"Ow!" Greg jumped. "Go easy man!"

"Well stop squirming then!" Nick countered, gripping his friend's jaw to hold it still while he cleaned the wound on his face.

"Anyone ever tell you that you'd make a terrible doctor?" Greg sulked, gritting his teeth against the pain.

"Hey, I'm doing the best I can." Nick protested. "You want to be grateful that accident wasn't any worse. You could have smashed your face up real good."

Greg chose not to respond to the remark, a small frown settling on his face.

"Do you think Sara's okay?" He asked instead.

"Yeah, she'll be fine." Nick assured him. "She was a bit dazed at first, but she seems alright now. Besides, Catherine will look after her."

x X x

She stripped off her shirt, tossing it onto the floor. Catching a glance of herself in the murky mirror, she winced.

"Oh God." She murmured, pawing at her tired eyes. She looked every bit like someone who had just walked away from a car wreck.

With a weary sigh, she gave up on her appearance and slipped a t-shirt on to sleep in, before shuffling back into the bedroom, where she was faced with a perplexing sight.

"Sara?" She questioned cautiously. "What are you doing?"

Sara continued to intensely scrutinise the pillow in her hands.

"When do you suppose these were last wash..."

"Don't." Cath cut her off abruptly, finally realising what she was doing and not liking it one bit. "Do not finish that question; I am putting all my energy into not asking that question."

"But..."

"No." She placed a finger over Sara's lips, silencing the statement. "Do not put that thought in my head."

Dissatisfied with this result, Sara tossed the pillow back onto the bed and folded her arms defiantly.

"I'm not sleeping here." She declared.

"I'm afraid," Catherine informed her lightly, tugging the sheets back, "you don't have a choice in that."

"I'll go back to the bus." Sara stated coolly, despite the unfeasibility of the statement. Sure enough, Cath looked her up and down pointedly, a smile playing on her lips.

"Dressed like that?" She queried, gesturing to the shorts and tank top Sara had hurriedly thrown on once Cath finished cleaning her injuries. Sara pursed her lips petulantly.

"Fine. I'll go sit down in the lobby until morning." She offered instead.

"No, you won't." Catherine climbed into the bed and shuffled for a moment, trying to assess the comfort of the mattress.

"What, you're not going to let me?" Sara challenged, only half-joking.

"No, I'm not." Cath agreed blithely. "And since I have the key, you don't really have much say in it."

Sara's eyes flashed to the door. She vaguely recalled their sinister landlady handing Catherine a key when they walked in, but she hadn't taken a lot of notice. She also realised now, to her despair, that she hadn't seen it since.

"Where is it?" She asked, her eyes narrowing suspiciously.

"Nope." Cath shook her head. "It stays with me. Get into bed."

Sara sank down onto the mattress, making no effort to actually get under the covers, and dragged a hand through her hair.

"I never wanted to come on this trip." She exhaled. "I knew it would be a bad idea."

With a sympathetic smile, Cath sat forward and reached out a hand, grazing her back lightly.

"Honey ... since neither of us can go anywhere, can we talk about what happened now? Please?"

Sara shifted her gaze slightly to the side, but didn't quite meet her eye.

"I already apologised for that." She said softly.

"I know." Cath hummed. "I know you did, but that's not what I'm looking for. I want to talk, properly. That means you're going to have to look at me."

Reluctantly, Sara did as requested. Catherine smiled sadly at her timid expression. Taking her gently by the arm, she tugged her up towards the top of the bed and encouraged her under the sheets.

"Helen told me a little about what you said to her in your sessions." She explained once they were both reasonably comfy propped up against the headboard. "That you have, in the past, misread certain signals from people."

"Maybe." Sara conceded, rubbing at the bump on her head.

"Is that what happened the other day?" Cath pressed gently, reached out a hand to stop the absentminded action.

"I don't know, I guess." Sara shrugged, dropping her hand into the blanket pooled in her lap and letting her gaze follow its path.

"Honey, you do know that that can't happen, right?" Catherine said as delicately as she could. "Even if I were interested, it wouldn't be allowed."

"I know." Sara slunk down against the scarred wooden headboard behind her. "I wasn't expecting anything to happen. I just ... wasn't thinking, I guess. I'm sorry, I never wanted to mess things up between us at work."

With a small smile, Catherine wrapped an arm around her neck, pulling her closer and pressing a soft kiss to her temple.

"I don't want this to change anything between us," she insisted. "I've really enjoyed working with you recently; I don't want to lose that."

Sara blinked up at her optimistically.

"So you're not going to send me back to Grissom?"

"I wouldn't dream of it." Catherine promised. "Just don't go surprising me like that again."

Sara chuckled bashfully, eternally grateful for the darkness covering her blush.

"I won't." She agreed.

Catherine dragged her into an embrace, careful to avoid grazing any areas that she knew were injured.

Thankfully, the cuts she had suffered as a result of the broken windows were superficial and most of the bleeding had already stopped by the time they had arrived at the little hotel. Not that Catherine had been overly concerned, but it had been nice to confirm her suspicions. And, although the brunette had obviously been uncomfortable, she had sat perfectly still and let her supervisor tend to her wounds without a word of complaint – something that Catherine knew was desperately hard for the cagey young woman.

And she didn't need Helen to explain to her why that was. Sara's history spoke for itself where her fear of physical intimacy was concerned.

