Disclaimer - I don't own CSI.

A/N: This chapter is quite long, in fact it's very long. I've never really been able to write anything short. But hopefully you'll bear with it and understand that it needed to be this long. Sit back and enjoy, things are going to get good.

Chapter 5

As most of their evenings started, the majority of the team were patiently waiting the arrival of their supervisor in the break room. They were almost as good at waiting for him as they were at solving the cases he assigned them too. The previous three days had passed relatively quickly, perhaps due to the usual busyness around the lab; the busyness that they expected again that night.

Nick was keeping himself occupied by reading over the sports section of the newspaper, whilst Greg flicked through some old magazine that had been floating around the break room for a few weeks. Catherine had the bulk of the newspaper after handing the sports section over to Nick and Warrick and Sara amused themselves with the coffee machine.

"Anyone for coffee?" Warrick asked, letting out a slow breath.

"You just gave me this one two minutes ago," Catherine stated, gesturing towards her near-full mug, trying her best not to smile at him.

"Anyone else then?" he glanced at Nick and Greg.

"Nah, thanks. I've already had one," Nick politely declined.

"That's not like you to turn down coffee," commented Sara.

"I'm trying to cut down," he replied.

"I see. I tried cutting down once...," she trailed off as she took a sip from her mug.

"How did that work out for you?" Nick smiled sweetly.

Sara merely pursed her lips before turning to Warrick. "So, read any good books lately?"

"I'd ask you the same thing but I didn't think you read anything besides forensics journals," Warrick teased.

Greg had poked his head over his magazine and witnessed Nick and Sara's short exchange of words, and smiled knowingly to himself. So when Warrick and Sara were deep in conversation about nothing particularly important, Greg took the opportunity to grab Nick's attention.

"Hey, Nick," Greg whispered, gesturing for his friend to come closer.

Nick raised an unamused eyebrow as he stood up and began walking towards him. "What?" he asked, dryly.

"The clock's ticking," Greg simply replied, smiling slyly.

Nick's eyes widened in shock as he hastily sat down on the sofa beside him and pulled Greg closer towards him. "Would you keep your voice down," he insisted quietly, looking round the room and making sure Sara was still beside the coffee maker with Warrick.

"She won't hear me," Greg whispered.

"Well, shut up anyway," Nick insisted through gritted teeth.

"Okay, fine, I'll leave it," Greg put his hands up defensively. "I was just reminding you."

"Sorry I'm late. I just got a call from Brass. A double 419 in Boulder City," Grissom explained as he walked through the doorway, glancing over his glasses at his colleagues. "Cath, Nick, Sara - get there as soon as you can, this is the priority right now."

"You got it boss," Nick stated, quickly standing up, glad to have a reason to move away from Greg.

"And you two are with me," Grissom added, looking over at his remaining team members. "A suspected murder-suicide in North Las Vegas."

"Yay," Greg cheered sarcastically.

Catherine, Nick and Sara arrived at a house in Boulder City, immediately stepping inside into the main living area of the home. It was a pretty ordinary house in an equally as ordinary street but what lay inside the house was anything but a common everyday occurrence. Though in reality murder was becoming ever more frequent in Las Vegas.

"The second vic is upstairs," Brass stated from outside the house.

Catherine nodded as she and her fellow colleagues approached the doorway. "You two head upstairs and I'll stay here with David?"

Nick cast a look at Sara before replying, "Sounds good to me."

"Been here long, David?" Catherine asked the coroners assistant as she set her CSI kit down on the floor and began working.

Neither Nick nor Sara heard David's reply as they made their way upstairs.

"Where do you want to start?" Nick asked as he placed his CSI kit down and surveyed the scene in front of him. "Do you want the body or the rest of the room?"

"I'll take the body," replied Sara as she crouched down so that she was hovering over the body.

Nick went straight towards the bed in the corner of the room.

"Female, Caucasian... cause of death... gunshot wound to the lower back...," Sara thought aloud as she inspected the woman's dead body, glancing around the area for any trace of the killer. "Her clothes seem intact so no initial sign of sexual trauma."

