Chapter 4
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Sara processed in silence, shutting out Grissom and her surroundings as she meticulously ran the ALS over the bed sheets. She hated working cases alone with him ever since, as she now called it, "the speech." She was still bitter, not because he had rejected her, but because he had the nerve to bring it all up again, six months later. She hated that it was still bothering her, but she couldn't seem to let it go.
Grissom stole an occasional glance at Sara as they processed the scene. Sara was never the talkative type when it came to collecting evidence, but she usually made a few comments when she found something interesting. That night, however, she'd barely spoken a word. The two had been processing a honeymoon suite at a hotel on the Strip for over three hours in complete silence, save for the occasional chatter of the uniforms guarding the front door.
The past few days had been awkward between him and Sara, or at least he thought so. It was hard to tell; it seemed like she was trying to avoid him. He knew he had upset her, digging up old feelings, but he didn't understand why it seemed to still be bothering her, since she was the one who was so adamant about leaving the past in the past.
Whether she was avoiding him or not, once they got back to the lab Grissom didn't see Sara for the next few hours as they continued working, so he eventually had to go and see Greg himself to get their DNA results.
"Are you sure?" Grissom looked at the printout in his hand in disbelief.
"Of course I'm sure," Greg confidently replied. "I even ran it through twice."
"Okay," Grissom sighed. He left the DNA lab to find Sara and update her on the results. He found her in the break room, standing at the coffee machine talking to Nick. He caught the tail end of Sara's sentence.
"...when I woke up yesterday."
"I know, but you said-" Nick stopped when he noticed Grissom had walked in.
The three stood in silence for a few seconds as they stared at each other.
"Greg didn't have any luck with the blood you swabbed. No hits off CODIS," Grissom informed Sara.
"Damn." Sara let out a frustrated sigh.
"How's the case coming?" Grissom turned to Nick.
"Fine. Catherine's with Ronnie, checking out the ransom note, and Warrick's with Brass."
"And you are...?" Grissom was slightly annoyed, wondering why Nick was standing in the break room talking to Sara when everyone else was working. Especially since they weren't even on the same case, and it didn't appear that they were talking about anything work related.
"I'm, uh, waiting for Trace. Hodges is a little backed up," Nick replied. "He said you dumped a boat load of samples on him and he had to get through those first."
"Oh right, our soil samples," Sara remembered. "I'll go see if he's made any progress." Sara promptly left, wanting to get out of the awkward situation as quickly as possible, but feeling bad for leaving Nick there alone.
"Is everything okay?" Grissom looked at Nick.
"Uh, yeah. We lifted a few prints and got a couple names from AFIS, and Ronnie said he should be able to give us something from the ransom note."
"No, I didn't mean with your case. I meant with you."
"Me? No, um, I'm fine," Nick stammered.
Grissom wasn't buying it. "Nick, you've been distracted at scenes, you've been coming in late; if you're having any personal problems and it's affecting your work, you need to-"
"I don't have any problems. I'm fine," Nick insisted, trying not to raise his voice. "I'm gonna go see if Cath and Ronnie have anything." He left Grissom standing there.
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"By the way, thanks for walking out and leaving me alone with Grissom," Nick quipped sarcastically, his mouth full of French toast. He and Sara were having breakfast at their favorite after-shift diner.
"Sorry," Sara apologized with a small smile that quickly faded. "He just pisses me off."
"Still?"
"I don't know what it is, I just can't get past it. Which pisses me off even more that I'm so hung up on it." She let out an exasperated sigh.
"You need to just let it go. You can't hold a grudge forever," Nick reasoned.
"Do you not know me at all?" she scoffed.
"Oh, right. I take that back," Nick said, forgetting he was talking to the grudge-holding master. Sara could stew for days if you so much as left the toilet seat up. He'd learned that one the hard way. Although, it was partially her fault for not turning the light on before sitting down.
"How bad was it?" She asked.
"He thought I was having 'personal problems' that were affecting my work."
"He thought you were having problems?"
"Hey, it's not always about you," Nick teased. "Yeah, he said because I, well actually it was we, were late the other day, and because I've been 'distracted' at crime scenes."
