Disclaimer is back in Chapter One, but I'll reiterate that I don't own any character from the show "CSI."
Well, guys, this is it: The start of the Snickeryness and the whole story of everything that's happened between Lilly and Sara's families. Enjoy! As always, read and review!
Nick came back to the lab at 7:30, knowing that Sara was still there. He found her in the break room, intently scanning over a report. "Hey, now," he said, "You promised me breakfast."
She looked up. "Right. I'll just put this away."
"Great," he grinned, and followed her to the lockers. "What are you in the mood for?"
She breathed in heavily, then exhaled. "Food."
"Cheeky." He rolled his eyes. "Come on."
"Thanks for taking me out again," she said as they approached his Denali.
"Don't mention it," he replied easily. On the way to breakfast, they discussed ordinary, everyday things like cases and when the girls started school.
"Niccolo's," Sara said in surprise as soon as they pulled up the restaurant.
"Yeah. They've got a great breakfast spread. Come on," Nick said, lightly touching her wrist. Sara balked a little, knowing that the restaurant was slightly expensive.
The restaurant was fairly empty, and they were seated quickly at a small booth in the corner. Sara looked at the menu for about thirty seconds, smiled, and closed it gently.
"You've decided already?" Nick asked, astonished.
"Yeah. Buttermilk pancakes, with strawberries on top, one scrambled egg on the side, and a glass of chocolate milk. It's been my favorite breakfast since I was about three."
"You take stubbornness to a whole new level," Nick teased. "You don't even change your favorite breakfast."
She shrugged. "When I was little and I went over to Lilly's house, her mother would always make that on my first morning there."
"Did you guys all grow up next to each other?" Nick had had three sets of cousins near him growing up. Every Sunday night, they converged at one house for a big family meal.
She shook her head and avoided his gaze. "Not really. They lived about forty-five minutes away. My parents just left us there a lot. Troy—my brother—was about the same age as Lilly's two brothers, and Lilly was eleven years older than me. I loved to follow her around." She smiled at him, "My family's not a happy topic. Let's talk about something else."
"Your pick. I'm treating you." He said.
"Fine. Your family." She smiled. "It's been about my family for weeks now, it seems. Everyone keeps asking about them. So it's your turn."
Nick shrugged. "We're boring and very stereotypical. What do you want to know?"
"Well, I know your mom's a lawyer and your dad's a judge. You grew up in Dallas. You have an older brother and five older sisters. You've told me about them before, but I can't keep them straight; I guess it comes from being from such a tiny family. You don't talk about them too much, either, unless you have to leave for a familyish event like Christmas. So, take it away."
"Kay," he said comfortably, in his unfazed way. "Let's see: My brother's the oldest and I'm the youngest. Tim's in real estate development, which my parents don't really approve of since they think it's shady. He and his wife live in Dallas, and they have two kids, one in college and one in high school. He's thirteen years older than me. I was about ten when he got married, and so we've never been close. Diana's the next one. She's two years younger than Tim—again, we're not close. She was married when she was eighteen and she's got children who are married by this point. Well, one's married, one's out of school, and the youngest two are finishing up college. My parents aren't thrilled that they're going to be great-grandparents pretty damn soon. Hell, they weren't thrilled when she got married eleven days after graduating from high school. But they think that since they're only seventy and the fact they're practically great-grandparents is obscene."
"They've aged well," Sara commented.
"How did you—Oh, right." Nick said, realizing when Sara would have met his parents. "Anyways. After Diana comes Lisa; she's nine years older than me. Not really close to her, either, but she moved back in after college for about a year when she was at nursing school. So I do know her better than the other two. She's pretty cool, actually. We've always gotten along really well. We have the same temperament and sense of humor and everything. She's married to a pharmacist in Dallas and they have three kids." Sara nodded at Nick to continue, and he obediently followed down the long line of Stokes girls. "Three years later is Suzanne. She's an interior decorator in Austin, where my parents now live. They've still got our place back in Dallas, though. Suzanne has four kids, too, mostly elementary aged. Her husband was a high school teacher and principal, but now serves on the state's Education Commission. Perks of being my father's son-in-law, but Andy's a good guy anyways." The waitress arrived then, and they ordered their food. After she left, he continued, "Next is Miranda. The family busybody and drama queen."