"You can go ahead and check her pockets for ID," David announced from the door.

"No need," Nick spoke up, holding up a red purse from the dresser. "Her name is Madison Fisher. Twenty two."

"Any ID on the woman downstairs?" Sara asked.

David shook his head. "Catherine's looking next door."

David proceeded to check the liver temperature of the victim. "I'd say she's been dead about six hours, same as her friend downstairs."

"Her name is Rachel McDermott," Catherine stated as she appeared in the doorway. "She has a student ID for Western LVU."

"Maybe they're both students there," Sara added.

"I'll check it out when we get back," Catherine agreed. "Find anything useful yet?"

"Not really," Nick shrugged. "I mean there's a few prints over by the window but I don't think they're going to belong to our killer. The way she fell and the fact that she was shot in the back suggests to me that she was running away from her killer."

"Maybe she came home and witnessed her friend being killed, then tried to run away but the killer caught up with her," Sara added.

Catherine nodded thoughtfully, as her cell phone bleeped. "Interesting... One of the prints I found has come back to an Adam Pritchard; in fact many of the prints are a match to him. He was charged with a few minor drug misdemeanours in his teenage years. I'm thinking boyfriend."

"Jealous boyfriend kills his girlfriend but her best friend comes home early so has to die too," Sara stated, straightening herself up. "Nothing we've not seen before."

"I'm going to go and finish up downstairs. We'll meet back at the lab in a few hours?" Catherine suggested.

"Yep," Nick nodded. "We'll see you later."

Catherine quickly disappeared downstairs, leaving Nick and Sara to continue processing their scene. Nick continued to search for evidence in the rest of the room for a while longer but changed tactics and headed out into the hallway in the hopes of finding some actual useable evidence. There was very little on the woman's body itself, though Sara collected GSR samples and took a DNA swab from the woman's left hand.

"Ready to move her?" Nick looked up.

"Yeah," David replied.

Nick rose to his feet to help the assistant coroner. He paused momentarily and looked down over their victims body.

"You know, this'll probably sound stupid, but is it just me or does that blood pool sort of look like a slice of pizza?" he thought aloud, tilting his head as he inspected the blood pool more intensely.

"You know, it kinda does," David agreed, tilting his head also.

"Are you ever not thinking about food?" Sara gave Nick a look as she raised her eyebrows.

"Only the times when I'm thinking about you," he replied sweetly, without missing a beat.

Sara shook her head as the two man began to move the body of Madison Fisher outside to the coroners van. When Nick returned Sara was looking perplexed as she assessed the room.

"Not much to go on here, is there?" she spoke up upon hearing him approach.

"Well, I found another couple of prints," Nick stated. "Maybe we'll get lucky."

"I'll swap you. You take my GSR sample and I'll take your prints. We'll see which one of us has found the most useful evidence," Sara announced.

A few hours later Nick and Sara returned to the lab. They had stayed on and processed the whole house, checking it from top to bottom for any signs of their killer. Catherine had focused her attention on the living room and the perimeter of the house. She'd returned to the lab when she received a call from Brass telling her they'd found Adam Pritchard's car parked a block away from the house. Nick and Sara returned shortly after, both satisfied that if they hadn't found any evidence of their killer in the house by that point then they weren't ever going to find it. A couple more hours passed as Nick and Sara set about processing the evidence.

"Sara," Greg looked up from the computer screen. "What can I do for you?"

"I've got a print for you," she replied, handing over a tape lift.

"So I'll run it then, huh?" Greg guessed.

"Please and thank you," Sara smiled politely.

"So I'll just drop everything I'm doing to help you?"

"It'll take you five minutes, Greg," Sara insisted. "You're running prints from your case anyway so what's the big deal?"

"And I've got enough from my own case to be dealing with," Greg gave her a look.

"Are you going to help me out or not?"

"It's on the bottom of my list," he relented, letting out a slight sigh as he focused on the computer screen in front of him once again.

