Hyperventilating and panicking, Sara was sure, were not listed among the ten most healthy things to do in a moment like that. The accident Grissom had just informed her about was not one of their usual cases, it didn't fall within the line of duty, it wasn't work. This time the victims were not strangers.

Nick was hurt. Warrick was hurt. Everything was dangerously slipping out of control, and in Sara's world that meant more than chaos. That meant terror.

Her spinning head wouldn't give her a breath. She had to get out of there and run to the hospital, she had to stand up, she needed to make it, but the more she tried, the worse she felt.

Struggling against her own despair, though, she had forgotten of one thing.

"Sara? Sara, are you okay?"

She looked down at the floor, where her cell-phone lay open, Grissom's muffled voice calling for her. She half-blindly reached out for it, somehow managing to take it tremblingly to her ear.

"Grissom…" It came out as a terrified, feeble plea. "I… I need you to drive me there… Please…" In her conditions she obviously would never be able to get there on her own.

"Sara, calm down," Grissom replied. "I'm at the hospital now, I'll send Catherine over, okay?"

Sara was yet about to nod when a flash of awareness crossed her messy thoughts. She was at home, that was true, but not where she was supposed to be. Although she hadn't told her anything, she still had the sensation the blonde knew what she was hiding. She had been right about one thing, already, and, given all the hints Nick had been dropping around, Sara by now believed her colleague had figured out the situation.

"Tell her… Tell her she knows where to find me." She muttered.

"What do you mean?" Grissom inquired. Sara let a wave of impatient aggressiveness subside before speaking again.

"Just… Just tell her. Please."

"Sure, I will. Don't worry." He stuttered, his tone revealing a hardly repressed want to detect further.

And as the call was closed, Sara felt a heavy cold mantle envelop her tightly in a safe embrace of numbness.

After what appeared to be hours, she heard the door bell ring. In a weird state of emotional trance, Sara forced herself to lurch through the house to the door. When she opened, Catherine's rueful face turned up to her, looking deeply suffering.

"Sara…"

"Let's go." She cut it off with a dull expression, grabbing her bag from the stand.

Catherine watched speechlessly as she walked out of the apartment and impassively headed toward the stairs.

"Sara," the blonde ran after her and placed a hand over her shoulder, forcing her to turn around. "Are you okay?"

Sara smiled. Yes, she was okay. She'd just left a pregnancy test somewhere in the bathroom, scared as hell to even touch it, and her boyfriend had just had a serious accident, but she was okay, of course she was.

"I'm fine." She said reassuringly. "Really. Thanks for coming to pick me up, by the way."

Stunned in front of Sara's peculiar attitude, Catherine couldn't but nod and follow her down the stairs.

-------

The first thing she saw was Warrick, pacing furiously the corridor with a long, bloody cut all along the right side of his face and a plastered arm. He was wounded, but he looked fine, and a pinch of relief took her over. Nick must have been still with the doctor. It wasn't as bad as Grissom had made it sound. Everything was going to be fine.

A broad smile bloomed on her lips as she approached Warrick, who toko a while to realise she was coming, discreetly followed by a very quiet Catherine.

"Hey!" she said brightly, hugging him carefully. "I'm glad you're okay. Where's Nick?"

He barely hugged her back, pulling apart within an eye blink. She didn't like the dark shade in his eyes when they set on her, his unharmed hand holding her arm firmly. She returned the look with the same intensity, not getting any response.

"How's he?" she asked, growing more and more anxious when her friend hesitated for so long.

"Surgery." He mumbled at last. Sara wasn't sure she had got it right.

"Excuse me?"

Warrick looked down, his fingers seizing her more firmly. He sighed, squeezing his eyes in pain, and Sara's heart cracked.

Nick was fine. He had to be.

"Warrick?"

He licked his lips in discomfort, apparently unable to raise his eyes upon her.

