When she next awoke, the sun still hadn't quite come up. It was brighter out, but the light was fleeting. Mostly masked by the darkness that lingered from the night before... But as much as she had always liked that time of day, she preferred to see it when she was just coming into it. Waking up to it usually meant that she had woken up from an unpleasant dream. And the one she was waking up from now was an old one she hadn't had in a long time.

In it, she was taken back to the desperate time that Nick had been six feet under, alive, in a glass box. And while everyone else on the CSI team of old had been running around looking for ways to find him, she had had this feeling like she always knew where he was. It was just that nobody in the dream would stop to listen to her... So eventually, she would always go out and find him, herself. And each time she did, he always asked her to leave with him. She never got to answer, but she always felt like she was on the edge of doing so, just before she would wake up from it.

Far and away, the most disturbing part about it at the time had always been how then-uncharacteristically angry he always behaved. Unlike in the real life experience... where he had been too scared to walk outside for a couple of weeks or more... in this dream, he had taken on the same battle-hardened demeanor right away as he had eventually gathered in their real lives. As she sat up from where she was lying against him and looked back down at him, she could see that some of it was still there, even in sleep. It wasn't that he looked angry, chest rising and falling with his steady breathing... But there was just something about his position: alert, and ready, and able to spring back to consciousness as soon as he might need to. He had recently complained about his back aching, at times. Suddenly, she wondered if his stiff sleeping had to do with it...

She moved off the couch as she started to shiver again. It was no longer cold, but she was still shaken. It had been longer since she'd had that dream than it had since she'd thought of her unceremonious arrival at the Las Vegas Crime Lab, several years earlier. And the anniversary of the events that caused it had just passed... Nobody in the lab had acknowledged it, and she guessed that was for the best, but she had never quite forgotten it. It had bothered her, even more so than her own near-death experience with Natalie Davis... She turned her head away from looking at him as the memories of seeing him in the hospital after it was gone came back into her head. The pitiful lip, she had decided to call it... That was what he had been wearing almost every time she'd seen him after that. He'd used to use it to flirt with her, then, suddenly, it had started to feel uncomfortable for them both...

She stood up and wandered into the kitchen. Surely he had some tea, or something else warm hidden in the cupboards. She didn't have to look long to find some, but she hesitated to do anything with it. She doubted he would have a problem with her making some; he did curl up with her on his living room couch... but she still wasn't sure if she wanted to actually drink it, or just follow the formalities of looking for comfort. And after a few moments of internal debate, she decided not to, with a fervent toss of the honey-peach tea bag down onto the counter. She folded her arms across herself... a gesture she was finding that she did a lot more lately... and went back into the living room.

It really was a pretty place. The decoration was sparse, but the color scheme was a little more than just the neutrality she had recently felt her own home had been painted with. That had been one of the reasons they'd picked it, her and Grissom... It was nice and adaptable... and she still valued that. But it had become a bit of a mental battle after he had used that word, "adaptable" in his announcement of their separation. To describe one of his motives for doing so... She glared at the arm rest on one of Nick's chairs, as if it were its fault that her husband had left her...

But as her mind caught up with her reason, she rocked noiselessly back and forth in the chair's comfort, and watched Nick readjust subconsciously to her sudden absence. Trying to reconcile the events of the day she'd just come through was not as easy as remembering not to blame a chair for a divorce, but she tried. And tried...

It hadn't been the first near death experience. Or the first time she'd gone to Nick for a wind down... But it was the second time since Grissom had left her. And during that first one – Basderic's attempt on her – it had been mostly Nick to the rescue, as well. It had been his idea to trap Basderic with the wire. His idea to loop Crawford in...

Oh, yeah... she thought suddenly. I should get Detective C a card, or something, shouldn't I...

But it had worked. Despite her initial doubts, it had worked... She smiled, and raised her eyes from the carpet to Nick's sleeping figure across the room. He was such a good man; he had never failed to be there for her. Whenever she would let him be... Had never failed to boost her spirit whenever she'd needed it, and often times without knowing how much she had... He had probably been tired, too – if the comfortable rhythm of his breathing was any indicator – and he hadn't had to invite her over, or even out to feed her, in the first place. But he had.

And she never had to wonder if he felt the same way; the only thing every version of her own rescue story had in common was that Nick had been relentless in the search for her. And it was a good sign, she thought, that they had come to expect such things of each other when trying times came. She doubted he had ever considered asking her to leave with him. As much as she doubted she would go if he did; she was pretty sure she was no more ready to run away with an injured man than to hold together a marriage. Obviously...

