Sara woke on the ground. Disoriented, the first thing she sensed was that she was lying in a patch of dry grass. The blades felt rough against her skin, crisp from drought, and small granules of desert dust dug sharply into the side of her face. She blinked, turning her head to catch a glimpse of the blinding sun. Her entire body ached, and her head spun with dizziness. Stubborn, she forced herself up onto an elbow, but as she moved her stomach shifted, and without warning she vomited into the dirt.
She panted, struggling to pull herself together just as she heard someone nearby moan. She fought to lift her head, and through the grass caught sight of a body in a familiar white shirt. She recognised it instantly.
"Grissom?" she croaked.
There was no response. She scrambled toward him, crawling through the few feet of grass to his side. He lay on his back, one hand on his stomach, breathing heavily.
"Grissom?" she repeated. She tenderly touched his face. "Hey, you okay?"
His eyes opened, his pupils rolling as he tried to focus on her.
She glanced quickly over her shoulder, intending to yell for help, for Brass and his officers, but with a jolt realised that they were alone. She was sat on an extensive plain of dried grass, surrounded by rocky desert slopes. They were completely alone, the officers and cars from only a moment before nowhere to be seen. She stared around as confusion seized her – she did not even recognise the landscape, and had no memory of what had happened. Fear stirred in her chest.
Grissom's gentle hand gripped her arm.
"Are you all right?" he asked anxiously.
She looked back down, and saw he was pulling himself together.
"I'm fine," she assured. "Just take it easy…"
She held his hand to soothe him, but once he had closed his eyes, glanced around, her fear intensifying. In the back of her mind she wondered if she had missed something, if she had been unconscious longer than she had thought. Was it possible they had been moved? She wrestled with her memory, but came up blank. If she had fallen sick at the scene, she knew Brass would have been there, that she would have woken to any one of his officers beside her. Yet there was no one to be seen. She swept her eyes again over the landscape, desperately searching for any sign of life, for any clue at all, and with a further jolt spotted three more bodies hidden in the grass, the desert scrub almost obscuring them from view.
With a lurch, she recognised them. Only feet away was Warrick, stirring faintly, and slightly farther away lay Catherine, who she heard mutter an expletive. Neither of them looked good, but more worrying was Nick, who was in the grass close by, silent and still.
Quickly prioritising, Sara looked anxiously back down at Grissom.
"I'll be back in a minute," she promised. "I need to see if the others are okay."
He gave a weak nod, and with a squeeze of his hand she left, hurrying over to Nick's side.
"Nick?"
She gripped his shoulder to roll him slightly, trying to get a good look. She saw straightaway he was breathing, his chest rising and falling in his CSI vest, but he was very pale. He looked white and sick. Sara pressed a finger to his neck for a pulse, and found it beating reassuringly under her fingers.
"Nick?" she said, gently shaking his shoulder, "Wake up. It's Sara."
"Is he okay?"
She turned at Warrick's voice, and saw he was now sat up, wavering slightly, but otherwise okay.
"Check Catherine," she ordered, pointing to where Catherine lay motionless.
He was slightly shaky as he got to his feet, his legs not quite supporting him, but made his way over. He knelt beside her, his voice soft and worried.
"Hey, you okay..?"
Sara returned her attention to Nick.
"Nick?"
He stirred under her fingers, taking in a sharp breath as he opened his eyes. He squinted up into the sun, and then to her, uncomprehending.
"It's okay," she assured, keeping her voice gentle. "We're fine."
She knew it was a lie, not having a clue where they were, but Nick seemed to trust her. He nodded, and tried to sit up. She kept a hand to his back while he took a few moments to compose himself, taking deep breaths and swallowing as if trying to hold down nausea, and a few feet away Sara saw Catherine recovering, too. Grissom, his grey hair mussed, soon joined Warrick at her side, and taking one arm each, they helped her to her feet. Catherine, full of stubborn Las Vegas grit, soon shook them off, nodding that she was okay. The trio turned to help Sara with Nick, and seeing the rest of them were already on their feet, he stubbornly rose to join them. For the briefest moment Grissom's eyes held Sara's, searching, but she nodded – she was all right. Nevertheless his fingers clutched protectively at her elbow as they turned their attention to their predicament.
Warrick looked deeply unnerved as he turned on the spot, searching their surroundings.
"Anyone else making sense of this?"
