Somewhere, my love.

(A.N Thank you for the continued reviews, it means a lot.)

'Uh, Warrick?'

Warrick looked up at the receptionist, a blond by the name of Mary, with a questioning look.

'A letter came in for Sara- what do you think I should do with it?'

'I don't know- she's been gone six months, do whatever you did with the rest of her stuff.' He told her, walking off, missing the surprised and somewhat hurt expression on the receptionist's face at his sudden harsh tone.

Nick, who had come in, unseen, behind Warrick turned to the receptionist. 'I can take it.' He told her, taking the letter from her before following Warrick into the building. He glanced at the letter, at the typed address and no return and guessed it was probably junk rather than official. Still, he could always forward it. Sara didn't have to know he'd been the one to forward junk mail for her.

He caught up with Warrick in the break room. He was stood before his opened locker, leaning against the frame, his head hanging. Nick didn't say anything, the closing of the break door had announced his presence, and Warrick pushed himself away from the locker, bending to get something out of his bag.

'You all right, man?' Nick asked as he turned the dial on his own locker, dumping his bag in it.

There was a pause before Warrick answered. 'Yeah, yeah, I'm fine.' He dropped to the bench and started unlacing his sneakers. He shouldn't have reacted like that. Not just to her name. It had been six months. One night together and six months of heartache- something didn't add up there. But however much he tried, he just couldn't stop thinking about her.

Nick looked at Warrick, wanting to say something, just not knowing how to start, where to start. Warrick had made it abundantly clear that it wasn't a topic he wanted to discuss.

Warrick stood up again before any words of wisdom came to him, leaving him no choice but to follow him through to the break room, sitting through another round of assignments. Life going on as normal. Warrick still looked around expecting another person to walk in and join them. He didn't know why, though. Sara had never been late in her life.

The usual murder and mayhem resounded for the next ten hours, taking his mind away from hopeless thoughts to something that at least made sense, had meaning.

Back in the locker room, with one suspect in custody and another with every cop this side of the Mississippi looking for them, there was nothing else they could do. They'd collected the evidence. The rest would depend on fate. Otherwise know as the justice department.

Nick had followed him in. 'Well that was one of the better cases.' He said as he collapsed on the bench.

Warrick gave him a sideways questioning look.

'well, there was actual evidence to collect, an actual suspect to find, and even a reason.' Nick clarified.

Warrick couldn't disagree there. 'True.'

'You coming for breakfast?' Nick asked, changing into a clean t-shirt.

'I think I'm just gonna go crash.' Warrick said, rescuing his bag and closing his locker door.

'Oh come on. Quick bacon roll round the corner.' Nick coaxed.

'Just cause you fancy the waitress.' Warrick said. 'You do realise she's about nineteen.'

'She's twenty-one and in college actually. And I don't fancy her. We just chat sometimes.'

Warrick didn't dignify that with a comment, but he did throw Nick a look. 'Come on.' he finally said. 'I suppose someone's gotta keep a check on your wandering eye.'

They walked round to the diner that was almost totally frequented by cops. Not that the owners minded that much. Cops weren't known to have small appetites, after all.

They ate in relative silence. Of course, Nick had plenty he wanted to say, all of which he knew Warrick didn't want to hear.

He had been in contact with Sara. They emailed occasionally, Nick filling her in on the gossip and goings on around the lab, Sara telling him a lot about nothing about her life back up North. Nick was hoping that if he mentioned enough about the lab he could make Sara really start to miss it, to want to come back. He had certainly missed her in the last few months. Things were different around the lab, in a way that wasn't easy to define, but that was certainly noticeable. They'd worked together for over three years; Sara's departure had left a hole that was proving impossible to fill.

They'd had a few trainees drafted in. The longest any of them had stayed was six weeks. Enough time to realise that death was in no way glamorous, often stunk to the high heavens, and the smell of death was almost impossible to move from skin or clothes. The one that had lasted six weeks only did so he knew because they'd gone through a bit of a lean time and that was when the first dead person who had lain undiscovered for a few days that had come in. All the teaching and theory in the world would never prepare a trainee for the smell of a decomposing body and how to deal with it.

