A/N: I'm terrible, I know. Sorry for the wait. Here's chapter 18!

The next morning, Nick woke to the familiar scent of Sara's jasmine shampoo, blinking his eyes into focus as he observed her dark locks sprawled lazily on his chest and side. An easy grin spread across his pillow-crumpled face and he turned slightly to look out the bedroom window, realizing as the events of the night before replayed in his head that it was in fact still snowing; he could see the little flakes float by even in the still dark of the morning.

"Merry Christmas, Beautiful," He shifted himself from the headboard of the bed as gently as possible, willing her not to sense the movement as his lips came just close enough to her ear for him to whisper lightly as a few strands of long raven hair fell from his chest to the white sheets below. A coy smile played at her lips as his warm breath tickled her neck, still managing to send little shivers down her spine despite her semi-conscious state. Eyes still closed, her warm hand found his as she too shifted to face him as a soft pair of lips began dropping little kisses on her mouth.

"Merry Christmas yourself," She chuckled tiredly, propping her head up on an elbow as her eyes finally flickered open. He looked adorable; his puppy eyes twinkling childishly as they caught hers, hair still ruffled from sleep. His grin grew larger as he reached under the bed, feeling around for a moment before pulling out a fluffy red and white Santa hat, which he promptly dropped delicately on her head where it slid forward, covering her eyes. Unable to restrain herself, Sara grinned back, shaking her head as she tried to restore her vision. "You twit… God, I love you." Finally giving up, she used her free hand to fix the Santa hat properly on her head before rolling on top of him, making no attempt to hide her smile. He laughed and tugged the front of her hat over her eyes again before capturing her lips in hers.

"I love you too," he tilted his head slightly to try to catch a glimpse of her eyes beneath the hat. "My festive little lass."

Sara snorted. "You didn't just call me 'lass', did you?

"Indeed I did." His fingers toyed with the little white pompom that adorned the hat, finally tugging it back slightly when he took pity on her inability to see or fix the thing herself while her hands were occupied.

"Ugh, thank you." She crunched her eyes closed, trying to clear her vision again. Taking advantage of her momentarily vulnerable position, Nick rolled them back onto their sides and promptly placed another kiss on her lips before making to get up. "Mm, baby, where are you going?" Sara raised an eyebrow as she re-positioned her head on one of their many pillows and tugged Nick's Santa hat over her ears.

"Downstairs, of course! Don't you want presents?" He really did look like an excited young boy on Christmas morning. Throwing a housecoat on over his bare shoulders, Nick shuddered a little, mumbling something about how cold it was outside of bed before scanning the room for hers. Finding it handing on the left side of their four-poster bed, he tossed it to her and together they headed downstairs.

Sara's eyes grew wide as she saw the Christmas tree. He must have gotten up earlier to turn all the little lights that lit up the entire apartment suite, sometimes flashing every few seconds and casting subtle shadows on the walls. "It's beautiful, Nicky," she managed to whisper, biting her lip as a single tear fell from her eye. Why am I crying? He just smiled, and wrapped an arm around her shoulders as they continued their decent down the stairs.

"I hoped you'd like it. There should be coffee in the kitchen too; I set the timer last night."

"You're an angel," she dropped a kiss on his lips, allowing their noses to touch softly… and out of nowhere her stomach grumbled loudly. Nick raised his eyebrows, placing a hand on her thin waist.

"We need to get some food in that stomach of yours. We didn't end up eating last night, did we?" He asked seriously, looking worried. Sara sighed.

"No…. but I couldn't have kept anything down anyway. Pancakes?" she answered, pursing her lips in an attempt to control her urge to smile at the prospect of pancakes. Memories of other early morning… or rather, late night pancake cookouts together came flowing back… and finally she was unable to restrain the full fledged grin that spread across her face. The worried expression that had found place on Nick's was quickly replaced by the same nostalgic ear to ear smile as he nodded with a wink.

"Pancakes. Strawberry, blueberry or chocolate chip?"

