Disclaimer: I don't own CSI or any of the characters.
A/N: Thanks so much to all of you who have reviewed.
Huge thanks to Nightblight, who took time out of her incredibly busy life to Beta this for me, not once, but twice. If there's something in here you like, she probably either suggested it or tickled it out of my reluctant brain.
Brass's shoulder and chest were aching from having his arms bound behind his back for hours. The pull on his healing wounds was not comfortable but he was far enough along in the healing process that he felt no damage was being done. It was just uncomfortable and awkward, but coupled with his feelings of powerlessness over this situation his frustration level was going through the roof.
The only respite from the position had been when Lurie had brought them food earlier, something else to drink not long ago and the almost hourly bathroom breaks Sara seemed to require. He knew she hated it, having to ask the doctor for anything, but even someone as stubborn as Sara couldn't resist the changes her body was going through because of her pregnancy. At one point she had grumbled to Brass, "Yeah, they make a big deal about the eating for two; they should really give more warning about the peeing for two."
Lurie had found the easiest way to get one of them to behave was to put his gun to the temple of the other. That was how he allowed them bathroom breaks; he would keep their hands bound as they trooped to the two stall employee restroom and keep the gun very firmly planted above Sara's left ear. Brass wouldn't even consider making any kind of move with the gun in that position. Lurie would untie her hands and train the gun on Brass while Sara used one of the stalls. He would re-tie her hands and repeat the process with Brass. Afterwards, their macabre little parade would wind its way back through the store passing the whole grain cereals and organic canned goods back to the register. He was getting damned tired of having his every move followed by the barrel of a gun.
Her eyes were closed now; she had been quiet since their last trip to the restroom. She seemed pale, but otherwise looked like she was doing all right. He was still studying her face when her eyes opened; she blinked at him several times in rapid succession. "I'm sorry, Brass, I think this whole thing is getting to me," she shook her head lightly as if to clear her brain. "I'm tired and I'm starting to feel a little fuzzy."
Brass felt his anxiety increase a little, but decided to downplay it; there was no need for her to worry unnecessarily. "Yeah, we've been here, what? Seven? Eight hours? Moving back and forth between boredom and life-threatening danger would throw anybody off their game." His voice gentled, "If you think you can go to sleep, maybe you should try to take a nap while things are calm. You can lean your head on my shoulder, if you want."
"No, thanks," she grimaced and shuddered. "It's creepy enough with him staring at me all the time when I'm awake. The idea of him staring at me when I'm asleep just skeeves me out," she shuddered again. The look of distaste on Sara's face as she looked over Brass's shoulder and confirmed the doctor was still on the phone spoke far louder than her words.
A minute or two of silence passed and then she let out a yawn. "I'm bored. Talk to me." She sounded like a spoilt child begging to be entertained.
He blew out a breath, "Talk to you? Talk to you about what? You want me to catch you up on current events in my life?" He began talking quickly in a false cheery tone. "I was shot, which you know. I was in the hospital for three weeks where your visits were the most exciting thing to happen to me. I've been out of the hospital for two and a half days, but you know that because you have been with me the whole time except for two hours this, no, yesterday morning. Oh, and then I was caught in the middle of a shoot-out and have been being held hostage since, oh, wait! You've been here for that, too!" His voice dripped with his trademark sarcasm. "That about catches you up on my life. So, how's by you?"
She was shaking with laughter by the time he finished. "I'm living with my supervisor and we're going to have a baby. Oh, and I was in the middle of a shoot out and I'm being held hostage, too!" Her laughter made it difficult to get the words out in a coherent sentence. She was getting punchy.
"See? It's kismet!" he snarked, "We were meant to be friends! We have so much in common." He gave her a wry look. "Well, except for the whole having sex and procreating with Grissom thing."
Sara laughed harder and he enjoyed every second of her mirth.
After she calmed some, he did that shoulder to shoulder nudge thing that had become their expression of affection and reassurance over the last few hours. "You're going to be a great Mom."
She blinked away the sudden tears his words brought and said, "I hope so. Grissom said the same thing when we talked about having kids." She swallowed hard. "This isn't something I ever thought I'd do, bring a child into the world, not the way I grew up, but with Grissom, when we talked about it…it was just right."
