Chapter 13

Forever Fine.

Sara sighed as she sat cross-legged on the bed, a file propped open in her lap, evidence reports spread out like an organised explosion on the mattress around her.

She had been avoiding the clock but now the irritatingly cheerful luminous green letters proudly announced that it was half past five in the morning.

She closed her eyes running her hands over them, her fingers resting on them as they burned beneath her feverish palms.

She was exhausted. But she could not sleep. Not without him.

Having Hank curled protectively at the bottom of her bed and Nick snoring peacefully in the next room were not enough. It was a nice thought, to know that they would be there for her in a heartbeat if she needed them but that was all it was for her; a thought, a theory, but nothing concrete, nothing tangible that she could hold onto. Not like his soft arms wrapped around her slight, trembling frame. Empty words and hollow ideals but nothing that could make her feel safe, nothing that could make this OK.

The only thing, the only one that would let her sleep now was gone, she had sent him away to keep him safe, not realising that there was now no-one to keep her safe from the things she could not deal with.

She dragged her fingers through her hair, knowing that she could not go on like this for much longer. Not without someone noticing at any rate. Nick and Russell were already being over-protective and they did not even know half of the things that were troubling her.

And nor would they.

She had already decided that she would not give in to what Basderic wanted; for her to run scared to her friends, to her family, to the only things she had left in this world to care about, to put them in harm's way so he could hurt them and then blame her, just as she had done with Edie. Murder by proxy.

She would deal with this herself.

She rolled her shoulders irritably, finally giving in to the throbbing pain that had been gnawing away at her rattled nerves all night and began actively massaging it, wincing as the tense knot that had formed in her shoulder, spasmed and twinged beneath her searching, coaxing touch. It had only become worse as the night wore on until it screamed for her attention and she had given in to it.

It had started earlier that morning when she had sat bolt upright and jerked the muscle in her shoulder after her subconscious had dealt with as much of Basderic stalking her in the darkness as it could and had finally allowed herself to drag herself from the nightmare, only to discover that she was still living in it.

Ever since the incident at the hotel with Taylor Wynard and the sleeping pills he had known that she had become so dependent on to carry her into oblivion each night, she had been unable to trust them enough to let her sleep.

She had rid herself of all of the pills and alcohol in the house, barely leaving an aspirin in the medicine cabinet, firmly telling herself that she would not allow herself to be controlled by anything anymore.

At the time, this had seemed like a wonderful idea but she had not slept properly since, surviving only on the fragmented hours of broken sleep she had managed to snatch between nightmares.

It was as though she had fallen straight back into her old life. In those years before she had found solace and sleep in his arms, in those first few years in Vegas where she had stayed up for days at a time, forcing herself to stay awake, listening to the police scanner, desperate to hear of some horror happening in this world so she would not have to submit that night to the horrors of her dreams.

She had been alone. Completely alone. She had not told anyone. Grissom's frequent jibes about her not sleeping had, in hindsight, been hints that her supervisor had been concerned about her well-being and the potential insomnia that plagued his younger colleague but had not known how to raise the issue with her, but that was all they had been, 'hints'. None of them had known or cared enough to search for a deeper meaning in them. They did not want to know of the past that haunted her each night. They had not needed to know, even though she had needed to tell them.

And now here she was again. Right back where she had started. With nightmares that would not let her sleep and colleagues she felt were her family yet she could not bear to burden them with this.

She sighed again, holding the breath in her lungs until they burned and she was forced to release it as she forced herself to accept the truth.

She could not survive like this for much longer.

But she could survive for now, she told herself, and now after all, was the only time that had ever mattered to her.

She slid from the bed, the light silk sheets clinging to her sweat-coated skin as she untangled herself from them, suddenly feeling suffocated by her thoughts. She drew the light, thin nightgown more tightly around her slim frame as she padded to the windows and slipped open the curtains to allow herself to open the window and let air into the room.

She half-expected to see Basderic there, waiting for her and watching her but the dark street beyond was black and deserted, the pale light of the moon that bathed it in a soft white glow making up for the lack of street lights.

Rain still fell against the thin panes of glass but only lightly, quiet and almost peaceful, not like the torrential downpours she used to loathe.

She closed her eyes as the cool night air bathed and soothed her burning flesh while she stood there, bare feet nestled in the thick carpet below them.