Of course, he wasn't the only one that missed Sara. Greg had spent much of the first few weeks pining loudly away for her. Although the loud pining had gone, Nick knew that he was still genuinely stunned that Sara had moved on. They all were in a way. It was easy, when you worked together for so long to forget that sometimes things had to change.

Grissom was still the same old Grissom. Nick couldn't tell if he missed Sara or not. Then again, he could barely tell what Grissom felt about a lot of things, so not knowing his thoughts on this particular subject wasn't surprising, if a little frustrating. They had all, after all, heard the rumours of Sara's little surprise date request and the fact that Grissom had turned her down.

Catherine, he suspected, didn't mind one bit going back to being the only female on the team. After all, she had lost that position on Sara's arrival from San Francisco, and there had been a little tension on and off since then. However, even she seemed to have noticed that something was lagging without their other member of the team around. Being the only female had its downs as well as its ups, after all.

Nick studied Warrick over the top of his bacon roll. He knew out of all the team, Warrick felt the absence the most. The rest of the team didn't know about that night, and Warrick, for his part, hid his feelings like a pro. Only someone who knew Warrick well could pick out the moments he was thinking of her. Like the almost casual look at the door before assignments were announced, like he was expecting someone else to come in. Or when he was working a case that he knew Sara would get a kick out of. Warrick and Sara had worked a lot together, worked well together, and Nick knew that Warrick was missing that professional relationship as much as the other one.

They didn't talk then. Or they did talk, but about an upcoming basketball game they were hoping to score tickets for, or about how they were gonna get the night off for a new nightclub opening at the weekend. Nick wanted to ask about Sara, about when his dumb friend was actually planning to get in contact with her. He didn't then, as he hadn't for the last six months. He'd said all he could on the subject, Warrick had to be the one to act now.

Warrick left first, as soon as he could and not be considered rude in doing so. Every conversation he had with Nick now felt like it had the subtext attached to it of Sara. Even if Nick never mentioned her by name, or even at all, it was still there, a knowing that Warrick hadn't made any attempt to contact her, and that Nick knew that.

It wasn't so much that he didn't want to. Contact her that was. He did. He often thought about it. Pulled her number up on his cell. Started writing an email. But every time his finger would hover over the call button, or the keyboard. Wanting to, but not quite getting enough courage to actually do it.

Was that it? Just fear? If it was just fear, then surely he should have been able to get over it. Of course, time hadn't helped in this. The longer he left it, the harder he found it.

There was something more, though. More than just a fear of what to say after all this time, or what Sara would say. It was the deep hurt left by her departure. She hadn't just moved, she'd moved out of state, out of his life completely. She had gone without letting him try to convince her to stay. She'd still left after that night. How much could she have thought of it if she had been able to leave without a word, without even so much as a goodbye?

And while he hadn't tried to contact her, she hadn't contacted him either. She hadn't sent an email, or picked up the phone.

He sometimes tried to imagine her now, in a new life, a new job, new people around. She had probably moved on, forgotten all about him, about that night. She probably already had a new man in her life, after all someone as beautiful as she was wouldn't find it hard to find someone else.

A new life that didn't involve Vegas, didn't involve being a CSI, didn't involve looking at dead bodies anymore, and most of all didn't involve him. That was what she had wanted; after all, she had made that more than clear. A life away from Vegas. What would he be able to say in a phone call, an email that would convince her that a life in Vegas wasn't so bad after all? That maybe the idea of the two of them wasn't so much a fantasy like it had become in his mind, that they could exist as a pair. That he desperately wanted them to be a pair, that he loved her and nothing was helping him stop that.

Nothing. That was what. There was nothing he could say. Not now, not after all this time. Nothing he had said had kept her in Vegas, so why would any words he said now bring her back.

No, she had a new life. And he had to get on with his. That much was clear. And he knew the only way to do that. Back at his house, he picked up the phone, and after checking that it wasn't too early he called. A number he had been given a few days ago. A girl who was cute and funny, and here in the city. He arranged a date for that weekend. He could get on with his life as much as she could. One date at a time if need be.