He knew it was none of his business but he was oddly relieved to discover the pregnancy was planned. "So, you're not naming it Oops Grissom?" he quipped with raised eyebrows.
She started laughing again as she shook her head, "No." She looked at his raised eyebrows and shrugged, he really seemed interested. "We thought about Kristen or Elizabeth for a girl and Andrew for a boy, after Grissom's father." She still had trouble wrapping her mind around the fact that Grissom was ready for fatherhood at all.
He was upfront about his plans from the beginning; ever methodical he had a timeline of the progression of their relationship. After they had been dating for six months they would move in together. Six months to a year after they moved in together they would get married. Of course this meant there were no starry-eyed revelations regarding presentation of keys or marriage proposals. It was settled and decided; he said the time between each step was not because of any uncertainty on his part, it was just time to adjust to each new phase.
At one point he did apologize for the complete lack of romantic surprises to her, but she just shook her head at him. Ten years of wondering where she stood with him made her appreciate knowing every step in his plan; even then she was sometimes afraid it would all disappear.
Then something began happening that totally confused her. After they moved in together he became cavalier about birth control. That unnerved her. She had assumed he would be the one most concerned with preventing a pregnancy. She knew he wanted children; he just had not informed her where on his timeline they fell.
As had happened so many times with this particular man over the years, she had assumed wrong. He never initiated birth control. If she handed him the condom, he would don it or seem to enjoy her sheathing him. When she had thought perhaps it was condoms he had begun to object to, she began trying spermicides and vaginal contraceptive films. Not as effective as condoms, but still, some had a 94 percent prevention rate with correct application; they were both scientists, they could do correct application.
Except he seemed not to care.
He would wake her with intense foreplay in the middle of her sleep cycle, leaving her too sleepy and passion addled to think about anything other than getting him into her immediately. Afterwards, he would send her to sleep with little kisses. She loved waking up to his hands and lips caressing her but much later, when she woke to go to work, it would occur to her that they had neglected birth control, again.
Tired of worrying about how he would react if she turned up pregnant, she had finally asked him outright, "Don't you care about birth control?" He was lounging across their bed making comments about the things she was folding as she re-organized her lingerie drawer; perhaps it was because her work clothes always had to be so practical, but Sara had a terrible weakness for lingerie, much to Grissom's delight.
He lifted a lazy shoulder in a half shrug and said, "Not really."
In hindsight, she realized the stunned look she gave him must have been singularly unattractive. But at the time, she was just…there was no other word for it, stunned. "But what if I get pregnant?"
Again, with the half shrug. "You get pregnant. We have a baby. It's going to happen anyway. Why not now?"
OK, what went beyond stunned? "What?"
"If you're not ready yet, that's OK. But I don't want to wait too much longer. I'm not getting any younger and I would like to at least see our kids graduate from college," he picked up a pair of pink lace panties and twirled them on one finger, "Why haven't I seen you in these? I'd really like to see you in these…is there a matching bra? Cause I'd really like to see you in it, so I could get you out of it."
"What?" Her eyes were so wide they hurt and she could feel herself flushing.
"I like you in pink," he shyly confessed.
"What?" She had graduated from Harvard for God's sake; surely she could come up with something better than "what?"
His brows drew together in confusion, "I like you in pink?" Then he smiled, "Of course I like you in red and black and that burgundy thing is downright sinful…"
"Kids?" A different word, that was good. Still a monosyllable, but different was better.
"You don't want kids this soon?" He was sitting up with a worried look on his face, "I thought we had talked about this….I mean…didn't you say…you'll make such a great mom…" he stumbled to a halt; confused. They had talked about this.
She climbed onto the bed and scooted over to be next to him. "Gris, you're serious? You want to have a baby with me? Now? You don't need time to think about it?"
"Think about it?" He reached out and brushed an errant lock of hair from her cheek.
"Yeah, like for ten years or so?"
"Hey!" He looked slightly put out at her insinuation.
"Sorry," she smirked. They had talked about kids in the beginning, but she thought it was something for much further in the future, or some time that he had plotted out on his time table. Her voice became softly serious. "You really want me to be the mother of your child?"