She always loved this time of night. Everything was quiet, everything was peaceful and still and it seemed for a moment as though the whole world would simply stop for her, for that moment, to let her catch her breath, to let her breathe, properly, while she tried to remember how to live in the chaos.

She opened her eyes again and the rain that continued to valiantly throw itself at her window, trying to hit her, to hurt her, but stopped every time, reminded her that 'life goes on' whether she wanted it to or not.

She watched curiously as a bedraggled moth curled onto the windowsill outside, battered by the storm, its feeble wings twitching as it was struck by the innocent raindrops, that to her were nothing, but to the moth were like a hail of silver bullets.

She stood, transfixed by the darkness and the rain and the moth's endless struggle until the weak sun rose from beyond the desert hills and claimed the rain as its own, leaving the stubborn little moth to flutter drunkenly from the window ledge.

She sighed again as she turned to see the cold case spread out on the bed.

It was another old habit she had unconsciously slipped into. Usually, when she was plagued by her frequent bouts of insomnia, she had read, more to distract herself than anything else; when that hadn't worked, she had dug out cold cases and had began to obsess over them, allowing herself to be lost in a past of her own choosing until the dawn of her day had dragged her back into the present to begin the cycle once more.

She cleared the files off the bed, knowing there would be Hell to pay if Nick found them and, calling to Hank, padded noiselessly into the kitchen to make a stab at having breakfast.

"Morning." Nick said, making her jump as he realised that he was already awake.

"Morning." She agreed softly, holding up the kettle and asking, "You want a cup?"

"What is it that hippie crap?" he asked, yawning and stretching,

"Yes Nick." She said, rolling her eyes, "It's the 'hippie crap' known by most people as green tea, I take it you don't want one?"

"Nah..." he said, "I'll make coffee..."

"Make yourself at home." She said as he began rifling through her cupboards, "Hey, hey, hey, how long have you known me?" she flapped as he began aimlessly rummaging, "Coffee, top cupboard on the right above the oven...Always..." she told him irritably,

"Yes ma'am..." he said mockingly as Sam joined them, padding by Nick's feet as he headed to the mentioned cupboard, "I forgot about your system..."

"How? You complain about it every time you're here." She teased, pouring out the hot water into her comforting mug of 'hippie crap' and settling herself on the chair.

He managed to make his coffee without upsetting her much more and joined her on the sofa opposite, Hank and Sam collapsing simultaneously at their feet, drawing smiles from them both, before he said softly,

"Listen Sara, I don't want to push you or anything but..." he began,

"You have about a hundred and one questions you want to ask me?" she said, taking a sip of her tea,

"Yeah..." he said softly, "And they all seem to revolve around Gil Grissom."

She snorted into her mug at this, absent-mindedly fiddling with Hank's ears as she said,

"This should be a fairly short conversation then..."

"What happened Sara?" he asked, quietly, leaning forwards, "I thought things were getting better, that you were working things out?"

"So did I..." she murmured evasively,

"So why did he leave?" he asked, a hint of bitterness and frustration colouring the words he attempted to make neutral.

"What did he tell you?" she asked, sharply, wondering how Nick had managed to paint Grissom as the victim in all of this.

"That he was leaving, again, and that he was worried about you, he wanted me to check up on you."

Her pride took a moment to pacify at this point as she rejected the idea of being perceived as some helpless damsel in distress and had to overcome that in order to allow herself to say,

"He didn't tell you why he left?" she asked, rubbing at her temples and stressing over the infuriating enigma that was Gil 'Bloody' Grissom, wondering, not for the first time, how much simpler her life would have been had she not waited behind for him at the end of that seminar.

"No..." Nick said, clearly as wrong-footed as she was, "Sara..." he murmured quietly, watching in concern as she ran her hands through her hair, and pressed her palms against her closed eyes, "Sara, why did he leave?"

"Because I asked him to..." she whispered through her fingers.

"Why?" he asked, pity coating his words and getting her back up already.

"Because I was tired of living the way we were." She said harshly, exhaustion and bitterness at the real reason tearing at her and causing her words to be colder than she intended, "I couldn't do it anymore Nick...Just keep waiting for him, keep waiting to live..." she sighed, dragging her hands through her tangle of curls as she tried to explain her blatant lies, "I just...I got tired Nick...We both did...I didn't want to do that anymore..."