Silence fell – a disturbing quiet that stretched all the way to the far horizons. The day was still, not a blade of grass moving, no sign of life. The only sound was that of her colleagues' shoes in the dirt as they turned slowly on the spot.
"Where the hell are we?" Catherine voiced, bewildered.
Sara had had several minutes now to consider the matter, but still had no answers.
"Does anyone remember anything?" she asked.
"I only remember the scene," Grissom replied, sounding equally confused.
"I remember feeling sick," Nick put in. "I felt a bit faint for a moment as we were walking back out … maybe we passed out or something."
"Here?" Catherine questioned, glancing around to indicate the obvious. "We didn't pass out here."
"Well evidently we did," Warrick said. "We woke up here."
"But I don't recognise this landscape," Grissom added, studying their surroundings with a studious eye.
It was an unnerving sign when even Grissom was confused, and Sara watched Catherine take out her cell phone, checking the screen.
"It's dead," she reported, holding it up. "No charge."
Sara stared, then quickly dug for her own, unearthing it from a pocket in her vest. But a moment later she had to concede the same result, and the others fared no better.
"Weird," Nick reported, shaking it a little. "All at once …"
Feeling distinctly scared, Sara wrestled for control over her nerves, forcing herself to think straight.
"We should take a look around," she suggested. "Check over those rises, see if we can see anything. We might not be far away."
Even as she said it she knew instinctively that something was wrong – more wrong than stumbling over a hill and fainting due to heat – but with no better ideas, the others agreed, and they set off for the nearest slope. Their shoes crunched on the dirt and dry desert grass as they crossed the open space, and Sara felt Grissom's hand still hovering near her elbow, as if he was nervous about letting her go. A moment later they had slipped and slided to the top of the slope, and Sara got her first good look at their wider surroundings.
They were not exactly in the middle of nowhere, but it was close enough that the view did nothing to alleviate her fear. The landscape did not even vaguely resemble the one they had left in the desert. There was a road visible in the distance, but it was dirt, a lonely winding track that wove its way through rolling desert hills. The rest of the view was empty, with nothing but endless dry grasslands with the exception of a small, isolated old country house that looked a mile or two away, nestled in a valley between the slopes.
"Well we got a house," she said, trying to sound positive. "That's something, I guess."
"You wanna check it out?" Catherine suggested. "See if they've got a phone?"
Sara nodded. "Yeah."
"Let's go," Nick chimed.
It was a fair distance, and under the scorching sun they took it slowly, with both Catherine and Nick still looking pale. Sara kept an eye on them, setting a gentle pace, and for a little while no one spoke. She sensed the unsettling nature of their situation hovering between them, each of them unwilling to talk about, not wanting to show either weakness or fear, but latching instead on to the goal of the house ahead. After a while, when the slope was far behind them, and the valley they had woken in was hidden from view, Sara began to wonder if they had done the right thing, if they should have perhaps left a marker or a note at the place where they had woken. If Brass was indeed nearby, or someone came looking, it would make it all the harder if they were on the move and had left no sign. But by the time the thought occurred to her, it was too late to consider, and she resolved to say nothing. After a while the uncomfortable silence was broken by Nick, who started a harmless conversation with Catherine about Lindsey's progress at school.
"You said she's got exams right about now, right? How's she doing?"
"Fine," Catherine replied, brightening at the subject, the colour steadily returning to her face. "She finished them last week in fact. She passed well in English and Science, got great marks in dance."
"Takes after her Mom," Warrick said, smiling.
"You think she'll be a dancer?" Nick asked.
"She wants to be. And, you know, as long as she doesn't dance like I did, I guess I'm okay with that."
They were over halfway when Sara realised that Grissom was oddly quiet. She looked to him just in time to see him unzip his vest, appearing to suffocate in the heat.
"You okay?" she asked, out of earshot of the others.
"It's hot as hell out here," he complained, looking faint.
It occurred to her suddenly that he got had got to his feet in the dried meadow not because he felt okay, but because he had been far more worried about the team than he had been about himself. He had no doubt forced himself, shaking, to his feet as soon as he realised that Catherine and Nick were unconscious.
"Take it off," she guided. "Cool off."
He shrugged the vest from his shoulders, discarding it with relief into her hands, and then unbuttoned the top few buttons on his shirt.
"We'll get a drink at the house," she promised. "Take a rest."
He nodded, but seeming to focus on walking, he said no more. Sara slipped her hand into his, and felt his palm was sweaty against her own.