"God, Sara, don't you understand?" he shook his head at her in exasperated affection. "There has never been a doubt in my mind about where this would end up…you and me, forever, marriage, babies…that's why I waited so long…you had to be ready for forever. I wouldn't survive if you left." He shook his head again, "Of course I want to have babies with you."
The last unsure part of Sara, the part that kept waiting for him to get scared and bolt, unknotted and she smiled at him. "Babies?" she inquired with a cocked eyebrow, emphasizing the plural.
"Babies," he replied with a nod as he held up three fingers.
She reached over and lowered his ring finger, leaving two fingers raised. "Babies," she smiled at him. "I love you." She snuggled against him and nuzzled his neck.
He wrapped his arm around her and kissed her on the top of her head. "I love you, too." His large warm hands were stroking down her back. "And I'm not saying we have to try yet, but it's ok if it happens now. Or it's OK to wait…a little bit, anyway. Whatever you want."
They lay there for a while, just breathing each other in. After a bit, she stirred. "Gris?"
"Hmm?" He rubbed his cheek against her hair.
"The matching bra is a bustier and there's a garter belt, too."
The look he gave her was full of dangerous sensuality; then he smirked. "I'm sorry, Miss Sidle, but I'm going to have to ask you to prove it."
Brass smiled gently at her. "And Gil will be a good Dad, too."
Sara nodded. "That much I do know." She shook her head, "I've never told you much about the way I grew up, but…" she paused, searching for words, "let's just say, I would only trust myself to have kids with someone like Grissom, someone so steady and true."
Brass nodded, but his expression had turned a little sad. She knew of only one thing that put that forlorn look on his face.
"Brass, you've got to stop blaming yourself for Ellie." He started to shake his head at her, but she continued on. "I know the whole situation was fucked up, but you didn't fuck it up alone. And you have done everything you could to make it right." She nodded at him with a fiercely sincere expression on her face.
"I think it is my fault," he said in a defeated tone. "I know…I know I didn't do anything on purpose…I tried so hard, but I wonder if maybe I ever made her feel…I dunno…not loved or not wanted because I'm not her real dad."
Sara loudly blew out a breath. "Jeez, Jim, you think you could have done a better job if the two of you shared some DNA? You know that's not true. If you think common alleles are what make you a good parent to your child, then you aren't paying attention." She thought for a moment. "There's no doubt that my dad was my biological father, but I've only seen a handful of times when there was a worse parent than he was. My mom," she shook her head, "she wasn't as bad, but she wasn't a good parent by any means."
She knew he understood the logic of what she was saying, but he didn't believe it on an emotional level. She tried again. "You were there, Brass. You were there. You know how many kids have to grow up without a father or with one who has revolving door into and out of their life? Ask Warrick. Ask Catherine."
He was fighting tears; he really wanted to believe her, but it had become such an ingrained habit to blame himself for Ellie and her troubles. "Yeah and they both turned out great; maybe no father is better than a bad one."
"If you were a bad person, yeah, maybe so. But you're not a bad person; you're one of the best people I know." He wasn't buying it, she could tell. She was a little surprised at just how good she had gotten at reading him. She sighed. "OK, so say you don't believe me and you're bound and determined to believe you're solely responsible for all of Ellie's problems. At what point does she get to take responsibility for her own life?"
He gave her a blank look, but she continued on in the same voice she used when she was giving an explanation for what a particular piece of evidence meant to a case. "OK, our parents, our environment, the way we're raised all contribute to who we are. But there comes a time when you have to stop blaming your parents and say 'Yeah, OK, I didn't have a great start, but I can do better, I can be better.'" She took a deep breath, "You have to let it go. Quit blaming your mommy for your bad relationships and your daddy for your drug problem. Mom isn't handing out the abuse and Dad isn't putting the crack pipe to your lips. When you can do that, when you can say 'My fault' and 'I was wrong' then you get to stop being a casualty of whatever your childhood tragedies are, you stop being a victim, then you get to be the person you were born to be."
She had finally run out of steam. Her friend was smirking at her.
