Disclaimer: I don't own them. At all.
A/N: This is a sequel to a post Grave Danger story I wrote called "Tangled Sheets". So if you haven't read that one, here's a little background:
Sara and Nick have established a "friends with benefits" relationship that helps them deal with the nightmares of their jobs, him specifically after being buried alive. Their rules are: no regrets, no looking back and no what-ifs.
Now I am going to continue trying my hand at angst while Nick and Sara break the rules.
Nick wove through the late night Vegas traffic to get back to the lab. Of course, in Vegas, this was prime time. Things were as close to "back to normal" as he thought they would ever get. He was working on cases solo again and he was sleeping more easily than before, even when Sara wasn't in his bed.
Sara. The thought of her brought an unconscious smile to Nick's tired face. She had become his best friend in the past few months. As she said, she was his "friend with benefits". She always said that phrase in a specific, eyebrow arched way. Nick could hear the quotation marks around the phrase when she said it. It made him chuckle every time.
It had happened unexpectedly, but when Nick thought about it, they had enjoyed a flirtatious chemistry from the beginning. Sara had proven a surprisingly aggressive and adventurous partner, in all ways. They had been hang-gliding and rock climbing in the last month. Nick had suddenly wanted to prove that he was back to his old self, though it wasn't totally true. He still felt the need to meet Sara at her apartment, or at the diner some mornings when she got off shift. He would fill the hours between his shift and hers with a hundred things. He never admitted to Catherine, or even Warrick, how scared he got, but those mornings when they would lie in a bed, his or hers, shadowed by the blackout curtains or blinds, he would murmur his day to Sara. He would leave some of his fears unspoken, but she always seemed to know what he left out. She never advised; she only listened and helped him medicate the pain with her voice, her smell, her touch, and her feel.
Some mornings he wouldn't be waiting on her. He did this more as self-discipline than anything, because if he allowed himself to, he would have her to himself every morning. Then he would never have to face any nightmares alone. So the days when he was feeling good, or at least, not wiped out or fearful, he wouldn't wait on her. He would go and play basketball with Warrick, or workout, or whatever. Sometimes he would even go home and catch a nap, or lazy his way through a movie or a book. But come 9:00 am, if he hadn't heard from her, he would call her cell.
He would be able to tell from her voice whether she needed him. Because that was the part that made this whole messed up relationship, friendship work. She needed him as well.
"Tough shift?" he would ask, and she would either chuckle, or she would sigh. If she sighed, he knew what she would say next.
"Do you want to come over?" or "Can I come over?"
He would never tell her "no".
What totally surprised him was how they could, over several months, sleep together and hang out on a regular basis and none of the trained CSI's noticed. Even Greg, who was with Sara on a lot of cases, hadn't thought anything was going on.
"I'm glad you and Sara are hanging out some," he had told Nick in the locker room one evening. Nick was leaving and Greg was coming in. Nick had only raised his eyebrows. "Yeah, she needs a friend, and she doesn't seem the type of woman to have a lot of close girlfriends. So, I guess that makes you her girlfriend," Greg had joked.
"Well, it's been good for me," Nick said, enigmatically. Greg had just laughed. There was nothing in his tone to suggest that he thought anything other than friendship was going on between Nick and Sara. Everyone just thought they had become closer since Nick's unfortunate incident.
Nick was planning on surprising her. He wanted to go camping for a weekend. Hike some trails, play in the lake and let nature surround them. He had thought twice about asking her, but then, figured it wouldn't be a big deal. Who else would he take but his best bud? They could even sleep in separate tents or sleeping bags. Like that would happen.
Even now, after months of going along like this, he was surprised at how little he could resist touching her when they were alone. How had he resisted all that time they had worked together on cases? They had made themselves a promise in the beginning. "No regrets, no looking back, no what ifs". But Nick had found himself breaking the rules.
What if Sara were a girl he was dating? If he had ever dated someone he got along with this well, he would be asking her to move in by now. He probably would have called down to Dallas to see if his great-grandmother's diamond ring was cleaned and ready for Christmas.
But they weren't a couple. They had made that plain. Sara didn't even have a shelf in his bathroom cabinet or a drawer in his dresser for her clothes. There was nothing in his shower that indicated she regularly shampooed, soaped, or anything else.
