DISCLAIMER: They're notmine, never have been, and never will be

Nick was lying on the sofa, waiting for Sara and watching Cartoon Network, when he heard her unlocking the front door. He sat up hastily and switched to the Discovery Channel, because he was far too old to be watching cartoons. He heard something which sounded suspiciously like a pair of shoes hitting the wall haphazardly, as if they'd been, oh, kicked off a person's feet, and then the sound of her bare feet heading for his bedroom. Bemused, Nick stayed where he was. He'd probably find out what was wrong soon enough.

Sara reappeared in a few minutes, now dressed in a pair of her jeans and one of his t-shirts, with her hair clipped up behind her head. Once again, it surprised him just how much of her stuff seemed to have accumulated at his house. He didn't even know how it had all gotten here, because he was sure it hadn't been conscious. "Hey," he said, pretending it was completely normal for her to show up at his house (which, okay, it was), send her shoes flying at the wall, and then march off to get changed without saying a word to him.

"Hi." Sara looked tired - exhausted, in fact. She shouldn't have been; she'd only worked an hour's overtime today.

"What's wrong?"

"Nothing. Nothing is wrong. I'm hungry. Are you hungry? I'll make us something to eat."

Nick opened his mouth to say that he was not, in fact, at all hungry, despite the fact he'd been waiting to have breakfast with her, but she'd already disappeared into the kitchen, probably wilfully ignoring his move to speak. He turned the volume down on the television and listened to her opening and shutting cupboards, and putting things on the counter. Resting his elbows on his knees, he considered whether it was really worthwhile to go in there and keep an eye on her. Sara cooked like she did everything else - passionately and single-mindedly. It was just that, unlike most other things, she really wasn't very good at cooking.

He decided against it. He'd rather she cooled off by destructing his kitchen than by destructing him. She'd probably had a bad night, not for the first time. It happened, in their line of work, and Sara always took it hard. Harder than most. It scared him, sometimes, and bothered him, that she had to take everything so personally.

Nick occupied himself for the next fifteen or so minutes watching the flickering, silent images on the TV and listening out for the sounds of any major disasters in the kitchen. He heard nothing alarming, and eventually Sara reappeared balancing two plates of normal-looking pancakes drowned in maple syrup. She thrust a plate at him, handed him a knife and fork, and sat down beside him, all without saying a word.

Nick took several tentative bites of his pancakes and decided that if there was anything wrong with them this time, the maple syrup covered it all up. He chewed thoughtfully, trying to detect any bizarre underlying tastes, and decided she'd learnt from the time she'd managed to put in far too much salt. "So how was your shift?" he asked, hoping she hadn't noticed him taste-testing his food.

"Fine," she said, shortly.

"Sara."

"What?"

"Is something wrong?"

"Nothing's wrong."

Frustrated, Nick sighed and put his plate on the coffee table. "Hey - "

"I'm fine," Sara snapped, rubbing her forehead.

"Yeah. Sure."

Sara propped her elbows on her knees and hid her head in her hands. "I'm sick of this."

Nick was suddenly terrified. She was sick of this? Of this strange thing that they had? "Sara - "

"Not you, okay? Never you."

Encouraged, and breathing again, Nick lay a hand on her back and ran it up her spine. "So what are you sick of?" He slid his hand along her shoulder, slid it halfway down to her arm, and pulled her against him. Her warm weight was a relief; maybe to her just as much as to him, because after a moment he felt her relax.

"This bloody job."

"Something happen tonight?"

"Do you remember a case? From just after I came to Vegas. The Collins murders. Mother, father, two sons, all killed... two girls left alive..."

Remembering, Nick took the clip out of her hair and ran his fingers through it. "Place was a bloodbath."

"One of the girls." Sara drew a deep breath. "She was only about five at the time. Brenda. Turned out she was product of her father's incest with the older sister, and the father was abusing Brenda too..."

"Yeah. Wasn't that the kid you took to the hospital?"

"Yeah. She was a nice kid, you know."

Nick gave her a few more minutes, and when she didn't say anything more asked, "What happened tonight?"

Sara sighed. "Greg and I were called to a DB just off the Strip. It was a street kid. She'd been beaten and raped, and she was so covered in blood you could hardly see her face. We got her back to the morgue, got her cleaned up. It was that little girl. Brenda Collins. She ran away from her foster home about five months ago, been living on the streets since then."

"Any evidence?"

"Nothing conclusive, yet. We collected DNA from the rape kit, but we've got nothing to compare it to. It's just not fair. Kid had a horrible life, and then some idiot, some bastard - she was a mess, you know? She was eleven. I just - just makes me sick, you know? Like I should have done something."

Nick looked down at her. Taking things personally was one thing, but this was something else. "Like what, exactly?"

"Oh, I don't know. But she trusted me, and I just - I forgot about her."

"It's not your job to remember. Child Protection Services- " he stopped. Sara didn't have any faith in CPS, and he couldn't blame her. "It's not your fault," he said instead.

"Sure feels like it," she muttered, standing up and walking over to the window. Nick watched her back, strong and steady, as she stared out. She wasn't crying; whether that was good or bad he wasn't sure.

"You okay?"

"Wonderful," she said, turning and fixing him with a smile. He'd never seen such a fake smile.

He was surprised when she asked if she could stay, and unsurprised as he knew that the body beside his in bed was tense, and fighting sleep. Nick rolled over, and looked at her through the dim light of his bedroom. "Sara, it's okay."

She was lying on her back, staring up the ceiling. "I should go home," she said, her voice flat and resigned. In one swift movement she sat up and swung her legs over the edge of the bed.

"Don't." Nick caught her arm. "I want you to stay."

"I'll just wake you up," she muttered. Nick could hear bitterness mixing with the resignation in her tone.

"I don't care. I don't want you to be by yourself."

"I'm a big girl. I can look after myself." She didn't move.

"Sara, lie down."

Nothing.

"Sara, you're being an idiot. Would you please just lie down and go to sleep?" Nick rubbed his hand over his eyes. He was in for the prospect of interrupted sleep whether Sara was with him or not, but if she was here, at least he'd worry less.

"Fine." Sara lay back down just as quickly as she'd sat up, and rolled over onto her stomach. "I'm here. And if I wake you up, don't blame me."

"Just go to sleep, okay?" Nick reached out a hand. Her physical presence was reassuring.

As he finally drifted off to sleep, he thought he heard her mutter, "You're lucky I love you." He was just enough awake to manage a smile.

It wasn't so much Sara's nightmares that woke him as the gradual knowledge that she was awake and upset. It wasn't a feeling he could quite put his finger on, but he blamed it on her harsh breathing and the stiffness in her body as she tried not to cry. Whatever it was, it woke him up. "Hey," he said, as gently as he could, trying not to startle her.

Sara was still lying on her stomach, one arm curled tightly around her pillow. Nick couldn't see her face, but he didn't need to. Her body language was enough. Nick shifted over enough so his body pressed against the length of hers, and wrapped an arm across her back.

Nightmares. It wasn't a conversation he'd ever had with Warrick or Greg or even Grissom, but he suspected everyone in this job had them. There was probably some deep psychological reason about repression of emotions on the job, about the normalisation of horror that could only be expressed in the subconscious mind.

Or whatever.

Sara probably knew, actually. She retained facts like that. Nick wasn't sure, though, that knowing what made the mind decide to torture itself would help any. Scientific reality had nothing to do with a sudden onset of terror from which the sleeping mind couldn't escape, and nothing to do with crying into a pillow, or two people trying to cope in the dark silence of a bedroom.

"Just breathe, Sara."

TBC...