This is all meaty character development. I do have answers for the questions posed in the last two chapters, but this is a foundation-builder. I enjoy this type of scenario; it's easy for me to imagine the two of them in it. Actually, the later seasons made it really easy for me to imagine, really... Particularly in season fifteen, they just seem like such a team... And they worked together more in that last season. I'm so pissed George Eads isn't coming back for the finale... but at least his character's in a good place, and the more and more information they reveal about it, it looks so much more and more likely that Sara will be, too. Therefore, I can always enjoy CSI. And that's what I care about most!

Where they ended up could only be described as "cozy". It wasn't a word she really cared for, but there just wasn't any other for the job. She doubted anyone in a small town would disagree with that description, but she was absolutely sure that anyone in Las Vegas would jump on board with it. She thought of Catherine, in particular; she had always liked the quieter side underneath her professional duties when Sara had known her. Much like Nick used to be... Although getting older and more jaded after his incidents with the Gordons... and just shouldering more around in his life, in general... seemed to have dulled some of that.

And she often felt exactly the opposite. Thinking about the day past had been another reminder that she felt far less gung ho than she used to. Although she hadn't nearly died quite as much as the man on whose arm she was, she thought overall that she was much less fiery. And though she was sure some would have called that a drawback, she didn't think so, so much... Being able to appreciate the environment they had just stepped into was a small thing she could have taken for granted before. And if she had been able think through the just-now-dulling headache, she could have probably named several bigger things, as well. Like that her hands had stopped shaking...

"What's your pleasure?" she heard in a low voice, thick with southern twang from beside her. "You like the window seats? This place has a good gimmick with blankets on the floor, and tables with beanbag chairs. Anything like that sound good to to you, there?"

She flicked her eyebrows up, and sighed contentedly with a gaze around the room. There was a far corner with a lowly-lit lamp sitting beside it, and nothing but moonlight through the large window it was by. She guessed nobody was sitting there because it was by the kitchen. She smiled to herself mischievously; she'd always kind of thought it was an interesting place to sit at any restaurant.

She pointed to it hopefully. "There?"

"Don't ask ME," he replied. "This is your night."

She blinked twice at the pillar they were by before he strode through the other customers to get to the table.

"Don't we have to order?" she asked, when her mind caught up with her body.

"We press the button on the wall," he answered. "Somebody comes to us like a maid."

She giggled quietly, but it must not have been lost on him. He was smiling, both rows of bright teeth shining through that beard.

Beard...? How long had THAT been there...?

He must have known where she wanted to sit: right in front of the window. He pulled that chair out for her, and spun around once to his own chair like he was pulling a dance move. He seemed awfully cheerful when he sat down and she got a good look at his face. Even without the tooth-wide grin, the laugh lines she hadn't seen much of lately were in full bloom tonight.

"What's got you so cheery, Nicky?" she asked.

He shrugged his shoulders and sighed. "I dunno. I'm just... Things are good here, for me. You know?" He jammed down on the button with the side of his fist as emphasis.

But she shook her head. "I can't say that I do. Were you looking for a date, or something?"

"Not since you said 'yes'," he replied, balancing on his elbows and rubbing his hands together.

She bit her bottom lip. "I didn't say 'yes' to a date," she tried.

"Sure you did," he exclaimed quietly. "We just didn't call it that."

She decided not to remind him that, actually, he had. Which meant that she had, too... Said 'yes', that is...

She looked down at the table, cheeks turned up and fingers tapping lightly on the table. Such a beautifully colored table, too...

"Is this where you take all your girls?" she flirted.

"Oh, no," he said. "Only the ones who matter to me."

She leaned her head to the side. "Yeah? And how many is that?"

"Oh, the usual. Two or three, somethin' like that. I lost count after my last date."

"And how did that go?"

"Fantastic! She went home with me."

She squeezed her lips together to keep from laughing. "I see. And was she there the next morning?"

"Nope." He didn't seem too bothered by it. "That wasn't the deal."

A waitress approached then, with a rather bright smile of her own, and a notebook and pen in hand. "Hi," she greeted. "My name is Sandy. I'll be your server this evening. Can I start you off with something to drink?"

She flashed Nick a brighter grin, Sara thought. How deflating...

And then... "I'll have some tea, please. Unsweetened, with a lemon wedge in it." She had rattled that off rather quickly... and she looked down at the table with a light frown while Nick put his order in for some water.

"I'll be right back with that, then!"

Yep. That had definitely been a brighter smile.

"Just water, there, cowboy?"

"I'm trying to wind down. It isn't as cool to get drunk as it used to be."

She hoped her next question would sound light, but it didn't come out quite like she had aimed for it to. "Not like the coffee shop waitresses, huh?"

