Disclaimer: I don't own them, I didn't create them, and I don't profit from them.
Author's Note: This is an idea I had after watching Redrum and Meet Market.
Despite Warrick's admonishment to let it go, Nick couldn't seem to find a way to move past the fact that Catherine had deliberately deceived all of them under the guise of something Keppler referred to as reverse forensics. Not even the offer of a beer with one of his best friends sounded appealing with the bitter taste of betrayal lingering in his mouth. All he wanted was to go home and decompress, maybe grab a beer out of his own fridge and flip through the channels in the sports package to get his mind off of the fact that he'd lost faith in the only person who knew about his deepest darkest secret. That fact had left him feeling unsettled in a way that he couldn't just let go of.
He'd been settled on the couch for a while and was working on his second bottle of Fat Tire with some mid-western college basketball game on when he heard a knock sound at his door. He furrowed his brow in annoyance for a moment as he considered who it might be; in the back of his mind he sure as hell hoped it wasn't Catherine; he needed a more time to mull over what had happened before he was going to be ready to trust her again. She hadn't even been acting supervisor all that long and she'd managed to go over to the dark side; yes, Catherine was the last person he wanted to talk to right now.
As he opened the door he certainly hadn't expected to find Sara standing there. His annoyance turned to curiosity and then concern as he watched conflicted emotions flicker across her face that made him wonder if this whole experience had unsettled her as much as it had him. "Hey, Sara," He offered a friendly smile and opened the door to answer her unspoken question as to whether it was ok for her to come in.
Sara smiled back and slipped through the door, hoping that she didn't look as nervous as she felt, "Hey." After following Nick's lead to forge ahead and investigate exactly where Catherine had told them not to, her own conscience had begun to add to her inner turmoil about what she'd been hiding from everyone. Nick had been right; they trusted each other every day with their lives; and while her not telling them she was dating someone might not be a big deal, her dating Grissom was a huge deal because he was their supervisor and somewhere in her heart she knew that if Nick found out from anyone but her their friendship would never be quite the same again and that was something that she just didn't want to risk.
"Beer?" He thought he might as well offer because by the expression on her face, she was carrying a heavy load and needed to talk. Nick had learned long ago that Sara tended to stuff things down and put on a brave front, but when she needed to talk it was the real deal and he was never one to turn her down, especially because she'd done the same for him, something that he'd come to appreciate on a new level after he'd been abducted and buried alive.
"Sure," a bottle of beer might be just the thing to hold onto for a little security as she considered just how she planned to tell him what she'd been mulling over in her mind since she'd seen his reaction to Catherine's deception. She settled herself on the couch and accepted the bottle that Nick retrieved from the kitchen for her; smiling at the fact he turned the TV down, but not off. Background noise was good.
Nick glanced over at Sara out of the corner of his eye, keeping it casual until she was ready to tell him why she'd stopped by, "You talk to Catherine?" She'd mentioned in the break room that whatever she had to say to her she'd say in private, but Nick had a pretty good idea that whatever she'd say wasn't going to go over with Catherine very well at all.
"No," Sara was still frustrated at Catherine being manipulated by Keppler and hadn't really figured out what she could say to her that wouldn't end up being put in her personnel file. "I'm not sure I have anything differently to say than anyone else did." There was soft lilt in her voice that pitched upwards as she spoke; something that almost sounded wistful.
"I just still don't get why she didn't trust us enough to loop us in," it was clear from Nick's tone that the entire exchange had hurt him deeply. He let out a frustrated sigh and took a long swig of his beer.
Sara felt a swirl of nerves; Nick had just unknowingly made what she had to say doubly hard. She sipped at her beer and glanced at the TV trying to feign some sort of interest in the game that was on.
Nick leaned back into the couch and glanced over at Sara, "You hear from Grissom at all?" He reasoned that if Grissom was going to contact anyone while he was on his sabbatical that it would have been Brass or Sara. He for one would be glad when the bug man was back and resumed his supervisory duties.
"No, no I haven't," there was something in the tone of her voice that caused Nick to look over at her fully and quirk an eyebrow at her. She took a deep breath and decided that she just needed to tell him before it got even more difficult. "Look, I need to tell you something."
Nick studied her face; it was a similar expression that he'd seen every time he knew that she'd been disappointed by some guy and he felt a fierce protective feeling begin to surface as he nodded and just let her talk.
Sara forced a smile and a nervous laugh escaped, she appreciated this man sitting there with her more than he could possibly know. When she'd come to Vegas nearly seven years before he'd just accepted her without question; something that had made waiting out Warrick and Catherine warming up to her much easier to bear. He was a true friend and she hoped that after she revealed her secret to him that he'd still count her as a friend too. "I don't know how else to say this, except to just say it." She took a deep breath; her eyes pleading with his to reserve judgment. "Grissom and I...we've been seeing each other, for a while really."
Surprise flickered across Nick's features and as his brow furrowed a little, there was hurt there too. "But you haven't heard from him at all have you?" As Sara shook her head, he wanted to march right down to McCaren and book a flight to Boston so he could knock some sense into his mentor for being such a relational moron.
"He didn't even tell me he was leaving; I had to hear it through the lab rumor mills," of everything, that hurt the most. "What was I thinking, Nicky?" She knew that a romantic relationship with your supervisor was a really bad idea ethically.
Nick shrugged his shoulders; there was a myriad of things that he would have said to her if she was Warrick, but as tough as Sara tried to be he knew that she was far more fragile than she'd admit. "And he hasn't even called?" His eyes were gentle as he regarded her and reached for her hand, giving it a supportive squeeze.
Sara shook her head, "No, no phone call, no letter, not even an email." She let out a bitter laugh, "he sent me a cocoon, nothing else in the damn box but that cocoon."
Nick pulled her into a hug and whispered in her ear, "I'm so sorry, Sara. You don't deserve to be treated like this, not even by Grissom." In the back of his mind he considered that if he had been fortunate enough to be in a relationship with Sara, there was no way in hell he'd leave her for four weeks in the manner Grissom had. In fact he might have just asked her to take a leave of absence with him; no, if he had been fortunate enough to capture Sara's heart, he wouldn't want to let her go at all.
Sara just leaned into him, thankful that he hadn't pushed her away, and whispered back, "I don't know what to do...I think maybe he doesn't really want to be with me."
The words were out before Nick could really think about what she might draw from them, especially given the intensity of his voice, "Then he's an idiot, if it were me, I'd never give you a reason to doubt how much I want to be with you." He felt her stiffen for an instant and then relax again; yes, she'd definitely picked up on where he was really coming from and he felt a swirl of nerves in the pit of his stomach.
"Thanks," Sara didn't say anything else just then, she'd often wondered if those years of flirtation had anything behind them, and knowing that perhaps they did was enough to boost her ego a bit. She found herself snuggling a little closer, content to settle in next to him and watch the basketball game, neither one of them really letting go of that hug and both of them wondering if something just might be changing between them.
Grissom had tried to write this letter half a dozen times or so over the course of the last three weeks and he still hadn't been able to bring himself to send it. This time at least he'd managed to partially address the envelope before he'd changed his mind. He'd screwed up with Sara, he knew that. Not telling her that he was leaving had never been his intent, but he'd never found the right moment to tell her and then all too soon his cab was waiting to take him to the airport and he couldn't just leave without saying goodbye. Despite her brave front, he could tell that he'd deeply hurt her and while he hadn't yet found the courage to send any of these letters, he hoped that the cocoon he'd sent which he'd found while taking a walk through a park near the university would convey to her what he'd been trying to say in these letters he couldn't seem to send until he had the chance to see her and tell her himself.
The End