The rain finally stopped falling and the clouds moved on as quickly as they
had arrived, leaving a starlit sky over the desert. Nick and Sara still
sat huddled next to each other under the cave-like indentation in the
rocks. Their wet clothes clung to their bodies and they both shivered
under the space blankets Nick had pulled out his pack.
He glanced over at her. "Do you want to try and hike out? It's pretty
dark, but at least the clouds are gone."
She raised an eyebrow at him. "If we do, will you stop asking me questions about my sex life?"
He chuckled. "Hey, I'm not the one who brought it up in the first place. You were the one who went into the nitty gritty details about you and I having sex right here and why the location would be a bad idea for your backside."
Sara grunted as she stood up. "Let's hike." She had become a bit agitated as they had sat there. True, she was incredibly attracted to the soft spoken Texan; however, she wasn't really sure what she truly thought about workplace entanglements, especially after Grissom so firmly rebuffed her. Sara heard Nick stand up and follow her in the darkness. She hadn't taken more than twenty steps when she tripped on a rock and broke her fall with her hands. She let out a stream of curses.
Nick's voice broke through darkness. "Sara?" He had his flashlight in hand and quickly made his way to her side as she stood up and tried to dust herself off.
"What?" Her tone was sharp as she rubbed the palms of her hands gingerly together.
Nick let out a measure breath. He could tell that she was pissed off. "Are you ok?" Concerned edged his words.
"I'm fine, I just tripped." She crossed her arms in front of her body.
Nick reached over and placed his hand on her shoulder.
She stiffened and recoiled at his touch and a bit of anger flashed in her eyes.
Nick raised a curious eyebrow. "Did I miss something in the last thirty seconds?"
Sara closed her eyes and clenched her jaw for a moment before responding. "Can we just hike? I really don't need to spend the entire night up here so I can develop hypothermia and have to share body heat with you, ok."
Nick tried to swallow the wry smile that threatened to break across his face. "Is that what this is about?"
Sara looked at him defensively. "Nick, I just don't know if it's such a good idea for me to be attracted to you."
Nick chuckled. "Oh, and you have control over that? I thought attraction was something that just happened."
She huffed at him and turned around. "Would you just get up here with your damn flashlight so we can get out of here?"
"Fine." Nick walked in front of Sara and shone his flashlight on the path and began hiking.
Sara followed behind him and they hiked in silence for quite a while before either of them spoke.
Nick's voice was tentative as he spoke to her over his shoulder. "Sara, what's going on?"
"Nick, just leave it alone, you do not want to go there." Sara had an edginess to her voice.
"Go where? I'm not really sure what happened back there. Do you mind filling me in?" Nick was frustrated, but he hoped it didn't show in his voice.
Sara let out a deep breath. "Just drop it, ok?"
Nick stopped in his tracks and turned around.
Sara almost bumped into him before she realized that he'd stopped.
Nick's large hands rested on his narrow hips as he leveled his gaze at her. "I don't want to."
She stammered. "What?"
Nick narrowed his gaze at her in the darkness. "I said I don't want to drop it. I want to know what the hell happened back there."
"Nick." There was a warning tone in her voice.
Nick heard it, but he ignored it. He for one wasn't intimidated by Sara Sidle. "Sara."
She glared at him. "We kissed, ok. That's all. Happy?"
Nick shook his head in disbelief. "Sara, that was not just a kiss, and did you conveniently forget the fact that you were the one who brought up the topic of having sex with me."
Sara felt flustered. "Let's just hike, ok?" There was an edge to her voice that bordered on panic.
Nick observed the change in her demeanor with concern. He had a hint of insight and he decided to press her. "Sara, what are you afraid of?"
"What makes you say that?" Sara felt defensive and had a sudden urge to run.
"You sound scared." He paused for a moment and studied her. "I'm not going to hurt you. What are you afraid of?" Nick's voice was gentle, but insistent.
Sara blinked at him in the darkness, their faces illuminated slightly by the moon and stars, and a shiver ran through her even as she wrapped the space blanket around her body more tightly.
Nick took a deep breath. "Sara, who hurt you?"