By the time they reached the private property, Grissom had lapsed into complete silence. As they made their way down the dusty driveway Sara spotted a shady old oak tree beside the open barn, and quickly steered him toward it.
"You guys go ahead!" she called out to the others. "We're going to rest a minute."
They stopped in their tracks.
"You okay?" Nick asked, worried.
"We're fine," she said, steering Grissom to sit down against the trunk. "You go ahead."
They left. A moment later Sara heard Catherine call out as they walked up the steps to the porch.
"Las Vegas Crime Lab!"
Not having a response, they disappeared inside, helping themselves through the unlocked door. It looked to Sara like an old farmhouse, a two storey white weatherboard that had the paint peeling from exposure to the harsh Nevada sun, the verandah at the front holding an old disused swing sweat in the corner. A dilapidated barn stood to the side, and through its open doors Sara could see it was stacked with hay. But the place looked otherwise deserted, with no cars or any vehicles visible, and it was silent.
Turning her attention to Grissom, she put his vest aside on the grass, and sat down with him. He leaned back against the tree trunk, closing his eyes with a sigh.
"Just take it easy," she soothed, rubbing his knee.
They rested for several moments, sitting quietly, until at last the shade of the tree helped him get his strength back, and he recovered enough to take an interest in their surroundings, looking thoughtfully at the house for a moment, and then to her and her hand on his knee.
"What are you thinking?" she asked.
Though she was far better than she used to be at reading his expression, sometimes he remained an enigma – one she liked to unravel.
He hesitated. "I think you look beautiful."
She laughed, his statement so unexpected that it blindsided her. Apart from their situation, she knew she was not exactly looking her best. The old jeans she wore, her favourite when clean, were now covered with dust, her shirt was untucked, and she knew her hair was messy from lying on the ground. And yet he was gazing at her, at her hand softly rubbing his knee, as if he had truly meant it, and as if their predicament did not concern him.
"I love your smile," he added honestly, smiling himself.
She grinned.
"What are you thinking?" he returned.
Sara glanced to the house, and was honestly wondering if the others had found any water, but watching him smile at her, she was more inclined to go with her second thought.
"I think … your hair looks like we've just had sex," she said, taking in the chaotic grey stands which looked like a bad case of pillow hair.
He raised an eyebrow, intrigued.
"You know if we'd just had sex, you'd be naked," he replied.
"Not necessarily."
She was thinking of the times when they had not made it that far, in the early days of their relationship when they had come home from work after eight hours of staring at each other across the table, only to close the door behind them and go for it right then and there in his living room. Usually they did make it to the bed – or even the couch – but a few times they had run out of time to completely undress each other, the need simply too great, and on those occasions he removed her top before giving immediate priority to her pants, tugging them down as she desperately removed his, and somehow, he had never got around to completely removing her bra. More recently, as the relationship progressed, it had been her underwear or even her pants which had stayed on, strained around her ankles as he took her passionately over the back of a chair. It was a position she had only ever engaged in with Grissom, and only then after a long while, but it was a memory which still made her smile, and all of it had been some of their best sex to date.
"Is this a private conversation?"
Sara's reverie broke as Catherine returned, crouching down beside them with a pointed look that verged upon a teasing smile.
"I know that look – don't make us separate you."
Grissom removed his fingers from under the hem of her shirt, where they had been gently touching her skin, and Sara, realising too late that they had even crept under there, hastily smoothed down her shirt.
Nevertheless she had the impression that Catherine's trained eye had noticed, and quickly changed the subject.
"Is anyone home?" she asked.
"No," Catherine replied, sitting down with them, "in fact the place looks abandoned. The front door was barely hanging onto its hinges, and there's a thick layer of dust over everything inside. The phone line's dead, and the electricity's off, but there's water." She held out a full glass for Grissom. "Have a drink, you look pale."
He did, downing half the glass.
"So you don't think anyone's been here for a while?" Sara questioned. "And with no way to contact the outside world, no vehicle –"
"It doesn't look good," she agreed.
There were footsteps as Nick and Warrick returned, sitting down in the shade with a sigh.
"Well we looked around, but there's not much of note," Nick said. "Can't see anyone, and there doesn't appear to be any neighbours."
"The short story is I don't think we're going to find anything here," Warrick said. "Which means we've got a decision to make."
Grissom looked up into the cloudless sky.
