Chapter 7 – Nick listens. Sara reflects.
Disclaimer – It's mine! Mine! All mine! No one else gets anything...nah, not really.
Notes – This chapter contains spoilers and Dialogue from 'Unbearable' and possibly some from earlier seasons. In this chapter, the action skips back and forth from Nick to Sara as the 'Unbearable' episode progresses, so bear with me.
Nick's POV"A brown hair with a follicular tag. A person's entire identity balled up in a few nanograms of matter."
"Assuming one's identity can be wholly quantified by our DNA."
"Well, genetically, it can. We're completely programmed as soon as the sperm hits the egg."
"So we're defined at a cellular level?"
"More or less."
"No. Identity is the totality of our life experiences and our brain neurons process our relationship to the world and each other."
"I stand corrected. DNA is what we are, not who we are.
Nick was still laughing half an hour later.
Oh, boy! Grissom and Sophia...in the morgue...over a dead body...talking about DNA and sperms and brain neurons...Ladies and gentlemen, call up the Guinness book of world records! We have a winner for 'World's Most Romantic Conversation'!
" 'Identity is the totality of our life experiences'...Man, there is something seriously wrong with that lady..." Nick muttered under his breath as he searched through the Las Vegas vehicle databases.
Officers on patrol had found an abandoned Merc near the site where hunter and bear had died together, and now Nick was checking to see who the customised plates (which had read 'Kikazz') were registered to.
Got him! A Mr. Rod Hollis owned the vehicle, and Nick instinctively knew he was their vic. Time to let Cath and Warrick know they had a name.
Sara's POV
It had been, Sara thought as she walked down the corridor, potentially the worst month of her adult life. The fun had just never stopped. First that pig-poking ass-bandit Ecklie had broken up their team, then the insufferable Hodges had started a rumour that Sara was a beer-chugging alcoholic (until Warrick had threatened him with a fingerprint powder enema!), and finally, Ecklie had jumped on her and suspended her after she lost it with Catherine.
During her suspension she had received quite a few visitors. The first had been Grissom, with the news that Ecklie wanted him to fire her, and the conversation that inevitably turned to her past...
The second had been Nick, offering reassurance, sympathy, and much-appreciated company. Sara smiled. Nick always seemed to know how to make her feel at least a little better.
The third had, incredibly, been Catherine, with an apology for what had happened, as if it had been her who'd blown up at Sara, not the other way around. Sara had told Cath that she should be the one apologising, and Cath had delivered the welcome news that Sara wasn't getting fired.
Sara reached the break room at the end of the hallway and saw who was inside. It didn't improve her mood any. Grissom and Sophia talking and laughing together. Why this should make her feel like she'd just swallowed a snake whole was something that eluded her.
Or perhaps she knew why and was simply not acknowledging it. Some of the things her councillor had talked about had kind of stuck with her, and denial was one of them. Perhaps, she mentally lectured herself, you were expecting him to make a big fuss over you now that you'd finally shared your big secret with him. Fat chance.
She had always assumed that Grissom didn't want to get too close to anyone. Now it was starting to look like he just didn't want to get too close to Sara, but didn't mind getting to know Sophia. Sara shivered slightly. She didn't like Sophia very much.
There was no question mark over her dedication, and Sara could admire that in anyone, but there was something about Ms. Curtis that set off a tiny alarm bell in the back of her mind. She knew that Catherine was no great fan of Sophia's, but again, she didn't know why...
With an effort, Sara told herself to stop being so paranoid. Sophia had done nothing wrong, had in fact, defied the graveyard shift's expectations by defending Gil Grissom's actions against Ecklie and his newly established authority.
Still, that feeling just wouldn't quit. For the time being though, Sara told it to shut the hell up for a moment, and entered the room to deliver her findings...
