I understand this is a bit of an odd pairing, but stick with it ok? I hope you won't be dissapointed. I would love to know what everyone think of the start to my newest fic project, so any feedback and suggestions you can make will be gratefully received. It's a little cryptic at the moment, although I think you'll catch the general drift. Questions will be answered in the next few chapters. Not sure how long the fic will be at the moment, I'm just running with it.

Chapter 1

Nick took a deep breath before he climbed out the passenger side of the SUV and shot a glance towards Catherine as she shut off the engine and removed the key from the ignition. He walked round to Catherine's side of the car and they both stood for a minute, looking towards the school and the yard full of children.

Catherine touched Nick lightly on the arm. "Are you sure you can do this?"

Nick nodded. "Yeah, I'll be fine. I'll go talk to talk to the witnesses, can you deal with the detectives?"

Catherine nodded, but she wasn't sure that Nick was as fine as he claimed to be. In fact, she knew he wasn't, but didn't push him. She knew that he wanted to deal with this in his own way.

Nick left Catherine by the squad cars on the other side of the street and strode with purpose towards the gates.

"Daddy!"

Josie Stokes ran the length of the school playground and took a running jump at her father. Nick caught the bouncy 6 year old in mid hair and wrapped his arms around her, lifting her up so their faces were level.

He beamed at his daughter and she grinned back, her eyes lighting up at the sight of her favourite person in the world. "Hey trouble." They held each others' gaze for a moment, before Josie caught sight of the police officers over Nick's shoulder.

She looked back to her dad and her face fell. She had her arms around Nick's neck, and lay her head on his shoulder. "Are you going to find the big girl?" she asked, her question muffled by Nick's shirt.

He took a deep breath and hugged his daughter, trying his best to keep his voice level. "We'll do our best, sweetheart."

He wanted to say yes, with conviction and confidence, but he couldn't quite bring himself to say that one simple word. He didn't want to lie, or tempt fate, it was too painful. He breathed in the scent of Josie's wavy blonde hair and stood quietly by the schoolyard gate.

Catherine watched the two of them in their embrace. She caught a glimpse of Nick's face when he lowered Josie to the ground, and could see the worry on his face. She was thankful when the tense mood Nick was slipping into was broken by the approach of a woman in her 30s, who Nick recognised as the principle.

"Hi Mr. Stokes" she greeted him, and Nick could see she was shaking, her face drawn and pale. "Do you need to talk to me?"

Nick nodded at her, before smiling at Josie, he still had hold of her hand. She allowed him to put her down, but didn't want to fully relinquish contact with her father. He bent down, brushing a strand of hair that had fallen from her pig tails away from her face. "You better go and play darling, I need to talk to Miss Reynolds. I'll see you later."

"Will you come and have dinner with me and Mommy tonight?" Her voice was hopeful and it broke Nick's heart, knowing that he couldn't fulfil his little girl's request.

"I'm afraid not, I have to stay at work."

"We decorated!" The smile returned to Josie's face. "We made the living room yellow. Can you come and see it soon?"

"Sure I can."

"Josie, come on!" Nick looked up to see a little boy he didn't recognise calling his daughter over. Nick gave her hand one last squeeze and released his grip, urging her to go.

Josie nodded reluctantly. "I'm coming Jack." And she left Nick's side and darted back across the playground.

Nick watched her go, then turned back to the woman beside him. For the first time he realised she was shaking. "Can you tell me what happened?"

She recounted the events in a manner that was both detached and emotional at the same time, like she was trying to stay strong but couldn't help hints of fear and guilt escaping through. "I don't know what happened, I was watching the children. I only turned away for a second and the next thing I knew Jasmine came running over saying that Ruby was gone."

A while later, Nick leant against the hood of the SUV, mulling the case over and over in his head and staring into space. He had a far away look on his face and barely noticed when Catherine sat next to him. "How are you doing?"

Nick blinked, and turned to face her. "I'm ok Cath, thankyou. But can you talk with Jasmine? I don't think I could…"

He trailed off. Catherine looked at him, understanding. "Of course."

He smiled gratefully. "I'll call Grissom, get some back up. We need as many people trying to find this girl as possible." Catherine nodded, but it was clear to Nick she wanted to say something, but was holding back. "Cath, what is it?"

She swallowed. "Would you… Would you like me to call Sofia?"