"Distracted?" She raised an eyebrow. "I told you to stop staring at my ass while we're processing a scene," she teased.
"You weren't even there," Nick smirked. "It was only Grissom."
She gave him a look. "Uh, is there something I should know about? Maybe Grissom was preaching to the wrong choir."
"Ha ha," he deadpanned.
"So what'd you say?"
"Nothing. I just said I was fine, and then I did a helluva angry-Sara-storming-out-of-the-room impression. You would have been proud," he grinned.
"I'm sure."
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"What do you think this is?" Warrick asked as he pointed to the shoulder of the dead body on the floor in front of him.
"I think it used to be a tattoo," Sara replied, trying to breathe through her mouth to avoid the smell of decomposing flesh. "Get a shot of it anyway. Leah might be able to help us out."
"Brass said the daughter called it in. She comes a few times a week to check in on the father. She last saw him on Tuesday," Grissom informed the two as he approached.
"The body shouldn't look this bad," Warrick deduced.
"Window, maybe?" Sara suggested. "The curtains aren't drawn. But then again, the way this window faces, it never really gets direct sunlight," she thought out loud.
"Maybe the thermostat was set really high," Warrick proposed.
"Maybe. What was it set at?" Sara turned to Grissom for an answer, but he had already wandered off.
"Or maybe he really was here for just a couple days," Warrick added.
Sara sighed. "Maybe." All she knew for sure was that she wanted to get out of there as soon as possible. The less time she spent around the body, the less time the reduced human fat would have a chance to cling to her hair follicles and burrow into her pores, something she wasn't particularly fond of.
While Grissom didn't seem to mind the smell, Warrick and Sara certainly did, so the two quickly finished processing and headed back to the lab. Warrick pulled into an empty parking space and Sara hopped out of the passenger seat. The tinted window of the Denali next to her rolled down.
"Hey," Nick greeted with a smile. His nose immediately wrinkled when he caught a whiff of Sara. "You smell like death," he quipped, his comment earning him a playful albeit not entirely painless punch in the arm.
"I'm gonna check all this in," Warrick said to Sara as he unloaded the trunk and headed inside.
"Yeah, thanks," Sara replied. "So where are you going?" she asked Nick as she leaned against the open window frame.
"Club Vertigo. Just opened up a couple weeks ago, at the Bellagio."
"Oh yeah?" Sara raised an eyebrow.
"I'm taking Catherine too, if she hurries up. She's still in the locker room, changing into her dancing shoes," Nick replied with a wink.
"Really..."
"Yeah. But after that, maybe I'll pick up some lemons and help you get cleaned up," he grinned.
"Okay, sorry. Let's go," Catherine opened the passenger door and jumped in. "Sara, you're stinking up the cab. I can smell you from here, do you mind?" she teased.
Sara gave her a playful smirk and turned to Nick. I'll see you later. And I'm taking you up on that lemon offer." She leaned in to kiss him before heading inside.
As Grissom pulled into the parking lot, he noticed Sara standing beside a Denali, talking to the driver. As she leaned into the open window, he immediately realized she was kissing someone, but he couldn't tell who was on the receiving end. This in itself was surprising, he had no idea why Sara would be kissing anyone in the first place, but what happened next was what really threw him. As Sara headed into the lab, the Denali pulled out of its spot and drove toward Grissom. To say he was shocked would have been an understatement when he saw that the driver who waved to him was Nick.
Suddenly everything began to sink in, the strange behavior he had been witnessing over the past few weeks becoming clear. Why he hadn't put it together sooner he didn't know. Maybe because it was the last thing he ever expected.
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Sara poked her head into Grissom's office. "Bobby D. couldn't get anything from the casings we found," she informed him.
"How's Warrick doing on those shoeprints?" Grissom asked.
"Uh, I don't know, I'll go find out."
"Sara, hold on," Grissom said as she was about to walk off. He motioned for her to come in and sit in the chair in front of his desk. "Shut the door," he instructed.
Sara closed the door but remained standing.
