Ok. It has been forever since I have done anything on this story. I am going to attempt to finish it. WARNING: HAS GRAPHIC LANGUAGE.

Sara's heart raced. She had to explain everything to Nick. But what would he think of her once she was done? Could he understand? Would he treat her differently? Everyone else who had known treated her differently. They acted like she was made of glass. They seemed to think if they made the wrong move, said the wrong thing, hell made the wrong facial expression she'd spiral out of control. Sara thought back to her apartment. She remembered the pipe thrown carelessly beside her, the water spreading out from what had been left of her kitchen sink pipes and the blood that began to pool as it dripped down from the gash on her hand.

Shit, she thought, maybe they're right.

Sara lifted her eyes up to meet Nicks. Behind the concern and attempt to appear comforting she saw what she had seen so many times before. Fear. Hell she should recognize it by now, her life was full of it. She saw it on the looks of victims, witnesses and even her friends on occasion. What exactly was Nick afraid of, was it her. Was he scared she was going to snap and try to kill herself? Or was he afraid of what she was about to tell him?

"The screw driver slipped" she said quietly, as she indicated with her injured hand.

They fell silent once again. Sara swallowed the lump that was gathering in her throat. She tried to calm herself. Sara Sidle doesn't cry, get a hold of yourself. She looked back into Nicks eyes.

"It was an accident. I was trying to fix the dripping, and God knows I haven't a clue about the plumbing. I know I should have called a plumber or my super or someone, but the dripping was just so damn loud, I couldn't concentrate; it was driving me a little up the walls, I couldn't wait. I had to make the dripping stop." Shut up Sara, you're rambling like an idiot, she thought to herself. She started to lose her nerve. What if she told him and he was too freaked out to be her friend any more?

"Thank you for bandaging my hand, I really hadn't noticed I cut it." She gave him a weak smile. She knew it was a sad attempt at making the situation seem less real, intense and scary then it was.

"Can I ask you a question Sare," Nick said quietly.

When she nodded her agreement he continued on.

"When I tried to put something on your hand at first, you said 'It's fine. It'll go away soon, it never lasts long'. What did you mean by that?" Nicks comforting, soothing gaze gave Sara enough courage to say what she knew she had to.

He was her friend, her best friend. He deserved to know what was going on with her. He needed to know and she needed to tell someone.

"I thought it was a hallucination, an illusion brought on by hysteria, what ever you want to call it." When no judgment entered his expression she continued.

"I've had them before, that's why I thought it was fake and it would just go away." A shaky hand lifted up and brushed her hair back. Taking a deep breath she went on.

"I hadn't had them for a few years, then a couple of days ago I woke up in the middle of the night from a nightmare. I went to get a glass of water. The cold water ran over my hand as the cup overflowed. I hadn't been paying attention; I was still kinda out of it. When I lifted the cup to my lips I saw it was full of blood and that there was blood all over my hand where it had overflowed. I dropped the cup and it shattered when it hit the ground. There was so much blood, more then the cup could have held. It spread out." Sara took a deep breath to stave off the hysterics she could feel coming.

"I looked back to my hand, no blood. I looked down and there was no blood on the floors either. Just water." Sara gave an almost unnoticeable shrug of her shoulders.

"It was only water," she repeated.

"Do you know what first triggered the hallucinations, you said you had had them before" Nick asked taking her hand back into his.

"Yep" She said looking down at their clasped hands.

Looking back into his eyes she answered, "loosing my mind."

Back at the lab:

Doc Robins leaned over the body of the young deceased woman. His mind drifted back to Sara and when she passed out in the lab. Sara usually becomes emotionally involved in cases but it seemed she was more intensely involved this time. What was it about this case that was getting to Sara so much? Shaking his head in an attempt to get him mind back onto the woman in front of him he reached over her to grab one of his tools. As his body shifted closer to her head a flash of color caught his eye.

Reaching for the tweezers Doc Robins carefully extracted the object from the woman's hair.

"What the hell is this doing here?"

Back at Nicks:

Sara took a deep, shaky breath and continued on. Shit this was hard.

Sara stood up. The need to walk around, to not stay still was so intense that it felt if she stayed there she explode.

