Disclaimer: I don't own them, but if I did, I'd loan them out to you guys...

Author's Notes: Sorry it took so long for the update, it's been a really, really, really long week at work, I've been pulling 17-19 hour shifts all week, and I only had a chance to write this during my short break earlier. If it's shorter than normal, I'm sorry, and if it sucks, I'm even sorrier. I'll admit that I didn't even proofread it. The ideas have been bouncing around in my head for a week now, and I had to jot them down before I forgot them. I do hope you enjoy it though, and I would LOVE a few replies.

For those of you who read Denial, I should have a new chapter out tomorrow or Friday. Would it be wrong to call in sick and leave my acting supervisor alone tomorrow?

Jenny

Nine:

Greg awoke with a start, his heart pounding wildly as he tried to figure out where he was. The events of the previous night started to flood his memory, and looking down at the sleeping woman in his arms, he realized he was still at Sara's, still in her bed.

He had been shocked at the events she had told him about, he had no idea how much she had gone through, and the story gave him a stronger sense of respect for her than he already had.

He contemplated sneaking out of her bed and trying to get some more sleep in the living room, but he felt so damn comfortable cradling her in his arms that he decided to remain as he was. If things were awkward in the morning, they'd have to deal with it then.

Just a few short minutes later, his own breathing soothed by her rhythmic breathing, he fell back asleep, vaguely aware that this was the most rested he had felt in weeks.

"Sleep my child, let peace attend thee, all through the night. Guardian angels, God will send thee, all through the night. Soft the drowsy hours are keeping, Hill and dale in slumber sleeping, I my loved ones watch am keeping, all through the night." Sara sang softly, stroking Katie's hair gently as the child's eyes closed for a few moments, then sleepily opened again.

"Again, Mama." Katie said with a tired yawn, rolling onto her side and gazing at Sara with innocent eyes, "Again."

Sara stifled a yawn of her own, trying to remember another lullaby to sing, excluding the thirteen that had already been sung tonight. "Why don't you try and go to sleep for now? If you can't sleep, then I'll sing you another one."

Katie shook her head, too tired to even lift her head, "Stay."

"Katie, love, Mommy's got to go to get ready for work. Please go to sleep, honey. I'll come back and check on you, I'll even put Elmo's World on for you to watch until you fall asleep."

Katie's lip hung in a pout for a few moments, but turned into a smile as the familiar theme song music started to play over the television. She rolled onto her side, her Dora the Explorer blanket falling to the floor to reveal her ballerina-theme pink pajama pants and pink t-shirt. Sara walked back over to the bed, picking up the blanket and covering Katie once more, handing her the worn out teddy bear that the child always seemed to possess.

"Good night, Love."

"Night-night, Mommy." Katie replied sleepily, her eyelids falling shut once more as she managed to sleepily blow a kiss in her mother's direction.

Sara walked into the living room with a sigh, falling back onto the couch and shutting her eyes. As if putting Katie to bed wasn't tiring enough, having to do it twice, because the ringing phone woke the child up, was exhausting. At least the first time, Katie had been fed and changed, and was tired, but not too tired to cooperate. All it had taken was two half-hour videos and a handful of times Sara had to go place the child back in bed. After the first hour of television and arguing was over, Sara resorted to letting the child fall asleep where she pleased, which, in tonight's case, had been on top of two pillows, on the floor next to her bed. The second time was always so much harder.

A noise alerted Sara to another presence in the apartment. She couldn't make out exactly what the noise was, but she knew it wasn't a sound she normally heard on Katie's Elmo video. The shrill scream and wail was the noise that brought Sara to her feet, though, her feet loudly slapping the floor as she burst through the door of her daughter's bedroom.

He was dressed completely in black, and held a knife against Katie's struggling form. "Make one move and the kid gets it."

"Let her go!" Sara shrieked, hysteria bubbling up inside of her, her body shaking, "Let her go! She's just a baby."

"She's going to pay. Everyone's going to pay."

The knife made contact, and the room was instantly covered in blood spatter, the smell filling Sara's nostrils and causing her to gag instinctively. The only sounds heard were Katie's slowly fading ones, Sara's shrill ones, and the sound of metal hitting flesh.

Instantly, Sara was transported to the bedroom she grew up in, ballerina posters replaced with anatomy posters and enlarged periodic tables. The colorful Dora blanket was replaced with a brown, yellow, and orange afghan made by her grandmother, laying on top of white sheets, which must be pulled completely straight every day.

The sounds were still the same, Sara's shrill screams, the squish of flesh being punctured. The smell of blood was the same. The fear was the same. Except now Sara was barely a teenager, and instead of her daughter laying on the floor, bloody and unrecognizable, it was her father. Instead of a masked intruder holding the weapon, her mother stood with a glazed expression, knife still in hand.

"Sara."