"Thank you," Sara smiled widely.

She stepped out the room and began walking down the hallway.

"Hey, I've been looking for you," Nick stated as he emerged out one of the labs and walked along side her.

"Well, you've found me," Sara pursed her lips.

"Catherine is still working on the car but Brass just came through with the warrant for Adam Pritchard's townhouse," Nick explained. "You wanna come?"

"You bet I do.

Nick forcefully knocked on the door when they arrived. There was no answer, so Brass gave the go ahead for two officers to break down the door. Brass followed the officers inside the house, checking every room for their suspect. Once they could be sure the house was empty Nick and Sara were allowed full access.

Sara began to search for any evidence from their original crime scene, specifically any traces of blood. But from her first assessment the small house looked clean.

"I'll be in the kitchen," Sara stated as she walked out the room.

Nick moved round the living room, dusting for prints and swabbing for blood as he went. He hovered in the doorway between the kitchen and the living room, glancing over at Sara as she worked. She was in her own little world as she dusted for prints on the counter top. She noticed as she moved along that there was a medium sized box at the end of the counter, something she'd been oblivious to until then. Coming to the conclusion that she needed to move it in order to continue her search for fingerprints, Sara carefully placed her hands either side of the mystery box and lifted it up.

"Oh no...," Sara gulped upon hearing that universal sound of that ever common clicking noise, similar to that of the ticking of a clock, signifying to everyone within earshot that she'd picked up a potentially hazardous item.

Nick looked up and instantly knew what was going on. He let out a slow breath and straightened up. "Stay calm, Sara. Stay calm."

Sara nodded slowly, her blood pressure and stress levels rising.

"Everyone out!" Nick yelled. "Everyone out! There's a bomb!"

Nick began to walk towards Sara, much to her dismay. "Nick, no... you can't..."

"I'm staying with you," he insisted, giving her what he hoped was a reassuring smile.

"No, you can't. Please go," she begged.

He shook his head. "I'm staying right here," he placed his hands on top of hers, helping her to support the box.

"What the hell happened?" Brass exclaimed as he burst into the room.

"I picked up a bomb," Sara explained, with a straight face.

"I figured as much," he insisted dryly. "Back up is on it's way. Bomb squad should be here in about four minutes."

"Right, okay," Sara cleared her throat, twitching her fingers. "Four minutes... that's... that's quick."

"Go, Jim, go outside," Nick insisted.

"I'll stay till bomb squad gets here," Brass countered.

"Don't be stupid," Nick said firmly, casting a weary eye on Sara. "We don't know if this has a timer or not. We don't know how long it'll have even if it does have a timer. This could go off at any minute."

"That's really helpful, Nick," Sara gulped down the lump raising in her throat, clearly shaken by the situation. "Really, really helpful."

Nick looked at her with concern and sympathy, not sure what to say.

Sara took a deep breath before looking over at Brass, avoiding Nick's eyes altogether. "Wait outside, Brass."

"I'm staying...," Brass started.

"Go, Jim!" Sara snapped. "Don't argue with me, just go. Wait outside, please."

Brass looked momentarily stunned but he slowly began to nod. "I'll... I'll be right outside if you need me."

Nick smiled politely at him as he left. He looked over at Sara again. She looked as though she was about to throw up, not that he blamed her. He tried his best to give her hands a gentle squeeze without moving too much.

"Okay, you've made your point now, you can leave too," Sara insisted, speaking up.

"I'm not going anywhere," Nick argued. "I'm staying right here."

"For God's sake, Nick," Sara exclaimed. "Have you got a death wish? Because that could happen, you know. We could die."

"I know that," Nick nodded, speaking softly. "And that's why I can't go. If you triggered a motion sensor when you picked up this box if I let go, or if either of us let go, then we could set this thing off and we'll die anyway. But, if I stay here and if we try and stay calm and have an intelligent conversation about the weather or something then bomb squad will be here and hopefully in an hour or so we can be walking out of those doors in one piece. How does that sound?"

