A/N Thanks heaps and heaps to everyone who's continuing to review, hopefully the next update wont be too far away! Thanks heaps to Amorith and Ash again, for being the wonderful beta's that they are.
Friday - Day 6, 03.46"Are you alright Nicky?" Cath hurried over to where Nick had fallen to the ground. He struggled to his feet with a hand from Warrick and sighed.
"Who put that there anyway?" he asked and glared at the offending tree root and then winced loudly as he tried to start walking again. "Ow," he said exasperatedly and glared at the root again.
"What is it, your knee?" Warrick asked.
Nick nodded and began hobbling on again, "It's alright, you said it wasn't far right Cath?"
"Yeah should be just past these trees – you sure you're alright Nick, it looked like a nasty fall… Warrick you want to help him?"
Warrick gave Nick a mock glare before slinging Nick's arm around his shoulders and helping him move forward.
Catherine fell into step along side Greg who was looking at Nick with worry.
"I hope he's okay – we've still got a bit of a hike tomorrow to get to the meeting place," he said as they followed Nick and Warrick.
"We'll get there Greg," Catherine smiled reassuringly and patted him on the back.
When the foursome finally stumbled into camp they found Grissom sitting by the fire, hunched over and wrapped in a blanket. Sara was standing on the other side, also wrapped in a blanket. Catherine couldn't help but notice there was a very weird vibe between them.
"Hey!" called Sara in an overly surprised voice, "You made it then." She grinned at Greg, happy to see that he was alright despite their leaving him behind. Her smile faltered a little as she saw Nick hobbling over to the fire.
"What happened?" Grissom asked as Nick lowered himself onto a log by the fire.
"I think I just jarred my knee, it's been banged around a bit these past couple days," he grinned wryly.
"Man is it good to be back," Warrick sighed and sat down next to Grissom, "You got any spare blankets? I'm freezing."
"There's a couple just here," Catherine pointed to a small pile drying off next to the fire, "you'd probably be best to get out of your wet clothes and try to dry them by the fire before it starts to get light."
Greg came to stand next to Sara and grinned wildly at her. She frowned at him, paranoid that he had somehow guessed what she and Grissom had been up to. "What?" she asked nervously.
"Is that what you did? Took off your clothes because you were wet?"
Sara saw Grissom's head snap towards them out of the corner of her eye and glared at Greg.
He raised his hands, the gesture of surrender charred by his boyish grin, "That obviously came out wrong…" He giggled to himself before apologizing and went off to get changed.
As the group of six finally sat down around the fire together, wrapped in blankets and various pieces of dry clothing, Nick, Warrick and Greg told their stories of near capture and escape. Catherine secretly spied on Grissom and Sara while this was going on, trying to decide whether Grissom was grumpy because they had walked in on something or if Sara had said something to upset him while they'd been alone. Sara didn't seem nearly as annoyed as he did, but she did keep glancing at Grissom when she thought no one was looking at her. Catherine was intrigued and highly entertained with watching her two work colleagues and almost didn't notice when everyone became quiet and began staring at her.
"What?" she asked suspiciously.
Warrick snorted, "I think that's a yes," he said as he got up from the log he was sitting on and began to stretch his sore muscles.
"What?" Catherine asked again, a bit bewildered.
Nick grinned, "We were just saying it's high time we got some sleep. Considering you've been completely out of it this whole time we've been sitting here, I'd say you agree?"
Catherine nodded and cast a quick look at Grissom and Sara who were staring back at her. Suddenly paranoid that they knew exactly what she'd been doing she quickly got up and started helping Warrick set up the tarp under which they would sleep. The tents were still too wet to use, and the tarp was easier to set up and take down anyway.
Grissom offered to do first watch and as the rest of the group made their wary way towards their makeshift beds, Catherine didn't even notice that Sara had not joined them.
The small campfire was beginning to die as Sara came and sat down next to Grissom. They sat there in silence for a while, both waiting until they felt sure the others were either too groggy or asleep to pay attention to them.
Sara was the first to speak. "Hi," she said, a hint of amusement in her voice.
Grissom gave her an amused glare and sighed as if he'd been holding his breath ever since the rest of their group had arrived at the campsite. He reached out and rested a hand on Sara's knee.
"Are you okay?" she asked, the quiet lilt still evident in her voice.
He hummed, "A little frustrated, but I'll be fine," he said, hiding his own small grin quite unsuccessfully. He shook his head at the situation, and decided to be serious for a moment. "Sara, if Nick hadn't fallen over that tree root…." He trailed off and looked at her pointedly.
"We would never have heard them coming and they would have walked into camp and seen it all," she finished for him and nodded. Although she had been bothered by that thought, it was the shock of her blatant 'throw caution to the wind' decision about their dilemma of no protection that had troubled Sara the most. She knew that if they hadn't been interrupted then she wouldn't have been able to stop in time, and that freaked her out.
"Grissom," she said and hesitated a little before continuing, "I'm not on the pill."
Grissom look confused for a moment and then his expression changed into one of understanding, "Oh!"
After an uneasy moment of silence he turned to her, "Why didn't you say something?"
She frowned, "Are you telling me you were thinking clearly enough to wonder about protection?"
Grissom paused for a moment and then looked at her, guiltily, "No."
Sara couldn't help grinning at him. She had absolutely no idea what was going to happen between them, but they were talking comfortably and openly enough. She could hardly believe what had happened between them since this trip started, but she was happy. She didn't care about what would happen when they got back to Vegas – in this moment, with Grissom's reassuring hand on her knee, she was happy.
"You should get some sleep," Grissom said to her and lightly squeezed her knee.
She turned to look at him, "Yeah, I should," she agreed.
When she made no effort to move but continued to study the man beside her, he sighed out a laugh and nudged her, "Go on – big day ahead of us Miss Sidle."
She grinned at him and slowly stood up, stretching in the same manner that Warrick had done previously. "Good night Grissom," she said before bending down and quickly kissing his temple.
It turned out to be more difficult for Sara to get to sleep than it should have been. She was terribly tired, but simply could not get to sleep. Before Grissom's sentry shift had finished, she was still awake, and volunteered to take over. After sitting by the fire for almost 2 hours and taking the occasional walk around the campsite, she was more than ready to jump back into her sleeping bag and try again. It seemed like it had only been ten minutes since she'd snuggled in beside Grissom and Nick when she was being gently shaken awake again. She groaned and weakly swatted at the person bent over her.
She heard Warrick chuckle and felt his hands around her wrists, preventing her from her flimsy attempt to push him away. "Come on Sara, a grand breakfast of granola bars awaits. If you're lucky you might get some luke warm tea."
She wrinkled her nose – tea wasn't exactly her drink of choice, but at the prospect of drinking something half warm she relented and squinted open an eye.
Warrick began pulling her up and finally she stumbled her way over to the rest of the group who were all looking way too awake for this time of day. What time was is anyway? She squinted at her watch as she sat clumsily on a log; 11am. Sara groaned and looked around her. Most of the campsite had been packed up with 6 relatively dry looking packs stacked neatly together in the centre. The only thing that remained was Sara's sleeping bag and mat that was now being rolled up by an enthusiastic Greg. Sara immediately felt guilty – she'd slept in.
"Sorry guys," she croaked out and continued to try and wake herself up, "You should have woken me sooner."
Warrick handed her a cup of almost-warm tea and sighed, "Sara, you did way more sentry duty than any of us, Greg didn't even get a go before it was time to start packing up and Grissom said you took over early for him. For that, you get a sleep in. Besides, it was only an hour," he smiled genuinely at her, making her feel a tiny bit better.
TBC