But still, as she climbed back onto the couch with him – realizing he might find it offensive if she wasn't there when he woke up – she did thank her lucky stars above that someone out there had chosen to lead Nicholas Stokes into her life. She had found him, and he had found her. What a way to build a bond... And it was enough that she still felt comfortable enough to go back to sleep that she was able to do exactly that.


Getting to work was a bit of a trial. She had woken up much warmer than she'd felt since before her last case had begun, and not too long after her mini-break in sleep before that. So she was NOT in the best of moods with the world around when she had to get up and move.

Nick was the only exception. Again... She could not manage, no matter how much she wanted to cuss out everything from the kitchen sink handle to the taxi cab's uncooperative door, to frown in his direction or harbor an angry feeling. Perhaps it was because he talked a lot, about things that didn't really matter a whole lot, in the same charming way that many men she could think of did... Maybe it was because they flirted over breakfast. But whatever it was, it kept her together long enough to brave the chilly morning air, and the somewhat wearying thought of returning to studies of the dead.

She showered at CSI, and thought of the stories he'd told long after he was done telling them. There was a particular one about fishing with his grandpa that had stood out. He'd said he hadn't gone fishing in a while, and never really thought about it next to the complications of his day-to-day, but that there was something relaxing about it out in Texas with his family. For a moment, she had been tempted to ask if she could ever go to visit them with him. It sounded lovely...

After cleaning up for the day, she stopped to brush her hair by the sink. Finn came by, and looked at her in the mirror as if she had just revealed a pair of eyes in the back of her head.

Sara smiled good naturedly. "Yeah?"

"Just checking you out," cracked Finn. "Wanted to make sure you're doing better."

"Much, thanks," said Sara. "I, uh... spent the night calming down. It's all a part of the job, sometimes. I should be used to it by now."

"Yeah?" teased Finn. "And Nick?"

She halted in one brush. "Yes?"

"Him, too, right? I heard about what happened to him. From Greg... That must've been rough."

Sara released a wistful sigh. "Uh huh."

Finn gave her shoulder a hard pat. "You two can't be doing that. Almost getting killed like that... We need you around here."

For some reason, that really annoyed Sara. She stopped again in her hair brushing, and glared at the back of Finn's shoulder in the mirror on the sink. She hoped her answer sounded less acidic out loud than it did in her head.

"I understand. Case loads, and all that... I'll be sure to pass that along."

"Not for the case loads," said Finn. She slammed her locker door shut, and hiked her bag up over her shoulder. "For the fun of you both. So be careful out there. And don't bring it up to Nick. He's your acting supervisor today."

This caught Sara by a truly genuine surprise. "What?" she asked, spinning around to look at Finn before she left the locker room completely.

"Yeah. Russell and I have been up all night. And Greg's been working with Crawford. You'll be with Nick, Morgan, and Brass today. Good luck. The rest of us are going home."

"They cleared Nick for the shooting? I thought that you couldn't act as supervisor if you were on the docket for an IA investigation."

Finn flicked her eyebrows up. "Hoping for a chance to reign on high for the day?"

Her smile was playful enough, but again, Sara felt annoyed. "I just wanted to make sure everything was okay," she said.

"Yeah, I know what you mean," said Finn. "But don't worry. Ecklie says they're basically doing this as a formality, now. We're still a priority to IA. No court in the land was ever going to convict Nick. It was one of the cleanest shoots since that kid with the gun took Russell hostage... and Nick's intentions were obviously good. You'll see what I mean when you examine the camera evidence. It actually caught some good shots of the guy who was in your car."

Sara let another relieving sigh out. "Good. Thanks, Finn."

"Don't thank me, alone!" She hoisted her bag up a little higher on her shoulder, and turned to leave the room. "It was a team effort!"

"Yeah..." Sara said to herself, quietly so in the sudden solitude. "A team effort..."


When he waltzed into his old office, he found Morgan where Russell should be.

"What's up?" she asked lightly. "No shirt troubles today?"

He inclined his head forward in mock chastising. "All good. Just lookin' for Russell."

"He already left, Supervisor Stokes. I'm supposed to give you these."