Shock registered on Sara's face. "What makes you think someone hurt me?"
He looked her straight in the eye. "Because I know what it feels like to be hurt by someone you're supposed to be able to trust."
Sara looked at the ground. Her voice was a whisper and there was a pleading quality in her tone. "Let's just hike, Nick. Please."
"Ok." Nick's voice was soft. He turned around and continued hiking. Sara fell in step behind him. Neither of them said a word for the next hour. They just hiked a steady pace down the ridge and through the canyon, their wet clothes making a thwacking sound each time they moved.
As they stopped to rest for a moment, Nick reached into his pack and pulled out a couple of Power Bars. He offered one to Sara and she took it wordlessly. Nick could feel her eyes on him as she studied him.
She let out a deep breath. "I don't get it."
Nick looked over at her with a perplexed look on his face. "You don't get what?"
"You." She just shook her head in bewilderment.
Nick tilted his head to the side. "I'm not following you."
"Who the hell are you, Nick?" Sara looked confused.
Nick raised an eyebrow at her. "Excuse me?"
"Who are you? Jock? Frat boy? Science nerd? What? I just don't know who you are." Sara sounded like she'd been thinking about this for a while.
Nick studied her for a moment in the starlight. "Sara, you can't compartmentalize me. I'm not two dimensional."
Sara stuttered, a little taken aback. "What?"
Nick chuckled. "You can't compartmentalize me or label me. I've been a jock. I used to belong to a fraternity. I work as a CSI. That's not who I am, Sara. It's shaped who I've become, but it's not who I am." He regarded her for a moment and then a realization hit him. "That's how you see me, isn't it?"
"What? No. I." Sara couldn't quite form a complete sentence.
Nick stiffened for a moment and tried to measure his words, trying to keep the edge of anger out of his voice. "One of the first cases we worked on together, those frat boys who tried to cover up murdering a pledge. That's when this started. You looked at them, and you saw me. Other cases too. Whether the suspect is an athlete, belonged to a fraternity, or just dated a lot of women, you've used that to form a picture of who you think I am. You assume that I'm just like them."
Sara didn't say a word.
A picture was becoming crystal clear in his mind. "I'm not who you've made me out to be, Sara. I'm not those guys. I've never intentionally hurt anyone."
Sara didn't know what to say.
"Who hurt you, Sara?" Nick's voice was gentle and he placed his hands on her shoulders.
She looked up at him to find him looking at her with a steady gentle gaze.
"It was some popular athletic jerk who belonged to a fraternity, wasn't it? He hurt you, didn't he?" Nick continued trying to get through to her. "Being attracted to me makes you feel like you're betraying yourself for what this asshole did to you."
Sara looked extremely uncomfortable. "What makes you say that?" Sara wasn't giving even a fraction of an inch.
"I know the type, Sara." Nick shook his head regretfully as he thought of the guys he knew who used their popularity to use people. He let out a deep breath. He was already in so deep he decided to just keep going forward. "Were you sexually assaulted, Sara?"
Sara winced and bit her lip, averting her gaze from Nick. Her arms instinctively tightened around her body. It was if a protective shield enveloped her.
Nick could feel her stiffen as he stepped toward her and wrapped his arms around her gently, but he didn't let go, and she didn't push him away.
After a considerable amount of time, Sara finally spoke. She sounded incredibly vulnerable and scared. "How the hell did you figure that out?"
Nick let out a deep breath. "Because when I was nine, I was sexually assaulted too."
Sara had to fight the bile that threatened the back of her throat. She finally pushed Nick away and turned away to throw up. When she finished, she looked up to see him looking at her with concern. "How the hell could someone do that to you, Nick? You were just a kid, what the hell were they thinking?" Anger and hurt flashed in her eyes as she shared his pain.
He placed his hand on her shoulder, tears threatened his eyes. "How could someone do that to you, Sara? You sure as hell didn't deserve it."
"Did they ever get prosecuted?" Sara queried him with concern, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand.
Nick glanced down and shook his head. "No. I never told anyone." He looked up to see her eyes wide. "The girl was a last minute babysitter and she was killed in a car wreck the summer after it happened. The only other person I've ever told is Catherine."
