Chapter 9

Sara paced her hallway. She was really, really tired, but there was no way she could sleep. She had also tried cleaning, but like sleeping, it was useless. So now she was pacing up an overly shiny hallway trying to distract herself.

She wandered into the kitchen and pulled a book off the small open shelf. She didn't even look at what book she had chosen, and sat down on the counter to read it.

When the phone rang she fell off the counter, dropping the cookbook onto her foot. She shouted a swear her mother would have slapped her for and picked up the phone on the fourth ring. It was Catherine.

"Hey Sara, can you do me a huge favor?"

"Sure, what's up?"

"Well, Warrick went home to sleep and I need to go pick up Lindsay. His parents are here but Grissom wants one of us there when Nick wakes up."

Sara couldn't believe her ears. She jumped up on the couch and did a little dance before calming down and saying as casually as she could, "Sure, I'll be right there."

She made record time driving like a maniac to the hospital, and Catherine noticed.

"That was fast." She gave her an odd look. "Anyway, he still hasn't woken up but he should soon."

Sara was looking at the door that separated her from Nick, not being able to get in there fast enough. "Sure, ok," she said to the door.

"Alright then, I'll see you later then."

"Ok." Sara was still talking to the door. Catherine left and Sara opened the door as quietly as she could.

She saw Nick laying there. The lights were off but the light from the hall was coming in through the window and she could see Nick's face. It had ant bites all over it, but Sara couldn't help but think how beautiful it looked. She closed the door and looked to her left. Nick's parents were sitting on the chairs, asleep. Sara sat down on the single chair left in the room. When she did the chair scraped on the floor a little and Nick's mom woke up. She looked over at Sara and she could tell his mom was surprised.

"Oh…I'm so sorry," Sara said, "I didn't mean to wake you."

"No, no it's ok," his mom said wiping the sleep fro her eyes. "You are the girl from the lab right?" She said in her own Texas accent.

"Yes, I just came to see him," Sara said, "My name is Sara by the way." She couldn't remember introducing herself properly back at the lab.

Nick's mom smiled. "Nice to meet you," she said and rested her head on her husband's shoulder to go back to sleep.

Sara silently slid her chair over to Nick's bedside and looked at his face. She slowly took his hand and smiled at him. She looked down at the hand she was holding and carefully rubbed her finger over one of the bumps on his hand. She sighed and looked back at his face again. He looked very peaceful. Looking at his face she felt all the tiredness come back to her. She hadn't slept in nearly 36 hours and now it came back on her. She said she was only going to sleep a moment, but once she rested her head on his leg, she fell asleep almost instantly.