She extended a hand with two clipboards to him, and he took them between his strong, dark fingers from her light and edge-less ones. "Thank you very much," he offered absentmindedly, and began to look through them. "These our reports on what all went down yesterday?"

"Last night, actually," said Morgan. "Yesterday's are already done. That's what Hodges and I ended up doing till about two o'clock this morning."

He looked up suddenly, and grinned devilishly at her. "You sure you're up to a shift today? I need y'all on all fronts. And it's only about nine o'clock in the morning, now."

But she seemed ready for this. She folded her arms across her chest and flashed him the most Ecklie-like look he had ever seen anyone who wasn't actually Ecklie use. "I wasn't out any later than you were. I left the same restaurant you and Sara were cooling off in."

He raised his eyebrows. "Is that so? Why didn't you say 'hi'?"

"I had just gotten there about the time you left. And it looked like a very private conversation."

"Oh, just the typical," he said dismissively. "I imagine you were doing the same thing out there, yourself?"

"Something like that." She unfolded her arms, and leaned back in Russell's chair. "I was actually just texting Greg about the info on Sara's part in the case. She looked pretty shaken up. And Russell said she was just holding it together when he last saw her, so... I was trying to volunteer for the extra help." She smiled. "And, you know, the extra money."

He chuckled, and flipped back the page on the clipboard. "Never hurts, right? But don't worry, she's fine." And she was; he had seen to that, personally, and it gave him an odd feeling of satisfaction. His voice dropped as the feeling swelled throughout the rest of him. "She's fine..."

Morgan scratched the side of her neck. "Good. Because she's going to need to be for Doc Robbin's autopsy findings. They've done another round on the girl Sara found, and finally got an identity on her. From the fingerprints they were able to reconstruct..."

"Oh, good!" exclaimed Nick, enthusiastically. "That's a start. Who is it?" He scanned over the papers on both clipboards for a minute. "I don't see it on here."

Yeah," continued Morgan. "Doc asked for you two, specifically. He says it's someone you'll both want to see. I don't know what that means..."

Nick sighed. That didn't sound good... And suddenly, his enthusiasm was almost totally gone... "Me, either..."

He whipped his phone out of his pocket, and pulled up Sara's name on the contact list. There was a message from his mom he had to store away, first... "Lemme get a message sent to her to meet us there. We'll go get this all sorted out. Just the three of us..."

Morgan stood up with a joking salute. "Yes, sir."

He leaned against the door frame and laughed. "Get on down there. I'm gonna go see your dad for my dailies."


He found Ecklie by the break room, digging around under the cabinets for coffee. And after answering that message from his mom, he rapped his knuckles on the table where the coffee mug was.

"Nick," stated Ecklie. "Good. You've got those reports. Then you already know what's up. Listen, I know you've got a lot on your plate today, but I'm gonna need you to..."

For a moment, his voice faded into nothingness. His rambling kind of began to blend with itself, and the only thing Nick could hear from the sound of his talking was the hazy outline of his self-narrated dialogue. It took the mild pain he was feeling in the center of his chest and stomach, and moved a part of it up to his head. He raised one hand and rubbed at his temple...

"Can you do that?" was the next clear thing he heard from Ecklie.

"Yeah," he replied automatically. "I can. I just need to know when to show for the IA questions. So I can pass the case to Sara for a bit."

For a second or two, Ecklie did not look so happy about this proposition. "I suppose that'll have to do..." he said, seemingly more to himself than to Nick. "Um... I'll call you when it's time for that. IA are clearing out a large time block. Even if you're out in the field, they'll be patient. Just come when you get my message. We're having it in my office, not the interrogation room."

Nick sighed. If they weren't even going to hold it in interrogation, then there was pretty much no chance of this being a problem for him. He nodded in answer to Ecklie's instructions, and watched the sheriff's dramatic exit from the corner of his weary eye. Maybe there would be time to check up on his family at home, if the case went well. And maybe... if it went better, still... there would be a chance to get some approval for sudden, emergency time off to help them deal with everything that was going on at their end.

But the buzzing sound that came from his pocket, where his hand was still limply hanging onto the edges of his phone case, was a reminder from Sara to get back to work. In the form of a text that he had kinda hoped was his mother's reply...

But her attitude improvement was clear, and brought a smile out of him. And so he headed off to meet Sara and Morgan – his two ladies for the day – to get the findings on Doc's autopsy follow-up, and get the case that stood between him and his time with his family over with.