Nick's POVWell, that case went relatively well, mused Nick as he sauntered down the corridor, getting ready to call it a night...or was it day now...? Nick cursed under his breath. Damn swing shift! He hated starting in the afternoon and finishing sometime around midnight. His whole sense of time was kind of distorted these days...nights...dammit!
As Nick was pondering his little temporal paradox, he walked by Grissom's office and noticed he and Sophia deep in what looked like a heavy conversation. He smiled. Sophia seemed to be pretty good at bringing people out of themselves, hell, even Hodges had eased out of his own little 'I am a smarmy-ass jerkoff' routine since Sophia had arrived on grave shift. Maybe she could convince the boss (for so he still privately considered Grissom) to come out of his shell a little bit...
He felt a sudden, mercifully brief impulse to scream "Identity is the totality of our life experiences!" at the top of his voice in their general direction. He suppressed the urge with an effort, biting the inside of his cheek to keep from laughing.
"Let's have dinner, shall we?"
Nick froze mid-stride; his easy smile vanished like a ghost.
No. Fucking. Way. No way in hell did he just hear what he had heard. Because what he had heard was wrong. Was wrong on so many levels. It was incorrect. False. A fallacy.
Gil Grissom had just asked Sophia Curtis out on a date. But Gil Grissom did not ask people out on dates. Gil Grissom did not ask anyone out on a date, never mind a woman he had met barely a month ago!
And, Nick's brain added as a last reminder, it was Sophia!
As the two walked out of Grissom's office, side by side, Nick made a valiant effort to vacate the area. It didn't work.
"Oh, uhm, hey boss..." Nick made an equally brave effort at nonchalance, this one a little more successful.
"Hey, Nick. What's up?" Grissom was the picture of contentment. No wonder, thought Nick enviously.
"Uh, I was just gonna hit the road."
Sophia threw her spoke in "Need a lift?"
Nick's stomach tried to do a few trapeze stunts at the prospect of keeping up this casual act for the entire trip home. Fortunately, none of this inner horror reached his face.
"No, no, that's all right, thanks. I finally got my car out of the body shop."
"Oh, okay. Well, goodnight Nick."
"Night, boss. So, it is night-time?"
A small laugh. "Yes Nick. You'll get used to it."
They said their goodnights and, to Nick's immense relief, went their separate ways. Congratulations, Casanova, he thought. Now you have two beautiful women after you.
With a sickening jolt, his mind turned to the other beautiful woman involved...Sara Sidle.
How in the hell was she going to react to this?
Sara's POV"I don't know if you know this about me, but I am a good listener..."
Truer words had never been spoken, thought Sara have gladly, half wistfully. Greg Sanders, whatever else he might be, was indeed a good listener. Maybe it should have been Greg, not Grissom, who she had told about her past...
Not that she was especially keen to repeat that little conversation with another person, but he might react better than Grissom had. She knew she was being selfish, and more than likely it would just look like she was seeking attention...
But, she mused; it would be nice to have some attention...
It had only been a week after her suspension, and already Grissom seemed to be acting as if she didn't exist. Sophia, she reflected; was another matter. She was pretending Sara didn't exist, or at least trying to.
You are just being paranoid, she told herself, but she knew in her heart that wasn't true...
Catherine, Nick, Warrick. She missed them all dearly. She missed working alongside Catherine, with her indomitable spirit and encouraging demeanour, Nick, with his carefree attitude and easy charm, and Warrick, with his calm, self-assured personality and ironic humour.
They were her best friends, she realised, and she loved them all.
But, she wondered, what about Greg? How did she feel about Greg? Working together in the field, they had become closer friends recently, more so than ever before. She had become almost a big sister figure to him.
What was he to her? A friend? A teammate? A colleague? A little brother? Or...something else...?
She was surprised to find that this thought was not entirely unappealing. He was not unattractive (well, maybe his hair...), he was fairly sweet, obviously intelligent, and he could make her laugh when he felt like it...
On impulse, she picked up the phone and dialled.
She could really use a laugh right now...