TITL-E: No More Death, No More Murder

AUTHOR: Micky Fine

DISCLAIMER: You guys know the ones from the show don't belong to me. And you also know that anyone that isn't from the show is mine.

AUTHOR'S NOTE: I am SO sorry this has taken so long, I've just been super busy lately. I had planned to have this finished by now but obviously that hasn't worked out. Thank you for being so patient.

Reviews always welcome.

Nick and Warrick walked into Sara's hospital room and stopped short. Neither of them had seen her at the scene.  The last time Nick had seen her she was still in shock from nearly being shot. Checking his watch he was surprised to see that it had only been two days ago. It had seemed like an eternity that Sara had been here, still and motionless, not aiding them in the investigation, helping them catch the bad guy. It was wrong.

Warrick walked up to Sara's side, and bending over, he whispered into her ear.

"Hey Sar, think you could wake up and make this interview easier for us?"

There was no response, except for a slight beep from the brain monitor. Turning to look at it, Warrick saw a relatively small spike in activity.

"Alright then. I guess that means we're just going to have to do this the hard way."

Once again there was no response.

"Ok because I know you can hear me I'm gonna tell how this is gonna go. I'm gonna tell you what's been going on with the case and at the end I'll ask you a question and Nick is going to chip in there.   The whole time we're going to monitor your brain activity. If there are any significant spikes we're gonna take that as a 'yes'. Sound fair?"

There was once again no noise except for the beep of the brain monitor, which showed a large spike.

"Good girl," Warrick whispered.

"Here we go," he began, "Catherine found out from Ashley about your break-up with Jake. And then Brass told us about the restraining order. After that, Cath checked with the airports and found out that Jake flew into Vegas from Africa last week. Did you know about that?"

There was no unusual activity on the brain monitor.

"That's a no. Well, we didn't think so. But now is the part where Nick comes in. Did your attacker sound like this?"

At Warrick's question, Nick took his cue to speak.

"Hey there Sara, hope you'll get better soon. It'd be great to see you right as rain," Nick said, with a wonderful Texan drawl.

Almost simultaneously from when Nick began to speak there was a loud beep from the brain monitor and a huge spike lit up the screen.

"Ok Sara, calm down. We got the message," Warrick said, patting her hand.

"I'm gonna go phone Grissom," Nick said as he headed out the door, "let him know that our suspicions were right."

"K," Warrick replied and then turned back to Sara.

"I have well wishes from some of the guys at the casino, I'm sure you know who. Everyone's worried about you, Sar. You shouldn't be unconscious for this long. I think Grissom's about ready to have a breakdown. He's really worried about you and he keeps disappearing. And then when he comes back...it's like he wants to be somewhere else. But all this talk isn't gonna help you wake up so I'll let you get back to healing."

As he stood up he gave Sara a light peck on the forehead.

"Hang in there," he whispered.

Warrick joined Nick in the parking lot, just as he finished hanging up.

"They wouldn't let me use my cell phone in the hospital," Nick said in explanation.

Warrick nodded as he pulled out the keys for the lab's Explorer.

"Hey, do you mind if I go up and have a quick visit with Sara while we're here?" Nick asked.

"Nah, just did that myself," Warrick replied, I'll meet you at the truck."

"Sounds good," Nick said, as he headed back into the building.

Nick walked down the corridor towards Sara's room. He tried to smile at several of the strained faces sitting in chairs along the hall, but he felt the emotional strain himself. It was hard to deal with the fact that someone he cared about had been on the verge of death and could still slip in that direction. As he got closer to the room, he noticed a tall man with dark hair slink into her room. Nick tried to figure out why the man looked so familiar when it suddenly hit him. That was Jake. The Jake. The one who had shot Sara. The one who was now in her room. He quickly grabbed a nurse.

"Go phone the police now and tell them that Jake Sullivan has just been seen entering Sara Sidle's hospital room. Tell them that Nick Stokes is going to attempt to apprehend him."

The nurse stared at him in shock for a moment before running down the hallway at full speed. Nick watched her leave and slowly walked towards the door, his gun drawn. He peered around the corner and saw Jake, holding a pillow, speaking to Sara. He leaned in closer to the doorframe and listened; maybe the bastard would incriminate himself.

"Sara, Sara, Sara, why didn't you listen? I told you if you were just quiet and you came back with me to San Francisco everything would be fine. But no dahling, you had to go and fight me, and look where that got you. Here in this hospital bed, with a hole in you. If you had just listened...but you didn't. And I can't have you waking up now so I'm going to have to do this."

Nick watched in horror, as Jake placed the pillow over Sara's head and began to smother her.

"I'm sorry Sara," Jake whispered quietly, with a tear running down his cheek.

"FREEZE!!!!!" Nick yelled, pointing his gun at Jake.

Jake whirled around, in the process dropping the pillow. As soon as he saw the gun, he put his hands in the air.

"Hands behind your head," Nick heard a voice say behind him.

He turned and saw Brass just behind him. He sighed with relief. They'd caught the bad guy and everything else would be good now. He turned and looked back at Sara's silent form. He hoped.

Grissom sat down in the now familiar chair beside Sara's bed. He sighed deeply and held her hand in the familiar way that he had in the past two days. Two days. It had only been two days. It seemed like an eternity. He squeezed her hand.

"It's me again. I know you must be thinking, 'Grissom is here again? Doesn't he ever work anymore?' and it would seemingly appear that I'm not. But I'll use the excuse that I'm wrapping up the investigation by informing the vic...you of what has happened with the case. You were here for the apprehension so you know we got him. He's been charged with two counts of attempted murder and with the fantastic evidence we have it should put him away for a good long time. So it's safe now for you to wake up, he can't hurt you anymore."

He was silent for several minutes, hoping for a Sleeping Beauty moment when she would just blink and open her eyes and smile at him. It didn't work.

"Well, I have some confessions to make. And they involve you and me. Us, if you will. Before you were shot, I wasn't at the office. I was out driving around, thinking about you and how I could possibly ask you out to dinner. And wondering if you would even say yes after all the times I've said no. Then this happened. It was a huge wake up call. It was like one of those neon signs down on the strip said 'Grissom, Sara is very important to you.' I've never told you that before. Well, except for now. And this doesn't really count because you can't even open your eyes, or tell me what is going on in that head of yours."

He paused again and just gazed at Sara's face and thought about all the things he might miss with her if she never again opened her brown eyes.

Pulling her hand close to his face, and closing his eyes he said, "If I could just turn back time, if it's even possible to find a way."

"Please don't start singing Cher songs, it would ruin the moment."

Grissom's head whipped up to see Sara's eyes open and a weak smile on her lips.