Appreciation by SLynn

Summary: An art heist, an arsonist and a lot of angst. Takes place approximately four months after the end of 'Precious Things' This is the fifth in a series. Greg/Sara and Nick/OC

Spoilers: Up to 'Nesting Dolls'

Rating: PG-13

Disclaimer: I'm just borrowing and will return them all when I'm done, virtually untouched.

Chapter 19: Tried

Neither Nick nor Amy could sleep once they got back from the doctor's appointment. Instead they made pancakes and sat down to decide what to do next.

"So," Nick said, putting down his fork, "do you feel different?"

"Not really," Amy answered with a shrug. "Well, I don't feel bad eating this now, but no. I don't feel a change."

"What should we do? Who should we tell?"

Amy put down her fork now too.

"I don't know. Um, well, I have to tell Grissom. Okay, technically I don't have to but for safety reasons I should."

"Do you want me there?"

"No," Amy said with a slight shake of her head, "I can do that. You'll just make me nervous."

Nick smiled at her and began to push the food around his plate.

"You should move in," he said after a long pause, expecting the worst. "Unless you want to look for something bigger?"

"No," Amy said, "we don't need bigger. It'll just be three of us. Well, four with Baxter. We have two rooms, that's plenty for now and we really should be saving our money. Babies are expensive. I'll check into terminating my lease tomorrow."

Nick nodded and felt relieved. He'd been really worried that living together was going to be a big area of contention with her.

"We should get married too."

Amy looked at him intently for a full minute before finally laughing.

"Is that how you ask?" she said through a fit of giggles.

Nick stammered and turned red and really didn't have an answer. It wasn't how he wanted to ask, it just fell out of his mouth like that.

"I'm sorry," Amy said after she'd regained her composure, "It's just, I know we've talked about it, but is this really how you want it to be?"

"No," he said honestly. "Of course not, but don't you think we should?"

"Why?"

"Because we're going to have a baby."

"And?" Amy asked, continuing on before he could answer. "That's not a good enough reason. Lots of people have babies together and don't get married."

"You're serious?"

"Of course I am," Amy answered, her face proving it. "I don't want our child growing up thinking we only got married because we had to."

"I don't want our child growing up without a proper family."

"Nick," Amy sighed, "she'll… he'll… it's wrong to say it, isn't it?"

Nick nodded with a small smile finally showing.

"Doesn't matter," Amy finished, "the baby will have a family. You'll still be the dad. I'm not going to keep you off the birth certificate or give the baby a different last name."

"It's not that," Nick argued, "I know you wouldn't do that. It's that I should be looking out for you, both of you."

"You still will be," Amy contended, "just not in a legally binding fashion."

"You've already decided against this, haven't you?"

"You've already decided for it," she returned with a shrug.

"I don't want to fight about this," Nick said, standing up and clearing their plates.

"Neither do I," Amy said and he heard the resolve in her voice.

There weren't going to be any arguments about this. She'd already decided. Amy was a lot more stubborn than she looked, and Nick knew from experience that once she was decided she stayed that way.

Not that he wasn't going to stop trying.

"So," Amy said sitting down in the living room, "who should we tell first? Yours or mine?"

"My parents aren't home until the evening," Nick said, sitting beside her.

"Chicken," she teased.

"No," he reasoned, "I'd just rather have them both together. I'll call first."

"Good," Amy said, "because I am chicken. If yours goes well it'll give me some backbone."

Nick laughed softly before yawning.

"Are you coming back in tonight?" he asked.

"Yeah," she said, yawning too. "My parents aren't home 'til at least six. We should try to get some sleep."

"Good idea," he said, getting to his feet and offering her a hand up.

They both got ready in an easy silence, more tired then either cared to admit and both secretly doubting they'd be able to actually sleep.

Once in bed neither of them spoke for a while until finally Nick broke the silence.

"I'm not giving up, you know."

Amy turned to him, an inquisitive look on her face before it dawned on her what he'd meant.

"I know."

"Good," he said moving closer to her, "because I do want to marry you."

"Right now you do," she said with a laugh.

"You don't believe me?"

"I do," Amy admitted, absently moving her free hand down his arm, "but if you really wanted to you'd have asked me before. And well, actually asked me."

She'd laughed at the end, but he stayed serious.

"I'm sorry about that."

"Don't be," she said, sobering at his tone. "It was kind of sweet, but it's too much right now. I do love you and I'm not saying I don't ever want to get married. But right now, we already have so much happening; I don't think we need to add to it."

"So that's the only reason why?"

"Yeah," she answered, moving closer into his arms.

"What about after we have the baby?" he asked, giving her a squeeze.

"What about we just give it a few days and then we can talk about it?"

"I can do that," he said, finally smiling a real genuine smile before kissing her on the lips.

It hadn't been easy but Sara had managed.

She'd told Greg all about her infatuation with Gil Grissom. How she'd moved to Vegas at a moment's notice for him. How she'd lived off of his praise, however sparse, for years it seemed. How she'd even tried to replace him with some asshole paramedic even after Nick and Greg had warned her about him. These were not easy things to admit to, even now that it was over. Especially not to someone whose opinion now mattered so much.

And as uncertain of when her infatuation begun, she couldn't put a finger on when it had ended. It wasn't like Sara had woken up one day and the feelings were gone. Feelings like that linger and sting but they had faded. Slowly. She knew the change was happening and did her best to help it along. At that time Sara no longer sought that praise or attention, she avoided it. She didn't look for a replacement, just companionship and was happy to find it already there in her friends, her extended family. Even in the man with whom she'd once been in love.