"Everyone has to have one." Sara smiled.
"She does make Thanksgivings more interesting." Nick admitted. "Anyways, she's three years older than I am. She lives in Dallas with her husband and, again, four kids. Large families beget large families—that's what my mother always says. Russ is a business guy who works for a tech firm in Dallas. Kinda boring, in my opinion—neither of them seem to value the important things, but they're good for each other. Jackie's next. She thirteen months older than me, and we were as close as could be for pretty much our whole childhoods. She's so great—she's liberal, which kills my father sometimes, and used to work as a political reporter for the Dallas News. Her stuff used to get picked up by the New York Times and the Washington Post and she did stuff like go to the White House Correspondent's Dinner. She's been married for about seven years, now, though, and has two little kids. She mostly freelances now, and teaches a few courses at SMU for their public policy department. Her husband, Ben, is a lawyer. I find it really funny that she's the only one that actually did anything close to dealing with the law and politics, since her politics are the opposite of my parents'. Ben's a nice guy."
"They sound great," Sara said. "When you were growing up, did you always do the family stuff, with big dinners with the cousins and everything?"
"Yeah," Nick replied, "Every Sunday."
Their food arrived then, and Sara laughed at how Nick's eyes lit up when he saw his plate. They spent the next twenty minutes eating and talking, and then lingered, laughing and teasing and bantering, for the next forty minutes. Nick was secretly thrilled at how Sara seemed to relax and come out of the shell she'd been enveloped in for the past few years in just a matter of minutes.
As they were walking out, Nick's arm slipped easily over Sara's shoulder. She poked him in the side and then pointed across the street to a park, one of the lone green patches in Las Vegas. "Wanna go for a walk?" She said hesitantly. "I mean, Lilly took the girls into Grace House today, for talks with the psychiatrist, and then they have swim practice and tennis practice and everything. And it's so nice out."
"Sure," Nick said, keeping his arm protectively around her shoulder.
"We had a park sort of like this near Lilly's house, growing up." Sara said thoughtfully as they started to walk. "When I was very little—during those weekend stay-overs, Lilly would take me and Leslie over there to swing."
"Was she the other girl in the picture from that Christmas?"
"The one in the wheelchair?" Sara clarified, and Nick nodded. "Yeah, that was Leslie, Aunt Maggie and Uncle Nathan's youngest child. She was…she was just born like that. No special condition, but a slew of health things. She was very severely retarded. She was born early, I think, like at twenty-five weeks or something. Babies weren't supposed to survive at all back then, but she did. It was progressive and she got worse with age—organs and things just wouldn't grow to the right size, and there were some developmental things anyways. She died when I was sixteen. I remember her funeral. I was living with the Diamondsons—I think I only stayed with them for about two months— at the time; Uncle Nathan drove the two hours to come pick me up. I don't think we talked at all until her drove me back to them. She was about twenty-one at the time." Sara stopped talking suddenly.
"Hey, Sar?" Nick said tentatively.
She looked up, and she knew what the next question would be. "Yeah?"
"Why did you move in with Lilly's family?"
She glanced around. "Can we sit?" she pointed towards a bench.
"Yeah." He steered her that way.