He must not have been bothered. If he was, he didn't show it. "Yeah, that's one of them. She's, uh... talented... But she's a little slutty; you would not believe the kinda things she did for me."

He scratched the back of his head nervously. She giggled again.

"Why? Are you an ass man?"

"Somethin' like that, yeah."

She nodded once, and looked out the window. It was strange to think how long she'd been here, and yet she was sure she'd never seen the city from that angle... It was a strange place for a coffee shop, situated on the far end of the thirteenth floor of a business plaza. She wondered how Nick had found it. Given the nature of their last topic, she chose not to ask.

"How long has this place been here?" she tried instead.

"Oh, a while, now. I think they added it just before Warrick died. It used to be a book shop. You can still see some of the books and the shelves here." He pointed to one on the other side of the room. "See?"

She leaned on one of her hands, and stared at the books. Trying to read one of the titles from where she was... The lighting sucked, all of a sudden.

"That's correct," came the voice of their waitress. "I first started working here when I was seventeen. This was my first job."

Sara readjusted herself, and accepted her tea with a polite enough expression.

"Our boss was a wonderful guy; his name was Hoss, believe it or not. He was extremely helpful with all the student employees' school schedules."

Behind his water that he was taking a drink of, Nick flashed her a knowing look, and then turned back to the waitress.

"He came to our graduation, too. He was really broken up when they decided to transfer the bookshop out of town. Anyway... did you need a few more minutes to order?"

"I'm good for now, yeah," said Nick. "Sara?"

"Oh! I haven't even looked at my menu yet," she half-answered, half-realized. "Yeah, a few minutes sounds good."

"Alrighty, then. Press the button when you're ready for me."

As she left, Sara opened up her menu and watched from behind it. But as the girl disappeared around the counter, Sara's question was cut off by Nick's mumbled: "Mm hmm."

She couldn't help the smile, even though she tried. "What?"

"I just wouldn't be surprised if she was sleeping with the old boss."

"Should you be worried?"

"No, I'm clean. Been cleared by my doctor, and all that. No worries for me."

"Good to know." And her eyes scrolled across the menu, her cheeks getting that strange pain that they sometimes did when one was still smiling long after her mind had found it funny.

For a few moments, they said nothing. She'd later come to think of it as a comfortable silence... or perhaps just him nicely letting her study her menu. They had a lot of choices there; she wanted to eat so much, all of a sudden... And so much of what was on the menu was good, even for a vegetarian. She decided against appetizers to save on the money, but she went with the tofu substituted chicken salad sandwich. Nick, in typical fashion, got just a straight hamburger. He dictated such to the waitress so animatedly...

"And that'll be $12.92," said the waitress, afterwards.

As Nick looked over at her, there was an odd surge of energy through her body. And when it reached her mind, an idea began to form...

"Oh! Nick, I forgot to give you those twenty dollars from Greg!"

She reached into her purse and scrambled around for a moment. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see Nick's previously-building blush fading. By the time she had handed him the twenty from Russell, he was his usual color, and he turned it over to the waitress with an expression Sara could just barely call passably formal. As the girl left to get the change, Nick turned to her. She was surprised to feel that she was not smiling. And neither was he; his face was very intense, actually.

He leaned over and whispered very simply, "Thank you."

But it had a more profound impact on her. Her hand beneath the table shook a little on her lap. She swallowed a building dryness in her throat, and cleared it before welcoming him.

"No, really," he said. "Thank you so very much, Sara."

"I told you," she sighed, feeling tired. "You're welcome very much, Nick."

It was a bizarre evening, all around. They left the cafe almost forty-five minutes later. Las Vegas was no less busy, but it was much easier to navigate. Something she knew they both believed, because one of their first conversations together... way back when she'd first come to Vegas... had been how much harder it was for them to spot the signs and follow the road in the daytime. The darkness added some perspective on the details they needed to use, and the ones they needed to discard. Of course, with Grissom anywhere near, it had taken on a philosophical approach. She learned, then, that Nick had a talent for personal subtlety; he had made some rather likable looks at their rambling supervisor-of-the-day during the preachy speech that followed. Of course... she agreed with it, but it hadn't been the part that stuck out in her mind any of the times she'd remembered it, so much as her other colleague's brief glares and prominent blinks...

She took a deep breath in the cool, night air, and wrapped both arms around Nick's one.

"Comfortable?" he asked.

"Yeah." And she didn't know what else to say. But she took it as a good sign he didn't do anything to disconnect her from him.

"Anywhere else within walking distance you'd like to go, ma'am?"

She laughed once at his chivalrous tour guide impression. Then she yawned, and felt a single shudder go through her from the cold she then noticed.

"No, thanks, good sir."

"Then back to the lab for the ride home?"

She stopped. Actually, for a moment, everything just stopped...