Greg had listened and understood. No, it wasn't all easy to hear, but he wasn't judgmental. He got why she'd been hesitant to tell him now, to open up like this. It really wasn't an easy thing, but he wished he could make her understand that loving someone, even if they didn't return that affection, didn't make her faulty. It didn't diminish her in his eyes or make her love seem less valuable to him. In fact, Greg felt an odd sense of worth that she had thought of him like this once and maybe she could again.

After she'd finished, the room had been heavy and neither had spoken for some time. Finally, to relieve the tension, Greg began his tale of his first real crush. He knew that what Sara had felt was in no way the same, but since he knew now he'd only really loved her, that story didn't seem appropriate.

So as they made their way out of the kitchen and into the living room, Greg told her about the first woman he'd really thought the world of. She was smart, pretty, unattached and otherwise perfect in his mind. Sara had smiled in all the right places and laughed when she finally got the details. It wasn't until he was done with the part where the girl in question let him down easy did he admit that he was fourteen at the time. Or that this 'girl' was in fact his twenty-eight year old history teacher.

"And you thought you had a chance?" Sara said between laughs.

"Of course I did," Greg returned laughing along, "I was very sure of myself then."

"Then?"

"Well," he said with a shrug, "It comes and goes. And besides, I bet Ms. Ramos just wishes she could get a hold of me now."

"She's what, fourteen years older then you?"

"So."

Sara gave him a look, not a hard one, but a curious one.

"You know," she said after a pause, "I think I just realized something about you. Have you ever dated a girl your age? Younger even?"

"I don't get where you're headed with this."

"Well," Sara interjected, "there's Ms. Ramos. You used to hit on Catherine all the time. You flirt with Jacqui. Erika. Me."

"You and I are not that far apart in age," Greg put in, gently taking hold of her hand in his and rubbing small circles in her palm.

"I'm still older."

"By a few years, that's nothing."

"I'm just wondering," Sara said with a smile and an upturned eyebrow, still questioning.

Greg gave it some thought and after a few minutes came up blank.

"Can you think of even one?" Sara questioned, still smiling. "What about your girlfriend before me? What was her name? Sandy?"

"Mandy," Greg corrected. How could he forget? "No, she was a few years older than me too. And let's not talk about this; I'm starting to feel like I should be calling Dr. Jennings about it."

"I'm not trying to embarrass you," Sara said, still laughing.

"But you are certainly enjoying yourself," Greg countered.

Sara smiled and bit her lips; that was hard to deny.

"I'm sorry," she said after a pause.

"It's not weird is it?" Greg asked, completely serious.

"No," Sara tried to assure him, even as a fresh wave of laughter threatened to overcome her. "It's not. It's what you like, there's nothing wrong with that. I just never thought I'd be the older woman."

"You say that like you're an old woman," Greg returned, moving a bit closer to her as he spoke.

"I didn't say that," she said firmly, making him smile despite her stern look.

"I know. That's why I said 'like'."

Sara smiled at that, at his manner. Mostly at the way he was now running his hand up her arm.

"It's getting late," she said reluctantly, checking the clock and surprised it was well past noon.

They both worked again that night and neither of them had slept.

"Yeah," he agreed, reluctantly moving back, "We'll probably have to go in early. Ecklie might have a controlled burn for us to investigate."

Sara's laugh made him laugh in return, but after that they were silent.

"You could stay," Greg said rather abruptly. "I mean, you shouldn't be driving after being up for so long. And I can sleep here on the couch."

"I'm not kicking you out of your bed, Greg."

"Really," he said, "it's no big deal. I won't sleep right if I know you're off on those highways running down tourists."

Sara laughed again, but really didn't want to put him out.

"How about I take the couch," Sara offered instead.

Staying would be the smartest thing. Well, not really the smartest but the safest. She had a spare change of clothes in her trunk, she always did. And truth be told, she didn't think she should be driving either.

"No," Greg said firmly. "I will. I'm not arguing this."

Greg didn't want to tell her that he slept on the couch every day. That he hadn't been able to sleep in what he thought of as their bed since the last time they'd been in it together.

"Neither am I," Sara said forcefully, albeit through a yawn.

"All right," Greg said finally, "we're being stupid. I'm not letting you sleep on this couch. You hate this thing. And you are obviously not going to let me sleep here either. We can share the bed. We're adults, right?"

"Right," Sara said with a short nod.

"Okay," Greg said, looking very much like he'd expected more arguments.

This wasn't a good idea. They'd both taken great pains to move slowly. This was not moving slowly. This was temptation. This was risky. This was so appealing that Greg couldn't think straight.

They both got ready separately. Sara had to borrow a t-shirt and boxer shorts and Greg was actually wearing pajamas. She had to fight off a giggle at the sight, knowing full well that he usually slept in his underwear or whatever he'd been wearing that day if he was too tired to change.

It was a nice day with a good breeze, so Greg had cracked the window. It was a good thing because the noise from the street gave them both a break from the complete silence that had filled the room.

Neither of them had moved beneath the bedspread, instead he'd gotten a light blanket for each of them.

With a quick goodnight and no kiss, they each turned on their sides facing away from each other and tried to sleep.

Tried.