"Strawberry…. and chocolate chip!" Sara laughed, poking him lightly in the side as she reminded him of the disaster they'd created in the kitchen last time she'd tried to mix the two. She'd knocked the open bag of flour onto the floor with her elbow as she cut the leaves from the strawberries at the sink, and it had practically exploded all across the entire room, covering both of them with the powder from head to toe- right after they'd gotten out of the shower for work, a half an hour later. They'd actually had to call into work to tell Grissom they'd be at least an hour late thanks to the cleanup job, not to mention making and eating breakfast itself. When it happened they'd just burst out laughing, each finding it hard to care the crap was all over the linoleum and carpet when the other was completely white and sneezing their head off. Grissom had rolled his eyes and just told them to get in when they could; all the major cases were being handled by days at the time anyway. In the end, they'd burnt the pancakes anyway after a stray strawberry fell into the gas burner unnoticed, eventually catching fire and setting the smoke alarm off. The room held a smoky fruit smell for at least three days afterward, but the pancakes still tasted great.

"You looked like a ghost. I didn't know until that day that you sneezed in triplets," Nick chuckled, his dark eyes twinkling with laughter.

"I've done that since I was a kid." Sara giggled back, throwing her arms around his neck as they made it into the kitchen. "How about banana chocolate chip?"

"Sure." She placed another kiss on his lips as he nodded. "I'll find the stuff. Open presents after breakfast?"

"'kay. I'm going to run and get something from my bag, be right back." She left to make her way back upstairs, intent on finding her gift for Nick… and the Santa hat she'd ironically got for him as well. She had meant to put them under the tree last night, but she hadn't gotten to it. It took a few minutes of digging around in the massive luggage she'd brought back with her from San Francisco to find what she was looking for. Gathering the boxes and hat in her arms, she tiptoed back downstairs to the Christmas tree, where she placed the load amongst the rest of the gifts. It was staggering how many there were; she hoped they weren't all from Nick to her, it was way too much. Looking closer, she saw that a few of them were from coworkers to both of them.

"No peeking, Sar!" Nick's voice came joking from the kitchen, and she turned quickly from the gifts beneath the tree, trying not to look guilty. He'd sensed her movement in the adjacent room, and couldn't resist watching her. She smirked, rolling her eyes as she walked back to the kitchen with her Santa hat for him hidden behind her back. Humoring her, he turned his back and resumed his task of scouring the fridge for eggs. Taking advantage of this, Sara snuck up behind him and pulled the traditional hat roughly over the crown of his head, making sure it covered his eyes but left his ears sticking out to the sides. She silently cursed herself for not having a camera as he turned around with a goofy grin on his face, and the white trim of the hat actually covering most of his nose as well.

"No peeking, Nicky!" It took all of a second for her to break into an uncontrollable fit of laughter. Unable to keep from laughing back, Nick shook his head and reached the eggs onto the counter and stood up from his crouching position at the fridge and, making no move to fix the hat whatsoever, blindly tackled the woman.

"Oh, you think you're so funny, Sidle. 'no peeking…'" he chuckled, threatening to start tickling her from behind, his fingers dangerously close to what he knew was her most ticklish spot: her lower ribs, just above her waistline.

"It was a great joke!" She fought to free herself from his grasp. "Admit it- it was great!"

"Really witty." He wanted to stick his tongue out at her as he finally fixed the hat with one hand. "You're great at twisting my words, darlin'."

Sara grinned and nodded, turning in his arms to face him. "So… do you like your hat?"

He took it off his head for a moment to look at it fully, smirking with raised eyebrows. "…it's purple…"

"Indeed it is." Her smirk finally matched his as she leaned up to steal another kiss from his lips.

Breakfast passed without incident, though Sara did manage with her immaculate cooking skills to permanently sear chocolate and banana onto all three frying pans they'd used while Nick was setting the table with plates, cutlery and glasses. Thankfully the smoke alarm didn't go off, but she was hardly surprised at her accomplishment. It had been months since she'd last cooked anything. Most nights in San Francisco she'd just ordered in- though she rarely ate any of it, or Blaze came over and cooked something up, making sure at least something made it to her stomach. She always appreciated it, but eating was never a priority and sometimes she'd half heartedly wished he didn't bother; often she couldn't keep it down in the end anyway. But something about being back with Nick had made it easier. The only thing curdling in her stomach was laughter as he chuckled with her, taking her place at the stove. He quickly turned off the gas burner and flipped the pancakes on each of the three pans with a spatula to make sure the opposite sides were cooked, finally dropping the darkened little circular blobs onto a big plate so he could scrape the burnt bits off the pan.

By the time they had finished breakfast, it was close to 9:30. Sara quickly attacked the coffee, and Nick excused himself quickly to run upstairs, where he still had a gift for Sara. When he reached the top of the stairs, he could hear his cell phone vibrating from the headboard. Smirking slightly, he strolled into the bedroom to pick it up. Warrick.

