A/N: Again, thanks so much for the reviews, guys. :)

Well thank god that FINALE FEVER is over; I can breathe again! Though it does mean that we have to wait the four months for a new episode, but at least we know that our dear Nicky is safe. :) So, who cried during the episode? (hides face) Yeah, I did. More than I'd be willing to admit, really; it wasn't a pretty sight.

The morning sun streaming through the small gap in the curtains woke Sara up, and she was momentarily disorientated, since she usually woke up for work as the sky was getting darker. After quickly realising the reasoning for her waking at this hour, she finally became conscious of exactly where she was, and with whom. A smug smile overtook her sleepy expression as she acknowledged Nick's strong arm wrapped around her slight frame, pulling her close to him. Sara usually tossed and turned in her sleep, often waking up with her blankets kicked off, and her body in positions she didn't even know how she got herself into, but somehow, sleeping beside Nick had relaxed her, and she'd hardly moved from her original position of rest. Her mind flashed back to one particular incident with Hank, where she'd woken up yelping and gasping for air, as he'd practically suffocated her as they slept, pulling her face into his chest. She giggled to herself; their relationship had never exactly been the epitome of true romance.

She turned herself in Nick's arms as gently as she could, but still managed to wake him slightly. She leaned up on one elbow as he stirred, bringing her hand up to stoke the side of his face gently, and his eyes flickered open.

"Morning."

"Morning." She smiled. "It's so weird waking up when it actually is morning."

"Yeah, I know what you mean. Sorry, did I not close the curtains enough?"

"It's fine." She leaned up to look past him at the clock on his bedside table. "And I still slept even more than I usually do."

Nick smiled, combing her bed-head out with his fingers. "Yeah, me too. And I didn't wake up once all night. Maybe we should sleep together more often."

His lame joke made her chuckle, and she decided to up the ante. "Yeah, maybe – in whichever sense you were referring to." He raised his eyebrows in amusement, and brought his head forward to kiss her, bringing his hand around to the nape of her neck and pulling her face closer to his.

Sara wasn't exactly sure where this was going, but she really didn't feel like thinking at the moment. She let her mind relax and her body take over, as she grabbed at Nick's muscular arm and felt him roll himself over on top of her, pressing her into the softness of his mattress as he continued to kiss her. As both of her hands moved to wrap around his neck, he surprised her by grabbing her lightly at the wrists and pinning her hands above her head, still kissing her intently. His eyes diverted up to notice the line of dark blue ink against the paleness of her forearm that the sleeve of her t-shirt didn't cover, and he lifted his head to grin at her.

"Well, what do we have here?" He ran his finger along the marking.

Sara twisted her head back to see what he was commenting on. "Oh, right. I was labelling evidence yesterday, and the stupid pen wasn't working, so I shook it around a little and ended up drawing on myself." She paused, smirking. "I was tired, okay?"

"Well, I'm sorry, but that's it, Sara. I can't have you in my bed unclean." He eased himself off her and placed his feet on the floor before leaning over her once again, scooping her out of bed and directing them both towards his en suite bathroom. "You definitely need a shower."

Carrying her into his bathroom, Nick turned Sara gently in his arms and placed her back against the cool wall, where she wrapped her legs around his waist and continued kissing him passionately. His hands grasped at the undersides of her thighs, and she had to stop herself from just ripping the fabric of Nick's shirt away from his torso as he brought his mouth down to lap at her neck. She instead settled for just tugging his shirt off as quickly as she could, and running her hands over the ripples of his back, sinking her mouth into the flesh of his shoulder. Nick followed suit, pulling her slightly away from the wall to yank her cotton t-shirt over her head. She'd discarded her bra before they went to sleep the night before, and now he immediately focused his attention on her naked breasts, with nothing hindering the rolling movements of his lips and tongue against her sensitive skin and stiff nipples.