Sara gulped, sighing anxiously. "Okay... that sounds okay. I guess I'm just freaking out a little bit."

"You just have to try and stay calm," he insisted.

"Okay... Stay calm...," Sara let out a staggered breath.

"We'll be out of here before you know it," Nick tried his best to settle her nerves.

"I'm sorry. This isn't exactly easy for you either," Sara tried to smile. "But why didn't you leave when you had the chance?"

"And leave you here by yourself?" Nick countered. "What kind of friend would that make me? We're partners, I couldn't leave you."

They briefly shared a small apprehensive smile before the door opened. In walked a tall man wrapped in layers upon layers of protective clothing.

"I'm Chris. I'm going to be your bomb disposal expert for today," he announced.

"Man, are we glad to see you...," Nick exclaimed.

"Nick Stokes. Sara Sidle," he pointed at them individually. "Correct?"

"Correct," Sara nodded. "So if you could get a move on..."

"What, you mean this isn't your usual day in the office?" Chris asked rhetorically.

"You could say that," Sara gulped.

"The detective outside explained the situation to me a bit but if I could hear it in your own words that'd be great," stated Chris.

"Okay... Um, I was dusting for prints, tried to move this box out of the way, it made a clicking noise when I picked it up and I've been standing here ever since," Sara explained, twitching her fingers.

Chris moved around Nick and Sara to get a better look at the box from all angles. "A motion sensor, right? Not surprising. Seems like a decent size box. Doesn't look too big. But if there's industrial strength explosives in there then there'll probably be enough to explode half this street."

Nick and Sara's eyes quickly met in shock.

"But don't worry, you're in safe hands. This should be pretty straight forward," Chris insisted. "I'm just going to go outside and get something from my kit. I'll be right back."

"It's fine...," Nick would have shrugged if he could've moved.

"Don't go anywhere," Chris quipped as he reached the door.

"Oh, a comedian as well...," Sara scoffed, breathing deeply.

Chris came back in shortly after with a small X-ray device.

"I just need to check the contents of the box," he explained. "I need to have an idea of what we're dealing with."

Nick and Sara both nodded in understanding.

"This should just take a sec...," Chris stated.

"Take all the time you need," Sara insisted.

"So I take it neither of you will be picking up any mysterious boxes again anytime soon," Chris commented as he waited for the imagines to come through onto his small monitor.

"You can say that again," Nick scoffed.

"I'm not picking anything else up at a crime scene ever again unless I'm using a pair of tweezers or a tape lift," Sara added.

"Good. I mean this in the nicest possible way but I never want to see either of you again," Chris stated.

"Right back at you," Nick smiled anxiously.

Christ straightened himself up. "So there's a decent amount of C4 packed in there, not much of a surprise really. But this should still be fairly straight forward."

"That's the best news I've heard all day," Sara sighed.

"Let's get started," Chris nodded.

"Wait. Could you take my cell phone out of my pocket and take a few photos of the label?" Nick asked. "It's the closest we're going to get to evidence."

"You'll get whatever's left of it afterwards but sure," Chris agreed, fishing Nick's cell phone out of one of the many pockets on his CSI vest. "Just the label?"

"All of it, really," Sara admitted. "But mostly the label and anything distinctive on the box that might help us identify who sent it."

"Do you two ever stop thinking about work?" Chris smirked. He did what was asked of him and when he was about to put the phone back it began to ring. "It's Greg Sanders. Want to speak?"

"Sure," Nick nodded. "They probably know what's going on by now."

Chris placed the phone down on the counter top beside them. "I'll give you a few minutes. I'm going to let my team know we're just about ready," he pressed the green call button followed by the speakerphone button before walking out.

"Greg?" Nick asked.

"Yeah. Hey," he replied nervously. "Brass called to let us know what's happening. Bomb squad are with you now, right? What happened?"

"We don't exactly have time to chat right now," Nick insisted sarcastically.

"Guess not... Are you both okay?" Greg asked, speaking without thinking.