"The sun's high," he said. "The temperature's still rising … if you're thinking about walking up the road for help, it's dangerous. We don't know how far it is, and this place looks remote. It could be a long way."
"Well we still don't know what happened," Nick said, "what chance there is of anyone finding us out here. I mean, I don't know about you guys, but I'm gonna be honest, this whole thing is starting to creep me out. I mean if none of us remember anything, we all woke sick, that's something we probably need to take into account. You know what I'm saying?"
Sara did, and knew he was vaguely touching on a suggestion that they could have been drugged, that they could have had a traumatic memory loss or brain injury, that they could be miles from where they last remembered being. It was not something she wanted to think about, or even acknowledge, and she fought again to hold onto the rational side of her mind, taking only one thing at a time. Any more than that and she knew they would mentally crumble.
"I think we should go," she suggested. "We know there's water here, we can take some with us. If it turns out too far, we can always come back."
"You do remember what happened the last time you went for a stroll in the desert, right?" Nick asked, concerned.
Sara felt a stab of irritation. She loved Nick, but wished he could refrain from talking about things that were too painful to think about.
"Yes, I do, and that's my business," she said firmly. "But this is a different situation. We have water, and we have a road to follow which has to lead somewhere. And we're not alone, we're all together. I think we should rest for half an hour, until everyone gets their strength back, but beyond that I don't think it's wise to wait."
"I'm with Sara," Catherine said swiftly.
Sara had the impression that Catherine could not bear to stay still and wait, and like her, preferred to take their fate into their own hands.
"Warrick?" Grissom prompted.
"I'm with Cath," he said loyally. "Besides, like Sara said, if it looks hopeless we can always turn back, and we can leave a sign here for Brass just in case anyone does come looking. From that point of view we have nothing to lose."
Grissom looked back to Nick.
"It's your decision," Nick said, looking as if he disliked the situation either way. "I'll go along with whatever."
"Then we'll go," Grissom decided. "We'll rest for half an hour, until everyone has their fluids back, but then we'll leave. We'll leave a note here for Brass."
XXX
They did rest for half an hour, spending the time scrounging for water bottles and containers, and filling them up at the dusty kitchen sink. Sara saw the place indeed looked deserted inside. The furniture was still all present, and it looked as if it had been a comfortable country home once, but was now strangely abandoned as if someone had made a hasty departure, or else as if they had left one day and never made it home. The inside gave Sara a slightly uncomfortable feeling that she was trespassing, and with that in mind she retreated back outside and spent most of the remaining rest period under the oak tree, preferring its cool natural shade to the darkness inside the house.
After a while, when Grissom, Nick and Catherine all got their colour back, and after Grissom had coaxed Catherine into drinking enough water that Sara learned she had actually vomited five times in the desert, emptying her entire stomach and running a risk of dehydration, they had eventually reached the stage when they were ready to leave. They carried water each, and Grissom left his CSI vest tied to a nearby tree where it was visible from the air – a note inside the pocket for Brass in case the LVPD somehow came looking. After that, they began their long walk, walking back up the driveway under the scorching sunlight, and at the dusty road Grissom elected to turn left.
The walk was strangely therapeutic, the sensation that they were moving, were doing something to actively help themselves, walking off her fears with every step. All in all, it wasn't too bad. She had certainly had worse hikes – the terrifying walk she had endured through the desert after her abduction was one of them – and compared to that, the stroll down the dusty sunlit track with her friends was relatively peaceful. As before, they all carefully avoided talk about their predicament, knowing that to wallow in the fears and possibilities would only bring the team down and make things worse, and Catherine in particular, tough as nails, kept the mood upbeat. Within two miles she had Warrick reminiscing about his first girlfriend, and how he had snuck away from his grandmother's house at night-time to meet her in the deserted school grounds, and by the time she switched to Nick to ask about his first love, they were all laughing. Neither of the men could resist Catherine's smile or teasing curiosity, and before they knew what was happening she had them opening their lives to her like a photo album.
On and on they walked, mile after mile of winding track through the desert slopes, Grissom encouraging them all to regularly sip water, until several hours later, when Sara started to sense that something was wrong. Grissom had encouraged them to sip so much water that Nick needed a toilet break, and arguing that ladies were present, modestly ducked down a slope and out of sight to relieve himself behind a tree.
Knowing that of all of them Nick had seemed the least resilient to their situation, Sara waited until he was out of sight before saying something.