"What?" she grumbled, slightly embarrassed by her tirade.
"How'd you get to be so smart?"
"Somebody told me to quit rationalizing and helped me see what was wrong with my life was me." She sighed again. "Sorry, I didn't mean to go off." She nudged him again. "You know, I might have taken that whole counseling thing too much to heart. But that's what I was doing with the drinking and the anger; I wasn't taking responsibility for my life." She gave a little laugh. "See? There I go again. Sorry!"
"S'ok."
They were quiet for a few minutes. Brass thought about the young woman beside him. She was right, she hadn't told him much about how she had grown up, but from what he knew it had been ugly. Yet, here was Sara. She had graduated from Harvard with honors, she had the best solve rate at the lab. She was funny, compassionate and the strongest person he knew. She had taken the crappy start fate had given her and turned it around to become this amazing woman who did everything she could to help victims instead of being one.
Ellie had started out with some disadvantages, yes, but nothing like what he suspected Sara had been handicapped with, yet, Ellie didn't even seem to try. Well, that wasn't fair…'Rick had said she looked good when she was in Vegas…she looked clean. That was something. Yeah, so she couldn't be bothered to stick around, but she had been here when it counted and she was clean.
It was a start.
He was beginning to think about contacting her if he and Sara made it out of this mess. Maybe he could have one more chance with Ellie and…his spiraling thoughts came to a startled end when Sara suddenly leaned her head against his shoulder. He looked down at her and she blinked at him.
"Sorry," she mumbled. "Is this ok? I just feel so sleepy and a little bit lightheaded."
He cleared his throat, swallowing more tears. It had been years since someone had trusted him enough to lean on him either literally or figuratively. "Sure, it's ok. Are you OK?" This was the second time she said she felt "off;" he didn't want to push her but he really was beginning to become more uneasy. This was Sara; how bad was it if she was admitting it?
"Mmm, yeah, I think it's the lack of sleep, plus the adrenaline rushes and Baby Grissom all just wearing me out. I just need to rest a minute."
He nodded, but he was torn between feeling touched and being worried.
"Brass?"
"Yeah?"
"You're a good Dad."
A single tear did overflow then as he replied, "You're a good kid."
It wouldn't be so bad if there were more to do, Greg decided. Grissom had sent him to the command center where he had a remote hook-up with Tom Gardner's computer guy.
He wasn't doing anything though. He was just receiving and going over information the guy had managed to hack. The kid was good, too...he had found a ton of information on Lurie and his activities, but Greg just didn't see how any of it was going to help get Sara and Brass out of this situation.
There just wasn't anything they could do except chase paper, wait and depend on the negotiator.
He hated this. He was completely wired, ready to jump out of his skin and the only thing for him to do was read computer printouts.
"Anything new?" Grissom questioned from behind him. Greg hadn't heard him or Nick come in; he looked at both of the men standing behind him, illuminated in the blue-white light of the half dozen computer screens in the enclosed space. Both men were radiating a palpable tension.
"Not much…there's some new financial stuff but none of it looks probative."
"We have to look at all of it, Greg, whether you think it's probative or not" Grissom leaned in and looked first at the computer screen Greg had been scanning, then at the stacks of printouts.
He seemed gruff, even for Grissom. Greg shrugged it off; it was a tense situation, everybody was a little off. Everybody wanted Sara and Brass out of danger.
"Right; I'm going through it all now. If anybody is looking for something to do they can grab a stack, too." His supervisor's mouth was drawn to a thin line, but he nodded as both he and Nick took some of the reports and sat down next to Greg and began looking for something, anything.
After a minute, Nick asked, "Is this all we've got or are we working on more?" A current of frustration was evident under his words.
Greg shook his head…"Gardner's guy is working on hacking into the hospital system. Once he's in he's going to start sending any activity over." He paused a minute, "He's a kid, like nineteen or something. He's completely strange and he's a freakin' genius. I don't doubt if there's anything out there this guy is going to find it."
Nick huffed, "That's good, but I honestly don't see how any of this is going to help. What possible good could any of this do in getting Sara out of there?" He was making notes on the pages he had been given, gripping the pencil so tightly his fingers were white and the pencil was in danger of snapping.
