Writing on a Blank Slate
Disclaimer: I don't own CSI.
Rating: M for later content (please note that this is a precautionary measure: I don't plan on getting too carried away!), and an expletive in this chapter.
Chapter 4: "North or south?"/"There never was an 'us'."
"Okay Nick, north or south?" Sara asked.
"What?"
"North or south?" she repeated and grinned. "I told you, I'm just gonna drive."
Nick shook his head in disbelief. This was Sara, the woman he had known for five years, the woman who planned two nights in advance what she was going to have for dinner.
He considered suggesting they head south, to Mexico, but dismissed the idea. Mexico was a place for plans: visit the pyramids, hit the beach, get wasted on tequila. Plans didn't appeal to him just now.
"North," he told her decisively.
And that was how Nick and Sara ended up going north.
It was Nick's cell-phone that rang first.
"Nick, what the hell?" He would rather have dealt with Grissom, but it was Catherine, and she sounded pissed.
"I'm sorry Cath, but I had to."
"Bullshit." Catherine's answer was, as ever, short and to the point. "No-one 'just has to' quit their job out of the blue without even a phonecall. You have a contract, Nick."
Nick snorted. "Now you sound like Ecklie. Who, by the way, can shove my contract up his ass."
"It's your ass that's gonna be in trouble. You know Ecklie'll sue you for this."
"He can try, Cath. Read my resignation. I'm pretty sure an employment tribunal would decide I'm having a break-down. Hell, maybe I could sue him for not noticing I was going mental."
He paused, then continued more softly. "Look, Catherine, I really am sorry, but I just can't handle it anymore."
Catherine was quiet for a moment, her mind once again flashing back to those images of Nicky, her Nicky, trapped and helpless in a plexiglass coffin. She sighed and nodded. "I understand. Just stay in touch. I mean that as a friend."
Nick felt a lump in his throat. "I will, I promise. You take care, and give Lindsay a kiss goodbye from me."
He hung up.
Sara's phone rang a couple of minutes later, and she pulled over and gestured to Nick to take the wheel.
"Grissom, hi."
"Sara," Grissom's voice was concerned. "Are you alright?"
She nodded. She had been imagining this conversation for years, only now she wasn't sure she remembered the script.
"I'm fine Grissom, really. Better than I have been in a long time."
"Are you sure Sara? Because quitting your job – the job you love – with no warning doesn't seem 'fine' to me."
"You know what they say about there being no hatred stronger than that which is born of disappointed love? I didn't want that to be me."
"Are you talking about the job, or us?"
She smiled sadly. "There never was an 'us', Grissom."
She hung up in silence.
By midnight they had been driving for hours, mostly in companionable silence, and were both starting to yawn heavily.
"You want me to pull in at the next motel?" Nick asked.
"Yeah," Sara nodded, "that'd be good."