Sara's mouth formed into a silent "O".
Nick looked at Sara with concern. "What about you? Did you ever file charges?"
Sara glanced away and shook her head. "No. It started out as a date and ended up in the back of this guy's van. I was so ashamed I couldn't tell anyone, I didn't think anyone would believe that I didn't want to sleep with the guy all the girls on campus wanted to go out with, and by the time I realized that it wasn't my fault, the statute of limitations had run out." She looked up and met his gaze. "That's the real rug burn on my ass story."
Nick suddenly felt sick and he swallowed hard as a tear slid down his cheek. He pulled her into a hug and whispered into her ear. "I'm so sorry for giving you crap about your sex life, Sara." His voice wavered.
She wrapped her arms around his waist. "It's ok, Nick, you didn't know." Her voice was thick with emotion.
"I'm still sorry." He pulled away from her and tried to put a smile on his face as he blinked back tears. "Let's get out of here, ok?" He wiped a few stray tears from his face with the back of his hand.
"Yeah, that sounds like a good idea." She responded, trying to collect herself after such a serious conversation.
They hiked for a while longer lost in their own thoughts, and as they neared a turn in the canyon, Nick's flashlight illuminated something definitely not native to the desert landscape. Both CSIs stopped in their tracks. Nick flashed the light over it again. Hues of yellow, orange, and red ripstop nylon fluttered in the night time breeze. They made their way off the trail and stopped short of where the fabric fluttered around.
"No apparent tracks. I'd say it either blew down here or traveled down in a wash when the rain came." Nick observed.
Sara had pulled the digital camera out of her day pack. "Better at least take a couple of shots before we pack it up." After photographing the location that it was found and then recording the GPS coordinants, they put latex gloves on and rolled the fabric and placed it into an evidence bag they had brought along specifically for this purpose. At first glance the nylon fabric appeared to be a parachute.
The rain had most likely washed away any prints or other biological evidence, but they wanted to make sure they didn't contaminate any evidence with their own fingerprints.
They continued on toward the Denali, which was parked at the end of a dirt road as they carried the chute between them. They loaded it into the back of the SUV and tossed their packs in after it. As they headed back to the lab they turned the heat on full force in an attempt to dry out their wet clothes as the sun came up over the desert landscape.
She raised an eyebrow at him. "If we do, will you stop asking me questions about my sex life?"
He chuckled. "Hey, I'm not the one who brought it up in the first place. You were the one who went into the nitty gritty details about you and I having sex right here and why the location would be a bad idea for your backside."
Sara grunted as she stood up. "Let's hike." She had become a bit agitated as they had sat there. True, she was incredibly attracted to the soft spoken Texan; however, she wasn't really sure what she truly thought about workplace entanglements, especially after Grissom so firmly rebuffed her. Sara heard Nick stand up and follow her in the darkness. She hadn't taken more than twenty steps when she tripped on a rock and broke her fall with her hands. She let out a stream of curses.
Nick's voice broke through darkness. "Sara?" He had his flashlight in hand and quickly made his way to her side as she stood up and tried to dust herself off.
"What?" Her tone was sharp as she rubbed the palms of her hands gingerly together.
Nick let out a measure breath. He could tell that she was pissed off. "Are you ok?" Concerned edged his words.
"I'm fine, I just tripped." She crossed her arms in front of her body.
Nick reached over and placed his hand on her shoulder.
She stiffened and recoiled at his touch and a bit of anger flashed in her eyes.
Nick raised a curious eyebrow. "Did I miss something in the last thirty seconds?"
Sara closed her eyes and clenched her jaw for a moment before responding. "Can we just hike? I really don't need to spend the entire night up here so I can develop hypothermia and have to share body heat with you, ok."
Nick tried to swallow the wry smile that threatened to break across his face. "Is that what this is about?"
Sara looked at him defensively. "Nick, I just don't know if it's such a good idea for me to be attracted to you."
Nick chuckled. "Oh, and you have control over that? I thought attraction was something that just happened."
She huffed at him and turned around. "Would you just get up here with your damn flashlight so we can get out of here?"