Sara usually hated discussing this stuff; she didn't know why she always went to Nick and confessed everything. But he made it so easy—it was like he understood totally, without being judgmental or offering false sympathy. She could lay everything out, and he would just accept it. "My home—you can't really call it that, though—wasn't too great. My parents weren't too great at holding down jobs. My dad had a drug problem; Mom drank a lot, too. When Troy was really little, he lived with Uncle Nathan and Aunt Maggie for almost a year. They didn't want to turn our parents in to Social Services, but if my parents didn't drop us off Friday afternoon, they drove down to pick us up. They didn't yell at my parents, or try to get them to change, or turn them in. I wish they had though." Her voice was mournful and very far away. "I know you've probably guessed by now that my dad was abusive—" She looked up at Nick, who nodded reluctantly. She put her head on his shoulder and continued. "He liked to smack my mother around. He yelled at me a lot when he was drunk, told me I was ugly, stupid, fat—luckily I was little. Those things would have mattered a lot more if I were older. There was nothing we could do. Troy—he was already pretty far gone, down that path, by the time he was about thirteen. They kept the stuff away from us, they never gave us anything, but it was there, so Troy used it. We didn't go to school too often. The truant officer knew what was going on but he didn't tell anyone. I don't know why nobody did anything for years." She was quiet for a very long time. "Finally, my mother sobered up. I was about six or seven. She was so wonderful for a while. She was pretty messed up, from the years of using and drinking, but she tried. At least, with me. As I said, Troy—it was damage control for him. Anyways," she stopped for a very long time, "my dad didn't change. When he was sober, he was great, he really was. But that wasn't too often. He still beat up my mother. Finally, she just snapped. One week, Dad was just really bad. She locked me in my room that night; she was so scared of him. I fell asleep when they were still screaming. I was eight. When I woke up, a police officer was standing next to my bed. She'd shot him, in the front yard, as he was chasing after her. They took me down to their precinct station. Uncle Nathan came to pick me up about two hours later. They couldn't find Troy for a while." She was very quiet.
Nick held her for several minutes as she cried fat, silent tears. Finally she sniffled and said, "I haven't told the whole story like that, all at once, ever. I'm not even sure why I just did. You're just too easy to talk to, Nick."
"Well, thank you for sharing." He said. "I know that took a lot."
"Thank you for listening and not looking at me differently." She whispered. He kissed her forehead. He'd never seen her so raw and open before.
They sat still for several more minutes, with Sara twirling her necklace absentmindedly. Finally, Nick said, "So you moved in with them?"
"Yeah," she swallowed and burrowed deeper into his shoulder. "The social worker came later that night. Our mother's custody was suspended. We needed to go into the foster system, but Uncle Nathan wanted to take us in. The social worker didn't really want to dump us on them, but they were family; it was an easy solution. They knew they couldn't adopt us since there was no money and that pittance actually meant something. Troy really wanted to live with them too, since Doug and Dan would go to school with him." She swallowed. "Lilly was already away at college at that point. And the two of us living with them was harder than anyone could have imagined. Troy was so rebellious, so rude, so out of control. Too many years with my parents, I guess. And Leslie was sick all the time. She required so much care. They weren't rich, at all, and their easy child was out of the house, and now they had me living in Lilly's room. I couldn't've been too great, but Aunt Maggie worked so hard with me. I can't believe she found any time. But she loved us, really she did. She got me reading, got me to do well in school. I don't know where I would have been if it hadn't been for Aunt Maggie. And they were in Tamales, right by the ocean and everything. I loved it there."
"Why did you leave?" Nick questioned.
"Me." She said simply. "I was a snoopy little kid. I was the youngest, by a lot, and everyone else was so exciting. I found out so many secrets about Lilly, since I was in her room—there was a vibrator, and a diaphragm, diaries and everything like that. But one day, when I was almost eleven, I snuck into the boys' room. I found cocaine underneath Troy's bed. Both my aunt and uncle probably suspected that he was on pot already—he was a horrible student, just a total mess. We would just kick him out until he'd sobered up, or he wouldn't come home. They never wanted to call the cops, though; he'd be taken away—the same idea they had with my parents. I used to hate them because they wouldn't interfere. I thought that if they had, my family would have been whole. But it wasn't their fault; it was my parents'. I used to hate them too, but years of therapy get you over that. Anyways," she paused ruefully, "Aunt Maggie walked in on me. She wanted to clean their room. She saw me holding the bag, pulled it all out of me. They kicked Troy out that night. They called the cops on him, since he ran before they could call a social worker. He was a junior in high school. They put him in juvie for a year and he's been in and out of jail ever since then. I haven't seen him in ten years. They held on to me for another month or so. But Aunt Maggie just collapsed. She had a breakdown. She couldn't take it any more. The social worker placed me with the Macintyres."
"And you stayed in the system until you went to Harvard?" Nick was astonished; most of his experience with foster children was the washed-out, raggedy coulda-beens that sadly populated Las Vegas—that populated any town.
