Disclaimer: I don't own it, I don't pretend to own it, and I don't mean to offend anyone's sensibilities.
Thank You: Stelmarta for being there! Mom because I love her! Megan for keeping in touch, despite however much of an idiot I can be.
Special Thank You: Duchess of Hell and to Saryn for the wonderful support.
Chapter Fourteen
Nick watched Sara out of the corner of his eye as they drove to her apartment; she was completely expressionless, driving with a ruthlessly controlled precision that screamed tension. A little muscle in her cheek ticked as she pulled off the freeway and into an expensive gated development of condos.
He wasn't a snob, not by a long shot, but he knew damn well that she'd never be able to afford to live here on a CSI salary. Another facet of Sara Sidle that he had a feeling she was loathe showing.
Hers was towards the far northwest corner of the lot; she parked, switched off the engine, and got out of the car wordlessly. He followed, leaving his smelly Rugby kit in the car. Her hands trembled as she fished a key out of her pocket, barely making it into the lock.
"You don't have to do this," he murmured, conscious that Sara was not comfortable with the idea of him being here.
"Yes I do," she shot back, almost angrily, and jerked the door open, she ducked in and he followed, not quite sure what to expect.
Her home was panelled, in a strong, glowing wood, cherry maybe or mahogany, and the tiles under his feet were slate, smooth and cool in the desert heat. The trim was black lacquer, leaving a decidedly Asian feel to the place, hardly surprising. She was facing him, with a glowering scowl, and looked about ready to kill someone.
Or cry.
When he held out his hand she came into his arms with a rush.
"I'm sorry," she said at last, shoulders trembling, "I shouldn't be doing this."
"What? You're welcome at my place if it'd make you feel better" he offered, thinking it was about him being in her home.
"NO," she ground out, frustrated, hand fisting in his jersey, "I shouldn't need you, I shouldn't need this…" she shook the fistful of cloth in her hand.
Hurt, he pulled back. Removing her tight grip and holding both her hands by the wrists, forcing her to meet his eyes.
"Then why am I here?" he asked, heatedly, heedless of the fright he was giving her, "What kind of stunt are you trying to pull? I've waited a long time for you, Sara, don't jerk me around."
"I'm not…I…I'm…well," she sputtered, caught by his intense gaze, and more than a little scared at his sudden anger. "Imstayinginvegas" she blurted out, all in a rush, together, and breathlessly garbled.
He tilted his head sideways, not quite sure she'd said what he thought, rather prayed, that she said. Sara looked at him wide eyed, not knowing what would happen next.
"What did you say?" he asked, softly, boring a hole into her face with his eyes.
"I. Am. Staying. In. Vegas." She repeated slowly, "I wanted to tell you."
For one long, heart-stopping moment he froze, and then all of a sudden Sara couldn't breathe because her ribs were screaming in pain from Nick's tight hold around them. It was the best feeling in the world. Just when she thought her side couldn't take it any longer, he released her. She got one good breath of air, before he cut that off as well, this time with his mouth.
It was some time later before she found herself telling him about Deng's call.
***
Nick work up to an unfamiliar ceiling.
It was smoothly plastered, and painted a soft white as opposed to his apartment's stucco-esque roughness. The lump of dead weight that had put his arm to sleep, shoved an elbow into his ribs, which, he reflected, was what had woken him in the first place. He probably had a bruise there, he thought absently.
Rolling over, he winced as blood began to again flow into his immobilized right arm. The lump, which was, of course, Sara, grunted and snuggled back into his embrace.
"Hey," he whispered, "wake up. C'mon sweetheart, rise and shine." He started trailing kisses on her neck and shoulders. Incongruity of all incongruities she wore a silky red negligee, not something he would have expected from Sara, but very, very sexy.
She threw another elbow in his general direction, but he could see the cogs starting to turn inside her head. She growled again, squirmed, stretched, but finally pried one, very suspicious looking, eye open.
"whasamattter?" she mumbled, "I's aseep"
"Nothin' darlin" he drawled, "you're beautiful in the morning, you know that?"
"Huh?" She opened another eye, blinking owlishly, and he knew she hadn't really heard a word he just said.
"I said: you're beautiful in the morning" she blinked a few more times, but smiled, sleepily, and blushed just a little. She wasn't very good at accepting praise, something he learned, to his everlasting amusement.
"C'mon" he stroked her softly, letting the silk carry his hands, "We got work to go to, remember? That nappy little thing that pays the bills."
"Sleep" she muttered, and rolled right over, into his chest, and snuggled.
"Work," he said insistently, "we got some people to deal with, remember? We talked about this last night."
She grunted again and sat up; the memory of her mission in life had jolted her out of whatever lethargy she'd been in.
"Food or shower?" she asked.
"Food," he decided, wanting to make her a meal of actual food, instead of the garbage she kept in her fringe.
"OK" and she started to roll out of the shaky double bed they'd shared for the night. He trapped her waist and captured her mouth, not letting it go until her eyes were as foggy now as they'd been when she first woke up.
Standing at the kitchen countertop in his boxers he tried to make sense of Sara and the non-existent contents of her cupboards. Instead of having cereal or cans or boxes of whatnot in her kitchen cabinets, like a normal human being, Sara had a carefully organised forensic library. Alphabetised and cross referenced by case files and sorted by her own, very unique, filing system.
