Disclaimer: Not mine, never has been, never will be.

A/N: This is not a nice fluffy story. I wish I could write those, I really wish I could, but I can't. Be prepared, it includes a character death.

Summary: Nick will stick to his promises no matter what the cost.

Pairing: N/S

Promises

This wasn't how he had imagined it to be. He had been in prisons many times before and had half expected to be brought to a room with maximum security, windows separating you from the inmate and of course the phone through which you had to talk. Nothing had prepared him to find an open spacious area lit by sunlight filtering through the multiple windows. If he squinted his eyes the bars in front of them would disappear.

Nervously, he rotated his wedding band around his finger. A habit he had picked up recently. He had noticed he only did it when things started to overwhelm him, which was, he had to admit, often. He figured it was better than drinking himself into oblivion every time the pain which was constantly lingering below the surface made itself apparent in the worst possible ways.

The sight of her stunned him so much he remained seated. Unable to speak for the first couple of minutes he quietly observed her. She wasn't quite looking him in the eye. It probably wouldn't have mattered if she had anyway as her stare was blank and cold. So unlike...snapping out of it. He wasn't going to go there not now. Maybe, probably later today when he was alone in their bedroom in their house he would allow himself to be reminded of the warmth visible in her eyes. A warmth which could melt him down on the worst and coldest nights of his life.

Stumbling for words, which he had practiced on the way over here, but were lost somewhere on the way from his brain to his mouth, he introduced himself.

"Nicholas Stokes."

"I'm a friend of Sara." "Your daughter."

Blank

He didn't know why he felt bad for lying and why he felt he needed to correct himself. He told himself he had to do it for Sara. He had never lied to her, ever.

"I'm...I'm actually her husband. I was. I am."

Again blank.

He had to restrain himself not to turn around and look for that particular sight that was keeping the person in front of him captivated.

He was at a loss for words. The situation reminded him of the countless times he had tried to get through to Sara when she had locked herself up again behind the walls she so efficiently was able to pull up in just mere seconds. But she wasn't Sara and he felt guilty instantly for comparing Sara to her. She would have hated it.

Then he said the only thing that could probably get a reaction out of her. The one thing he hadn't been able to say out loud. The one thing he had denied until now, which he had pushed back into sub-consciousness whenever suffocating stillness around him forced him to acknowledge it was true.

"She died three months ago."

He managed to see a flicker of something, he wasn't quite sure what, in her eyes. It was there just a second and then it was gone.

Images of Sara slowly losing the battle against death claiming her in his arms rushed back to the surface. He had always feared it would happen like that, at work. It hadn't been the perpetrator returning to the scene, which was a nightmare that had kept him awake on numerous nights. It had been a car, a car coming in contact with her beautiful body with such force that she hadn't been able to hang on until the ambulance would arrive. He had promised her, not then, but time and time again and Nick Stokes stuck to his promises, even if they were tearing him apart on the inside right now.

His thumb graced the picture which was sitting in his pocket. He had forgotten it was there, but now it gave him strength to continue.

"My little girl, our little girl, Sara's and mine, she wants to know. She wants to know things I can't tell her."

Blank again.

Sara had made him promise on the day they found out she was pregnant he would take care of their child, that he would love her always. He had promised, he had to, having the wrath of Sara, a pregnant Sara, directed at you was a dangerous situation which he'd rather not find himself in. He had promised time and time again, wondering how long Sara's irrational view on men or him would last. Frustration was getting at him until she had whispered one night that life was short, too short and he knew that was so true. It was then he understood the repetition of promises being made and he had made her promise the same.

He retrieved the picture out of his pocket. It only had Abby on it. Abbigail Stokes, their daughter who looked so much like her mother he sometimes had a hard time looking at her. He had stuffed this picture in his pocket this morning, deciding then that this woman who had given birth to Sara, but never had been a mother to her, wasn't allowed to see how happy she had been. How happy Sara had made him.

Slowly he shoved the picture in her direction. For the first time since he'd been there she moved her head, taking her time to study the picture.

Then that voice, that voice caused chills to run up and down his spine. A voice so similar to Sara's, for a second he thought she was there with him, just a second.

"Sara."

She rubbed the picture much in the same way he had done earlier. He wondered if she thought it was Sara.

"Sara was a quiet child, she never cried, ever. She was perfect. I hated her. They thought I killed him for her. Who was I to correct them? She never spoke up. My perfect quiet girl, who protected her mother after protecting her father for all those years. He was hurting her, but at least he wasn't hurting me when he was hurting her. I was sick of him. I hated him. I killed him. I hated her more."

Anger, no rage was building up in his body, grabbing his picture back pushing his chair out of the way, turning around, walking away, never looking back.

How could he have exposed his beautiful headstrong, but innocent daughter to this woman who obviously was mentally disturbed? It had only been a picture, but still he felt like she had taken a piece of that innocence away.

Trying to fight back his tears he realized the trip home was just long enough to make up a story for Abby. A story which would really start at the point when he had met Sara, the same moment he knew he loved her.

FIN