"Hey," Sara asked at last, reluctantly pulling out of the hug and wrapped her arms protectively around herself. "Can I ask something now?"

"Sure." Cath agreed, reaching up to tuck a loose strand of dark hair behind Sara's ear affectionately.

"What the hell is that noise?"

x X x

Nick turned and glared over his shoulder when Greg caught the back of his heel a second time.

"Sorry." The younger man mouthed apologetically.

"Just hold that thing steady will you?" Nick asked, gesturing to the cell phone Greg was using as a torch. It didn't illuminate much of the hallway, but it was all they had.

They had tried to tune the noises out at first; attempting to convince themselves that it was the girls moving around in the next room, or Grissom and Warrick, or perhaps the creepy landlady.

But then they had gotten louder – whining and scraping, like heavy furniture being dragged across the floor. Unless Catherine and Sara had picked an inopportune moment to take up feng shui, it was doubtful that noise was coming from their room.

After a brief argument about whether they should just ignore it and go to bed or get up and investigate, Nick had finally pulled rank. And now here they were, creeping down the deserted corridor in the most meagre of light, with absolutely no idea what they were actually looking for.

They both froze, tilting their heads to the side in unison. Was that a floorboard creaking behind them, or just the wind rattling the old windowpanes?

Shaking off the feeling trying to make itself at home in his bones, Nick took another step forward, before stilling again.

He had definitely heard it that time.

Reaching one hand behind him, he felt for Greg's wrist and tugged the younger man closer. Both of them pressed their backs tight against the wall behind them and Greg switched off the torch, allowing them to disappear into the shadows.

Further down the hall, where they had just come from, the darkness appeared to be moving. They could almost have believed it was a trick of the mind, if it weren't for the shallow breathing getting louder and louder as the indistinct shape approached them.

Out of the corner of his eye, Greg caught sight of Nick crouching down slightly and mimicked the action. The breathing appeared to be almost upon them now, when the source of it appeared to stop and hesitate in the middle of the hallway for a moment. It was then, with a sudden burst, that the Texan launched himself off the wall squarely into the shadowy figure.

"Whoa! What the fuck!" Warrick spluttered, using his heightened adrenaline to react to Nick's speed with strength and hurling his mate back into the wall.

"Rick?" Greg asked, switching on the torch on his phone again and aiming it directly into startled green eyes.

"Damn!" The CSI snarled, attempting to protect his corneas from the bright light beam. "What the hell are you two doing?"

"Us?" Nick wheezed, clutching his chest. "What are you doing?"

Before either party had chance to provide an explanation, the door that Nick was leaning against was thrown open, causing him to stumble backwards into the room, where he was unexpectedly tackled to the ground.

"Damn, Nick!" Catherine gasped, appearing in his line of sight as he lay sprawled on the ground. "What the hell were you doing out there?"

"What was I doing?" He demanded, echoing his question to Warrick a moment ago, as he picked himself and Sara up off the weathered old carpet. "What are you two doing?"

"We heard something outside the door." Sara explained, wincing against the sudden pain in her ribs. The impact of the car accident was starting to take its toll on her, it appeared. Perhaps rugby tackling Nick as he fell through the door hadn't been her smartest move.

"That would have been these two playing Scooby Doo." Warrick explained gesturing to the men. "You girls alright in here?"

"No." Catherine snapped, sliding an arm around Sara's back. "You scared the life out of us! What are you doing skulking about in the hallway?"

"We weren't skulking," Nick argued. "We were trying to find out what that noise is."

For the first time, the rest of the team fell silent, sharing a disheartened look.

"You mean, that wasn't you?" Sara asked, feeling her heart sink.

"No, we could hear it in our room." Greg explained. "We were kind of hoping it was one of you."

"Is everyone alright?" Grissom gushed, blundering into the room late, his toothbrush still clutched in his hand.

"Yeah, we're fine." Cath hummed unconvincingly. "I think we're all probably just ..."

Whatever platitude about being tired or stressed she was about to offer died on her tongue, as a low moaning sound filled the room, dipping gradually in pitch as it rose in volume.

"Is that..." Grissom began to ask, but let the words trial off when he realised that he didn't know how to finish that sentence without questioning his own steadfast belief in science.

"Alright, that's it." Nick held up his hand. "We're all staying here tonight."

"Excuse me?" Catherine asked, exchanging a startled look with Sara.

"I think that's a good idea." Grissom agreed sombrely, checking over his shoulder and seeing nothing but blackness in the corridor. "If we're all in one room, we can keep an eye on each other."

"That's precisely what bothers me." Cath droned sarcastically, earning her a derisive look from the boss.

"It's just for one night." He pointed out. "Greg, you and Warrick go get the blankets and pillows from our rooms and bring them in here. The girls can keep the bed and we'll camp out on the floor."

Catherine narrowed her eyes for a moment, scrutinising the layout of the room.

"No," she exhaled tiredly. "You take the bed. Your back won't take sleeping on the floor."

"Are you sure?" He asked. He wasn't going to lie; the prospect of having a proper bed over the floor was appealing.

"Yes, I'm sure." She agreed, albeit with a resigned sigh. "Sara and I will take the couch."

"We will?" Sara blinked, earning her a sharp glare.

"Unless you'd rather bunk up in bed with him?"

The brunette pursed her lips, shooting Grissom a sly look, before offering a sweet smile.

"Catherine and I will take the couch."