He opened the fridge; she had three different boxes of takeout, several two-litres of Diet Mountain Dew, and a piece of pot roast that waved back at him when he opened the door. There were however, three dilapidated looking eggs, and a few slices of Kraft psudo-cheese.
Deciding against take-out, he grabbed the eggs and cheese and tossed the soured milk and green pot roast. Finding a pan, so clean looking it was probably never used, and some butter, he proceeded to make an egg-and-cheese omelette big enough for them to split. Sara started the water in the shower, and Nick closed his eyes for a moment, taking in the domestic bliss of fixing his woman breakfast on a warm Vegas morning.
***
Catherine Willows was in considerably less than domestic bliss this morning; Eddie had thrown another one of his temper tantrums in the foyer of her home, right in front of Lindsay, and made everyone late for school. She dragged her overtired body to work, only to discover Gil, petting Sara's left-behind forensic kit with a look on his face that resembled a puppy dog that had been kicked by its master.
He put it away quickly, but when they got called out to a scene of multiple bodies, with some seriously serious implications, he took both his little Rubbermaid kit and her more rugged Field & Stream tackle box.
She stopped him, long enough to let him know that she'd seen and understood, then gently hugged his shoulder and continued onwards, calling Nick, Warrick, and for lack of another set of hands, Greg.
Kneeling at the site of the murders, for multiple murders there were, Catherine reminded herself why it was she continued to do this job.
"Whew this is nasty," Warrick muttered, ever the delicate gentleman, "Looks like they perp has been using this area as a dump site for years. Why the hell didn't we catch this before?"
"It would appear that our perpetrator hadn't been speeding before,"Grissom said smoothly, "If Officer Mendoza hadn't put on her lights to try and pull over the suspect, she never would have would seen the body being dumped from the car."
Catherine paused in her careful combing of the immediate scene. They were on a bluff that jutted out from underneath a twisting one-lane highway in the middle of the Nevada desert. Wild cacti and scrub bushes covered the whole area, making it damn near impossible for anything but a mountain goat to traverse.
"Heyyyyy" Greg slid down the bluff to join them, bubbly, for it was one of his few excursions in the field, "H2O anyone? Weatherman says it'll be a stinky day. Don't want to de-hydrate, do we?"
"Great" Catherine muttered, and accepted his proffered bottle of Aqua Fina. As she tilted back her head to gulp down some water she spotted a black Chevy Tahoe coming slowly around the bend.
Suddenly her heart rate tripled, it was Nick. She was sure of it.
If anyone, Nick would know about Sara, weather she was actually coming back to CSI or whether Catherine would have to nurse Grissom, and not so incidentally herself, through some seriously bad separation feelings.
Catherine turned her back, not wanting to see who got out of the car. If he was alone, then someone she was dearly fond of wasn't going to be back. Ever. She walked to where Grissom was holding court, not wanting to hear that the younger woman had left for good anymore than Grissom would.
"So what do we have?" she asked him, trying to get her mind back on the case, "Same guy, presumably, multiples, remote drop-off, I'm thinking serial. Not a first timer either. He's got experience."
"It would appear, roughly speaking; that this is the freshest body, dropped in the morning, and this over here is…"
"Oooo," squealed an enthusiastic voice that made Gil freeze in place, "Bones!"
They turned, almost as a unit, and saw, who else, but Sara, red-faced from the exertion of the decent and smiling that damn half-smile that drove Catherine half-nuts, skidding to a halt at the scene. Nick was at her side, with his hand in hers, helping support them both down the embankment.
"Sorry I'm late," she apologised blandly, but Catherine could see the tension in her body as she stood before them, motionless, as if awaiting their judgement.
Gil blinked a few times, rapidly.
It was the closest 'Grissom' expression to I've-been-taken-totally-off-guard-but-I'm-pretending-I-was-expecting-it-anyhow. Noting their conjoined hands, he gave Nick one of his 'Grissom-not-happy' glares, but Nick stood his ground, squaring his shoulders, meeting his eyes, and daring disapproval.
Wordlessly Gil reached down and handed Sara the tough tackle-box that she used as her kit.
"As long as you're here," he said softly, locking eyes with her then warily flashing back to Nick.
"Count on it," she grinned, her smile lighting up the desert in a way the sun could never touch. "Lemme guess, you want me to gather the bones, determine how many bodies, what time, what form of death, and call Terri to get her opinion as soon as she can make it. Right?"
He quirked his head, with a little smile himself, and made a gesture for her to precede him towards the half decomposed corpses, all the while following Nick with his eyes, an unspoken challenge.
Some serious male ego needed to be smoothed, Catherine thought absently, standing stock still, and having to remind herself to breathe. That wasn't a task she planned on relishing. She turned to Nick, who'd been watching Grissom closely as well.
"Is she…"
Warrick snuck up on them from the other side of the scrub, popping out when Grissom turned away. Greg, with the water bottles leaking from his inattention, watched Sara with undisguised pleasure, another emotional pitfall in the making.
"Oh yeah," Nick grinned, satisfied and happy, his eyes twinkling behind his sunglasses, "oh yeah."
"Well, hell, never a dull moment here." Warrick said, shaking his head, "You'd think we never had anything better to do."
Nick chuckled as the team, all of it, settled down to the business at hand. Sure there were still a few more, minor, issues to deal with, but they were all together and that was the important part. Everything else was a detail.
Finis
