Renee was awoken in the small hours of the morning by a distant noise reminiscent of thunder. A quick glance at the bedside table's clock told her it was nearly five in the morning, making her flop against the pillows and press a hand to her eyes. Rain, she thought absently. Was it raining out? It hadn't been raining when she'd come home or gone to bed. And oh how she'd wanted to go to bed and sleep, between going to her doctor's appointment and a full day of counselling, followed by a deposition for one of her patient's court dates. Staring at the ceiling, she willed the barrage of noise to go away. Then she realized that the noise wasn't coming from overhead, it was coming from the front door. When the noise didn't disipate after a couple of minutes, Renee rolled out of the bed with a loud groan.

"Come on, babe," she muttered to herself, pulling on Nick's t-shirt from the laundry pile, "you know where the hide-a-key is, why are you getting my sorry ass up?"

But it wasn't her husband beating on the door, as was evident when she opened it. Instead, a distraught Nadine burst into the living room and wrapped her arms around Renee's neck, followed by Greg, looking like someone had cancelled Christmas.

"Nadine, what's wrong?" Renee asked, awkwardly patting her sister-in-law's back. "Where's the kids?"

"Heather-Liy's with them, I was working nights. Oh God, Renee." Nadine burst into unabashed tears.

An oily slick of panic coated Renee's throat, ground in her stomach. Images flashed through her head of a cop car showing up , of Captain Brass and a grief counselor standing there on the doorstep of her home with sorrow and sympathy as lives fell apart. "What's wrong? Greg?" Another wash of panic as she reached for her brother's hand. "Is it Nick?"

"It's Warrick."

Panic turned to confusion. "Warrick? What happened?"

"I was on an ER rotation tonight," Nadine explained as she took off her coat, "and one of the paramedics came in from an officer-involved shooting near Rayson and El Paso Road. He recognized the guy and wanted to tell me in person before I heard through the grapevine. He...he said he was DOS, Renee. Warrick was DOS."

Renee felt the blood drain from her head, as she groped for something to hold her up. Warrick was...no, no it wasn't possible, how could...? And who would have...? "I know he'd been having some problems, but he didn't have the outward signs of suicide contemplation. Nick even texted me around midnight, said they were taking him out for a little bit after everything was sorted out with the whole Gedda debacle. Wouldn't they have seen if he wanted to kill himself?"

"He didn't shoot himself, Renee," Nadine sobbed, pulled her hands through her hair, reliving the hell that had swam through her when the paramedic had taken her into one of the exam rooms and told her that an officer had been killed. "Someone else shot him."

At this, Renee let out a sob. "He...what? What? No. No, no, no."

Letting go of the back of the couch, Greg pulled Renee close to him, hugged her tightly as she cried. Nadine had been right, he realized; after all Warrick was Nick's best friend and at their house as much as he and Nadine were. "We wanted to come and tell you before you had a chance to panic when Nick wasn't home on time and the word might have showed up on the news channels."

"Where is Nick?" she asked in a surprisingly calm voice. "Where is my husband?"

"He's with Grissom. They both wanted to go on the transport of...him," Greg finished lamely, not able to call Warrick 'the body'. He could see the look in Renee's eyes, that she was not going to be okay until she was able to see Nick, and he didn't blame her; hadn't they showed up and made her panic that it might be her man on his way to the morgue? "Why don't I make some coffee?"

"Good idea. Renee, do you have any clothes I could borrow?" Nadine gestured to her scrubs.

Renee nodded, still in a stupor of mixed emotions as she gestured for Nadine to follow her. She was smaller than Nadine, but figured that a pair of pyjama pants from Nick's drawer would be more comfortable for her than trying to squeeze into one of her more feminine nightshirts. As Nadine changed, Renee flopped back on the bed and stared at the ceiling. How the hell could she have been there only ten minutes before and thought that her biggest problem was her husband being locked out of the house? "Is there anything you're not telling me, Nadine? I mean, you'd tell me if Nick was-"

"Oh God yes, of course honey. Greg called Nick in the driveway to let him know we were here to see you."

Renee opened her mouth to speak, then closed it when she heard the front door open and shut, followed by the low murmur of two male voices in the kitchen. Fresh tears began leaking from her eyes as she heard the footsteps coming down the hall, and as she lifted her head, felt her last defence break down as Nick walked into their bedroom, his face heavy with grief, his eyes red.

"Renee," was all he said, all he needed to say, before she was up and holding him tightly against her.

"Sweetheart."

In hearing that single word, Nick felt his body breakdown, the numbness ebb away at Renee's touch. He slumped onto the bed beside her, not even noticing that Nadine had discreetly exited and closed the door behind her. He felt the soft, soothing strokes of her gentle hands rubbing circles on his back, a gesture he knew was meant to comfort. He let his grip on her shirt go a little loose, looked at his wife.

"I can't deal with this yet. I need to shut it off. I just need to turn it off."

"Okay, then we'll shut it off."

When he stripped down to his boxers, slid into bed with her, Renee stroked her hand over his head that he'd rested on her breasts, and tried so very hard not to think about the other life changing news she'd gotten that day, how she'd been so excited to tell him when he'd come home. As she waited for sleep to come, she replayed the words she'd carefully planned to say to him over and over in her mind.

Nick, I'm pregnant.