A/N: This title draws inspiration from many sources, from the timeless words of William Shakespeare to the episode "Grave Situation" of CSI. I like this work and feel it to be relatively emotional and intimate. However, any thoughts (whether positive of negative) would be appreciated.

Vegas Juliet

She wanted so badly to tell him.

But she couldn't, and probably would never be able to.

The live feed on the computer, showing her his form in the narrow box, made her want to join him there. She wanted to feel the acidic burn of asphyxia, the sharp sting of the ants, and the overwhelming panic of a death all alone.

She would face it all, just to be near him.

Her lower lip was trembling but she didn't endeavor to stop it, nor the severe damage she was wreaking on the hem of her shirt, twisting and untwisting it savagely.

"I'm gonna' go get some coffee."

That was Archie, rubbing his eyes with one hand and using the other for leverage to stand, and she nodded, not trusting herself to speak. She was stuck here, in this stupid office, watching someone she cared about border on death while Catherine and Warrick got to go out, search for Nick. She knew it was important that she monitor the feed, but she felt so small, so useless. She wanted to be near him when they found him, if they found him. But…if she stayed here, and they didn't find him, at least she'd be with him in his last moments.

And perhaps, in her own.

Her gaze drifted to the gun Nick held in one hand, the silvery metal glinting in the artificial green glow the whole box was bathed in. From there it was no quick leap to the gun she carried at her waist, cold and remote. She came to a decision then, in that room.

If Nick died, so would she.

Grissom was feverishly shuffling through papers behind her, looking for something, anything, to help them. She had turned her back on him as a romantic interest long ago, but she admired his ability to keep cool. She was trying, but it was a losing battle. She knew all of them were emotionally involved, all of them were trying their best, but she didn't know if any of them…

If any of them what?

If any of them loved him the way she did? Perhaps that was it, for she did. She did love him, though she was always too scared to admit it. That blazing smile Nick gave, the one she might never see again, was the only thing that got her through her days.

So yes, she loved him.

But a belief she had always held was that love was not love if it was unrequited. So perhaps it was mere infatuation that caused her connection to Nick. She recalled reading Romeo & Juliet as a freshman, and she could recall scoffing at the fact that the two lovers of the play decided to get married after one day and died together after three.

Was she any better?

Was she the naïve Juliet to Nick's Romeo? Her whisper was soft, hoarse, endeavoring not to wake Grissom from his fervent hunting of pages.

She spoke, "Give me my Romeo: and when he shall die,
Take him and cut him out in little stars,
And he will make the face of heaven so fine,
That all the world shall be in love with night,
And pay no worship to the garish sun."

Nick would enrich heaven; make the cosmos as brilliant as his million-watt smile. She laughed bitterly, her hands shaking. Grissom's answer was a noise of almost contempt as he shuffled through another book, this one on coffins and their dimensions. He suddenly gave a hoarse cough and took his leave from the room…

Leaving Sara alone with a gun and a camera feed to a man she loved buried beneath the earth.

She was soft at first, her words tentative, featherweight and virginal. "I love you," she whispered to the screen, repeating it again with more force.

"I love you."

The volume to her repetition grew as she pushed herself away from the table, palms flat on the steel surface as she sobbed into the monitor. "I fucking love you Nick Stokes, and if you die in there I swear I'll blow my fucking brains out! God, Nick, I'm gonna' find you, we're gonna find you, and I promise I won't let anything like this happen to you again. Oh, Nick, I'm so scared. Scared I won't get to see you again, scared I'll never get to smell your aftershave, scared I'll never get to tell you that I love you."

She leaned her forehead against the computer monitor, feeling the crackle of electricity flow across her skin, feeling the miniscule sparks flaring to life in her tears that coated the screen. "Oh, you've gotta' believe me, Nicky, believe me. I would trade places with you in a second, I swear. I'd take your place, I'd be there, because I know that you would find me, and I'm just not sure that I can find you. God, if I don't I'll take this gun and be on my way with you. I don't even give a damn if you don't feel the same; I don't care because I can't live without you. Oh god, oh god, oh god…"

She shook, her hands gripping the screen with a savage force, her mouth crying out over and over, "I love you, I love you, I love you, and I never got to tell you, but I promise, I love you, I love you…"

She slipped to the floor, her knees colliding with the cement floor in brittle cacophony. "Oh…" she sobbed, her shoulder blades shaking. "Oh no…"

She pressed her forehead into the cool floor as her sobs trailed off into hiccups, her chest heaving as she tried to force air into her lungs. "Oh god, please be alright."

Grissom stood in the doorway, watching the outpouring of emotion for the stoic Sara Sidle. She loved Nick, loved him, and seeing him nearly die was the catalyst to expose it. His eyes were drawn to the screen, coated in her tears, bathed in her sorrow and exclamations, to see Nick repeating something, over and over, holding still while ants continued flowing into his coffin.

Grissom moved his lips, mimicking the movement of Nick's to form the words, to express what his employee and his friend was saying. When realization hit him, it came like a ton of bricks, knocking the wind out of him and causing him to look again, to make certain of what Nick wanted to say.

"Sara."

She turned, her eyes rimmed in red and her cheeks streaked with tears. Her voice was quiet but caustic, "what?"

"He says he loves you."

She took a gulping sob, turning towards the screen to see Nick's lips forming the words that her boss had just uttered. "Oh god!"

Two Months Later

She laid a single kiss on each tiny scar, each mark of what that psychopath had done to the man she loved. She kissed every little mark from the ants and their poison, every place she knew he still felt the stale air of the box.

He, for his part, lay still and simply breathed, pulling air in and out from his lungs in a steady rhythm. It had become their ritual, on the nights when he woke screaming, still knowing the pounding pulse and the stink of ether, for her to silently apologize for every hurt, for every scar. He told her she didn't need to, told her it wasn't her fault, but she persisted. She did it to make herself feel better as well, she told him, to lessen her guilt for his torture by trying to heal him.

It worked, he told her, as the sweat on his brow dissipated and he curled around her trembling form, wrapping his arms around her waist. She turned into him, her nose buried in his chest and he inhaled the rose-scented perfume that pervaded the woman he loved.

Sometimes, when he was sure she was asleep he would whisper, "That which we call a rose, by any other word would smell as sweet."

And if he was the Romeo of Las Vegas, there was no doubt in his mind that she was his Juliet.

For never was a story of more woe

Than this of Juliet and her Romeo

- The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet, Act V, Scene III. Prince Escalus

A/N: The other quotations, in order of appearance, are found in the following scenes:

1. Act III, Scene II. Juliet

2. Act II, Scene II, Juliet

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