"Is there something going on between you and Nick?" Grissom got right to the point.
"Going on?"
"Are you and Nick dating?" he rephrased the question.
It took her a second to realize what he was asking her. She looked at him with a straight face. "Yeah," she replied in an even tone as she crossed her arms in front of her.
"How long has this been going on?"
"Awhile."
"Why didn't you tell me?"
"We didn't think it was any of your business."
"Well, you two work together, and I'm your supervisor, so I think it is my business," Grissom responded calmly.
Sara could feel her pulse start to rise, her anger beginning to mount. She narrowed her gaze. "We're not violating any departmental policies. Nick and I are of equal rank. Nobody is anybody's supervisor," she glared at him.
Grissom immediately caught on to what he thought she was implying. "Sara, it was never about the rules," he said, his demeanor still cool and collected.
"And it's not about you anymore," she snapped, her demeanor clearly anything but cool and collected. "I'm with Nick now. And if you have a problem with that, that's just too damn bad."
Grissom stared at her, speechless, his mouth slightly agape.
Before he could respond, Sara turned and walked out, slamming the door behind her.
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After trying unsuccessfully to gather information from various bartenders and bouncers at the club, Nick trudged into the break room, desperately in need of coffee. "There better be enough left for me," he warned Warrick, who was pouring his own cup.
"Relax," Warrick replied, grabbing another mug and commencing to fill it. "So what did you do this time?" he asked as he handed the filled mug to Nick.
"Huh?"
"To piss Sara off."
"Nothing. At least I don't think so...why?"
"All I can say is, look out. She's on the warpath."
Nick furrowed his brow. "Tough case?" Decomps usually didn't bother Sara too much, aside from the nausea, which he wasn't allowed to tell anyone about if he valued certain important parts of his anatomy.
"No, not really. That's why I thought you did something," Warrick replied.
"Oh, so it has to be my fault?"
"Just be on the look out," Warrick warned.
Whether it was fortunate or not, Nick didn't see Sara the rest of the night, and she left the lab before he did. When he got home he was surprised to find her there, already in bed, which immediately started to worry him. She rarely went straight to sleep after shift. His worries were somewhat relieved when her head came up and she propped herself up on her elbow, indicating she wasn't sleeping.
"Hey," he said as he crawled on top of the covers and leaned down to kiss her. When they pulled apart, Nick knew something was wrong, the way Sara had lingered. "What did he do this time?" He looked at her with concern.
Sara sighed as she dropped her head onto her pillow. "He knows."
"You told him?"
"No. I guess he figured it out on his own."
"And?" Nick waited for her to continue.
"I don't know, he said something about he had the right to know because he's our supervisor. I said something, I think I kind of told him off, and then I walked out."
"Sara..." he hoped she hadn't gone over the line this time. He didn't want to be written up, or worse, fired, for something like this.
Sara let out a frustrated groan. "Why does everything have to be so complicated?"
"Hey, hey," he tried to calm her down. He lay down beside her and pulled her close. "Look at what we went through to get to where we are now. We got through all that, we can get through this, no problem," he assured her as he rubbed her back.
Sara sighed. "I guess so." Nick was probably right. Thinking back, this was a drop in the bucket compared to everything they had gone through over the past six months.
Sara drove aimlessly through the streets of Vegas, replaying the conversation over and over again in her head, trying to figure out where she went wrong.
"Would you like to have dinner with me?"
"No."
"Why not? Let's have dinner, let's see what happens."
"Sara...I don't know what to do about this."
"I do. You know by the time you figure it out, it really could be too late."
Was it already too late? Was there ever a time when it wouldn't have been? Did she ever have a chance? Was she a fool for thinking she did? For three years she had waited patiently, hoping for something. She finally decided to make a move herself, whether it was because she had finally worked up enough courage or because she was too tired of waiting she didn't know. Whatever the reason, it didn't matter now. The hope she had been building for three years was crushed by a single, two-letter word. No.
After several hours of driving she finally stopped, not surprised at all when she realized her mindless wandering had led her to this particular destination. She didn't hesitate to get out of the truck and knock on the front door.