Disclaimer: Don't own any of this. Just borrowing it for a moment to feed the imaginative & hopeful minds of snickers fanfiction readers.

Update: So, I started this story EONS ago… and I then life caught up to me. The back story is Burden of Proof.

Chapter 1

Nick closed the gate on Sara's Tahoe while balancing a rather heavy box on his knee. He secured his hold on the box and headed up to the front door of his house where Sara maneuvering through the front door with a large duffel bag.

Entering the house, Nick half-dropped the box onto the entry way floor.

"What in the hell do you have in here, Sar?"

"Only the essentials…" she trailed off as she headed down the hallway to Nick's spare bedroom. Nick gave the now empty hallway a quizzical look and turned his attention to the box sitting at his feet. Crouching down, Nick was starting to pull the box open when he felt a whack to the back of his head.

"Ouch!" Nick rubbed the back of his head. "What the heck was that for?"

"This is not for you."

"Yeah, well I carried it."

"Great, you get a gold star for the day." Nick guffawed. "Don't give me that Nicky. You have sisters. You know better." Sara just laughed as she walked away.

Nick decided to give Sara awhile to get settled in the guest bedroom. He opted to head outside to his deck. The initial attempt to turn his air conditioning off to have all the windows open so that he had constant access to fresh air had quickly faltered when the heat index hit 108 degrees on the second day of his experiment. Even though it was only chilled air, Nick just felt suffocated. The only time he didn't feel it was when he was outside.

Sara found Nick over an hour later sitting on the steps of his deck sipping a beer. He was staring out into his backyard lost in thought. Sara took a seat next to him. She didn't say anything initially, so they just sat quietly.

Finally, the silence was broken when Nick cleared his throat. "So, what did Gris say about taking your vacation time."

"Nothing actually." Sara settled against the deck post facing Nick and continued. "He said that I was entitled to some time off after having stored up all of those days for so long."

"Did you tell'em that you're staying here?" Sara just shook her head. She wasn't going to say anything to anyone unless Nick wanted her to. So far, he hadn't given her a green light. She wanted to help him, but she wasn't sure if he was actually feeling okay about having her baby-sit him. Not that she was actually baby-sitting him.

"I'm sure they'll find out. Especially since I'll probably have to tell my shrink." He took a long swig of his beer.

"She's not that bad. She's just trying to help. Like we're all trying to help."

Nick shook his head. "I know, I know… I just. I just hate that it's her freakin' report that's keeping me off work. Don't they get it? Keeping me home is not making me any saner. I'm alone…and." He just stopped suddenly and stood up. His back was to Sara. Dusk had fallen and the backyard was quickly disappearing into a dark abyss. "I just hate waiting. I hate not being the driver." Sara stared as his back for a moment before rising to stand next to him.

Moving next to him, Sara followed Nick's gaze out into the backyard. "Well, then I guess it's a good thing that you'll have me to boss around." She turned to look at him with a smirk. He met her gaze and chuckled. Nick reached his arm around Sara's shoulders. Pulling her in, he just nodded, smirked again and said, "God knows that I'm the clean one…who knows what you'll do to my house." He felt the hit coming so he squeezed her shoulder tighter trying to stop the movement of her arm and keep her fist away from his stomach.

"Uhuh…sure…now, I know why you agreed to this. And to think, I brought over that whole huge box of movies and video games and…"

"What!"

Sara managed to get away from Nick and run into the house with Nick chasing her.

MORE SOON! Read and review please!