Catherine had to be pulled out on a gurney, and it took two paramedics to help Sara walk out. They were taken to the hospital in two different ambulances, both thinking about the other the entire time.

It took ages for the doctors to patch up Sara, when all she wanted to do was find out how Catherine was doing. Warrick had been with her for awhile, until she had made him go check on the older woman.

The list of damages was not far off what the women had originally diagnosed. Sara's ribs were not broken, only bruised, but her face fracture was much worse than she had thought. It turned out that the worst injuries, however, were her two broken fingers. Broken was an understatement; they were crushed. They were splinted and set in a hard cast, but even so, the doctors didn't expect her to ever have full mobility again.

Catherine was the much worse for wear. She had an incomplete fracture of her left femur, as well as an open fracture of her shin. On her right leg, she had a deep laceration in the lateral muscle of her thigh. All of this meant that she was going to need some serious therapy to get walking again. But luckily, given time, her legs, as well as her arm, would heal.

Several hours after they had been admitted, Sara was finally cleared and she practically ran to where they were keeping Catherine. She knocked gingerly her door.

"Baby? Are you awake?" Sara peaked in.

"Hey!" Came the tired but welcoming invitation, "Look at you, up and about!"

Seeing Catherine, Sara tried not to cry, "Oh, sweetie!"

Catherine looked down at herself and tried to smile. She had one leg up in a suspended sling, a hardened cast from toe to hip. The other thigh was wrapped up tightly. She had an air cast on her wrist, several stitched up cuts on her body, and an IV in her arm. It was only to regulate her pain meds until she got out of the hospital, but she knew it all looked daunting. Though, she was more concerned with the bandage around her Sara's head.

"Don't worry about me, kiddo. I've got the world's best medicine!" She held out her arms.

Carefully, Sara stepped forward and into them. She moved to the left side of the bed. If she was cautious, she could lie on her side next to Catherine and tuck her legs under the redhead's suspended one. Gingerly, Sara lay her head on the older woman's shoulder.

"Are you in pain?" She asked, worriedly.

"No, they've got on quite a few drugs right now."

Sara smiled, "So…you're stoned."

"If I was, would you take advantage of me?" Catherine relaxed in the brunette's arms. It had been this easy banter that had gotten her through their ordeal in the mine.

"Of course not! Though I may use my powers of persuasion to help you discover what you truly desire."

"Powers of persuasion?"

"Mhm." Sara lifted her head up and kissed Catherine thoroughly.

"Ah, yes. Those powers of persuasion. I think you may need to try again. I'm not quite sure what I truly desire."

"Oh, really?" Sara smiled before descending down once again.

Several minutes later, they heard a small cough and looked up sharply. It was Nick, turning profusely red, "I…umm…sorry to interrupt. I wouldn't, of course, but I thought you might like to know that Warrick, Greg, and Grissom will be here soon. They're just umm…parking the trucks."

Sara blushed into Catherine's neck, but the redhead just smiled, "Thanks, Nick."

"No problem." Nick was carefully not looking awkward.

Sara made to get up, but Catherine shook her head, "Stay?"

The brunette saw the look in her eyes and nodded, "If you want." She settled back down.

"I want." Catherine whispered.

Sara wrapped an arm around her back and tucked Catherine's head under her chin. She smiled at Nick when Catherine nestled into her, and he faintly smiled back.

"So, Nicky," Catherine asked, "How'd you find us? Took you long enough."

"GPS in your cell phone."

"What? There's a GPS in that piece of crap?"

"Yeah, it was news to me and Warrick too. Apparently they were installed before they were issued. Sara's doesn't have one, for some reason."

They both looked questioningly at Sara who shrugged, "I found it when I was trying to fix it myself and I took it out. I didn't know who put it in there, but I didn't think they had a right to be following me around."

Catherine patted her thigh, "That's my paranoid sweetheart." She kissed her cheek.

Nick shifted uncomfortably, "Are you guys like…?" Nick pointed back and forth between the two women.

Catherine looked up at Sara, seeking permission. When Sara inclined her head slightly, Catherine exhaled, "Yeah. We're dating."

"As of when?"

Sara looked at her watch, "As of eight hours ago."

"You shacked up while you were in the mine?" Nick's eyes grew wide.

"Officially, about a few minutes before you guys found us."

"Unofficially," Sara continued, "Sometime around three o'clock yesterday morning."

Catherine giggled, "She took advantage of me while I was unconscious."

"It got you to wake up, didn't it?" Sara smiled.

Nick shook his head and threw up his hands, "I do not want to know."

"Know what?" Warrick's head peaked in the door. He was holding two bouquets of white peonies.

"Warrick!" Catherine evaded the question, "Did you bring me flowers?"

"Yeah," the man stepped into the room, "I stopped by Sara's room first, but they told me she had left. And here I find her all snuggled up with you." He looked at the two happy faces of the women, "Does this mean you two finally…?"

Sara blushed and Catherine nodded.

"Good! I was about to trap you two in a cave myself."

"You knew, man?" Nick hit his friend on the arm.

"Knew? Of course I knew. Look at them! It's so obvious, my blind grandmother would have noticed."

Greg looked in the door, "I knew too."

Sara looked at him, disbelieving, "You knew? How did you know when we didn't?"

Greg cracked a smile, "It's just the way my life is. Two gorgeous women that I pine for- they're just bound to end up together. God hates me."

This made everyone laugh.

Sara caressed Catherine's arm softly and held her tighter, "Well, I wish one of you had told us. Maybe it wouldn't have taken my baby getting hurt for us to figure it out."

"Don't play the hero, sweetie, I know that you've been hurt, too." Catherine lightly touched the side of Sara's face, "I was right about the zygomatic fracture."

"How did you know?"

Catherine looked guilty, "I screamed at the doctor until he got one of your nurses in here to give me an update."

"Cat…"

"I just wanted to make sure you were okay."

Sara smiled. It would take some getting used to, this new thing with someone caring about her. The part about caring for someone else was going great however. She didn't mind at all when Catherine looked up at her with those big blue eyes and pleaded with her to kiss her. Oh, well, if I have to.

Smiling, and confident in front of her seemingly accepting friends, Sara kissed her girlfriend. It wasn't a deep passionate kiss, but it wasn't G-rated either. And it required enough energy for neither Sara nor Catherine to hear another body enter the room.

They did hear, however, when Greg coughed loudly. And when they looked up, both women's stomachs dropped. There was Grissom. The only man either of them had ever loved and he was sheet white.

"Gil?" Catherine prompted.

The man read the twin looks of hope and dread in the women's eyes and shook his head, "I don't know what to say."

"Grissom-" Sara began.

But the gray-haired man held out a hand and shook his head once more, "Just…just give me time, Sara." He handed the books in his arms to Nick and left without another word.

The men looked sympathetically at their female co-workers