"We've come a long way," she started, "it's been at least three hours –"
"I think we're closer to four," Warrick said.
"And we haven't found anything," Catherine said, finishing Sara's sentence.
Sara nodded. "We haven't even seen any other houses, not even farms. We're probably in the middle of a National Park or state desert, there's been no private property out here since the house we left."
"And there's been no cars," Grissom said. "If you look at the ground there's not even any tyre marks, which means there probably hasn't been a car out here for quite some time – at least not since the last good rain."
"And being the height of summer, that's probably been a while," Catherine agreed, grave.
Sara looked at the road ahead. It stretched into the distance, with little sign that anything was going to change.
"How far do you want to take this?" Warrick asked.
"I don't know," Sara replied, honest.
It was a hard call to make, knowing that the answer may just be around the next corner, or that they may end up walking for hours with nothing at the end and destroying their bodies in a fruitless exercise. But to turn back meant giving up, and having to retrace their footsteps all the way back to the house.
"I'm starting to wonder if we chose the wrong direction," Grissom admitted, looking concerned. "And the further we go on, the more tiring it's going to be if we have to go back, and the greater chance that we're going to get caught out here at nightfall."
"The temperature's going to drop to near freezing out here at night," Sara pointed out, "and none of us have proper clothing, we're all in short sleeves …"
"At least at that house there were water and blankets," Warrick said. "It's enough to keep us alive, and out of trouble."
Catherine was silent. For the first time she appeared gravely concerned. Sara felt it, too; a hollow, twisting sensation in her stomach, the realisation that they were perhaps in real trouble.
"We need to make a call," Grissom said. "Now by my watch it's one o'clock, if we're going to be back by sunset we can't afford to go for more than another hour, even assuming that everyone feels fit enough to retrace their steps and go all the way back."
"I'm starting to think we'll have to," Catherine confessed. "This doesn't feel right, this track, it's too deserted."
"I say we go a little further," Warrick suggested. "As long as we've come this far we might as well keep going until we have to turn back. If it comes to it, we can go back to the house and try the other direction tomorrow."
Sara nodded. The suggestion was sensible, but she no longer felt good about it.
"You know Nick's scared, right?" she said quietly, glancing down the hill to check he was still out of earshot.
"I know," Grissom replied quietly. "But right now there's little we can do."
"We just need to stay positive, stay strong," Catherine said. "If we do, hopefully he'll feed off that. If we don't keep it together we'll put ourselves in even more danger than we're in already."
"We'll take care of Nick," Warrick said. "Don't worry."
In the end they kept walking, until fate removed the decision from their hands. They had only walked another mile before the track tapered into nothingness, reclaimed by grass and clumps of desert shrub, and with a look of grave disappointment Grissom turned the team around. Nick fell into a reserved silence, and though Sara did her part in trying to keep the conversation going, in the end they walked back in relative quiet, their lonely footsteps crunching on the gravel. After a short way Grissom slipped his hand into hers, and they held on to each other's fingers for the rest of the way, until the isolated country house at last came back into view, and they walked back down to it in sheer physical exhaustion, the sun setting behind them. Grissom's vest still hung from the tree limb, untouched.
Grissom and Warrick sat down on the old, split-seamed couch in the living room, looking as if they could fall asleep right there, but Sara, determined to hold it together, trekked up the old creaking wooden staircase to check on the bedroom situation. As it turned out there were three – two rooms with clean single beds, and a third with a double – plus a bathroom with hot water. The beds had blankets, and a curious glance inside the linen closet told her there were more if needed. It would do, and would hold off the freezing night desert air. If someone wanted to coming along and arrest them for trespassing, then as far as she was concerned that was an improvement on the situation, and they could perhaps get a ride back to PD in Las Vegas. Until then … she sighed, making her way back down the stairs, her legs muscles weak from hours of walking, and rejoined the men in the living room.
"There's plenty of beds and blankets," she reported. "We'll be warm enough until morning."
"Good," Warrick said, head in his hands. "I gotta tell you, I feel pretty tired. I don't know, maybe this will all look better in the morning. Maybe it's a dream."
Sara couldn't bring herself to acquaint him with reality, and let the statement go. Her own thoughts were on the little food they had. She had spotted a leftover tin or two of soup in the pantry, but there was little else. Walking as far as they had today was bad enough, but walking in the opposite direction tomorrow with no energy and with their legs still aching from the night before would be worse. It had been a long time since she had felt so grim, but knew she had to hold it together – that if one of them cracked, they would all crack.