"I think what started my recent string of nightmares and hallucinations is my recent case. When I passed out in the lab, it was due to some new information I had just gotten. Not low blood sugar and the flu. I had heard what Doc Robins said and it was like my body started shutting off. I knew what the new evidence was indicating, I knew what was going to happen, but it was like my body couldn't deal with what I knew I know. Does that make any sense?" She asked looking back from Nick from where she was pacing in his living room.

She took his small nod as encouragement to go on.

"Certain aspects of the case remind me of one that occurred a few years ago, when I was working in San Francisco. We never caught that killer, and I never really let that go, so when these new victims started showing up, so much like the last…"She trailed off as she resumed her pacing.

"Back in San Francisco I used to live with my best friend Aribella, Ari. She was a cop with the department there. She worked homicide. She and I, along with another detective, John Langdon were the ones that really worked the case. More people were brought in as it got worse, but we were the ones on it from the beginning. It was the Frisco Choker case. It was awful, a new victim was turning up every month, and there was no way we could stop the guy. He left no clues. We had an idea of who it was but we had no proof."

Sara looked back to Nick. He was sitting on the couch calmly watching her. For some reason it really pissed her off. I am retelling one of the most awful times of my life, and he just sits there? How could he stay so calm when I feel like I am being ripped apart and crushed together at the same time?

"The case got bad. It became an obsession with all of us. We were so deep inside of it that we didn't notice the stuff right in front of us. It consumed us all, blinded us, made us vulnerable and we paid for it." Sara could see Nick sit up straiter at her last comment.

Good. She thought bitterly glad to see some reaction from him besides calm. He wasn't supposed to be reacting like this. He should be more upset with me. I've lied, with held the information that we could have a serial killer on our hands because I was scared! He should he pissed at me. I have done horrible things, because of me people died.

"One day I received an email from Ari, apparently she had tracked down the Choker. He was due to take a new victim and it was possible he already had, there were so many missing person cases, it could have been any or the women on the lists or even one we didn't know about yet. Ari's message said she had found the killer in an old warehouse down by the water front and he had taken a new woman. Langdon, I and some other officers went down to the warehouse to meet Ari. She wasn't outside so we assumed she had already gone inside. We moved in quietly, we didn't want him to know we were there." Plunk, plunk, plunk. Sara shook her head. God remembering it was like being there, she could hear the God damn dripping noise again. "It was so damn quiet in there. There wasn't any indication of where they were. The only noise was the damn dripping."

The sound of the dripping seemed to get louder, more real in Sara's head. If seemed as if it was just in the other room. God, she thought, giving a shaky laugh, I really am going crazy.

Sara hadn't noticed Nick had moved from his position on the couch or that he was now standing up.

Nick started to reach for Sara when he realized it wouldn't do any good. She wasn't with him anymore, she was backing San Francisco. He wished he could do something, anything to stop the look of terror that was spreading on her face as she went deeper into her memories. Grabbing her and shaking her may pull her out, but he knew that was not what she needed. She needed to say what happened to her. To stop bottling up all the memories and feelings like she always did. If she did pull the release valve on all this pent up energy she was going to explode and there was no way anyone would be able to help her then.

Nick pulled his hand back squeezing his hand in a fist to prevent himself from reaching out to stop her again.

"I figured the dripping noise was coming form a leaking pipe, but as we moved deeper into the warehouse it was getting louder. I was stressed. I couldn't find Ari, we were so close to catching the bastard who killed all those women and the stupid dripping was distracting me. As I got closer to the noise I started to realize that it was coming form behind one of the closed doors. I moved towards it without really thinking. I just wanted to make it stop so I could concentrate and hear any other noises around. I pushed open the door and" Sara shook her head and hunched over a bit holding her stomach. God she was going to be sick.

Nick quickly moved to her side placing an arm over her back, but before he could say anything she waved him off. If she didn't finish now she knew she wouldn't be able to later. Standing straighter she allowed Nick to leader her the few steps back to the couch to sit back down. Taking another breath she continued on.

"It was Ari" her voice began to break, "The bastard had killed her. He hit her on the back of the head with something sharp then hung her up from the pipe above. The dripping noise was the blood from her head pooling on the floor. He killed my best friend and he wanted me to know it. He hung her so the rope would choke her. He left this sickening message pinned to her that he was sorry that he couldn't "hang" around to see us, and that he would be leaving us a new gift soon since taking Ari's life just wasn't enough. The asshole needed to kill someone with his bare hands to get off on it. He murdered my friend just for the hell of it." Nick pulled Sara to his in an attempt to comfort her as her body shook with sobs.