"I don't know why - for what miracle – I came out alive and almost unscathed, but" He finally found the courage to look at her. "That was like hell, Sara. That Hummer crashed against us so violently, there was blood everywhere, I was so scared-"

"Warrick," She held her hand up infirmly to shut him up, ghosts of tears staring filling her eyelids. "How is he?"

"The Hummer broke into your car… It was coming from our left." Sara held her breath as, one by one, each of those word made it's way through her mind. "Nick was driving…"

And just as only a few days before it had seemed to bloom, Sara's world fell to pieces in a haeartbeat, scattering at her feet with the loudest noise she'd ever heard.

"No…"

"They say he's going to make it."

"No," Sara shook her head, trying to writhe. "This is… This is not-"

"I know you are scared, but, trust me-"

"No!" she yelled furiously, plucking herself from Warrick's grip. "You don't understand, this is wrong…" she faltered weakly. "It's all wrong…"

For a brief moment her look met Catherine's, who was standing apart in one corner, arms around herself, barely keeping herself together.

"Oh my god." She breathed, hiding her face behind a hand.

A pang of pain gripped Sara, enlacing around her throat. She couldn't breathe, nor formulate any other thought than Nick's life being in danger.

She realised she couldn't stand on her feet only when Warrick grabbed her and helped her to the closest chair. She let him lead her, though unconscious of her own actions, and after what felt like a second found herself sitting with a glass of water in her hands, Warrick cowered in front of her. Catherine was being walked by a nurse to another corridor, asking her questions Sara couldn't discern.

It was a bad dream, she kept repeating it to herself over and over again, but despite that desperate mantra, she was still in that waiting room, and Nick wasn't by her side.

Warrick regarded her, smiling affably.

"You're upset now, but he'll be okay." He calmingly rubbed her back of her hand with his thumb. "We're not gonna lose our cowboy."

Sara let out a small hysterical laugh.

"It's not just this." She said, shaking. "Wish it was that easy…"

Warrick sighed and rose to sit next to her. Sara felt the urge to break down in tears, but she knew that is she would start, she would never be able to stop.

"Nick told me." He said mildly, his hand still above hers. "About everything."

Though surprised, Sara did not react as impetuously as one would have expected. She couldn't lose the control over her mixed feelings of anger, frustration and sorrow. It was such a violent emotion that it was impossible to convey.

So it was real, now. Nick had told Warrick about their engagement, she knew he had, and he had barely had the time to be relieved for having shared that secret with someone. She hadn't even counted, among all the possible cons, that their plans would be compromised by a tragedy. She had thought of arguments, or simple changes, or even betrayal, but not of what she was facing now.

Nothing was going as meant.

"This isn't fair." She sobbed, dropping her head in pain. "Why him? he's already risked his life enough so far… Why, of all the other people, him again?"

Warrick pulled her to him and started caressing her hair, trying and failing to calm her down, but Sara's human utmost limit of endurance had far been crossed.

"I know, baby, I know." Warrick whispered contritely. "It should have been me."

Sara suddenly realised how mean she had been. It hadn't been intentional, but what she had said was horrible, especially because she'd just said it in front of one of her dearest friends.

"Warrick, I'm sorry." She removed her arms from around his neck and slid them down to his chest, sniffling. "I… I didn't mean that, I swear."

"Hold in there, Sara, in a few hours it'll be over and we'll forget about this."

She forced herself to pull away and regain her control. She put on a watery smile as she wiped her glossy eyes with the sleeve of her shirt.

"I don't know what's happening to me." She said. "I'm acting like a little girl…"

"It's a delicate situation," intervened Warrick. "It's normal to get emotional…"

"No, this is not normal. Not for me." She retorted. "Damn these hormones."

For a moment it looked like Warrick was about to reply, but then a big question mark painted on his face, quickly replaced by a light of awareness.

"You're not!" he exclaimed breathlessly. Sara smiled shyly, shrugging, and tried to muster up what she hoped would sound like a nonchalant tone. She turned to meet his astounded gaze. Her heart pounded wildly within her chest as her lips departed to say those three words she had so longed to tell Nick.

"I'm pregnant."

TBC...