow. "Is that so? I didn't know you spent Christmas with Nick..."
"Well, just the first one. The second, he came the day after. Went to see his family, you know. He showed me pictures, though. His nephews and nieces are so cute. And his mom looks so sweet. I swear, in every picture she was running around serving people. Wish my parents had been like that... Or any one of my parents after them. Christmas is never my favorite time of year, but Nick really helped. This year, he invited me to go with him to Texas! When I didn't, his family came here, instead! My God, there were so many of them... They were so nice, too. I was–"
"–Sara!"
I stopped as I realized how fast I'd been talking. In retrospect, I think I also registered the look he'd given me midway through it...
Something about the look on my face must have been funny, because he smiled and pressed on like I hadn't just gone off on a ramble. "So, Christmas was good, you were saying..."
"Very," I answered, feeling subdued. "Yes, I liked it."
"Good."
The sound of the clock ticking caught our attention. He looked up and glanced over at it.
"I better get going, but hey! Get that folder out of your hands, go get some refreshments. The party's great!"
I nodded noncommittally. "Sure. But you better hurry! Don't want to be late for your family." My tooth poked my tongue as I smiled after him... running down the hallway without another word.
And as soon as he was out of range, I rolled my eyes. No way was I going to a party. I instead turned away from the light at the end of one hallway into another. Grissom's office was down there. I could slip my report in, and get out without anyone ever being the wiser for it...
I didn't dare to flick a light on as I went in. The walls were mostly glass, and through the corner of my eye, I could see Grissom and Catherine milling about by the entrance. She was showing him something on her phone, and he was trying to balance what looked like a plastic tarantula on her forearm while she was doing it. With a shake of my head, I dropped the folder on the desk...
Suddenly, a voice whispered. "Where do you think you're going, Sunshine?"
I jumped a bit, my nails digging into the desk. My feet clattered into the side of a garbage can. My hip banged on the side of the desk. A strong pair of hands grasped around my ribs. The laughter radiating through the chest my head was now resting on told me it was...
"Nick!" I whispered sharply. "What the hell are you doing in here?"
"I came to see if you were going to join us. I figured not, but I thought I'd better ask."
"Well, you thought right," I answered, the relief in my voice evident even to my own ears. "And this time, I really do have to go."
I slid his hands off my ribs and stepped away. In the low lighting, I could see confusion forming on his face.
"What are you talking about, 'this time'?" he asked tentatively.
But I smiled at it. "You know what I mean, Nick. Your traditional attempts to coerce me into holiday spirit just isn't going to work tonight."
I thought he might find it funny, but he didn't seem to. "My attempts to coerce you into holiday spirits?"
I shrugged. "Yeah. You know, Christmas. New Years. Valentine's Day. Thanksgiving... Everything in between. I really can't do it, this time."
His face fell in the slightest. "Oh... I'm sorry, I didn't– I'm sorry." He scratched the back of his neck, eyes angled to his right.
My brows furrowed involuntarily. "What?"
"I really didn't mean to... uh... 'coerce you' into the holidays."
Suddenly, I felt bad. "Well, Nick, it wasn't–"
"–I was just trying to help."
"I know. I wasn't complaining, I just–"
"–if you'd told me, I never would've pressed the point."
"No, really, Nick, I was glad. I just–"
"–I thought, since you were new, I would do something. I know what it's like to feel unwelcome. I thought holidays would be a good time to make you feel more at home."
I was too stunned to interrupt him this time. My mouth fell slightly open and hung that way.
"But, I mean, if I was being a bother, you should have just told me."
He wasn't looking at me. His head hung forward a little, and his eyes were on his feet. My own eyes followed the slight shake in his shoulder down his arm to his hand. Then they flickered back and forth between the two. And spread out to the rest of him. He was shaking all over.
"Nick..." I whispered, softly, stepping towards him.
He caught my wrist as I reached an arm out towards him with one hand, and with the other led me safely around him, in the direction of the door.
"Nick," I said again.
"Here. It's dark in here. Let me get you near some light."
"I don't want to go to the party." And it was true. But the reason had changed, quite suddenly, when his fingers closed around my arms.
"No, no, not the party," he said with some barely-concealed haste. "I promise. I just don't want you to bash yourself against any of Grissom's bizarre things in here. God knows, one of them could bite you."
In spite of my suddenly-guilty mood, I smiled. "That's not going to happen, Nick."
"No, it sure won't." He didn't seem to notice my sudden mood change at all – he kept pressing onward to the door. "That's what I'm here for. And careful, he put the dead pig in the jar down on the shelf by the door, for some reason. Right by your foot. Careful, there..."
His voice dropped a little when he told me to be careful. A shivering sensation shot up the back of my spine. His lips were a lot closer to my ear than I thought...