She looked down at the lab; it was very visible from where they stood at the bottom of the plaza. But it looked such a long way away... Parked out in front of it, her own car was glistening in the moon's light, all the processing on it seeming to be over with. Or at least, halted for a while... It seemed, from that angle, a lot more content to be where it was than she did. Surrounded by other cars... If it was alive, she was certain it would be happy.

And somewhere on the other side of it, Nick's downsized personal vehicle was also there, sandwiched between hers and Morgan's. For a moment, she imagined a TV show: Cars of the Crime Lab. It made her smile, and she poked the inside of her lips with her tongue.

But it wouldn't be the same as what her night was shaping up to be. Even in the cold that was around, she had shuddered or shook very little. Her hands were steady... and their grip on Nick's forearm was rather tight. She was standing very solidly, and had walked everywhere they'd gone very comfortably.

He was still looking at her for an answer. He appeared to be as undisturbed where he was as she felt, even with the inevitable IA inquiry coming up. There was a confident expression on his face. What she could see of it behind that beard, anyway... But if she told him to walk her back to the lot at the lab, she would be climbing into her car and riding home. And though it wasn't that her home was an uncomfortable place, it wasn't where she wanted to be. If she went there, she'd be surrounded by pictures. Pictures of her and her friends, her and her mother, her and Grissom's old dog... and her and Grissom, himself.

Why haven't I taken those down? she wondered for a moment or so.

But she knew. And she knew it was why she was not looking forward to the idea of going back home by herself. There were reminders of other people who had loved her in those pictures.

But some some of them included who she was already with... And he didn't seem to have any interest in shaking her off. She wondered if he would even have thought of it that way... And he had the perfect excuse if he wanted to, didn't he? What a day it had been...

She looked down at her feet for a second, and then up at her patient escort. "Actually... I know it's kind of late notice, but... can I come and stay with you for the night? I really... REALLY don't want to go home right now. Bad day, you know?" She grinned playfully. "And if you don't have any other dirty dates planned for the evening..."

"Any OTHER dirty dates?" He pretended to straighten a shirt collar on his coat, but he was turning red again. "Why, Sara, does that mean you'll be my first dirty date?"

She didn't even bother with the joke. "So, I can come?"

"Sure! Right to bed. I nest comfortably there."

She smacked his chest very loosely. But she returned her head to its position from after he had saved her, and her tone softened a few degrees when she thanked him.

And so did his, she noticed, with his answer: "You're welcome."

The husky sound he made when he talked like that created such a warm feeling in the back of her head. The calm she had lost over the day finally came back; normally, it didn't take so long after a shift ended, but, hey: she'd take it, if she could get it.

Nick didn't live so far from the lab. Considerably closer than he had most of the time she'd known him. It was probably a five minute walk at regular speeds to his large apartment, versus the three or four it would have taken to turn and go back to the lab. But they enjoyed their walk, instead; it was a very beautiful night, even with all that had gone before in it, and it made for a pleasant saunter along the sides of the streets. By the time they reached his building, she thought it had warmed up a bit outside.

That was, until they got inside. There, she felt cold to the bone until she was upstairs and settled into his living room with a large blanket around her. It was a big room, with a wrap around couch that some part of her had always liked. She couldn't help smirking a little at his idea of decoration; primarily, because there wasn't much. A nice rug adorned the floor in front of the couch, and another one underneath the coffee table. There was a snow globe on it that caught her attention, glittering in the small rays of light coming through the closer curtains on the big window to her side. She picked it up carefully and examined it from all sides.

"That's my aunt's," Nick explained when he sat down beside her, and handed her one of the hot chocolate mugs. "She sent that to me for my forty-fifth birthday. Two years ago, holy crap. And she says it cost a lot. My grandpa covered part of it..."

She laughed at the quick succession in which he had added "holy" and "crap" to the end of that sentence, and gave the snow globe another turn over. The small flakes settled into it again, highlighting the small Santa Claus and reindeer arrangement. There was also a little house with its downstairs windows painted yellow to give off the illusion of a light shining through them.

"It's beautiful..."

"Yeah. I'm very fond of it. Hence why it's out on my table..."

And she laughed again. She hadn't laughed so much in a long time... Not long, drawn out laughs... But short bursts of sudden happiness at the words of another. It was another comfortable feeling she was determined she would hold onto.

She accepted the hot chocolate, and took a drink from it. "You mean, you don't put all the decorations you own out?"

He leaned back on the couch's back, and also took a sip from his own hot chocolate. "Well... I don't have a whole lot of 'em, but... I kinda want to get more." His bright eyes roamed over the room for a minute or so. "I think I need a woman's help with that," he eventually added.