"Fine." Nick walked in front of Sara and shone his flashlight on the path and began hiking.
Sara followed behind him and they hiked in silence for quite a while before either of them spoke.
Nick's voice was tentative as he spoke to her over his shoulder. "Sara, what's going on?"
"Nick, just leave it alone, you do not want to go there." Sara had an edginess to her voice.
"Go where? I'm not really sure what happened back there. Do you mind filling me in?" Nick was frustrated, but he hoped it didn't show in his voice.
Sara let out a deep breath. "Just drop it, ok?"
Nick stopped in his tracks and turned around.
Sara almost bumped into him before she realized that he'd stopped.
Nick's large hands rested on his narrow hips as he leveled his gaze at her. "I don't want to."
She stammered. "What?"
Nick narrowed his gaze at her in the darkness. "I said I don't want to drop it. I want to know what the hell happened back there."
"Nick." There was a warning tone in her voice.
Nick heard it, but he ignored it. He for one wasn't intimidated by Sara Sidle. "Sara."
She glared at him. "We kissed, ok. That's all. Happy?"
Nick shook his head in disbelief. "Sara, that was not just a kiss, and did you conveniently forget the fact that you were the one who brought up the topic of having sex with me."
Sara felt flustered. "Let's just hike, ok?" There was an edge to her voice that bordered on panic.
Nick observed the change in her demeanor with concern. He had a hint of insight and he decided to press her. "Sara, what are you afraid of?"
"What makes you say that?" Sara felt defensive and had a sudden urge to run.
"You sound scared." He paused for a moment and studied her. "I'm not going to hurt you. What are you afraid of?" Nick's voice was gentle, but insistent.
Sara blinked at him in the darkness, their faces illuminated slightly by the moon and stars, and a shiver ran through her even as she wrapped the space blanket around her body more tightly.
Nick took a deep breath. "Sara, who hurt you?"
Shock registered on Sara's face. "What makes you think someone hurt me?"
He looked her straight in the eye. "Because I know what it feels like to be hurt by someone you're supposed to be able to trust."
Sara looked at the ground. Her voice was a whisper and there was a pleading quality in her tone. "Let's just hike, Nick. Please."
"Ok." Nick's voice was soft. He turned around and continued hiking. Sara fell in step behind him. Neither of them said a word for the next hour. They just hiked a steady pace down the ridge and through the canyon, their wet clothes making a thwacking sound each time they moved.
As they stopped to rest for a moment, Nick reached into his pack and pulled out a couple of Power Bars. He offered one to Sara and she took it wordlessly. Nick could feel her eyes on him as she studied him.
She let out a deep breath. "I don't get it."
Nick looked over at her with a perplexed look on his face. "You don't get what?"
"You." She just shook her head in bewilderment.
Nick tilted his head to the side. "I'm not following you."
"Who the hell are you, Nick?" Sara looked confused.
Nick raised an eyebrow at her. "Excuse me?"
"Who are you? Jock? Frat boy? Science nerd? What? I just don't know who you are." Sara sounded like she'd been thinking about this for a while.
Nick studied her for a moment in the starlight. "Sara, you can't compartmentalize me. I'm not two dimensional."
Sara stuttered, a little taken aback. "What?"
Nick chuckled. "You can't compartmentalize me or label me. I've been a jock. I used to belong to a fraternity. I work as a CSI. That's not who I am, Sara. It's shaped who I've become, but it's not who I am." He regarded her for a moment and then a realization hit him. "That's how you see me, isn't it?"
"What? No. I." Sara couldn't quite form a complete sentence.
Nick stiffened for a moment and tried to measure his words, trying to keep the edge of anger out of his voice. "One of the first cases we worked on together, those frat boys who tried to cover up murdering a pledge. That's when this started. You looked at them, and you saw me. Other cases too. Whether the suspect is an athlete, belonged to a fraternity, or just dated a lot of women, you've used that to form a picture of who you think I am. You assume that I'm just like them."
Sara didn't say a word.
A picture was becoming crystal clear in his mind. "I'm not who you've made me out to be, Sara. I'm not those guys. I've never intentionally hurt anyone."
Sara didn't know what to say.
