A/N: Thanks to April and Rosa for helping me with some . . . ahem . . . research!
Chapter 92
Nick stared at Sara, eyes wide. They were sitting in an all-night deli waiting for everyone's lunch orders to be made; making the two "babies" of the team go pick everything up had been Catherine's idea.
"You ordered what?"
"What's it to you?" she asked defensively. "It's not like it's an unusual thing for a human to eat." She sat back against the back of the booth, glaring at him. "Don't look at me like that!"
"I'm not looking at you like anything," Nick countered. "I'm just . . . surprised." He turned the menu toward her and pointed. "But you do realize that this is what you ordered, right? Chicken Caesar Salad? Chicken Caesar Salad? Chicken . . . meat . . . dead pig . . . vegetarian? Any of this ring any bells?"
Sara scowled. "Zip it, cowboy. This topic is not open to discussion." In truth, she had no idea why she'd ordered the meat dish, other than knowing that suddenly it just didn't seem as repulsive a concept as it had before. Besides, no one else in the lab was a veggie, so whose position was it to judge her eating habits? No one's! And chicken caesar just sounded so damn appetizing! She could almost feel the drool forming.
Nick shrugged. "Whatever you say, babe, but you're gonna be hearing it from the rest of the team too in a few minutes, so you'd better get used to it."
"Jesus Nick, it's chicken! I'm not bringing about the end of the world by consuming a small amount of a type of small, feathered fowl that is raised on farms for the express purpose of being eaten to begin with!" She said this with such vehemence that Nick actually leaned back in his seat, afraid that she would lash out at him. "Sorry," Sara sighed. "I'm a little on edge today. Grissom freaked out on me this morning."
Oh, not again. Those two were always going at it . . . one way or another. "Want to talk about it?" he offered in his best big brother voice.
Before Sara could speak, the boy working the deli counter called, "Order 547!"
Nick looked down at the ticket he held. "Oops, that's us. Hold that thought." He walked to the counter, exchanged a few words with the boy, paid, and took a good grip on the four large bags he was handed. Walking back toward Sara, he jerked his head toward the door. "No hands. Get the door for me?"
Sara jumped up, then quickly sat back down again. Geez, what was wrong with her today? First she fell asleep on the floor with the dog, then she was having meat for lunch, and now she was having another dizzy spell. This was going to take some thought when she could get some time alone, Sara decided. Catching Nick's puzzled look, she sighed. "Sorry. Dizzy."
Nick frowned. "You okay?" He juggled the bags around until he had a semi-free hand, which he laid against her forehead, ignoring the dark look she gave him. "You don't feel warm . . . hmm, had your blood pressure checked lately?"
"No, Nicky. You can check it after lunch if it excites you that much, but for now can we please just head back to CSI?" She stood up, more slowly this time, and managed to make it through the door with Nick at her heels.
When they were standing in front of the Tahoe again, Nick shrugged in response to her earlier comment. "Whatever you say, boss. I'm just looking out for you."
Climbing into the passenger seat of the Tahoe, Sara smiled at him. "I know. And I'm hard to look out for, I'm told." She took a deep breath, trying to clear the last of the dizziness out of her head, and was suddenly assaulted by the smell of tuna. Her stomach clenched and she bit her lip. There was no way she was going to throw up in the car with Nick. She'd already done that with Grissom, and she doubted that Nick would be as understanding about her throwing up on him. Quickly taking another breath, she held it and decided to just try not to breathe the rest of the way back.
Nick looked over at Sara after a few minutes, wondering why she was so silent. He was both surprised and a little amused to see that her face was a strange color that was somewhere between blue and green. "Carsick?" he asked with a small chuckle. "Not my Sara!" When she didn't respond, he realized that maybe she really did feel sick. "Need me to pull over, Sar?"
Still silent, Sara shook her head and waved him on, then rolled down her window and stuck her head outside.
"Umm . . . Sara?" Nick tried again.
"Yeah." Her voice drifted back from outside the car.
"Are you ok? Still nauseous?"
"Mmmm."
"What?"
"No I'll be, uh, fine. Keep driving."
Nick frowned. "It's going to suck if you throw up on or in this car, Sidle, so if you have to puke just tell me to pull over and you can do it on the side of the road." He reached out a hand to rub her back comfortingly. "It's fine, hon. Just let me know." Privately, though, he wasn't so sure. In the three years he'd known Sara Sidle, he could count on one hand the number of times she'd been ill, and all of those times had involved either a decomp or saliva. He wondered what was going on with her.
Feeling better, Sara took another deep breath of fresh air and pulled her head back into the car, rolling her window back up. "Phew," she said with a smile. "The tuna just got to me. Who ordered that shit?"
"Er, I did," he said cautiously.
"Oops," she said. "Sorry. But it really does reek, what were you thinking?" She shook her head, which by now she should have known not to do. This time it brought with it not only the vertigo, but also the nausea. "Um, Nick."
"Yep," he said, eyes on the road.
"Pull over."
"Wha?" He took one look at her face, which was again that strange color, and veered sharply toward the side of the road. "Go, go!" he ordered her, and watched as she made for the trashcan on the corner of the street.
Nick took the time to make sure he had the car in Park and that the keys were in his pocket, then jumped out and trotted after Sara. "Hey," he said softly when he got to her. She was still huddled over the garbage can, though the heaves seemed to have stopped. "What's going on, Sara? You're really scaring me."
Sara stood up and wiped her mouth with a tissue she dug out of her pocket. "Nothing's going on. I'm fine. Like I said, the smell just got to me." She offered him a small smile. "I'm fine, really. Let's keep this between us, ok? I don't want anyone else to know that I got carsick and tunasick at the same time."
This was not good, Nick thought. It was time to call in the reinforcements when they got back to the lab. Telling Sara that, though, would be suicide, and so he agreed. "Sure, Sara. Between us."