"Oh, you know, just perfectly fine," Nick insisted sarcastically. "We just hold onto bombs every Thursday. It's going to become our new thing."

"Yeah, but look on the bright side, at least you're there with Sara...," Greg teased gently, trying to make light of the situation.

"What are you...?" Nick wondered, almost dreading the answer as he started to blush.

"Come on, Nick, you can't tell me you're not enjoying spending some quality time with the woman you love?"

Nick's face turned bright red with embarrassment and maybe a hint of shock as Greg spoke. He didn't even dare to look Sara in the eye.

"Nick? You still there?" Greg's voice pierced the silence.

Nick took a deep breath. "Greg... you're on speaker phone," he stated simply.

Silence followed on the other end of the phone.

Sara was stunned, well and truly flabbergasted. She stared intently down at the hardwood floor.

"Hi... Greg...," she eventually found her words, speaking up after what felt like an eternity of silence.

That was the nail in the coffin.

"I've gotta go," Greg hurried. "I'll speak to you later."

Silence ensued once again. Sara still couldn't quite get her head round what had been said. Had he really said that? Did it mean what she thought it meant? What on earth had just happened? She wasn't usually one for enticing drama but it was coming at her from all angles. Her mind was racing a million miles per minute, and then Nick found his voice.

"Is it a bad time to tell you I've had a huge crush on you for years?" Nick asked almost rhetorically, his voice soft, his eyes sincere. "Well, at least that's how it started, as a crush, but it's a lot more than that now."

Sara forced herself to look at him, in complete and utter disbelief. Was he being serious?

"Okay, time to get this show on the road," Chris announced as he came back through the door. "Ready?"

"Definitely," Sara nodded instantly.

"Okay, Nick, slowly start to move your hands backwards," Chris explained. "But only once I tell you."

"You got it, chief," he replied.

"Sara, I need you to stay as still as you possibly can, just for another couple of minutes. You need to keep you hands steady and stable until I tell you otherwise, okay?" Chris stated authoritatively.

"I won't be moving a muscle."

"Good. So we can start," Chris turned towards Nick. "Okay, now slowly start moving your hands in towards yourself. And by slow I mean your-granny-walking-up-the-stairs-slow. No sudden movements."

Nick did as he was told, moving ever so slightly until finally only the tips of his fingers were left on the box.

"Good. Now completely take your hands away, but slowly remember, and then take three steps backwards," Chris instructed.

Once Nick had taken his three steps back he dropped his aching arms and sighed with relief.

Sara suddenly became very anxious and her hands shook gently.

"Sara, stay still please. Stay as still as you can for me," Chris looked her in the eye as he spoke. "This is nearly over, okay?"

"Breathe, Sara," Nick added, his brow furrowed with concern.

Sara let out a deep sigh. "What do I have to do?"

"Not much. Stay still and this should be over in less than a minute," Chris stated. "I need you to tilt your fingers upwards for me so I can slide my hands under yours."

Sara did so.

"Okay, now all you have to do is exactly what Nick did. You need to slowly pull your hands in towards your body and you're home and dry. But remember, do it as slowly as you can."

Sara's breath caught in her throat as her fingers lost contact with the edge of the box.

"See, nice and easy," Chris smiled. "Now take your three steps back and you're outta here."

Sara let her arms drop as Nick had done when she stepped back her allocated amount of steps.

"Clear!" Chris bellowed.

In came several other members of the bomb squad, all wearing equally as padded clothing as Chris, all charging towards the explosive device ready to assist in it's safe detention.

Nick and Sara wasted no time in leaving the house. Sara sat herself down on the curb and let out a deep breath that she'd subconsciously been holding. She noticed her hands begin to visibly shake as an overwhelming sense of nausea took over her. It was everything she could do not to throw up. Lifting her head, she saw Nick speaking to Brass, noticing that he too looked worse for wear.

Thank you for reading. Posted this a week later than I hoped to due to some technical issues with my laptop but I hope it was worth it. Kinda made the stuff up about the bomb as I'm not an expert but I hope it seemed believable. Let me know in a review.