The sound of a ringing cell phone on the floor pierced Nick's sleep clouded mind and he fumbled around in the general direction of the noise until he found the phone just beside the bed, quickly flipping it open without giving the caller ID a glance. "Stokes."

"Nick, why are you answering Sara's phone?" Grissom's distinctive voice brought Nick fully awake; he hadn't been alert enough to realize that he was at Sara's apartment, in Sara's bed, and that he'd reached for Sara's phone.

Panic shot through Nick for a moment but before he could answer Grissom's question, Sara began to stir next to him. "Nick, baby, who's on the phone." Her voice was sleepy, but happy.

"Grissom." Nick swallowed hard and glanced at Sara who was now snuggling up next to him.

"Nick, I need to talk to Sara." Grissom sounded all business, but he felt a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach at hearing Sara's sleepy voice in the background.

"What's he saying?" Sara had a smile on her face as she recalled the activities that had left her feeling sore and she relished the feel of Nick's skin against hers as she molded her body against his and kissed his neck.

"He wants to talk to you." Nick whispered quietly, a smile coming unbidden to his face as he considered whether or not they had enough time before work to get reacquainted again.

Sara rested her head on Nick's shoulder and reached for the phone. "Hey, Grissom." She didn't even make an effort to sound awake.

"I woke you." It wasn't a question, just an observation that Grissom wasn't terribly pleased with considering that he'd apparently woken Nick up as well in whispering distance of Sara.

"We were sleeping." There was a lilt in her tone that implied that she and Nick hadn't just slept.

"Oh." Grissom was a bit taken aback that Sara didn't seem to care what he thought.

"We're not late for work are we?" Sara hadn't looked at the clock yet, but she was fairly certain that they had plenty of time to languish in bed for quite a while before they needed to get up and get ready for work.

"Uh, no." Grissom had momentarily lost his train of thought.

"Then what did you want?" There was an impatience in Sara's voice that she didn't even seem to hear.

Nick couldn't restrain the smile that spread across his face as he watched Sara talk and he began to trail his fingers along her arm with one hand and with the other he stroked her hair.

"The DNA is a match." Grissom finally got his mind back on track, but began mid-thought.

"DNA?" Sara took a minute to figure out what he was talking about; Nick's fingers were becoming a bit of a distraction.

"Brian King a.k.a. Jeremy Carlson. His DNA matches the DNA collected from the unsolved rapes and that attempted murder, as well as two unsolved murders up in Reno." Grissom was succinct in his delivery of the information. There was a part of him that was feeling regret that he'd never acted on his feelings for Sara, but he knew that Nick was a good man and more than anything, he wanted Sara to be happy.

"So we've got him then." Sara breathed out a sigh of relief; it was highly unlikely that she would have to testify against him at all given the amount of physical evidence tying him to other cases. "That's good."

"Yes." Grissom could tell that she really didn't want to talk further. "Sara."

"Yeah?" She was smiling at Nick who was caressing her cheek.

"Nick's a good man." Grissom couldn't blame Sara for moving on, he didn't think that he could take the risk necessary to pursue her and if she was happy with Nick, he wasn't going to do anything to complicate things.

"I know he is." Sara felt her eyelids getting heavy as Nick peppered her forehead with kisses.

"See you at shift then." Grissom didn't wait for a response from her before he ended the call.

"Yeah." Sara hit the end button and tossed her phone in the general direction of the floor.

"What did he want?" Nick knew it had to be important if he'd called in the middle of the day when most nightshifters should be sleeping.

She pulled herself up so that her lips were a fraction of an inch from his. "They got enough DNA evidence to put Brian away for a long time."

"Good." Nick felt relief that this guy wouldn't get to opportunity to hurt another woman ever again.

Sara leaned in and kissed Nick long and deep. As she pulled away, she smiled at him a bit mischievously. "He said something else too."

Nick raised a curious eyebrow. "Oh, and what's that?" The feel of her body pressed against his was making it difficult to concentrate.

"He said you were a good man." Her smile widened as she felt Nick's hands slide down and rest on her hips.

"He said that." Nick looked somewhat amused, but deep down felt relieved that Grissom seemed to be telling them that he wasn't going to get in the way of them seeing each other.

Sara nodded. "Yeah, and I told him that I thought so too." She smiled at the grin that spread across his face and then let out a yelp as he flipped them over so that he had her pinned to the mattress with his body.

"Well, I think you're a pretty amazing woman." He leaned down and kissed her, smiling against her lips as he felt her hands sliding down his back. Yes, there was definitely time to get acquainted with each other all over again before they had to get up for work. They spent a good deal of time working on that reacquaintance before falling asleep again tangled in each others arms.

If it hadn't been for Sara's alarm clock going off they would have kept on sleeping right through shift. And as they scrambled around trying to locate their clothes and get ready for work, Sara couldn't help but smile. Things could have turned out so much differently. If she hadn't agreed to meet Nick and Warrick at the club, she wouldn't have met Brian and he wouldn't have assaulted her, but then they also wouldn't have found out that he was wanted for rape and murder, and she and Nick might have taken forever to get to what they'd been hinting at with all their flirting for the last four years. Yes, she really had needed to get out more, but she'd be just as happy staying in, as long as she was with Nick.

The End