She was back in her apartment. Sara refused to look at the man, her eyes fixated on her daughter. Katie laid motionless on the cold floor, the room around her slowly disappearing, until the only picture visible was Katie, in a pool of blood, surrounded by blackness.

"Sara, you're dreaming, wake up."

She couldn't be dreaming, Katie was there, right in front of her! She was bleeding to death, if she wasn't dead already, and Sara was unable to help in any way. She couldn't get her body to move like her mind wanted it to, although she knew she needed to do something.

She called out for help, crying that she couldn't get to her baby. The guilt and self-hatred was now overpowering the fear that had resided in her chest. Suddenly, the world began to shake, and the more it shook, the farther away Katie became. Suddenly, everything was gone and she was being forced through a tunnel, a bright light on the other end.

"Sara, wake up!" Greg said forcefully, grabbing Sara by her shoulders and shaking her violently, his previous attempts to wake her up unsuccessful. He had awoken to find her thrashing beside him, moaning, then screaming in her sleep about her baby, her father, her mother. Her skin was bathed in sweat, her breathing shallow. He knew she had to wake up, and fast, although he was having a hard time getting her to cooperate.

She jolted awake, panting for breath and pulling away from Greg, trying to decide if the nausea was able to be contained, or if she needed to sprint for the bathroom as she usually did after these dreams.

She was embarrassed, there was no way around that, no point in trying to deny it. Sure, Greg had seen her at what could have possibly been her worst earlier while she was reliving her past to him, but for him to witness one of her haunting nightmares? She wanted the floor to open up and swallow her alive.

She looked down at her bedspread, trying to stop her hands from shaking, and refusing to meet Greg's eyes. She knew he would never judge her, he wasn't that type of person, but around him she felt so self-conscious. Her eyes darted to her bottle of anti-depressants, and she fought the overwhelming urge to open the bottle and take them all, instead, she ran her fingers through her hair with a sigh and tried to remember which number she had counted to before stopping the night before.

Greg studied Sara carefully, noticing the tremor in her hands, the flush creeping in over her pale cheeks, the way her eyes never quite met his. He knew she was embarrassed, he would be too if she had been present during one of his nightmares, which were never about children, mostly about aliens abducting him or a gigantic spider biting him and killing him from the sheer amount of poison in its fangs. He couldn't imagine having to wake up from something quite that serious with a co-worker, someone you could only recently call a friend, laying next to you, witnessing everything.

He was honestly afraid for her. She had been so distant since her miscarriage, and even a fool could see she was going rapidly downhill. She had lost it at a crime scene, she was popping anti-depressants like candy, when she normally wouldn't even take an aspirin, she hadn't been eating or sleeping properly, she was losing weight, losing her passion. And with the nightmares that he knew were more likely than not a regular occurrence, he wasn't surprised.

He pulled her into his arms, rocking her gently with her head against his chest, "Sara, hon, it's okay. You don't have to be tough for me, you don't have to be ashamed, we all have bad dreams."

As soon as the words left his mouth, she pulled away, still not meeting his eyes, and replied, "I'm okay, really. Go back to sleep, Greg."

She laid back against her pillow, rolling to where her back was facing Greg. As hard as she tried to stop the tears from escaping her eyes, they still rolled down her cheeks through closed lids, her body obviously shaking, despite her feigned desire for sleep.

Greg decided not to push the issue, and instead wrapped an arm around her, pressing his body against her back, his head resting against hers, fighting his own tears as he tried to think of a way to make her open up to him.

Then again, when could anyone make Sara Sidle do anything? It was a hard task, but someone had to try it.

After nearly an hour of listening to her shuddering breaths and holding her trembling body, she fell back asleep, but Greg was unable to do the same. His mind flashed back to all of the things she had told him about her childhood, about her nightmares, about her depression. He had no idea she had been through so much, and he was surprised she turned out as normal as she had. It showed how strong she was, how resilient she was. He had never been so proud of her in all of the years he had known her.

His eyes darted down to her sleeping form as she let out a soft sigh in her sleep, and was relieved to see a small smile on her lips. He had never been so terrified as he was when he heard her pleading screams earlier. It was the first time he had ever been around someone having a nightmare, a night terror, as he learned about in high school psychology, and it scared the heck out of him to see her so panicked and oblivious to his presence. Her screams would be one of the things that haunted his own dreams until the day he died, right up there with some of the more gruesome things he had seen and heard since working for CSI.

He let his mind wander to what would happen if the shifts hadn't been split and they hadn't found him a replacement in the lab. Would Nick or Warrick know to keep an eye on her? Would he have been any help, even if they weren't constantly paired with each other out in the field? Would he have noticed something was wrong when she brought him samples to analyze? Would she have been willing to ask Catherine, Warrick, Nick, or Grissom to bring her to the emergency room or divulge any of her hidden secrets? Would she let any of them lay beside her in her bed? Would she have cried in front of, and to, any of them?