I turned my head to look at him, but he was still hard-faced and guiding me to the door...
As we reached the frame, I made an immediate decision. With both hands out, I slammed them against the door frame. All at once, we came to a stop.
When I looked over at him again, Nick was frowning with more confusion again. "Sara?"
"Just, hold on a minute," I insisted. "And please, stop looking at me like that. You're making me feel bad."
His face did a sort of contortion. As if he was trying to land on an unoffensive facial expression. "Like what?" he asked, honestly.
"Like someone just flogged you across the back with a wet, snakeskin whip." The image that accompanied my statement formed in my scientific mind. I wondered if it was instinct that I let one hand splay on his back, in between his shoulder blades.
The gesture was not lost on him, either. His eyebrows pulled together again, and his eyes followed my arm as far as they could for a second. When he looked back at me, he inclined his head to the side.
I exhaled sharply. "Nick, listen. I'm sorry. I really didn't mean to give you the wrong idea. About the holidays, I mean."
He sighed. "Oh, Sara, it's alright. Common miscommunication. I just really thought you'd feel better if you had someone to hang out with on the holidays, that's all."
My initial response flew silently off my lips. "What... made you think I didn't feel good?" I asked instead.
He shrugged. "I don't know. I just figured, you looked a little lonely, is all..."
His words made my lower lip tremble. He was right, of course... but I had really hoped nobody noticed. "Wow..." was all I could say.
"But, hey... I was wrong, okay? I promise not to do it anymore." An innocent looking smile formed in his expression. "You can have the holidays all to yourself! Cross my heart." And his hands gestured his words. He drew a little x across his chest and raised his head to look at me for a moment.
The close proximity between the two of us began to dawn on me. My back was pressed tightly against the glass wall behind me. There was a bookshelf immediately to my left, and a door swung open to my right. In front of me, a sweet man with a child-like grin unwittingly pinned me in the corner. And I liked it. I suppose it was that feeling that caused me to raise a hesitant hand to the side of his face.
I know, though, even today... it was the way his features ever so slowly softened – as if he was in awe of me, a thought that made me feel strange – that compelled me to lean in and kiss the very edge of his lips.
When I pulled back, his look had intensified. "Sara..." he whispered huskily. His two hands found their way up the wall to rest on either side of my body.
My voice shook a little as I next spoke. "Please... Don't ever leave me alone for the holidays again."
His eyes lit up in the slightest.
"Or, for... anything, ever," I continued. My voice dropped to a whisper. "Please, Nicky..."
As if our minds were on the same track, we both leaned in to close the distance between us. Our lips met with a kind of free flowing passion. We did not crash around or knock anything over. We moaned into each other's mouths, and finally... carried it over to Grissom's desk.
Nothing and no one ever before was enough to prepare me for that night. Nick's body, completely shed of all clothing, pressed down on mine, equally as bare and vulnerable. My legs wrapped around his waist. His hips grinding on mine as he moved... Our stomachs pressed together, his chest weighed down on my breasts... His hands and knees balanced on either side of me. His arms, dripping with sweat from the effort of holding himself up. His lips, frequently revisiting mine as they worked their way around the rest of my head, neck, and shoulders... The sound of his voice moaning in pleasure, and the way he trembled right before he'd finished... with my fingernails lodged tightly into his back and my teeth sunk into his left shoulder and his name sort of making it out half-garbled from my mouth.
It was the sounds of people dispersing that made us panic. For what seemed like forever, we just laid there. On our supervisor's desk, where we'd just made love for the first time. In each other's arms...
But the party was breaking up. As we scrambled, the sound of Grissom's clock announced the midnight. The beginning of a whole new year.
We both looked up at it... but there was a devilish grin on Nick's lips when he looked back down at me. Half-dressed, for some reason, felt more self-conscious to me than fully undressed. I blushed, and turned my eyes and head away slightly.
But he with his bare chest, one sock on, and half-zipped up fly crossed the desk and gave me one more kiss. Much softer, much sweeter... One that quieted the doubts about where he would be after this night was over. Doubts that, oddly enough, had arisen after the Hank incident. Doubts Nick had been instrumental in helping me deal with back then, as well.
"Happy New Year, Sara," whispered, softly. His hand petted the side of my face.
I closed my eyes and leaned my head into his hand. "Happy New Year, my Nick," I said back.
My eyes were partially open... just in time to see Nick's face beginning to break out into a smile when the light's flickered on.
The first thing to reach my ears was Grissom's surprised, "Whoa!"
After that, all I remembered was my eyes flashing around the room. Nick half-dressed, me half-dressed, and Grissom's stuff lying in scattered piles around his desk.
"What the hell?" came Warrick's deep inquisition.
