Disclaimer: I don't own them, but I've got some good ideas for next season. TPTB need to start listening to me! HA!
A/N: Oh man. Some of you are not going to be happy with me, I am afraid. Just a warning, this does not have a clean ending. Like I said, I am going for angst, so here it is. I have already been kicking around some ideas for another story to follow this plot line, but I need some time to work it out in my head. Thanks for following with me until the end of this story!
They lay in a tangle of sheets and limbs. The room was hot and sticky, but she didn't want to move away from him. The ceiling fan turned lazily, as if the heat affected it as well. He was fiery hot, like a human generator. It always surprised her how hot he got when he slept. Now that it was a more frequent occurrence for them to be sleeping together, she found herself drawn to his side, claiming the heat he put off. But sometime during the morning, the air conditioning had gone on the fritz, and now the room was stifling. Yet she still lay entangled in his arms.
He slept better when she was there. He had told her that as they had sat drinking vodka tonics and waiting for the charcoal to smolder in the grill. She hadn't told him that she slept better too. She hadn't admitted to herself how many days she had lain awake, trying not to remember the nightmares she had. She read, she redecorated, she worked, but she did not sleep much, until now.
Still, she thought he knew. So far they had made this work. She had wondered how easy it would be, and it had become much easier than she expected. They would see each other when the shifts overlapped. She would ask him one simple question.
"Tough shift?" She was always able to gauge whether she would be seeing him that morning by his answer. Going back into the field was harder on him than he was showing to his co-workers, but Sara knew. Sometimes he would be waiting at the diner that she passed on her way home, and sometimes he would be sitting at her townhouse. Sometimes they even went to a movie, or a ball game if they were both off the next evening. They had evengotten that game together with Warrick and Greg. It wasn't always about sex. Usually it was, but not always.
If he was not there waiting on her, she knew to expect his call. Then he would ask the question.
"Tough shift?"
It was their code. They would end up together two or three times a week, sometime more. She had no regrets about what they were doing. She did not look back and wonder what could have been, but she did look forward, and that was what bothered her. They had been living with their arrangement for over a month now, and she found herself looking forward, anticipating. She looked forward to seeing him sitting at the their table at the diner. She looked forward to going to the movies with him every couple of weeks. She had even found herself looking forward to asking him what color he thought they should paint her bedroom.
They. It was a dangerous word. It implied togetherness. She tried not to anticipate their next rendezvous, because it could all grind to a halt today, tomorrow, or next week. She knew the knowledge that she could call Nick or show up at his doorstep held her through some tense nights, and she worried. If she no longer had this safety net, how would she cope? How had she coped before? The answer was "not well", and she knew it.
She intentionally turned away from his prone form. Maybe she should begin weaning herself from his attentions. She got up and went to the bathroom for a cold shower. The heat was getting worse. Nick wandered into the bathroom and peed into the toilet. He then washed his hands, keeping the water on low flow, and leaned against the vanity.
"You're up early," he said.
"The heat," she answered from behind the shower curtain. The curtain had taken the place of a shower door, and it didn't fit the space very well. Nick just couldn't handle being in the shower with the door closed anymore.
"I need to call the heating and air guy," Nick said, yawning. His nightmares were more muted these days. He knew some of it was time, but they were always worse when Sara wasn't with him. He might even sleep all night when she lay in his bed.
"This is the second time this month," she said, and winced at the nagging sound in her voice.
"So, what are your plans this evening? Aren't you off?" he asked. He knew damn well she was off. She wasn't sure why it pissed her off for him to ask.
"I don't have any plans. You?" She actually had planned to shop around for some new clothes. Her favorite brown pants had gotten human goo on them last week. That was what Greg had called it, "human goo". She had also wanted to get Nick a new shower curtain; she hated this one.
"Not really. I need to buy some new sneakers. I've worn my others out whooping Warrick's ass on the basketball court." She laughed in spite of trying to be pissed at him, and then squealed when Nick joined her in the shower. She looked forward to soaping him up. There it was again, looking forward. "You want to ride with me?" he asked. He rubbed her back, and she knew she would go with him. Vague worry persisted in her mind. What if this ended? What if he met someone? What if she met someone? Nick interrupted her thoughts by reaching around her and turning the hot water up.
"You've got this way too cold," he said. He slid soapy hands around her stomach. She reached up and stroked the back of his neck. "What ifs" resonated in her mind. She worried that this was too comfortable.
They finally made it to the Denalis parked side by side in his driveway.
"Yours or mine," he joked, but he was already holding the passenger side door open for her on his truck. Chivalry would never die around Nick Stokes. As she sat in the seat, she noticed she had left a pair of sunglasses on the dash. She wondered if Catherine or Warrick had seen them. The worries circled her again. Her mood had shifted by the time he got in on his side of the SUV. They rode in silence for the first few minutes. Or at least, she was silent. Nick sang off key to a Kenny Chesnee song.