Nick shook his head without hesitation, sure of his answer. "No. I'll tell her." He faltered. "I need to tell her…"

Catherine nodded sympathetically as she stood up. She shot Nick one last understanding glance as she walked in the direction of the school building. Nick took a few moments to prepare himself, before he flipped open his phone and dialled.

The three short rings it took for the phone to be answered made Nick's heart pound louder in his chest. "Hey Grissom." When his call was answered and he spoke, his voice was a lot less casual than he wanted. "We're gonna need some backup here at the school, I'd like all the officers we have working to find this girl."

Grissom agreed cautiously, and Nick imagined he was trying to gage Nick's state of mind by his manner during the phone call. "Really, I'm fine. I'll be fine." Nick tried to assure his supervisor that he was up to doing his job. "Catherine's talking to witnesses now. I need to…" He paused, reassessing what he was about to say. "Can you tell me where Sofia is? I think she should hear this from me. I don't want her to hear about this case over the radio, not today."

The bell above the door rang lightly as Nick pushed open the door to the diner. He looked around slowly, trying to prepare himself. He spotted Sofia in a booth by herself, next to the kitchen. She had her back to him, he watched as a waitress walked by carrying a plate of food, and Sofia shot a casual glance up at her before returning to staring into her coffee.

Nick approached slowly, not wanting to alarm her. But when he reached the table and slid into the seat opposite her, he realised that her mind was only partly with her body. She seemed to out of it that it would take the place burning to the ground to alarm her.

He smiled. "Hey."

She looked up and offered a smile back, but Nick could see it took effort for her to engage in communication with anyone. "Hey."

Nick faltered, he didn't know how to approach this. All the time it took him to drive here, a hundred different scenarios turned over and over in his mind, but he eventually came to the conclusion that there was not going to be an easy way to break the news.

"Sofia, there's something I should tell you." He jumped straight in, not wanting to deal with the small talk. Acting like this would not affect her was worse. And he didn't think he could deal with it either. "I didn't want you to hear this from anyone else. The case I'm working on at the moment… It's about a missing girl."

Until that last part, Sofia watched and listened to Nick with only vague awareness, but those last words made her sit up and give him her full attention. She nodded, suddenly she turned completely numb. Nick had to fight the urge to reach across the table and embrace her. It wasn't his right anymore, that ship sailed. Instead, he let her absorb what he told her and waited for her to speak. "She went missing from Josie's school" he continued, when the silence between them got too much for Nick to take. "She's 8 years old."

Sofia let go of her mug, the contents totally forgotten about, when she had taken great comfort in it a few minutes ago. She fixed her gaze solidly on Nick. He couldn't quite read her expression and it made him sad. A year ago they were able to read each others deepest thoughts at any given moment in an instant. But everything had changed now, their connection had faded.

Sofia waited for Nick to carry on, when he didn't she took a deep breath her attention wavered. She took her eyes of Nick and stared out the window at the street outside. "Who's on the case?"

"Everyone. Brass put all his guys on the case." Nick answered as plainly as possible, not wanting to volunteer any information that may upset her. He regarded Sofia with a kind of nervous curiosity. The detachment he saw on her face put him on edge, it was the same look she had worn two years ago, and the same emotions she was trying to suppress.

He sighed inwardly, and was not sure if any air left his lungs at all, and shook himself out of his daze. He was not enjoying this stroll down memory lane. A glazed expression was creeping over Sofia's face as she watched the world outside, one that was all too familiar to Nick. She had shut down, it was the reason, ultimately, that their marriage had ended. He was not going to let her regress.

"Sofia." He outstretched his arm towards her own, but stopped before he made contact. His voice, however, was enough to rouse her from her thoughts and she looked at him, although he could tell her mind was somewhere else. "If you want to talk, I'll listen."

She smiled, and they gazed at one another for a moment in perfect understanding. "Are you going back to the school?" she finally said, "I'd like to come with you."

Nick didn't answer right away. He stared at the table, unable to look up when he spoke. "I... I don't think I can. Not yet."

Sofia didn't share Nick's inhibitions. She grabbed his hand where it lay on the table at the sign that his strength was wavering and gave it a squeeze. "I think we should be there" she said, with such certainty than Nick couldn't object. "If nothing else, we can be with Josie."