Chapter ten! Updates are going to get a lot slower now that I'm working on more than one story, sorry.

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Sara left Nick's room, and told the others what he said about Ben. They said they would see what the witnesses said.

The witnesses all had different stories. One said it looked like he deliberately ran into the pole. Another said he kept drifting to the right and eventually caught the lamp. There was another witness who said it looked like he was having car trouble. It all happen so fast, none of them could remember exactly. None of the witnesses said they saw a car drive him off the road. Except Nick, he swore there was a car, and Ben was driving it.

Sara came and told Nick that Ben driving that car wasn't a possibility. She asked him if maybe he was hallucinating. Nick denied it. He would not back down from what he said he saw. They had no evidence proving there was another car involved, the last hope, was maybe someone tampered with the car.


Greg and Catherine took a look at Nick's damaged car. They searched it up and down, inside and out several times. They couldn't find anything wrong with it. His car was in perfect working condition, besides the damages from the lamp post. They knew this meant Nick drove his car into the lamp without any help.

They didn't know what this meant for Nick, they thought it had something to do with the shooting, and the trial coming closer. They thought this was part of PTSD or something, and they made him talk to a therapist.

Catherine came into his hospital room, and sat by his bed. "How you feeling?"

"I heard you saved my life."

"Kinda."

"Why?"

"Because, I didn't want to lose you. I wasn't gonna let you die! And I'd hope you'd do the same if it was me."

"Cath, you know I'd choose your life over mine in a heartbeat."

There was a long silence. Catherine then broke it by saying, "we know there wasn't another car, and if you still truly believe you saw one, you need to see a therapist."

"Cath, I know what I saw, I'm not crazy. Please don't make me see a therapist. Catherine I know I saw him."

"I'm only doing this because I care, and I can only hope that you will understand."

"I don't think I'll ever be able to forgive you for what you're about to put me through."

"Because I'm making you see a therapist? Grow up!"

"No, with Laura too, and Ben. I can't do it!"

"Yes you can, I believe in you, Nicky."

"Glad to know somebody does, 'cause I sure as hell don't."

"It gets better, trust me." Catherine said before she left. She had to go join the rest of her team, searching Laura's house.


Catherine joined Nick, Sara, and Greg in searching Laura's house. They took her laptop, and video camera, but other than that, they didn't find anything else that could possibly help them.

Once they got back to the lab, Archie started looking into the computer, and tried to find anything that would be helpful. He was looking through her e-mails, and called Greg in to look at what he had found. There was a lot of deleted e-mails between Laura and Ben. He showed them all to Greg. They were all talking about what they were going to do next, who they were going to target. According to the e-mails, there were two other victims. One in Texas, and the other in Arizona. The cases were apparently never solved, and they were never caught. In their last messages, they were talking about getting away together, and moving to another state. They wanted to get out quick because, they thought the LVPD was onto them. They made it their last mission in Las Vegas to kill Nick, but their plan blew up when, Ben shot him in the stomach to make him suffer, but he ended up surviving, and the cops caught him before they left town. Laura wouldn't leave without him, it said that in the previous messages. He wanted her to leave before his last kill, but she refused, and it got the both of them caught.

Greg read through every single e-mail they sent to each other. His eyes were burning by the end, but he read them all. He reported the news to Catherine and Sara, and they were able to use it in court to be able to prove Laura was an accomplice. They never doubted she was, they just couldn't find the evidence. Now they had all the evidence they needed for a conviction. When Sara found out about his new evidence, she asked Catherine to consider not making Nick testify. But, Catherine was very adamant about this. She really wanted him to testify.


Ben's trial date was getting closer and closer. This was giving Nick more and more anxiety. He was not looking forward to this, he didn't know what the defense would bring up, and he was freaking himself out by thinking about it.

It was time for him to finally return home from the hospital, and he really got to go home this time. Sara, Greg, and Catherine had spent a lot of time cleaning up his place, and replacing anything that had been damaged. They walked Nick up to his house, and saw his face when he entered the clean place. He was surprised at how well they had made his house look. It took a little of the stress off, that the upcoming trials had put on. He enjoyed their company when they weren't talking about work or the trial. They tried to stay off that subject.

All three of them stayed over that entire day. They were sleeping for some of it, but they didn't want Nick to be alone. Things didn't seem to go too well every time they left him.


The next night, everyone headed off to work, and Nick went with them too. It was weird, he hadn't been in for so long, he realized he actually missed the place. He didn't know anything about the cases they were now working, but they would sent him to go pick up the results from Hodges or Henry because, that always seemed to be an event that they didn't have the time or patience to do.

Greg sent Nick to go pick up some trace results from Hodges. So, Nick walked into Hodges' lab for the first time in weeks. Hodges saw him walk in, and just stared at Nick. "What?" Nick asked. He was annoyed with Hodges staring at him. Hodges didn't respond, he just kept staring. "Hodges, what is it? Do you have the results on Greg's case?"

"Hello Hodges, I'm so glad to see my favorite lab tech again, it's been too long. Why, hello Nick, nice to see you too after thirty days!"

"It hasn't been that long."

"Oh yes it has, if not longer."

"Can I just get the results?"

"The results were, water, soybeans, wheat, salt, sugar, sodium benzoate, and citric acid."

"Will you just give me the results?"

"I just did. If you want the paper, you have to tell me what the mystery substance is... you're usually very good at this, Nick. What's gotten into you?"

"Just gimme the paper, and nobody gets hurt." Hodges hung his head, and handed the paper over to Nick. "Soy sauce."

Nick walked out of Hodges' lab extremely irritated. He regretted coming back to work after talking to Hodges. Nick delivered the results back to Greg, and then went into the break room to maybe get away from people for a few seconds. He laid down on the couch, and doze off to sleep. He hadn't slept that well in months, and they all knew he wasn't getting a lot of sleep so, no one disturbed him. He felt safe in the lab for some reason. It has always been his second home, and now he felt more comfortable at the lab than at his own house.


I felt like I tried to drag this chapter on a bit, and not to mention I wrote it at midnight. It will pick up more in the next chapter. Please review, and check out my new story, it's a CSI/SVU crossover!