On the sixth day, she curled up with Nick and Greg on their huge couch and talked with them for hours. She was freezing cold now, her body succumbing to deep muscular quakes that emanated from her spine outward though Greg had layered her in a pair of thick pajama pants, a waffle-weave thermal shirt, and a fleece-lined hooded sweatshirt. He'd added two pairs of wool socks, and was muttering about finding gloves when Nick had picked her up bodily and wrapped her in a sheepskin and flannel blanket and settled her on the couch between the two of them.
"Sar, maybe we should get you to the hospital," Nick said. "This looks like a pretty serious case of the flu to me."
She shook her head gently, but even the slight movement was jarring. "I'm not sick. I just haven't been able to sleep… for five days."
"Jesus, Sara," Greg muttered.
Another deep-body shudder wracked her, and the two men wrapped their arms around her, trying to impart both steadiness and body heat.
"So why haven't you been sleeping?" Nicky asked. He gently brushed a hand over her cheek. "Something on your mind?"
She barely heard him. "Maybe. Sure. Lots of things," she answered distractedly. Her head was heavy, so heavy. She could barely hold it upright.
"Like what?"
She gave up the battle to hold her head up and let it loll onto Greg's shoulder. "Stuff. Old cases. My life." She fluttered her hands lightly and stared, intrigued by how bird-like her fingers looked. Several fairy lights flashed by and circled her head, and she smiled slightly dazedly. "Tinkerbell, and the meaning of life. Quantum physics."
"Tinkerbell?" Greg asked confusedly.
"I keep seeing her…" she let her voice trail off.
Greg looked at Nick, and nodded as the other man murmured, "Sleep deprivation psychosis."
"Am I psychotic?" she asked. "Probably. It's in my blood. Nasty stuff. Gotta get it out of me. That's why Grissom didn't want me, I bet. Psychotic."
This time Nick looked at Greg, and they did their little we're-a-couple-and-we-communicate-without-words thing. It made Sara sick.
"Have you tried taking anything to knock you out?" Nick finally asked.
She frowned. "Don't like drugs. And I promised Grissom I wouldn't drink to sleep anymore. He probably doesn't think I can do it, thinks I'm a drunk. I'll show him."
Greg bit his lip, then stood. "Well, why don't I get you a nice breakfast? That always puts me to sleep – a full stomach." Sara settled comfortably on Nick's shoulder while Greg was gone, banging pots and pans out in the kitchen and muttering about someone using up all the baking powder. When he returned about twenty minutes later with three steaming plates of buttermilk pancakes, the smell grounded her in reality again, albeit very briefly. He handed her, and then Nick, a plate, pausing to drop a kiss on top of Nick's buzzed head.
"Marry me?" she managed to say as she swallowed her first forkful. "These are great."
"I know," Greg said smugly, settling back on his side of the couch and folding his hands over Jim Morrison's face in his T-shirt.
"You can't have him, though," Nick said. "He's mine."
The soft look they sent each other made Sara want to cry, but it was brief sensation, because the next thing she knew her mind was whirling off in another direction. She wondered dazedly why Nick and Greg had their Christmas tree up in May. When she blinked, the tree disappeared, and she stared, awed, at the void where it had been. A huge black hole grew on the wall, and outside all the birds were flying backwards in the sky, and then Tinkerbell was back, circling her head.
She moaned. "It's like someone's playing air hockey with my brain."
Nick stood and gathered her up in his arms. "Okay, Sar, let's try bed for you." He carried her into his and Greg's bedroom and tucked her into their bed, then smoothed a hand over her hair and kissed her forehead. She would have found the gesture sweet if she hadn't been so absorbed with watching the ghost standing in the corner of the room.
It was her father, and he was holding a bloody knife and Grissom's decapitated head.