"Where are we going?' she asked. She hadn't meant to say it aloud. Nick gave her an odd look.
"To that mall you always like to go to," he said. It scared her that he even knew what mall she always liked to go to. They were acting like a couple, without making the commitments couples make. Did she even want to make those commitments? Maybe she wanted to know the option was there.
"I meant, where are we going, with this," she said, pointing to him and then to herself. Nick stopped singing and looked at her as if she had grown a third head.
"I don't know," he said. She thought he shifted uncomfortably in his seat.
"If you met someone tomorrow, someone you really connected with, would you tell me?" she asked. It was a totally hypothetical question that was unfair considering they had said this would be friendship only.She asked it anyway.
"I don't know," he said again. "What's going on here? Do you want to quit this? Have you met someone?" he asked.
"No," she answered, too quickly for her liking. She thought Nick looked relieved. "I don't know. I'm having doubts," she admitted. "Not about this, about when it might end," she said. She was surprised at his answer.
"Me too," he said. He caught the look on her face. "Why are you surprised?"
"I figured this was every guy's dream. Tangle free, no strings attached sex," she said. Nick's face was disappointed and reproving when he looked over at her.
"I wouldn't say this is tangle free," he said. "From the beginning, I told you I wanted us to remain friends, and we have. Friendships are not tangle free."
"You never answered my question," she said. This was becoming less tangle free by the second.
"Yes I did. I said I didn't know," he protested.
"That's not an answer," she huffed. She knew she wasn't being fair to him. She had persuaded him into this, whatever it was, that morning in her living room weeks ago. Until then, it had only been a couple of incidences. "Not that it took a lot of persuading," she thought to herself.
"If Gil Grissom found the wherewithal to ask you out, would you tell me?" Nick asked quietly. Sara was dumbstruck. The unfairness of her question to him hit home when he turned it around like this.
"Gil would never ask me out," she said. She looked out the window.
"That's not what I asked you. I didn't ask if he would. I asked what if he did." Nick reached over and took her hand. She looked at him with tears in her eyes.
"I don't know," she said. Nick squeezed her hand. They were sitting in the parking lot of the mall. Everywhere Sara looked, she saw happy couples. She wondered if she and Nick looked like that, because they weren't. They weren't a couple. They were friends with benefits.
"So maybe we need a new rule," Nick said. "No regrets, no looking back and no what ifs." He ticked the three off with his fingers. "We'll go with this until something happens," he said. "Then we'll deal with that something, come what may."
"You've got it all planned out," she said. His optimistic attitude was bolstering her. In the end, Nick was really her best friend. And the benefits had been really, really nice.
"I told you. I had been having doubts too. The fact is, I'm getting to sleep with a great friend. How many guys can say that? Double bonus: it's not Warrick," Nick said. The way he said it made it seem like it was the most ordinary thing in the world. Sara laughed at the thought of Warrick in the SUV with Nick, holding hands.
What he didn't tell her was that he had worried over this same thing a lot of the nights he was alone. He was pretty sure Sara wasn't in love with him. He wasn't sure that he was in love with her. They had gotten themselves into this and he couldn't honestly say he wanted out at this moment. He loved seeing her at work and sharing a secret smile. He loved seeing a side of Sara that no one else knew. He knew she needed him almost as much as he needed her, and he needed her in an anxious way that he tried to hide. He was selfish, because without her, he wouldn't be back at work or functioning as well as he was. He hoped that if this were hurting Sara, he would be able to stop. In his heart, he was not sure that he could. Were these questions not an indication that this was hurting her in some small way?
He watched her as she watched people walking in and out of the mall. He could almost see her thoughts churning from the looks passing over her face. He breathed a sigh of relief inwardly when she turned to face him with a wide smile. Sara had decided to go with the flow.
"No regrets, no looking back," she said to him.
"No what ifs," he responded. He squeezed her hand and let it go. "Let's get our stuff," he said, taking the keys out of the ignition.
Sara watched him hop out of the SUV and forced her doubts down deep, below the warm feelings that accompanied being with Nick. They were OK, for now.
She would take the good where she could get it.
The End
A/N: OK, not a typical Snickers ending for those of you who prescribe to that sugary confection. I hope I haven't hurt any feelings badly! The positive reviews so far have been overwhelming.
Meredith44: Thanks for your detailed review!
Jacinda: Cynical? Oh no, not me. OK, maybe. What does that say about me being married to my high school sweetheart?
Kristen999: Your comments are always welcomed. Thanks again.
Anushka: I hope you can take it if my next story isn't N/S! ;-)