Greg shrugged his shoulders as he circled some numbers. "I don't know either. He killed somebody; it's been, like eight hours and he's not any closer to giving himself up. Why don't they just storm the building and take the guy out?"
The Texan shook his head, "That's dangerous for the hostages…they can get hit in the crossfire or Lurie could panic and hurt them before SWAT gets in there." He could not bring himself to use the word "kill".
Both of the younger men noticed Grissom was completely silent during their exchange.
"Isn't that what tear gas is for?" Greg asked as he continued to study the papers in front of him, "To incapacitate the assailant so they won't hurt hostages during a siege?"
"That's what I thought," Nick said, his voice held a note of puzzlement. "But I heard one of the SWAT guys saying they couldn't use tear gas in this case."
"That doesn't make sense," Greg responded. "Why couldn't they?"
This wasn't the way it was supposed to be, Grissom thought. There was supposed to be a quiet wedding and a small reception with their friends and during the celebration they would let the people that meant the most to them know that they were having a baby. They had talked about it and he had envisioned it dozens of times…Sara standing next to him, smiling at him, loving him and they didn't have to hide any more.
Well, there was no hiding anymore no matter how he had envisioned it. He felt a wave of sadness wash over him at the realization that Lurie had ruined something he and Sara had been looking forward to. He shoved the sadness behind his mask and reminded himself all that mattered was getting Sara and Brass out safely.
"Sara's pregnant," Grissom stated matter-of-factly, never looking up from the papers he was studying "and there have been a few instances of pregnant women miscarrying with use of tear gas. Nichols doesn't want to take the risk."
Silence.
After about thirty seconds, Nick said a terse, "Excuse me" and Grissom looked up to see the young CSI exiting the RV.
He turned to look at Greg who was staring back at him, mouth hanging open, eyes wide. "Sara? Pregnant?" He blinked rapidly several times. "Sara?"
Grissom drew in a long breath and released it slowly. "Yes, Greg."
"But…Who? I mean…Sara? Pregnant?"
Grissom nodded, tiredly. "Yes, Greg." And he bent back over his papers discouraging Greg from further comment or question about Sara's pregnancy. He would give Nick a minute or two to collect himself; then he would go talk to him.
Nick Stokes had a secret, something nobody in the world knew. Sometimes he thought Warrick might suspect, but most times he thought his secret was safe.
As he rushed out of the SWAT vehicle he felt every bit of the years of keeping that secret oozing out of his pores, rolling off of him in waves. He knew that if he stayed in there another minute that the other two men would know what he had come to admit to himself a long time ago…
Nick Stokes was in love with Sara Sidle.
He pushed away from the group of cops and SWAT members surrounding the command post and gave a distracted nod to Warrick and Catherine who were quietly going over interview notes with Vartan. He walked quickly over to a far corner of the parking lot and began pacing energetically back and forth between two of the CSI SUVs.
It had not been love at first sight. He had always thought she was attractive, smart and funny. And quite obviously head over heels in love with their supervisor.
He had just thought of her as a co-worker, then a friend. They would hang out, go to breakfast, and sometimes go for drinks. She'd tease him about the parade of women in his life and he'd tease her about having no life. He was continually amazed at how damned smart she was and he found himself wanting to be with her more and more, and it scared him.
Nothing momentous precipitated his realization that he was in love with her; she just looked at him one day over the evidence table and gave him one of her smirky, pursed lip smiles and he had the strongest urge to kiss that smirk right off of her face. By the time he realized he had feelings for her, he had it bad; he felt like a cartoon character that had had an anvil dropped squarely on his head.
He was trying to figure out what to do, how to approach her but there was the thing with Hank, then the promotion and Grissom, always Grissom.
All of it was hard on her; he thought of that time as Sara's dark days. He could only try to be her friend, but competing for the promotion had put a strain on their friendship which was ironic, because part of the reason he had applied for the promotion was to get her to see him differently. He hadn't thought he would be competing with her for it. But he hung on and kept being the best friend he could be, always thinking maybe someday they could be more. Sara seemed to want to try to move past it, too and seemed to make as much of an effort as he had to preserve their friendship.
