Disclaimer: Even if I did own them, I might not tell you.
A/N: Thanks for the reviews! I can see some of you are warming up to Ozzie, and it makes me happy. I hope it makes the angst work that much more.
On with the program!
Nick wondered if Ozzie had asked Sara out yet and if Sara would tell him. The thought of having to give her up was devastating, more than he had guessed it would be. Nick was no ladies' man, despite the rumors, but he had been in several semi-serious relationships. Semi-serious – did that even make sense? Those had all ended fairly amicably. He had moved, or she had moved, or they had decided that they weren't going in the same direction. He had only been in love one time, he thought, and that had been with his high school sweetheart. That hadn't survived through one semester of college at different schools.
He loved Sara. There was no doubt about that. But was it the kind of love that sustained you through thirty years of marriage, or thirty years of being buddies? Marriage? That was a laugh. He hadn't even asked Sara on a date. They were fuck buddies, plain and simple. It had been nice, extremely nice, and it had provided him with comfort he had needed. He thought it had for Sara too. She had been more like her old self in the last fewmonths than in the last two years.
Ozzie Perrin was smart, handsome and nice, the bastard. Nick had to admit that he seemed truly taken with Sara. He wanted to ask her on a date. He wanted to court her. He admired her without having known her more than a week.
What did Sara deserve? Was it a broken friend whose moods dictated whether they were rock climbing and drinking beers, or murmuring softly while laying on tear-stained pillows? She deserved a man who would romance her, and remind her that she was more than a CSI. She deserved someone who would sacrifice everything for her, unlike Grissom, and who would treat her like a queen, unlike Hank. She deserved someone who would give her a reason to quit working so much overtime. She deserved someone who would date and pursue her. Maybe Ozzie was that guy
Nick knew that Ozzie would do a better job than he would, or had been. Nick couldn't even take care of his own emotional needs, much less someone else's. He could only be pulling Sara down. He knew she had needed his contact, but if she could get that from someone else with commitment, with love, she deserved that. If Ozzie turned out to be a jerk, Nick was going to personally tear him limb from limb.
Now he had to figure out how to tell her all of this. "I love you, but I don't love you enough. You don't love me, and you deserve more than this is giving you, so I don't think we should have sex anymore. Can we still be friends?" It didn't sound great.
Nick didn't count on them being anything but awkward after this. It crossed his mind that his bed was going to be empty for a while. He already ached to hold her in his arms. His stomach tightened into a painful knot when he heard her opening the door to her apartment. He stood and clenched his fists nervously. He thought this was probably the hardest thing he would ever do.
He had no idea.
Sara opened the door and shut it quietly, and carefully. The look on her face made Nick's knotted stomach do a flip in his torso. She was pissed, as pissed as he had ever seen her. For a moment, he wondered what Grissom had done.
"Whatever gave you the right to talk about me to Ozzie Perrin?" she said. Her voice cracked, but there were no tears in her eyes. If looks could have killed, Sara would have been disposing of evidence about now.
"Oh shit," Nick said.
"Oh shit doesn't even cover the half of it. What the hell did you think you were doing?"
"Sara, I swear to God, he just asked and I didn't know what to say. I wasn't going to tell him that you had a boyfriend and I sure as hell wasn't going to tell him about us," Nick said.
"You should have just said that you didn't know," she said fiercely.
"So he asked you out?" Nick asked.
"What does it matter to you? You're obviously not my boyfriend. You could have at least told me that you had that conversation. Dammit, Nick. Would you even have told me if he hadn't?" she asked. Nick stared dumbly at the wall. This was going even worse than he had anticipated. It had gone in a totally different direction than he had thought.
"I don't know," he said, finally.
"You don't know. Well what do you know, Mr. Stokes?" Sara said, in a scathing, mocking voice. Nick didn't want to look at her for fear of the look on her face that would go with the sneer in her voice.
"I know that sometimes you want to take a bite of my meat lover's pizza, but then think the better of it. I know you prefer green enchilada sauce to red if given the choice. I know you secretly harbor a desire for a puppy, but are scared that you would be a miserable pet owner. You called your parents by their first names as a child, and you straight iron your hair because you sometimes think the curly look is too cute for a serious profession like CSI." He had spoken it all in a low, sad voice. "I know that you are one of the best friends I have ever had, and I know you deserve a happy ending." He finally looked at her. She had tears in her eyes, but had not let them fall. Nick was surprised when his own tears fell from his eyes and trailed hotly down his cheek.
