Title: Mistakes

Summary: "There's nothing wrong with making a mistake- as long as you don't follow it with encores." -Anonymous. Snickers, with a healthy dose of angst!Griss.

Rating: T

Warnings: Language, mention of 'situations'

Author's Note: And the second chapter. Nick POV. Might be a third in Sara POV, feedback always welcome!

Mistakes

The first thing that clearly came into my mind was Sara's face. Sara Sidle, one of my best friends. The last twenty four hours had been a blur of darkness, screams, fear, and pain, and it was a relief to see something familiar. My eyes opened completely and I knew I hadn't been dreaming: Sara was sitting next to me, holding my hand in hers. She was asleep; I could only imagine how long she'd been awake. Despite still being in pain, I smiled a little, seeing her like that. She looked peaceful.

A little while later, I got the urge to sneeze. I knew Sara was a light sleeper, but I couldn't stop it. She started awake, eyes wide, but a grin spread across her face when she saw I was awake.

"Nick!" She squeezed my hand, not hard enough to hurt, but it conveyed that she was restraining herself from throwing her arms around me. "I'm so glad you're awake, we've been doing shifts since we found you..." Since they found me? Wasn't that what just happened?

"Good to be awake, Sara... how long have I been out? I feel like everything just happened..." She hesitated for a second before answering.

"You've been asleep for about a day. Cath and Warrick stayed with you first- they rode here with you. Then Griss stayed for a few hours, but he had to leave, things were piling up. And Greg and I got here maybe six hours ago, Greg had to head home though, muttered something about feeding a cat." I chuckled.

"Didn't know he had a cat. Recent?" It hurt a little to talk, but it felt amazing being alive, in the bright light of the hospital, with Sara in the same room.

"Yeah. We...I guess we haven't had much of a chance to talk, huh?" I shook my head and we sat in silence for a moment. "I missed you so much, Nicky." She added quietly.

"I missed you too, Sara." And then I couldn't stop myself reaching out to her, pulling her down next to me in a hug. Human contact was one thing I needed, craved even. And I knew something had changed between me and Sara.

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Something did change. Sara Sidle, Ms. Work-a-holic herself, took time off. To stay with me. I told her she didn't need to, but she insisted, and really, I was glad. I think she knew. I guess that's why they say friends make the best lovers- not that we were at that stage at that point- but it just felt so natural to slip into the routine of seeing her every day, meeting her with a kiss and a hug and a 'how are you?'. There was never any awkwardness, either, no dead, uncomfortable silence. We could talk about anything and everything, but there was something in the silence too that was comforting, just the fact that we could both sit there, holding each other in silence, and not have to talk to know that we were completely in love.

After a while, she was practically moved in. She was back at work at this point and one day, Warrick called me to mention that Sara and Cath had been talking the night before, and Sara had mentioned 'going over to Nick's' to get a change of clothes, and what exactly was happening that Sara had to come to my house to get a change of clothes? I just grinned, even though Warrick couldn't see it, and said that we'd tell him eventually. And then when Sara came home, I told her about it and said that she might as well completely move in. We both had a long laugh about that.

By the end of that day, Cath and Warrick both knew that there was this..thing, with me and Sara. We'd never really talked it over. But by the end of the week, she'd put in her change of address form to Grissom. She'd been nervous about that, not quite sure how he'd take it, knowing first hand that he didn't like relationships at work. But he never mentioned a thing; Warrick and Catherine said he'd acted the same as usual.

The next week, Warrick, Cath and Greg all helped us move the last of Sara's stuff to my house. Greg was a bit put out, considering he'd always liked Sara, but on the other hand he wasn't too dissapointed. Seriously, he wouldn't shut up about this girl he'd met somewhere.

When everyone had left, Sara and I just had supper and watched a movie- organising would come tomorrow, since she'd taken a bit more time off work. We joked around that I was having a bad influence on her, but you could tell she was just kidding. The movie was pretty boring, but I guess compared to the gorgeous woman next to me, anything would be boring. One thing led to another; that night was a blur, too, but the opposite of the night that had brought us together: this blur was full of kisses, of skin on skin, moans and panting and bliss and, finally, the deep sleep that was perfectly contented happiness.

And the next morning, waking up next to her, tangled up with her, kissing her awake, was its own kind of bliss. Opening your eyes to the person you love is the deepest form of happiness there is.