"Where are the others?" she asked, noting their absence from the house.
"Outside on the verandah," Grissom replied.
She wandered to the screen door, and through it caught a glimpse of Catherine and Nick sitting together on the old floral swing seat, Catherine with her arm around Nick's hunched shoulders. He had his head in his hands, eyes downcast, and Catherine held him firmly.
"We'll be fine, Nicky," she said bracingly. "We need to keep it together, okay? There's no reason to give up yet. It's far too early. We'll have a good rest tonight, get out of here in the morning. A road can't lead to nowhere in both directions. And when we do get back to civilisation we'll go for a drink. It'll be fine. This time tomorrow we'll be home. Okay?"
She heard Nick sniff, wipe at an eye.
"Okay," he said, nodding.
"You want to go for a walk? Clear your head a little?" she offered.
"Are you serious?" he asked. "We've been walking all day, Catherine. We covered half of Nevada out there."
"Just up the hill," Catherine urged, nodding to the grassy slope behind the barn and oak tree. "Take in the view a minute."
He gazed at her in disbelief, looking as if he barely had the energy to stand, much less walk anywhere, but Catherine was waiting, and in the end he nodded.
"Only for you, Catherine," he said, forcing himself up, though Sara heard him laugh.
Sara knew that Nick was physically and mentally exhausted – having been up for over twenty-four hours, covering a crime scene, and then an all day hike lost in the sun – and that for this reason he failed to see what she did; that far from torturing him, Catherine wanted to get him on his own for a few minutes, and was walking him up the hill to talk with him alone, and possibly to boost his morale with some TLC.
As Catherine passed the screen door, she looked through it to Sara.
"We'll be back in a few," she said.
"Sure," Sara replied.
She turned back to find that Warrick was doing a stocktake of the kitchen supplies, and had his nose in the pantry to catalogue the near empty shelves.
"We've got some soup here," he said, turning over the can to check the date. "It's still good."
"We should probably keep that for morning," Sara suggested. "We might need the energy for the hike out."
He replaced it on the shelf.
"I think you're right." He looked around at them both. "I guess we might as well get some sleep. No sense in staying up in the dark without any power."
"You go," Grissom said, raising his head though he looked exhausted himself, "I'll wait for Catherine and Nick to come back."
Warrick nodded, he looked ready to collapse where he stood. "I'll say goodnight then."
They exchanged their goodnights, and Warrick touched Sara's shoulder in solidarity as he walked past, heading for the stairs.
Sara gazed for a moment at Grissom sitting alone, and walked over to join him. Though he did not look at her, he automatically took her hand as she sat down, holding it in his own. Exhausted herself, Sara had no energy to say much, but wanted to sit with him until Catherine and Nick returned, when she herself would find a bed upstairs.
"We'll be okay," he said quietly, finally lifting his head to look at her.
"I know," she said, nodding. She shrugged; she had been through worse.
He looked down at their joined hands, his fingers moving to link with hers.
At that moment the silence broke, the sound of thudding footsteps filling the air as someone pelted down the hill outside. She heard Catherine shouting.
"GRISSOM!"
Sara bolted to her feet, reaching instinctively for her gun holstered at her back. She flew toward the door, throwing it open.
"GRISSOM!"
Sara took the porch steps in one leap, landing in the dust and running to Catherine's aid. She saw the redhead sprinting toward them at a breakneck sprint.
"CATH!" Grissom shouted, running at Sara's side. Behind them, Sara heard Warrick tearing down the stairs.
"There's a body," Catherine said, stopping in front of them. "In the field."
Sara gripped her gun, and a moment later, they were all running back up the slope.
As it turns out, there are benefits to being sick. One is that I've spent the day quite cosy in front of the heater at home, writing this and posting it about a week earlier than expected. Quite enjoyed it too. I honestly think that out of the five of them, Nick would be the first to crack. We know from the show that Sara and Catherine are both very resilient, and Nick seems to feel things more than the others. And I think that'd be a hard situation to take in.
Believe it or not, in the end I left out the cliffhanger and played it straight. Thought I might get shot if I put three cliffhangers in a row - LOL. Anyway, hope people are enjoying how this story is going, would love to hear your thoughts!
Anna.