"Yeah. They sort of kept in touch with me—they never kicked me out of the family. I saw them at holidays and they always made sure I came to big family things like Lilly's wedding. They helped with my tuition and cosigned for loans when I went to Harvard. And I'd really been turned on to reading; I loved how you could get positive attention in school if you did well. I'd seen what drugs did to you; if Troy hadn't had cocaine we could still be living with Aunt Maggie. I kept my nose clean and my head down and always found a quiet place to study. I had thirteen houses in five years. I turned seventeen in May and left in August. When you're a ward of the state Harvard gives you a full ride." She was very silent, and Nick absently massaged her shoulder with his thumb. Suddenly, she looked up at him, "Okay, so I just shared all my deepest demons that only therapists forced on me have heard before. It's your turn."
He smiled. "I think we've had enough for today, don't you?"
She laughed a little, "Probably." She felt lighter and calmer, not at all as depressed and regretful as she'd always imagined she'd feel if she told her coworkers. She felt fresh and almost relaxed for the first time in weeks. Nick stood up first, and held out hand to her. She took it as he pulled her up with both hands. He swiveled one hand and slid her fingers between his. They walked comfortably to the car. As Nick was opening her door for her, he looked at her and smiled. Then, impulsively, he leaned in and kissed her.
Sara quickly and hungrily reciprocated, using her tongue to wriggle in between his lips. They stood there making out for several minutes before she pulled back, her hands on his upper forearms. "Nick, no, I'm sorry." She twisted out of his embrace.
"Hey, now," he said softly, "What's up?"
"I don't want this." She said firmly.
"Oh." Nick dragged the word out, and then wiped his mouth off. "Well, then, I'm sorry if I was to forward. Come on, I'll drive you back to pick up your car."
"No—Nick, no please—that—came out wrong."
"How was it supposed to come out?"
"Well," Sara tilted her head downwards to hide behind her hair while she collected her thoughts. "First: I have too much right now. I don't want—I can't have—another thing to…even to think about right now. I know we just kissed, but from there it's either friends with benefits or a relationship, unless we forget about it—which I'm not sure I want. And I can't have either of those right now. Everything's different now. There's Lilly and there's the girls. Honestly, they have to be my first priority. I don't believe I'm actually saying this, but they are. And everything's already complicated enough—there's work and everything that comes with that. I can't deal with something else. Second," she continued before he could start talking, "I don't want to be your damsel in distress. I know you, Nick. You want to ride up on a white horse and make everyone happier and make sure everything gets fixed. You're a fixer. And I don't need to be rescued, or treated like Guinevere. I'd go mad. I really would." She looked miserable. "It was a good kiss, though." She offered it as some sort of consolation.
"Now, wait a minute," Nick said.
"No—Nick. This is already tough enough."
"No—let me talk. Lemme get a word in. Jeez." When she nodded, he continued, "I know that everything's tough for you right now. But I've gotta say, Sara, I'm attracted to you. I think there could be something there. However," he said as she opened her mouth to speak. "I get it. Your life—it's crowded right now. You don't have room for a relationship. So—here's my proposition."
"You're propositioning me?" She said doubtfully.
"This is Vegas," he cracked before continuing, "We go out. Once a week. You don't even have to call it a date. Friends. You need to get out and be treated, once a week. Work's always tough, and everyone's depending on you at home—so this will be stress relief. I don't care where we go; you can even pick, but I'd like to surprise you once in a while. It's just a friends thing." He said when he saw her look. "I'm attracted to you. I'm going to not badger you about it for a while, though. Once—everything—calms down some more, we'll talk. A nice, big, weighty talk. Until then—friends, and I take you out once a week."
"Deal." She said quickly. She wasn't sure if it was the smartest move, but Nick was extremely attractive, incredibly kind, and had been a good friend lately. And she had to admit she'd been mulling over being a 'little bit more' for a while now, though she knew she would have never made the first move. She was definitely intrigued, but he was a coworker, for God's sake; it hadn't turned out well the first time. But Nick—Nick was so different from Grissom. He paid attention to her, for one thing, and was kind and nice and very funny. He was sweet and smart and would treat her fairly no matter what the situation. He respected her. And she loved that about him.