"I've got some time," she offered without thinking. "Soon, I mean... If... I've got some time to help you soon, if you're interested, is what I mean."

"Oh, very." He took another sip, this time with a mischievous look on his face. "I had several motivations for inviting you over, you know. I was just hoping you'd offer!"

Another laugh from her. And she exhaled a breath she hadn't known she was holding quite happily. After another sip from her hot chocolate, she leaned forward and put it on the coffee table.

By the time she sat back, his arm had mysteriously found its way to rest on the couch back behind her. She turned her eyes upward first, and then sideways at him.

"You know me so well, I should think you could have just asked."

"Mm hmm, I sure should, by now."

She brushed her index finger across her lips, and looked away. "What was your real motivation? For letting me stay with you, I mean?"

"What else? The great Sidle, herself."

But she didn't laugh at that. "No, I mean really."

He set his mug down next to hers. "It really wasn't complicated, Sara. I wanted someone to be with, too. And... well, you've had a rough day. At least once in my presence... I can't say I want to make it up to you because it wasn't my fault, but... I did want to make sure that you're alright. Besides..."

And this time, his arm from behind her had found its way over to her shoulder. She looked over at it, but did not flinch away, anymore than he had when she'd put her head down on him outside the coffee shop plaza. His tone turned teasing.

"...I've got a long inquiry to face at work for saving your life. It was totally worth it, but I figure the pleasure of your company is good pay off for it."

"It was totally worth it, huh?" she giggled. "I'm glad you think so."

"Mmm..."

He paused for a moment as if he were considering something. In a brief moment, the tension level in Sara went up like a gust of wind. She watched his face go through some bizarre expressions and twitches, and waited as patiently as she could.

But not patiently enough. "What, Nick?"

He grinned at her. "Whoa, there, Sara. You just had me wonderin' why you really wanted to come here."

"My long day isn't enough for you?" She poked his shoulder playfully.

And he jutted his lower lip out as if he were thinking again. "I suppose," he said. "I have to know, though: what else is there?"

Her smile faded just a little bit. "What else would I need?"

"A reason," he answered without a beat lost. "You're tough, Sara. Real tough... And you've been through worse than this. Why is tonight different?"

She shrugged. "Would you rather I go?"

"No. I'd just..." He stopped. And when he spoke again, his voice was just the smallest bit whiny. "Come on, I told you mine...!"

She laughed so hard she threw her head back. It suddenly didn't seem hard to imagine him bringing home the coffee waitresses... He didn't seem to appreciate her outburst, though. In spite of his chivalrous handling of said displeasure...

"Well, there is that," she said, calming down. "But it probably is more than I thought."

But how could she answer that? Why WAS she there? Because he'd brushed with death more than anyone she knew, and would understand why it had been so shocking and unnerving? Because he was always a good friend, anyway? Because he'd been so great to her after she'd survived the whole Miniature Killer thing...?

Or was it because her hands hadn't shaken at all whenever she'd been with him since getting off her shift? Or that she felt relaxed, and figured she could sleep some with his help? Or maybe because he had been the one to save her? Or because he seemed so solid, and reliable...?

If she was honest, there was probably only one reason: because safety was important, and so was sleep. That was the only reason she could conclude for why she was where she was, at that moment. She had needed to find a safe place to go, or she would have been a wreck. She wouldn't tell him that part; he'd understand enough that her day had taken her past death twice, and she wanted some company because of that. He probably already guessed what a mess she'd be on her own right now, anyway. That was probably why he was pressing the issue.

Well, that, and he told me his... she thought to herself in amusement.

So she cleared her throat, and answered fast enough that she wouldn't catch herself being honest. "I just needed to feel safe. I'll get out of your hair soon."

"Didn't I tell you not to worry about it?"

"You've told me a lot of things, Nick. Everyone has, actually..."

"Yes, but haven't ya learned it yet? I'm special."

She shook her head. "You sure are."

Her teeth chattered a little. She tried to keep it in by pressing her jaw together, but it came out.

And Nick was not fooled. "Want another blanket?"

She felt like a housewife in a movie, or one of those down-to-earth, real-life-based sitcoms. She accepted his blanket off the back of the couch. She accepted his eventual offer for a glass of wine, and very fine wine, at that. She watched a little something on TV with him. When she was still cold, she made no bones about accepting the extra heat from his body. Sometime after eleven, she accepted something else when her eyes flashed up at his brightly lit clock: she was going to fall asleep with him. It was just going to happen.

And somewhere between actually laying her head down on his chest, and resting her hand down on his stomach, she decided that was okay. At least enough so that she could go to sleep and wake up tomorrow morning.. So she closed her eyes, and took one last deep breath. The rumbling in his chest of his husky voice wishing her a good night's sleep in a low whisper was the last thing she remembered hearing.