My head pounded; it was the first time in a long that I had a headache from something other than a hangover. I didn't remember how I got into my bed; I didn't remember if Nick left. I doubted that he did; he wasn't like that. He didn't run from people; that was Grissom's MO. Grissom ran because he was afraid that people might care about him and he would be forced to care back. Grissom would have to make himself vulnerable; Grissom never allowed himself to be vulnerable, not even when Debbie Marlin was murdered . . . not even when he realized that Debbie looked a lot like me.

The television was on. Nick was watching a football game. He turned the television off the minute I got into the living room. He smiled an awkward smile; I think I might have tried to smile back.

"Feeling a little better?" he asked.

"A little. Are you hungry?" I asked. I was starving. I felt bad for backing out on breakfast thing morning; I felt bad about almost everything I did lately. I had so few reasons to feel good about myself.

"You want to order out?" he asked. Nick knew that there would be a very, very limited number of things in my kitchen that he would want to eat. He was keenly aware that after 'Ms. Piggy,' I was unable to eat any sort of meat. Something about rotting pig flesh turned me off from meat permanently.

"Sure," I said as I sat next to him on the couch. He wrapped his arm around me; I was grateful that he was trying to protect me from Grissom even when Grissom wasn't here. As much as I didn't want to admit it, I needed to be protected. I needed someone to tell me that I was still a good CSI. I had been so worn down that I had started to doubt my abilities.

"Sara, it's not you. I just want you to remember that. It's not you," Nick said. I leaned into him. I felt safe. I hadn't felt safe for a long time.

"Thank you," I whispered. It was so good to hear; I wished that Greg could hear that too.

"It's an acoustic neuroma," Nick whispered. I sat frozen; I remembered the day that the DNA lab exploded. I had followed Grissom down the hallway because I thought I saw a hearing aid in his left ear. I had noticed that he would watch my lips when I talked to him. At first, I thought it was Grissom's weird sexual fetish. Grissom always said that to expect the unexpected; people did weird things to each other. Then, I noticed he was staring at everyone's lips. I had heard about his mother's condition; I wondered if it was taking his hearing too.

"How do you know?" I asked.

"Sophia stopped by. She saw the doctor's report on his desk," Nick replied. He kissed the top of my head; I hated to admit it, but I liked it.

"Do you know how bad?" I asked. He pulled me a little closer to him; I rested my head against his chest.

"Pre-malignant. He'll have to have it removed," Nick replied.

"Wow," I said. It felt like someone had squeezed all the air out of my chest. For as much as I began to despise Grissom, I felt horrible for him. I did care about Grissom. I didn't feel the same things for him that I did a year ago, but he had always been like a father to me. I always tried to gain his approval. It was important to me that he respected me just as much as I respected him.

"I know," Nick replied, "We could always send him a plant?"

I laughed. I remembered the plant that Grissom had sent me after I blew up at him nearly two years ago. From Grissom was all the card said. It made me smile because he cared; he said a million words in his own inept way.

It felt good to laugh. I had rarely laughed in the last month. Greg has laughed even less; I used to look forward to going into the DNA lab because Greg would always make me laugh. It made the nights go so much faster. I missed his laugh. I missed how things used to be. I would have turned back time if I could.

"I miss you," I said. The words escaped my mouth before I could harness them.

"I miss you too. Let's go out and get something to eat. Let's get you out of this apartment," Nick said as he pulled me off of the couch. He was smiling; I always loved his smile.

An hour later, we were walking through the park. I hadn't been sober enough to do this in a long time; Greg, Sophia, and I spent too much time looking for comfort in the bottom of a bottle of whisky, brandy, or whatever was lying around. I had stopped running; I used to run each morning after work. That was when I still cared about myself.

Nick was talking about the case he had been working on. Truth be told, I wasn't paying that much attention. I was enjoying the sun and the fresh air. It was almost enough to make me forget the past month. Nick was holding my hand; he would occasionally squeeze my hand to bring me back into the conversation.

I had always thought of Nick as being something akin to a brother; God knows I barely knew my own. He has always been there. He has always been kind to me when I believed I did not deserve his kindness. I cannot remember him ever saying an unkind word to me. I know Grissom, Catherine, and Warrick have. Catherine uses my name with an element of disgust that I never knew existed. Grissom . . . Grissom cannot spare a kind word for me anymore.

For the first time in weeks, I have left work at work. It never happened very often; I was always the workaholic. People made it seem so bad, but work was always very kind to me. It gave me purpose. I was aware that these next two weeks would be a struggle; without work, I had no purpose.

Nick has said people don't think he's funny. I didn't understand; he always knew the right thing to say to break the tension or to make me laugh. Not many people have ever been able to make me laugh.

My thoughts wandered to Greg. I wondered if he was okay; I wanted him to be okay. He took Grissom's criticisms personally. He admired Grissom; part of him might have even wanted to be Grissom. I knew that my praise alone wasn't enough to build up his confidence. He desperately needed Grissom's approval. Well, Greg didn't get approval . . . he got a one week suspension with pay. The hitch was that the suspension was a clever way to waste Greg's vacation time. Greg had talked about going skiing in Colorado; he almost had me convinced to go with him.

I wondered if Grissom would tell us about his hearing; I wondered if he would confide in Greg and me. I didn't understand why he kept these things secret. I knew from personal experience that secrets had a way of building up until they drove you crazy. I wondered if Grissom might just be feeling a little crazy because everything about that man was a secret. I wished that he could find one person that he could open up to. I thought it would have been Lady Heather, but he expertly pushed her away. My understanding was that he wouldn't even drive down that street anymore. He couldn't see her; he couldn't talk about her. She was probably the closest to breaking down the walls Grissom built around himself.

"Thank you. Thank you for getting me away from everything that reminds me of work," I said to Nick. I had slowed down; we watched a teenage boy play Frisbee with his dog.

"Don't thank me. You would have done the same thing if it was me," Nick replied. Actually, I wasn't sure if I would have done the same thing. I would like to think that I would have.

"What's next?" Nick asked. He asked me like I might just be thinking of something other than all my problems; sometimes, I felt plagued by all my problems . . . all the drama surrounding the lab. Drama seemed to come with the territory. Drama seemed to be a prerequisite if you lived in Vegas. San Francisco never had this kind of drama. It never had the kind of drama that could render a person emotional bankrupt.

"I don't know," I replied. The sun was beginning to sun behind the horizon. We both normally would have been at work by now. Sophia was the only one that would be working the night shift with Grissom tonight.

"I should go make sure Greg is okay," I said after a few moments of silence.

"I'll go with you," Nick said. He was still holding my hand. I don't think he realized that he was my lifeline.