"Merry Christmas."

"Same to you, man. Have you done it yet?"

"Way to cut to the chase there. No—"

"Uh sorry Nick, hang on a second." He could hear a young girl's voice in the background, trying to get his friends attention, probably thanking him for a gift. "No problem Linds, Merry Christmas." Warrick shifted his face from the phone to speak to Catherine's daughter. Nick chuckled.

"Are you over at Catherine's place? You swine."

Warrick laughed back. "Yeah, I am. We came back here after visiting her mom for Christmas dinner last night."

"See man? I told you. You should have done it a long time ago."

"Yeah, yeah, I know." Warrick rolled his eyes. "I should have asked Catherine out years ago, marrying Tina was a big mistake, you were right when you told me to break it off, I got it." His voice raised a little as he finished speaking, but Nick could still hear the dry chuckle behind it all. "So why haven't you asked her yet? Did you just get up?"

"No… no we just finished breakfast. She's so thin Warrick; it's like she hasn't really eaten for two months."

"Look after her, man. I'll come and tear you up if you don't," his voice was joking, brotherly but worried.

"I will, I will… we're working on it. Anyway, I was just coming upstairs to get the box when you called. I'll tell you how it goes."

"Alright. You nervous?"

"Of course."

"Don't be."

-Click- And Warrick hung up. Filthy hypocrite.

Nick snapped his own cell closed and placed it back on the headboard, kneeling down to the drawers under their bed. It was in the sock drawer, stuffed into a pair of his black 'Happy Feet' near the back. He quickly retrieved the two boxes, one wrapped and one not, and stuffed them anxiously into the side pocked of his navy housecoat. Here goes nothing… Sighing and running a hand through his bed-headed hair, he turned and walked back downstairs, fiddling unconsciously with the contents of his pocket trying to calm himself. He'd been planning it for ages, now was as good a time as any. Halfway through his descend, he saw her. She was sitting in the 2 person loveseat by the window, looking like she was trying not to open something in her lap. He heard a small sniffle.

"Sara?"

She looked up, smiling, but a tear still fell down her cheek.

"Are you alright? What's the matter?"

"I'm fine. It happens quite a bit. Nevermind." Her gaze returned to whatever was on her lap; his vision was obscured by the back of the chair. She seemed to hesitate for a moment, then push whatever it was off her lap rather violently, kicking it under the couch once it hit the floor. Unfortunately, she kicked it too hard and it slid across the rug too far, coming out the back end of the chair. It was a photo album. Sara gritted her teeth. Shit. Nick didn't say anything, but walked over and picked the thick book up, placing it on a nearby table. He pulled the Santa hat off her head and she turned to look at him. A halfhearted smile crossed his face as he pushed her messy hair out of her eyes and behind her ears, kissing away the tear that fell down her cheek. She was a good actor, but the moment he left she broke down a little. There was no way…

"I'm okay, really. Thanks, Nick." She kissed him back, gesturing for him to take a seat next to her. He did, and she handed him the gift she had waiting at her feet. He smiled thankfully, tearing the holly-print wrapping paper from the rectangular package.

"You got me cowboy boots?" Nick snorted, a huge grin now plastered across his face.

"They match that Stetson I got you for your birthday."

"Are you trying to turn me into a cowboy, darlin'?" He looked very pleased with himself as he tried them on and stood up. Sara laughed; he looked hilarious wearing his robe, cowboy boots and… well, nothing else. She bit her lip trying to control a giggle and nodded, sniffling a bit as the photo album was momentarily forgotten.

"I have something for you here, cowgirl." He knelt down at the tree to make it look like he was grabbing something from there while he rustled in his pocket. Warrick's voice played in his mind. Look after her, man. I'll come and tear you up if you don't. Was this looking after her? Was it really the right thing to be doing given present circumstance? She was so delicate; the front failed in the few minutes he'd left her side that morning. Was it fair… was it going to be at all beneficial to her when she'd be forced to leave again in a matter of days? How easy would it be for her to carry another huge commitment before all this San Francisco business was put to rest when she already felt like she had failed? Was he really in the right to be considering putting her through it all right now? He knew the answer before he asked himself the question, the moment he saw her tearstained face walking down the stairs mere moments before. He sighed inwardly and handed her something from his pocket.

"Merry Christmas, Sar."