Things were almost back to normal between them when Walter Gordon had buried him alive. He had thought of everything when he was in that box. How if he got another chance he wasn't going to wait any more, she was going to know how he felt.
After he got out of the hospital, his parents took him home to Dallas to recover. He flew back to Vegas on an early morning flight a week before he was due back to work and drove straight from the airport to Sara's apartment knowing he would probably catch her just coming off of shift. He was desperate to see her, to talk to her. He had done nothing but think…in the hospital, at his parents' house…trying to think of the thing to say that would make her give him a chance to be more than her friend.
He had been waiting a little over a half an hour when her car pulled into the lot, followed closely by Grissom. As they were exiting their cars, Nick had wondered briefly if there was some special case that caused Grissom to follow her home or if they were in the middle of one of their blow-ups and then watched, mouth agape, as Grissom hugged her lightly. Sara had smiled up at him and said something that made the older man grin as he tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. Then, hand in hand they had turned and headed into her building.
Nick had watched, dazed, his brain trying to process what he had seen. Sara and Grissom were together.
He wanted to be happy for them. It was what Sara had wanted for years. She deserved to get everything she wanted. Nick couldn't even resent Grissom too much; yeah, the guy could be an ass, but he was a good man and as long as he was good to Sara, Nick would try to be happy for them, but he felt as though his insides were slowly being eaten away by acid. He had a constant ache in his chest and his stomach always felt as if the bottom of it had dropped out.
He tried to move on, but there were days he would drive by her apartment just to see if Grissom's car was there. Sometimes it was, sometimes neither car was there and Nick, hating himself, would find himself driving past the night supervisor's townhouse to see Sara's car there. He didn't know why he did it; maybe to be close to her? To know she was safe? To remind himself what a fool he was for waiting too long?
One such time, he saw a for sale sign at the townhouse and in the weeks that followed when Sara began scavenging for empty boxes and reading decorating magazines in the break room he knew they had gotten a place together. He hadn't slept for two days after he figured it out. Sara even teased him about being so grumpy, "Got a new girl that's keeping you from sleeping, Nicky? Tell her to let you get a little rest so we don't have to hurt your cranky butt."
It had been oddly bittersweet. He could see she was happy and that made him happy. He still yearned for her, but her happiness was more important than anything to him. That's why he had never been able to feel bitter towards Grissom.
At least not until this moment. Her life was in danger. A madman was holding her hostage and the man who is supposed to love her the most can calmly announce she's pregnant as if he were announcing the prints on a piece of evidence were latent or a DNA search turned up nothing. God, it burned him up; he wanted to put his fist through Grissom's face.
Nick kicked the tire of the nearest county SUV and desperately wished for a wall to punch.
"Nick?" Grissom's voice sounded harsh to his ears.
He turned to find him standing a few feet from him, holding a piece of paper, a question in his eyes.
Nick breathed in and tried to suppress his anger. "Yeah?"
"The tow truck is on its way to get Lurie's car. I'd like you to go back to the lab and process it," he held out the impound order to the younger man.
Nick snatched the paper from his supervisor's hand, "Yeah, fine."
Grissom's eyebrows shot up almost to his hairline. "Is there a problem here, Nick?" he questioned sharply.
Nick scowled, "No, no problem other than Sara and Brass are in there with that psycho and you're treating it just like any other case."
Tightly pursing his lips, the senior CSI pinched the bridge of his nose and tried to maintain his composure. "What do you want me to do, Nick?" He was hanging on to his temper by a thread.
"I don't know! But this, looking for evidence that may not even exist, that isn't going to do a damned thing to get her out of there. What good is any of this doing? And then you can just casually announce she's pregnant, like its nothing…doesn't any of this mean anything to you? You live with her, you're supposed to care about her…you're just acting like the evidence is all that matters," he spat the words at Grissom who had shown very little surprise at Nick's knowledge of his living arrangements.
Grissom gathered what little patience he had and tried to defuse the situation before they both did damage that couldn't be repaired, "Look, Nick, I know how you feel about Sara…" The look on his face was one of both resignation and sympathy.