And of course, there was the question of love. He loved Sara. They were friends, and you love your friends. Did he love her like his dad loved his mom? The way his oldest sister loved her husband? Nick figured if he had to ask himself, he probably didn't. He didn't even want to think about how Sara would laugh at the question if it were posed to her.
If friendship and sex were all it took to make a happy living arrangement, he and Sara seemed to have it. What if that was all it took? Nick was breaking the rules again. He smiled and pulled into the lab parking lot. There was nothing about his relationship with Sara that was normal, but it was the one thing that had really helped him return to that comfortable state. Praise God for small miracles.
Warrick was in the DNA lab chatting up a slightly annoyed Mia when Nick walked by. He stopped and poked his head in.
"You up for ball today?" he asked. Warrick nodded.
"You know it. And I am going to wipe the court with you, as usual," he said casually. Mia smiled and rolled her eyes at the two.
"Don't let him fool you," Nick said to her. "I kick his butt every time." He nearly bounced out of the lab and ran into Catherine.
"Someone's in a good mood," Catherine said as they walked towards trace. She patted his arm. "I'm really glad you're back to yourself," she said in a quiet voice.
"Me too," he replied, and gave her a high wattage smile. "Hey, I've got a couple of days of vacation coming up next weekend. Is that still cool?" he asked, dropping off his samples and logging them in. Catherine logged hers in as well.
"Looking good right now," she said. She winked at him as he strode towards the locker room. He was singing low and off key in the locker room when a familiar hand patted his back.
"Hello stranger," Sara said and opened her own locker. She smiled shyly at him, which was crazy considering what they had been doing a mere 13 or 14 hours before. Nick smiled back and thought about asking her right there about the camping trip.
"Hello yourself," he responded, getting his backpack out and hanging up his vest. He had already changed into his shorts and a sleeveless shirt in the men's showering area. "Did you sleep good?" he asked. He had left her in her own bed earlier in the afternoon.
"Yes, actually. I seem to get at least three good nights of sleep a week," she said, giving him a sultry look.
"Damn it, girl," he said, feeling himself respond to her look. Though he hadn't had a rough shift, and he was actually feeling pretty good, he thought about telling her that it had been crap. Self-discipline, he reminded himself.
"Tough shift?" she asked. She was standing too close to him for them to be in the wide-open locker room where anyone could walk in. "You look like you feel good," she said, smiling at him.
"What if I told you looks could be deceiving?" he asked quietly. The desire to pull her close to him was strong. Just a few hours, he told himself.
"I would say you were trying to get me into …" she started, only to be interrupted by Greg's cheerful voice.
"Good evening, my fellow CSI's. Another beautiful night to traipse about Vegas in an effort to find evidence, solve crimes, and put criminals behind bars," he said, be-bopping his way to his locker. Nick and Sara had stepped a little further apart, sharing a smile between them.
"You're in a good mood G," Nick said. He tied his shoes, trying to think about playing basketball with Warrick instead of fooling around with Sara.
"Of course," Greg said, looking in the mirror he had hanging on his locker door. He smiled at his reflection and turned to his friends. "I get to be chauffeured around by the lovely Ms. Sidle and schooled in the finer points of criminal investigation by said same woman. Why wouldn't I be in a good mood?"
"That's true, Greggo, that's true," Nick said, laughing at the younger man's cheerful nature and Sara's eye roll at Greg.
"What about you Nick? It looks like you and Warrick are playing ball. Are you about ready for a rematch with Sara and me?" he asked. He pretended to be shooting a basketball into the net.
"Only if I get Sara on my team this time," Nick said. Greg frowned in mock hurt. Neither he nor Sara had been experienced at playing basketball, but they hadn't been too bad, he thought.
"That hurts man," Greg said and waved as he walked out of the locker room. Sara smiled and closed her locker. Nick grabbed her arm.
"Call me," he said. She just smiled a sultry smile.He watched as she walked out of the locker room. Warrick walked in and quirked an eyebrow at Nick.
"That look," he said. "You look like a kid who is very serious about licking the icing off a cupcake."
"What?" Nick asked, incredulous. He shook his head. "You aren't going to mess with my head. Man, it's all about the ball."
Warrick laughed, but Nick wondered if he had been wrong to think no one suspected.