And then Catherine. "Grissom, what's going on in here?!"
"Well, don't ask me!" he answered, pointing to me and Nick. "Ask them!"
I jumped behind Nick and batted my eyes against the sudden light. Happy New Year, indeed, I thought.
But, as Nick began stumbling to explain, I couldn't help grinning. With one hand on his shoulder, I took a deep breath. Yes, even in spite of all this, I knew already...
...it was definitely the best New Years... best holiday... of my life.
Which is why, looking back on it, as I close my years old diary and slip my shoes on, I still grin. Because all these years later, it is still the best I have ever felt. And the best choice I have ever made.
All my pining for Grissom did not chase Nick away, not even when I told him how I felt about Grissom.
And Nick still stayed with me, even helped me to get together with Grissom, for my sake.
He stayed even when I yelled and screamed at him to get away from me, because I felt so much anguish about how much I knew I was hurting him by being with Grissom.
He held me at nights when I was crying because I knew how Grissom felt about Lady Heather. When he knew I didn't really mean it when I told him I would leave Grissom, no matter how upset I was in those moments.
He still made unconditional love to me, never flinching from me in any way, physical or emotional. He always treated me like I had like there was never any reason he should be angry. As if I deserved to be loved so much...
Nick stayed even when I left.
He stayed when I came back, married to Grissom.
He stayed when he could tell I resented him for making me feel so guilty about being involved with him when I was married, and my husband was out of the country.
He stayed when Grissom and I split up, despite all the effort we had both put into it.
He stayed when Basdaric tried to kill me. Held me after my would-be murderer was taken away. Told me he could never give up on me when I thanked him for believing in me, even when the evidence was against me...
He stayed afterward... "Always," he keeps telling me, in his thick, husky twang.
And he's still here.
Holding his hand out to me, a grin on his older and wiser – but no less sexy – face. "Russell's gonna be pissed if we don't hurry. We can't be late again, Sunshine. And Greg just told him about... the desk, recently."
I smile as I tie my shoes. It had only been a week ago that I'd finally shown him my journal entry. For the longest time, I had kept it to myself. I had only shown it to Grissom, when he asked me once how I thought about Nick when we were on vacation... But since Nick had all but officially moved in after my divorce finalized, I figured he deserved to know... Or maybe that I finally wanted him to know how much his kindness when we first met all those years ago meant to me. How it had kept us together, even when we were apart.
"Yeah, remind me to thank him for that when we see him," I say. "I thought we might finally live it down..."
Nick laughs. "Oh, come on, now. You know that's not how it works there, darlin'..."
I take his hand and he pulls me to my feet. "Just wait till we catch him and Morgan somewhere..." I say with a surge of savage pleasure.
"Mmm," is all he says before he kisses me and leads me out the front door.
I accept my coat from him and walk with him to his Denali. I never drive my car anywhere. I always ride with him, everywhere he goes. Everywhere we go... we go together.
Even though it's freezing, and Nick complains playfully, I still roll the window down. The fresh, cool air reminds me of the day we met. When he was the only one to introduce himself to me, instead of the other way around, after Holly Gribbs' death.
The smile that is on my face when I watch him driving extra carefully because I am in the car brings a tear to my eye. I realize what day it is when he reaches out and tears the car calendar off the dash board.
"We don't need that anymore," he says with a tone of still-adorable annoyance. "It's 2014, now."
There is only a moment of pause. That moment is all we need to let everything we are thinking of... remembering... run through our mind. We smile at each other simultaneously. And wish each other a greeting in celebration of it. The time that changed our lives.
"Happy New Year."
We laugh together at different times, ignoring the knowing looks of Greg and the unknowing stares of everyone else, all the way through shift.
Had to put it together. And the implied long-lasting relationship between the two is something I gathered from watching them interacting with each other right from the start. I kept doing it, somewhat unintentionally. Making mental edits as I go. I wish I cared enough how ridiculous that should probably make me feel, but I just don't. I don't know if I could make a good story from it, but someday I might try.
As it is, Happy New Years! I just turned 22 today, as well... Feels weird to be past the last milestone birthday I'll have until I'm fifty. And I think I'm supposed to be too young to think about that, but I do, anyway.
As for the story, I decided to try writing it in a first-person style because I wrote a series of books (that were promptly lost when the computer I had at the time basically exploded) when I was younger in that style. I wondered how I would do.
A future work is pending. Much more high-scale, with inter-connecting cases and all that. Multiple character dramas... Inspired by a weird dream I've had a couple of times over the course of this– er... last year.
Wow, 2014... So unbelievable. But I feel this is a year to make some dreams come true! For everyone! Believe it, and it can easily be, no matter what it is!
Happy New Year!