A.N: OK, so I totally screwed up and deleted the first chapter of this story and I a) don't have a copy of it anywhere; and b) don't really want to re-write it right now. Fortunately, it was a short one and can be summarized as follows:

Sara finds herself at the business end of a fairly loony guy's gun outside a crime scene. She has her own gun drawn on him as well, but just as she thinks he's going to lose it and shoot her, Brass and Grissom show up and the dude gets scared and runs off. She thinks she's fine (read: denial) and although she's obviously shaken, she tries to blow it off and start processing the scene with Grissom and Greg (who arrived at the end, after the face-off between Sara and the gunman).

OK, hope that'll suffice for now. And now back to our heroine, Sara Sidle! lol

Sara gathered up her evidence bags and looked around her. The last hour had flown by as she robotically processed the scene. As long as she'd been searching for evidence, she'd managed to stay focused, but as soon as she had a moment to stop and think...

And her hands wouldn't stop shaking.

It didn't help matters when Greg had finally gotten the details of what had gone down, and had started to grill her.

"Are you sure you're OK"

She shook her head slightly in amusement. "Greg, seriously... I'm fine."

"But he had you... Shit, Sara. That was close. He could have-"

"He didn't. He didn't shoot, Greg. So don't even-"

"But how long were you standing there, face to face, old west style?"

This whole line of questioning was making her more than a little uncomfortable, and she was trying to ignore the tingle of anxiety that was beginning to resurface.

Grissom stood off to the side, having arrived just in time to catch Greg's barrage of questions. He'd been about to interrupt when he saw Sara struggling to remember how long she'd been face to face with the gunman. He watched her as her brow furrowed in confusion.

"Um... I don't know..."

For a second she flashed back to those terrifying moments... or was it minutes? Time seemed to have warped during the frightening encounter. "Anyway, it's over. And it's no big deal, honestly. Can we move on already?"

Greg grinned in response. "Yeah, but man... You must have looked all Jennifer Garner in Alias, packin' heat... Whoh. I wish I'd gotten to see that."

Sara laughed in spite of herself. Leave it to Greg...

"Greg, just help me process, will you?"

Grissom finally decided to make his presence known. "Actually, Sara I'd like you to run with the evidence we have. I need Trace on those clothes asap."

"Uh, yeah... OK."

He looked at her with concern, still wondering at the slight confusion he'd seen on her face when Greg had been questioning her. "Sara, are you sure you're alright? What happened back there was... Well, that would unsettle most people."

She sighed and looked at the ground. "Really, I'm OK. Yeah... It was... Well it was crazy, but... Look, I'm fine, I swear"

He regarded her silently for a moment, then sighed himself. "Alright. But when you get a chance..."

She found that despite the fact that she was finally over him, she was still waiting for him to offer to sit down and talk with her about things, one on one.

But then he continued. "...I think maybe you should go see your P.E.A.P counsellor about all this."

She almost laughed out loud. It was obviously back to business as usual for him.

She knew that it wasn't that he didn't care- she could see that he did. But this was as much as he had to give. It was all he would ever have, and ironically it had been in counselling that she'd finally come to accept that. Intimacy and Grissom were two separate things altogether, and never the twain shall meet... or at least not for her.

And finally, she was OK with that.

She nodded slowly. "Yeah, sure... Probably a good idea."

He looked somewhat surprised at how easily she aquiesced, but then he nodded as well. "OK. Good. I'll see you back at the lab."

"You got it boss."

"Are you sure you're alright, Sar?"

Nick's concerned brown eyes watched her carefully, Warrick looking similarly surprised beside him.

"Yeah, Sara... Are you sure you're cool? I mean, damn... You got lucky back there."

She smiled at her co-workers, trying to allay their worries. "Yep. I'm cool. It was no big deal."

Nick looked at her skeptically, but before he could say anything she jumped in again.

"What are you guys doing here anyway? Your shift was over hours ago."

"Ah, something came up half an hour before the end, so here we are. We're just about to head back out, actually." Warrick looked at Nick for confirmation and the other man nodded.

"Yeah... yeah we are." He faced Sara again. "Listen, you sure you're -"

"Nick. Come on. I'm trained for this stuff. It's so not a big deal. Go finish your case."

He shrugged and gave her a look that said "if you say so" before following Warrick down the hallway. Sara took her evidence to Trace and then started to head back to her vehicle, hoping to be able to do some more processing at the site.

But before she even reached the doors that led to the main lobby, she felt as if someone had reached inside her chest and was squeezing slowly but firmly on her lungs. She took shallow breaths in an attempt to compensate, but her lungs still felt compressed.

Afraid to be seen in her current state, she clumsily made her way back towards the locker room. Thankfully she didn't encounter anyone in the hallway before she found herself pushing through the locker room door.

"Dude, my pager's dead. My spare battery's in my locker."

Warrick frowned at Nick. "Don't you have your cell?"

"Yeah, but I don't want to be without my pager too. Relax. I'll be, like, 5 minutes." Nick grinned at his colleague as he turned to head back towards the building. Warrick called out to his retreating back.

"Just hurry up, man. Catherine's waiting for us."

Nick raised his hand in understanding as he continued into the building.

Sara sat down heavily on the bench trying to catch her breath. She closed her eyes and began to concentrate on calmly clearing her airway, envisioning oxygen moving easily into her lungs. Slowly, she began to breathe easier and she leaned her head back slightly to blow out a small stream of air in relief.

And then she gasped as an image of the crazed man aiming his weapon at her flashed through her mind, the barrel of his gun now the size of a cannon in her fear-addled memory. She opened her eyes quickly, a frightened tear slipping down her suddenly pale face.

"Sara?"

She whipped her head around to see Nick standing at the door, a look of concern on his face.

"Oh, Nick... I..." She stood up quickly and turned, opening her locker and proceeding to rifle around as if in search of some important item. She tried to inconspicuously wipe the tear from her face as she faced her locker. "I thought you guys were heading somewhere?"

"Sara."

He spoke quietly from right behind her, and something in his tone made her stop her nervous fidgeting. He watched her shoulders slump as she looked down at the ground at her feet. He reached out a tentative hand and placed it on her shoulder.

At his contact, Sara felt the tears threatening again, but she tried to present a tougher image as she slowly turned to face him... And that image crumbled quickly as she saw the worry in his eyes, and he started to rub her shoulder gently. She tried to speak through a watery half-grin.

"I guess... I guess I'm not OK after all." Her voice broke on the last word and she sniffled as the tears began to fall more heavily.

Without a word, Nick pulled her into his embrace and cradled her head carefully with one hand, his other massaging her back softly. And when he whispered quietly, "It's OK, Sara... I'm here," she started to cry in earnest.