Running his hands up and down her back he did his best to try to ease her pain. Guilt chewed at him. What had he been thinking? He should have never have made her do this. When he saw it was to much he should have stopped her. Slowly Sara started to calm as she relaxed into Nick.

Sara took another shaky breath in. She had to finish. There was more he needed to know, more she had to get out.

Pulling back she looked him in the eye.

"Sara, are you sure you want to go on. We can stop now, you don't have to do this" Nick said quietly.

Shaking her head she when on. Her heart racing.

"Another victim showed up the next week. The same MO as his other victims excluding Ari. Then the next month nothing, the following month the same. He'd stopped. There were so many guesses to why, people were always asking questions. Did we think he would start killing again? Where had he gone? Were they safe yet? I didn't care, I was just glad he was gone." Sara swallowed and looked at Nick.

Nick reached up and brushed the strand of hair off her face, "Sar, do you think he's back and killing in Las Vegas. That the victims in the morgue are women he's killed?"

"No. I know this killer inside out, this isn't him, it can't be" she answered shaking her head.

"Are you sure? Serial killers don't just stop killing."

"I know, but I also know this isn't the same man Nick. It's a copy cat. I am sure of it"

Nodding Nick when to get up, but Sara grabbed his hand stopping him.

"I'm just grabbing something to warm you up Sara, your hands are like ice." He turned again towards the kitchen but Sara stopped him.

"Nick, there's more."

Back at the lab:

"I didn't think it would be a good idea to bother Sara. She needed the night off. I found this in the victim's hair." Dr. Robins said holding the small metal object clasped between the tweezers for Warrick to see.

"Is that what I think it is? And it that blood?" Warrick asked taking a closer look at the object.

Robins just nodded his agreement

"Damn, I think we just got our break in the case".

Back at Nicks:

"I didn't take the loss of Ari, losing the murderer or being unable to help all the other victims very well. Shortly after the Frisco Choker stopped killing I started having nightmares. I had had them all through the case, but now they had started to get worse and they were bleeding into my waking hours. I started hallucinating, seeing Ari around the lab, or I'd see the other victims. Sometimes I would see them as alive or how they were when they were alive. I saw blood a lot. On my hands, the floor, equipment I was using. I stopped sleeping because I was to afraid to go to sleep. I couldn't spend another night with those kinds of nightmares. I was able to hide it for a while but one day john found me in the middle of a terror attack. I was convinced the room was filling up with blood, that I was going to drown in it. John took me to the Ocean Ridge mental institution. He did it quietly. No one knew but him and I. All our colleagues just thought I couldn't live in San Francisco after the loss of Ari. I spent a year there working through what happened. I thought I had gotten over it, that I was OK. The hallucinations had stopped and so had the nightmares. I always thought Ari's death had been in some ways my fault. The reason she had gone to the warehouse that day was because she believed she had gotten a message from me. The Killer had hacked into our email was had sent us the fake messages. Ari went there because she believed she was meeting me. Ari had called me just shortly before she had left for the warehouse but I was so caught up in the work I was doing I forgot about everything else. I had left my cell phone in my locker that morning. If I had paid attention and taken my phone with me I could have told Ari I hadn't sent the message and she never would have left. I believed her blood was on my hands so much I started to see it. The psychiatrists at Ocean Ridge helped he work through everything so I would stop seeing the blood and the bodies, so I could sleep again."

Sara smiled weakly at Nick, "I guess it didn't work, huh?"

Nick rapped his arms around Sara again, hugging her as she shook.

"Sara, your friend's death is not your fault. The only one whose is at fault is the killer. I'm glad you told me everything. I promise I'll help you through this. You're not going crazy Sara." Nick felt some of the tension in Sara's body slip away at his last comment. After a few minutes Nick left to get Sara some tea to warm up her still ice cold body.

For a few moments Sara simply sat staring at her clenched hands. Truth? Everything I told him was truth. I know a lie of omission is still a lie, but I don't have a choice. You would never forgive me and I can't be redeemed.

Note: Sara's finale secret, any guesses?