A/N: Thanks again for the reviews, guys! I'm glad you guys are enjoying the story!

As soon as Sara was asleep, Nick got to work trying to figure out exactly what he was going to do. Sara's brother now definetly did not sound like the best guy to be around her, or anyone, for that matter, but at the same time, he did not seem like the best guy to piss off either. Nick's head was going around in circles- half of him wanted to beat the living daylights out of her brother for what he had done to her, and what he was still trying to make her do, and the other half of him didn't want to because he was worried of what would happen if he did. What...if he got arrested? What...if Daniel ended up going free and he went after Sara, and he couldn't protect her?

From what Sara told Nick, he deducted that her relationship with her brother was not very good nowadays. He could have figured that out himself, he thought, from him barging in her apartment and slamming her against the wall a few times, as well as seeing the bruise on her forehead. From what Sara had told him, it seemed that their relationship seemed to die down over the years of growing up, and finally disappeared all together when he got mixed up in drugs. Sara had been through enough, Nick knew, and he wasn't going to just stand here and let her drug-addict brother keep hurting her without doing something about it to protect her.

Grabbing his jacket, Nick picked the file Daniel had given Sara to read off of the kitchen table. Putting one arm in the jacket, he walked down the hallway to make sure Sara was still sleeping. Sure enough, she was sleeping soundly and quietly in her bedroom. Nick maked sure all the windows and doors were locked before he walked outside of the apartment and got in his Tahoe, driving out of the parking lot.

Nick needed to know more about Sara's brother...what all was on his record, if he had one, to know what he was fully capable of and what sort of threats he posed to his sister. Nick knew this was going to be a long night of staying up sitting in front of a computer with numerous cups of coffee in steaming hot styrofoam cups. But he had seen Sara do it more than one time before, and if she could do it, he could do it. And he needed to do this in order to help protect her.

Driving up to the lab parking lot, he got out of his car and walked up to the front doors. Walking inside, he looked from lab to lab to see the lab techs processing samples or on the computers doing something or other. Walking into one of the empty labs, he took a seat down in front of a computer and logging himself on. Sighing, his fingers hovered above the keyboard, he himself not exactly sure if he wanted to figure out what actually was on his record...if he had one at all. Finally decided apon it, Nick typed in the name, "DANIEL SIDLE" and waited to see what would come up.

There were about three or four Daniel Sidles that appeared on the screen with various mug-shots. The first was a blonde-haired man with blue eyes, and Nick quickly eliminated him as a possibility. The next was an older man, the third was a hispanic man, and Nick eliminated those as well. Finally, Nick clicked on the last picture and he found the Daniel Sidle he was looking for. Looking over his record, he had been arrested numerous times for drug possession and one breaking and entering.

Nick wasn't surprised at what he saw, actually he was surprised that he didn't have any counts of murder pinned on him too...yet, anyways. Scrolling down, Nick caught a glimpse of something else...it was his medical history. Looking it over, Nick noticed numerous trips to the hospital when he was a little boy. One of the trips was for a fractured arm, the other was for some trauma to his head. Maybe that was why he was the way he was, Nick thought with a roll of his eyes. But then...there was something else that caught his eye, something that Nick couldn't laugh about.

There was a mention of his younger sister. Sara was only six-years-old at the time. The file said that she too had been taken to the hospital for various injuries. Nick sighed, looking down at the floor. If...only someone had been there to protect her, he thought. If only someone had been there to try and help her, if only someone had been there to try and comfort her during the tough times, maybe she would be happier today.

Looking around the lab, almost as if making sure no one was watching him, he hit the backspace button and entered the name "SARA SIDLE" into the computer. Coming up with Sara's driver's license photo and registration information, he scrolled down to where he saw her past employment info. Finally, Nick picked up his cell phone and dialed the number to the hospital in California, the hospital he knew she and her brother went to. "Hi..." Nick started. "My name is Nick Stokes, I'm with the Las Vegas Crime Lab..." he trailed off. "I needed to ask a favor..."

In a matter of a few minutes, Sara's medical history was faxed over to him. Picking it up, he was surprised at how thick the file actually was. Sighing, he flipped it open and looked at the first page. One of the hospital visits was late at night, and she had come in for a large cut across her stomach that required eight stitches. According to the on-call doctor that night, he wrote that there were traces of brown glass caught in the wound. Beer bottle, Nick thought to himself. Looking through to the next page, he spotted another hospital visit, only about a week after the last.

The next hospital visit was for multiple fractures to her arm. The doctor wrote that the bone almost snapped in two. There was some bruising to the bone and tissue, and the doctor wrapped the arm in bandages and a sling and sent them home. Nick could already tell how she must've gotten that injury...maybe her father came home and pulled her out of his way by her arm, or he jerked her around a bit...

And then the next sight Nick saw made him want to gag. There were pictures. Actual photographs of the injuries he was reading about. The first picture he looked at showed a little Sara sitting in a hosptial chair with the thin white hospital gown lifted up slightly to show her stomach. Nick winced- this must've been the beer bottle slash she had gotten, he decided. Just looking at it made Nick hurt, it looked so painful, and he could see the little shards of brown glass still stuck in the wound.

The next picture was of her arm. She was sitting on a white hospital bed with her arm resting on a small table as the picture was being taken. Nick winced, yet again- there was a mottle of purple and black bruises covering her arm...he could see the finger abbrasions on it in various places, travelling both up and down her arm. It was still hurting him to just look at these...Sara looked so confused in the pictures. Confused...scared...and almost oblivious to anything around her.

Sitting petrified by the pictures, Nick jumped when he heard his cell phone ringing. Picking it up, he shakily put it to his ear. "Stokes..." he said quietly, not knowing how he was able to find his voice again after seeing the pictures.

"Nick?" came Sara's voice on the other line.

Swallowing hard, Nick answered, "Yes?"

"Where are you?" she asked him. "You weren't here when I woke up...I got scared..."

"Sorry, Sar.." Nick apologized. "I'll be right there, okay? I was going out to get something from my apartment..."

"Okay," Sara said with a yawn. "I'll see you in a minute."

"Okay," Nick said. "Bye." Putting his phone back into his pocket, Nick gathered up the papers and put them inside the file Daniel had given to Sara. Logging off of the computer, he stood up and grabbed his jacket, walking out of the lab.