"Who hurt you, Sara?" Nick's voice was gentle and he placed his hands on her shoulders.
She looked up at him to find him looking at her with a steady gentle gaze.
"It was some popular athletic jerk who belonged to a fraternity, wasn't it? He hurt you, didn't he?" Nick continued trying to get through to her. "Being attracted to me makes you feel like you're betraying yourself for what this asshole did to you."
Sara looked extremely uncomfortable. "What makes you say that?" Sara wasn't giving even a fraction of an inch.
"I know the type, Sara." Nick shook his head regretfully as he thought of the guys he knew who used their popularity to use people. He let out a deep breath. He was already in so deep he decided to just keep going forward. "Were you sexually assaulted, Sara?"
Sara winced and bit her lip, averting her gaze from Nick. Her arms instinctively tightened around her body. It was if a protective shield enveloped her.
Nick could feel her stiffen as he stepped toward her and wrapped his arms around her gently, but he didn't let go, and she didn't push him away.
After a considerable amount of time, Sara finally spoke. She sounded incredibly vulnerable and scared. "How the hell did you figure that out?"
Nick let out a deep breath. "Because when I was nine, I was sexually assaulted too."
Sara had to fight the bile that threatened the back of her throat. She finally pushed Nick away and turned away to throw up. When she finished, she looked up to see him looking at her with concern. "How the hell could someone do that to you, Nick? You were just a kid, what the hell were they thinking?" Anger and hurt flashed in her eyes as she shared his pain.
He placed his hand on her shoulder, tears threatened his eyes. "How could someone do that to you, Sara? You sure as hell didn't deserve it."
"Did they ever get prosecuted?" Sara queried him with concern, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand.
Nick glanced down and shook his head. "No. I never told anyone." He looked up to see her eyes wide. "The girl was a last minute babysitter and she was killed in a car wreck the summer after it happened. The only other person I've ever told is Catherine."
Sara's mouth formed into a silent "O".
Nick looked at Sara with concern. "What about you? Did you ever file charges?"
Sara glanced away and shook her head. "No. It started out as a date and ended up in the back of this guy's van. I was so ashamed I couldn't tell anyone, I didn't think anyone would believe that I didn't want to sleep with the guy all the girls on campus wanted to go out with, and by the time I realized that it wasn't my fault, the statute of limitations had run out." She looked up and met his gaze. "That's the real rug burn on my ass story."
Nick suddenly felt sick and he swallowed hard as a tear slid down his cheek. He pulled her into a hug and whispered into her ear. "I'm so sorry for giving you crap about your sex life, Sara." His voice wavered.
She wrapped her arms around his waist. "It's ok, Nick, you didn't know." Her voice was thick with emotion.
"I'm still sorry." He pulled away from her and tried to put a smile on his face as he blinked back tears. "Let's get out of here, ok?" He wiped a few stray tears from his face with the back of his hand.
"Yeah, that sounds like a good idea." She responded, trying to collect herself after such a serious conversation.
They hiked for a while longer lost in their own thoughts, and as they neared a turn in the canyon, Nick's flashlight illuminated something definitely not native to the desert landscape. Both CSIs stopped in their tracks. Nick flashed the light over it again. Hues of yellow, orange, and red ripstop nylon fluttered in the night time breeze. They made their way off the trail and stopped short of where the fabric fluttered around.
"No apparent tracks. I'd say it either blew down here or traveled down in a wash when the rain came." Nick observed.
Sara had pulled the digital camera out of her day pack. "Better at least take a couple of shots before we pack it up." After photographing the location that it was found and then recording the GPS coordinants, they put latex gloves on and rolled the fabric and placed it into an evidence bag they had brought along specifically for this purpose. At first glance the nylon fabric appeared to be a parachute.
The rain had most likely washed away any prints or other biological evidence, but they wanted to make sure they didn't contaminate any evidence with their own fingerprints.
They continued on toward the Denali, which was parked at the end of a dirt road as they carried the chute between them. They loaded it into the back of the SUV and tossed their packs in after it. As they headed back to the lab they turned the heat on full force in an attempt to dry out their wet clothes as the sun came up over the desert landscape.