"I know that I can't continue to use you thinking that the happy ending, or a happier middle, might be in this guy Ozzie. And I can't let you use me as an excuse because you are scared of a true, grown up relationship. I hate that I ever put you in this position," he said. He looked away from her and wiped his tears from his cheeks with a quick, disgusted flick of his hands. "I know that sometimes I wish I could go back …"
"What about 'no regrets, no looking back'?" Sara asked. The sneer was still there.
"I lied," Nick said. He had virtually spat the two words out, and it didn't sound exactly like he had meant it. When he turned to apologize, Sara handed him his keys.
"Get out," she said. The tears were flowing freely now. "Get your ass out of my home."
"Sara, I … please don't let us end this way," he pleaded.
"I didn't, Nick. You did," she said. Her voice broke and through a sob she said, "Just go. Please."
So he did. What else could he do? He sat in his Denali and cried big, gut wrenching sobs like he hadn't cried since he was a child. How had he messed this up so badly? The last thing he had wanted to do was put the look he had just seen on Sara's face. He finally composed himself enough to go home, though he couldn't remember making the drive once he got there. He sat on his couch and looked at the house. It felt empty knowing that she wouldn't be coming back. He got up and walked to the kitchen, pulling a beer from the fridge.
He was crazy to think that she had never left anything at his house. There in the kitchen was the waffle iron he had bought so that he could make breakfast for her. The refrigerator held that micro-brew from San Francisco that he had special ordered. On the living room couch were the throw pillows she had picked out at some bargain basement store. He walked down the hallway, thinking of all the times he had carried, followed, or chased her down to his bedroom. That room was the worst. The pillow she had slept on smelled of her shampoo. Even the room smelled of her. His bathroom revealed the shower curtain she had bought because she hated his other.
There were pieces of her everywhere. She had left her memory everywhere. Nick finally understood every broken-hearted country song he had heard. He called and left a message for Catherine at work, feigning illness. He had never done that before, but he knew he would be ill in the evening, if he weren't still drunk, because that was what he was going to do. He was going to pitch a drunk like he hadn't done since his frat mixer days.
When he was reaching into the fridge for another beer, the calendar stuck on the door caught his eye. He was scheduled to take the weekend off. The camping trip he had never asked Sara about would have started in two days. He felt tears trying to come on strong again. The phone rang. Part of him hoped it was Sara; the other part hoped that it wasn't.
Caller ID showed a number he had known by heart most of his life. He wasn't sure if he wanted to answer it, but he did anyway.
"Hey Mom," he said into the phone. He was trying his best to sound normal.
"That's great Pancho, but your Mom's out with the girls in the yard. Hope I didn't wake you," his dad said. Nick smiled.
"No sir, you didn't wake me. I don't feel much like sleeping anyhow," Nick answered. He could hear his accent thicken the way it always did when he talked to his family. "How are you, Cisco?"
"Good. I hated I missed you the other day. You've been on my mind today, son, so I thought I would call." His dad went on to talk about his nephew's baseball games and how they were going to state. Out of the blue, Nick wanted very much to talk to his father in person. The beers in his fridge held no attraction next to the idea of seeing his dad.
"What would you say if I asked you to come up for the weekend? Just you and me. We could go camping or fish or whatever," Nick asked. His dad was quiet for a moment.
"You sure everything's OK?" he asked. Nick thought about how he should answer.
"I know it would be better if I could talk to you about it in person," he said. "If you can't get away, though, it'll be OK." Nick heard his dad take a breath.
"Pancho, you never could fool me with that bravado. Hell yes I'll come up. I've got nothing on the docket Friday. You know we like to take Fridays off anyway. Let me get a flight, and I'll let you know my schedule," he said. Just like that - all Nick had done was ask, and his dad was coming to him. Love for his parents overwhelmed him for a moment. He had moved away to get away from the Stokes name, to make it on his own, but he had paid a big price for independence.
"Thanks, Cisco," he said, his voice wavering some.
"Hey, you'll understand when you have kids," his dad said. "I'll call you back when I know something." Knowing that his dad was coming made Nick feel better. He called Catherine and left another message saying he would be taking several days off like he had planned. She could call his ass on the carpet later. Then he proceeded to get drunk.
Sara had slept sporadically at best. She kept thinking of the hurt on Nick's face when she had kicked him out. She kept feeling the betrayal that had fired her anger at him. Now she was left with what to do about it.
Fact: Ozzie Perrin had asked her out.
Fact: She was interested. (There, she admitted it.)
Fact: She and Nick had known this would come up, though she had always expected it to come up for him first.
Fact: She thought Nick should have kept his mouth shut and let her make this decision herself.