As Sara slid her hand down the side of Nick's boxer shorts, he whirled her around off the wall, still holding her flush against his body, and walked them into the glass cubicle of his shower, closing the door behind them and leaning her once again up against the wall. The unexpected rush of coolness made her exposed skin rise in goose bumps, and she exhaled loudly as Nick brought his mouth back to hers once again. He ran one hand over her soft skin, the other reaching out to turn on the shower at the highest pressure possible. The hot water streamed down their already heated flesh, and Sara dug her heels into the small of Nick's back, urging his only remaining garment off, using her hands to help her, while he himself played at the waistband of her underwear. As the steam engulfed the bathroom and Nick grabbed his bar of soap off the shower shelf, Sara knew it would be a while before either of them would leave the room again.

It was several hours later that Nick and Sara finally even thought about food, or about anything other than their sex in the bathroom, as a matter of fact. Sara sat on his couch, watching TV, wrapped up in a huge, soft towel he'd grabbed for her from his cupboard. It even smelled like him.

Nick emerged from the kitchen, poking his head around the door to call across the living room at her. "Okay, we have good news, and we have bad news. The bad news is, I have no food in my house. The good news is, you get to be taken out for lunch by me." He grinned at her, and she smirked back at him.

"Uh, correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't lunch meant to indicate a meal somewhere around about noon, maybe 1pm?"

"Your point?"

"Well, according to your VCR, it's after three."

Nick looked grudgingly at her. "That thing's fast, anyway. And why are you trying to get out of going out with me? We are dating, right?" He emphasised the word in a way that he intended to make Sara feel guilty, but instead made her feel all warm inside. She was dating someone, she was dating Nick, and as scary as that was for her, she couldn't think of anything she would like more.

"I have an idea; why don't we just go to the store and buy some stuff? Two birds, one stone." She looked at him expectantly, and he walked across the room in his towel to sit beside her on his couch.

"You're a genius, woman!" He lifted her legs up to rest on his lap as he kissed her lips lightly. "I knew there was something I liked about you."

Sara looked at him in mock indignation. "Thanks a lot. That's why you like me?" He tilted his head and gave her a lopsided grin, and his expression melted her heart.

"Well, and you're pretty sexy, too. So, do we need to stop off and get you some clothes first?" She stifled a laugh.

"Yeah, I'm not sure I really want to be seen in public like this."

Finding each other more than a little distracting, it took Nick and Sara longer than they had expected to just leave his house and stop off quickly at her place, and it was almost an hour later when they finally pulled up in the parking lot of their local supermarket. They held hands as they walked in the automatic doors together, and Sara couldn't help but think how nice all this was. She'd never done stuff like this with Hank; the most fun they'd ever had together was seeing movies, which, Sara had convinced herself, was just so he could spend their time looking at someone else on the big screen. Forcing herself to shake any lingering thoughts of her ex-boyfriend from her mind, she turned to Nick, squeezing his hand a little. "So, what do we need?"

"Um, pretty much everything. I haven't had much of a chance to shop lately. What do you wanna eat when we get back? I guess no steaks and burgers, huh?" She smacked him playfully.

She eyed the isles of vegetables. "Oooh, let's get eggplant. You like eggplant?"

"Love it."

"Me too. We're a perfect match!" She threw her hands up in exclamation before placing three of the vegetables in their shopping cart. "Seriously, though, eggplant is a great substitute to meat in recipes, and has almost no fat, no cholesterol, and twelve essential vitamins."

Nick snorted. "You sound like a commercial."

"Hey, I have to be braced with facts, when people start to attack the vegetarian way." She followed him and their cart down to the dairy section. "Do you wanna get yogurt? Sorry, I don't think they do beef flavoured, though." She screamed in surpise when he grabbed her around the shoulders from behind, fully intent on slapping her butt with the block of cheese he was holding, but instead planting a kiss in her hair.

As they drove away from the store, Sara reached her hand across the car and interlaced her fingers with Nick's. "That was fun."

"Yeah. Next time, though, try to avoid a scene with the gum rack, if you can." He laughed at the memory.

"Okay, it was not my fault they had them all stack up so high, right where you turn the corner. How was I supposed to see them? It's a health hazard, actually. I should report them to OSHA." She turned to him. "You think I'm an idiot, don't you?"

Nick chuckled. "No. I think you're amazing."

A/N: Aww, I just realised; I think the next chapter is gonna be the last one. Yeah, I can hear you all crying now. This has been fun, though:)