He suddenly felt a wave of sadness wash through him, and had to hold back tears that suddenly filled his eyes. Any small change of events leading to this point could have drastically changed the ending. He wasn't stupid, he could see the desperate look in her eyes from time to time. He hadn't been the most popular kid when he was growing up, and there were several times from the time he started high school until just a year or so ago that he thought about taking his life, just to end the misery he felt from being alone. He could see the anxiety he had felt mirrored in her expression, he could pick up on her double meanings, ones she didn't even know she was using, he could see it in her body language, he could hear the difference when she spoke. What if she didn't have someone to confide in? Would she take the final step? Would she have something, or someone, to hold her back and reassure her that things always got better?

He was still lost in thought when she shifted and rolled over to face him, mumbling something incoherently in her sleep. It wasn't until he felt her warm breath against his chest that he realized she had moved. His worry began to transform to embarrassment of his own. Should he loathe himself for the slight rise in his boxers when her brown hair tickled his chest? Should he feel guilty for wishing she was a little closer to him, for wishing her hand would slide from his stomach down a bit? Should he hate himself for wanting to do nothing but kiss her?

When did he start to feel this way, and how could it sneak up on him without him even knowing it? As the pressure inside of his boxers began to slightly escalate, he knew he wasn't going to fall asleep any time soon, and if he wasn't careful, he'd be going him with a severe pain in his sensitive areas.

Taking a deep, calming breath, he tried to focus on the task at hand, which was caring for his good friend, Sara. Good friend, not girlfriend. He shut his eyes, hoping that he'd be able to fall asleep, and at the same time, dreading it in case he said something while asleep that would endanger their friendship.

Sara reached for the washrag, which had gotten lodged in the opening of one of Katie's many bath toys. She poured a little soap onto it, lathering it up as much as she could while trying to keep Katie sitting still. A small replica of Noah's ark floated out of the child's grasp and she whined, reaching for it with a frown. Sara pushed it back towards her daughter, along with a few of the animals that were supposed to fit inside of it, and began to wash Katie's back.

"El-ant." Katie babbled happily, placing the elephant into the boat. "Un-key."

"Right, that's a monkey." Sara said with a proud smile, "And an elephant. What else do you have?"

"Boat." Katie said with wide smile, revealing her tiny teeth, "Row, row, row your boat." she said in a high pitched voice she used for 'singing'.

Sara rinsed the soap off of Katie's back, and grabbed her arm, running the washrag over it quickly, knowing Katie would get fussy if her arm was detained too long.

Suddenly, the room changed drastically. The ark with the toys were floating on the opposite side of the bathtub, tiny bubbles reaching the surface of the water, which was slamming against the sides of the tub wildly.

Tiny feet were kicking as hard as they could, garbled screams being blocked out by the splashing water and the hand covering the child's mouth and holding her under.

Sara watched in horror as her daughter's body went limp, the water slowly starting to calm down. She looked down at the hands, which were still firmly planted on Katie's face and stomach, shocked to see the dark red sleeves black with water. Her eyes widened as she realized she had been wearing a dark red shirt. She frantically looked down for her hands, only to find they were the ones that had been forcing Katie into the warm bath water.

Her mother's voice entered her head, and although her mother had never said the words before, they came out in her even, calm tone, "I am a part of you, Sara. Your father is a part of you. You were born to self-destruct, it's inevitable. You will not have children, we are not able to raise them. You will not be in love, we are unable to fulfill their needs. You will be alone, for if you aren't, you will demolish everyone around you. You are a ticking time bomb, Sara, do what is best for everyone and stay far away. You will only hurt them. Haven't you done enough damage already?"

Sara awoke with a start, her heart beating wildly, her breath caught in her throat. The disgust, fear, and panic she had felt in the dream still present in her conscious form. Her body was once again drenched in a cold sweat, her head throbbing with a stabbing pain, unable to catch her breath.

As Greg stirred beside her from her sudden movement, she felt the now-familiar wave of nausea pass through her, and as her mouth watered in an urgent warning, she stumbled quickly out of bed and into her bathroom, her whole body trembling from the vividness of her dream, the thought that she could actually do that to anyone, especially her own child, even if it wasn't real.

Once she was finished being sick, she only had enough energy to lean back against the wall, covering her face with her hands as she began to sob loudly, her body in physical pain from the intense emotions pumping through her veins.

She didn't even notice as Greg lifted her into his arms and brought her back to her room, holding her tightly as he searched for the right words to say to calm her down. As she felt the pain of her dream, along with the pain of reliving her past, she also felt a wave of guilt wash through her as she realized what an awful position she was putting Greg in, she could hear the pain in his voice, see the haunted look in his eyes. Her mother's voice had been right, she was going to destroy him because she cared for him. She couldn't let that happen.

And using the last ounce of her energy, she pushed herself away from him, desperately trying to avoid looking at the hurt expression in his eyes.

TBC