Now if she went out with Ozzie, neither she nor Nick would know whether she would have gone out with him anyway, or whether Nick had forced her hand. Did it matter? If she really wanted to go out with Ozzie, she should go out with him. If she went in to the lab tomorrow and found out that Nick had asked Mia out, would it be any of her business?
Her head said no, but everything else said yes. There was nothing logical about the way she felt. They had an arrangement, and there had been ground rules. So much for all this civilized behavior and so much for friends with benefits.
So much for sleeping any at all.
For a moment, she wished that Nick were there beside her, radiating heat in his comforting way. She tried to replace that with an image of Ozzie, but he kept grinning too much. For the first time in a long time, Sara wished she had a bottle of vodka in the freezer. She didn't, and that was a good thing.
She couldn't sleep, and tossing and turning in her bed was only making her sore. She got up and played spa, deep conditioning her hair, slathering her face in a mud mask, and giving herself a manicure and pedicure. She painted her toenails a color called "Blood Red" that had been a gag gift from Greg at Valentines. It looked good on her scrubbed and buffed feet. Her fingernails were filed neatly and coated with clear polish. She plucked her eyebrows and she showered using every the girlie scrub, cleanser and lotion she normally eschewed. In the back of her mind, she reminded herself that this was not because Ozzie had asked her out. She didn't even know if she was going.
She read the back issues of forensics journals, but nothing was sticking with her. She did what had to be considered her last resort on mornings like this - she went shopping. It was a truly desperate move for her, but she had to do something to drown out the interior dialogue that was making her crazy.
She had purchased a very uncharacteristic dress when her pager interrupted her reverie. She was grateful that she was being called into work, until she remembered that this was swing shift. She would have to see Nick earlier than she anticipated. She would just pray that Catherine let her work with Warrick. If not, well, Sara was practiced in hiding her emotions behind professionalism. She might not always be great at it, but she was practiced.
She took one last look at the silky dress with its swirls of light and dark green before putting it in the backseat of the Denali. She was not buying that dress with the idea of going out to supper with Ozzie. That was not the reason she had tried it on and spent more than her usual budget.
Sara sat ramrod straight in her vehicle and drove to work, preparing herself for the awkwardness that would come from seeing Nick again, especially so soon. She called Catherine on her cell phone. Catherine seemed relieved to hear from her.
"Thanks Sara. I tried the days guy first, but he never called back and you were next on the list," she said. It was unusual for Sara to hear gratitude in Cath's voice.
"Sure. What's up?" Sara asked. She wondered if she should go ahead and volunteer to work with Warrick. Would that be too forward?
"Nick's called in sick. In fact, he called in for several days. He was scheduled to take the weekend off, but I don't know what's going on with him," Catherine said. She left an opening for Sara to volunteer information, but Sara was as surprised as she was.
"Nick called in?" she asked. For a moment, nagging worry poked forth to her conscious mind. Since she was still more than a little mad at him, she tossed it aside.
"Yeah. Do you think you could come in and give us a hand? It's turning out to be a busy night."
"I'm on my way," Sara said. She hung up with Catherine and continued battling the worrisome thoughts intruding on her drive.
Catherine assigned Warrick and Sara to what appeared to be a murder / suicide in the Saturn Arm's apartment complex. Warrick won rock, paper, scissors to drive. That also meant he controlled the radio, which Sara didn't mind too much. One of the reasons she always drove with Greg was because it meant she controlled the radio. Another reason was just because she wanted to.
Warrick wasted no time in questioning her.
"So what's up with Nick? Did you talk to him after your shift?" he asked her. She hated the worried look in his eyes; she knew it would mirror her own if she allowed her worries to make it to the forefront of her thoughts.
"What makes you think I talked to him?" she non-answered. Warrick gave her an eye-roll.
"You two usually talk at least once a day. Am I wrong?" he said.
"No." Sara was making him draw it out of her.
"And here I was thinking I was going to enjoy working with you again. I had forgotten how much of a pain you could be," Warrick said to her. Sara snorted derisively at that, but Warrick knew how to get to her.
"Yes. We talked. I didn't know he wasn't coming to work," she said. Warrick gave her a beleaguered look.
"What are you not telling me?" he said. Sara felt heat in her face and tried to combat the defensive tone in her voice.
"Nothing."
"Oh, don't give me that shit. Did you guys have a fight or something? Was he depressed about anything?" Dammit. How could he guess that they were fighting?
"I tell you what, 'Rick - let's get this job done, and we'll ride by and check on Nick or call him." Sara's tone did not invite argument, but Warrick wasn't scared.