His face crimson with anger, Nick exploded, "Don't you even begin to tell me you have any idea about my feelings for Sara! The hell you do!"
"The hell I don't" Grissom roared and suddenly Nick found himself backed against the SUV with a very angry Gil Grissom in his face, "What do you want me to do, Nick? You want me to scream and cry and breakdown? How in the hell do you think that's going to help get her out of there? How's that going to help anything?" He leaned in closer and Nick's eyes widened as he saw the raw anger and fear breaking through the cracks in Grissom's emotional walls. "If there's a chance any piece of evidence exists that's going to help us know what he's planning or what's going through his head I want to find it, because it might be the difference between her living through this and her dying you're damned right I care about the evidence."
His anger left him suddenly and his shoulders slumped slightly as he took a breath and when he spoke again, his voice was much calmer. "Nick, I know you love her." The younger man's eyes widened in shock and Grissom's mouth twisted in a dark smirk, "You think I could love her all those years and not spot the same thing in someone else?" He heaved a huge sigh and moved to lean up against the SUV beside the other man. When he spoke again it was some with some hesitancy, "I, ah, always thought…I was afraid I was going to lose her to you. I thought one of these days she would look at you and see how perfect you were for her and she'd give up on me. And I wouldn't have been able to blame her."
Nick shook his head and cleared his throat, "You know Sara; she just doesn't give up."
"I thank the powers that be for that every single day, Nicky. Every single day."
"Look, Gris, I'm sorry, I…" he shook his head and tried to swallow his tears but they overflowed anyway.
Grissom put a conciliatory hand on the other man's shoulder. "It's OK…we…ah, it's a tense situation and everybody just wants to see Brass and Sara out of there safely." His voice was a little more stern when he added, "Nick, I love her, I am going to marry her. She is the mother of my child. Don't ever think I don't care…if looking for evidence is all I can do, it's what I am going to do. You can help or not…if it's too much for you, I can get someone else."
Nick thought of second chances and how he had thought he had one with Sara when he got out of that box. Now he knew what he needed was one more chance to see Sara happy before he let go. One more chance to move on and know that she was safe and content.
"I want to help," Nick nodded.
"Good. The tow truck should be…" he was interrupted by the sound of Greg yelling his name. Grissom watched as the young CSI came barreling across the parking lot towards them followed by Catherine and Warrick.
"Grissom! Chad hacked the hospital system and shadowed Lurie's activity over the last couple of days," Greg began speaking at a lightening pace even before he reached them, waving a printout at Grissom. "You need to see this," he panted as he handed the papers to his supervisor.
Grissom pulled his glasses out of his pocket and began studying the papers, paling as he did so, "Nick," he said urgently, "go find Ben Nichols. We've got to get Sara out of there now."
Sara had fallen into an uneasy sleep against Brass's shoulder; having her hands behind her back made it awkward. She would fall asleep then her head would slip from his shoulder and she would come to a jerky wakefulness.
He wasn't sure but she seemed feverish to him. He was really starting to worry about her. She slipped again and grumbled. He hated asking the same thing over and over, but he needed the reassurance from her, "You OK, Hon?"
"Yeah," she mumbled and tried to reposition herself on his shoulder.
He said in a soothing tone, "Sara, just lay down. You can rest your head on my leg."
She mumbled something and did an awkward twist and slide movement and ended with her cheek on his thigh just above his knee and drew her legs in towards her chest. "Don't let him watch me sleep," she muttered just before she closed her eyes.
He huffed out a small laugh, "Sure, OK." Like he could stop that from happening.
Then he watched as she settled and sank into sleep. He breathed a little easier; maybe she would feel better after she got some sleep. It couldn't possibly hurt.
Brass looked around again; Lurie wasn't on the phone this time. He was pacing around the main aisle of the store, gun in one hand, phone in the other. He would stop periodically and just stand, looking blank, as if he were waiting for something.
Not very inspiring in Brass's opinion.
He looked down at Sara; it looked like she was out for the count. Good. He hoped she was comfortable enough. He looked at how she was positioned, to see if there was some way to make her more comfortable.
That's when he saw the blood.