"Oh, we'll do this job, and then you are going to tell me what's going on. I don't like this about Nick calling in sick, and then calling in and saying he'll be out through the weekend. If it were anyone but Nick, Catherine would have had their ass." Sara could see the worry fueling Warrick's aggravation. Her heart softened a little bit. They were all touchy when it came to Nick, but Warrick had carried a lot of guilt around after Nick had been rescued.
"Look, we did have a fight, OK? And no, I'm not telling you what about," she said, her tone lower. "We'll go get this done, and then we can stop by and you can go in. I doubt he'll want me there," she admitted. After she said it, she wished that she hadn't. It said more about the permanence of the situation than she wanted to let Warrick know. It said more about it than she wanted to know. She wouldn't look at Warrick. She didn't want to see the questions in his eyes for fear that she would answer him. She knew that if she started talking, she would let all the anguish she was feeling pour out of her in a torrent. She trusted Warrick, and their friendship had been a hard won prize, but she didn't think either of them was ready for her to start spilling her guts.
By this time they were at the crime scene. She recognized Vartann, and at his side was Ozzie. Warrick noticed him too.
"Hey, there's your biggest fan," he teased. When he saw Sara's face, he wished he hadn't said it.
"This night keeps getting better," she said, aggravated that she was blushing and that Warrick staring at her in a way usually reserved for the interrogation room. She was also acutely aware that inside, she was pleased to be seeing Ozzie's handsome visage again.
They walked up to the pair of detectives. Ozzie gave Sara a quizzical smile.
"I didn't expect to be talking to you again so soon," he said. "But I am glad of it." Sara felt her blush deepen. She thought Warrick and Vartann were looking at the pair of them too hard. Still, Ozzie was genuinely glad to see her, and she could feel an unfamiliar excitement welling up from inside her. She smiled at him too, though it was a shy smile.
"Yeah, I got called in a little early," she said.
"Me too, though it looks like Sam's got this one. I was just leaving," he said. Sara fell relieved and disappointed at the same time. Ozzie leaned over and shook Warrick's hand and said his good byes. He then ushered Sara out of earshot of the two men. "So, you give it any thought? No pressure. I've just been making up plans of how to wine and dine you when you say yes," he said. Sara had to grin at the earnest expression on his face.
"Ozzie, I..." she started to say. She looked into his green eyes and saw something there she hadn't expected: openness. Beneath his teasing facade, Ozzie was worried that she was going to say no, and that was the clincher. Knowing that he was that sincere about her made butterflies flurry about in her insides. "I'd love to," she said. "But I don't know when I'll get a night off. I'm supposed to be off tomorrow night, but we'll have to see."
"I'll pick you up at 8," he said, and held her hand up to his lips. Sara was embarrassed, but pleased. She hoped Warrick wasn't looking.
When she walked into the apartment, putting on her gloves, Warrick gave her a grin.
"Look's like Ozzie finally asked you out. More surprisingly, it looks like you accepted," he said, smiling.
"What do you mean, finally?" she said. She narrowed her eyes at Warrick.
"I was just telling Nick yesterday that he had it bad for you," Warrick answered. He saw the look in Sara's eyes, and realized what the fight with Nick had been about.
"You know, I wish everybody would quit talking about my love life or lack of it," she said with a clenched jaw.
"I was saying it was a good thing, Sara," he said, trying to make amends. She just glared at him and stalked into the other room.
Warrick knew he was going to have a talk with Nick. Something was going on here, and he thought he knew what it was.
"What kind of mess have you two made?" he said to himself, but he knew he would be asking Nicky later. Until then, he and Sara had evidence to collect.
A/N: I have two more chapters of this written and at least a third in progress, so we've got a few more chapters to see how this goes. I keep saying that, but it keeps stretching out on me! Let me know how I'm doing!
loose-canon-with-a-gun: Don't give away all my secrets! You see you were right about part of it at least. On to the next chapter!
Mayme - Thanks! I thought getting Grissom out of her system was something that had to be done.
bomber6 - Red herring? (Insert evil laugh here, preferably like Robert Wagner in Austin Powers.) Wait and see.
DixielandDelight: I haven't watched the other CSI shows, so any resemblence is coincidental. Maybe Sara likes them older?
Anushka: Glad you did well on exams. Hope your big presentation goes well. Just to let you know, I'm scared to read more of your "Fade to Black", though I know I will. I have a few more chapters to go if you want to wait, but I really like reading your reviews on each chapter!
jd - Did Sara look like a bitch? I hope not. I wanted her to come off as hurt and confused.
FoxRox - I'm glad you like Ozzie - and yes, Nick will have to get his act together if he wants to compete.
Jacinda - Just what I was going for!
bleedingmascara - it's good to be loved. Glad you are enjoying the story!