He shook his head, nursing his mug, a sad smile twisting his lips.

"What? " She asked irritably, eyes narrowed,

"I don't know Sara..." he said slowly, struggling to put his feelings into words, "You and Grissom, you just seemed, I don't know, perfect for each other, you know?"

"People change Nick..." she said softly, trying to bury the sadness that lingered in her eyes.

To give herself something to do other than look at the pity that was rising in his eyes like a snake, she picked up her now empty mug and carried it to the kitchen. As she reached the sink and made to place it in, out of habit, she glanced out of the window in front of her and saw the dark figure standing calmly on the other side of the street, silhouetted against the feeble orange glow of one of her neighbour's houses.

She dropped the cup and winced as it shattered in the floor, peppering her bare feet with small, sharp cuts.

Breathing hard, she braced herself against the sink as her head spun and the room pitched sickeningly before her. She forced herself to look out of the window again. He was gone. So quickly and so completely, that if she didn't know better, she would have said he had been a hallucination. If she was honest with herself, she wasn't sure which one was worse.

She cursed softly under her breath, telling herself to pull herself together and grabbed a dishtowel, hastily gathering the pieces of broken china and split tea as Nick leapt up from the chair, concerned,

"Sara!"

"It's OK." She told him quietly, "There was water on the floor, I slipped it's fine..."

"Sara..." he said again, more gently this time, slipping his hands over hers, "Talk to me." He murmured, a faint sense of urgency colouring his words.

She paused, suppressing the shiver that ran her length so he could not tell just how much she wanted to do that.

He wanted to help. She knew that, knew that he meant well but the thought of Basderic, of how close he was, of how easy it would be for him. Made her decision easy. Regardless of the consequences to herself, she would not let him hurt anyone she cared about because of her.

Ronald Basderic was a desperate man, a desperate man with nothing left to lose because she had taken everything away from him. She knew he would only relish the thought of doing the same to her, whatever the cost to himself. She had already sworn that she would not give him that chance.

She pulled away from Nick, emptying out the dishtowel into the sink. Back to him, shoulders hunched defensively and eyes closed, she breathed softly,

"I can't Nick..."

"Can't?" he said, an edge creeping in to his voice, "Sara, how long have we known each other? You can tell me anything, you know that."

"Not this." She said firmly, still not looking at him.

"Sara come on, I know you're not dealing with this half as well as you're making out." He said, placing a hand on her shoulder.

"Don't Nick." She snapped, pulling away from him, feeling suffocated by his attentions and knowing that she should have made him leave last night.

"No, don't you Sara." He said, firmly, "What is it?"

She hated the urgency and the pity in his voice.

"What is it?" she snarled, finding his frustration to be infectious, "I don't know Nick; where should we start? With my marriage falling apart; being stalked by a psychopath; my mother landing herself in hospital again; being framed for murder; being abandoned and doubted by people I thought were-"

"Hey, hey, hey, I didn't abandon you Sara, none of us did." He said sharply,

"No? What would you call it then?" she snapped, "I knew exactly what was going on behind my back. What the grapevine was whispering about. That I had cheated on my husband, that I was unbalanced, off-key, that I could maybe have done that..."

"Sara, no-one thought-"he tried,

"Yes they did." She said softly,

"Well no wonder." He snapped, taking a different tact with her, "You and Grissom had split up and you hadn't told anyone, everything stemmed from that."

"What? I deserved it?" she snarled, "I deserved that because I hadn't decided to tell you all every detail of my personal life?" she demanded, eyes shining with angry tears that she impatiently brushed away,

"That's not what I'm saying and you know it." He said in a low voice, "This is what I'm talking about Sara." He said, gently attempting to take her wrist and draw her towards him, trying to conceal his hurt when she pulled away, "You can't keep bottling everything up Sara. It's not good for you. You can't deal with everything on your own all the time and you don't have to."

It would have been so easy to just give him what he wanted, to talk to him, to confess everything. But she couldn't do that. She couldn't. He had gone out of his way to protect her when Basderic had threatened her, to the point of confronting him, God only knew what he would do now if he found out about this, she could not let that happen, she would not let anyone else be hurt because of her.

"Don't you dare preach to me Nick." She snarled in a low voice, wanting nothing more than for him to leave her in peace, however she had to achieve this. "You weren't exactly the voice of reason when it was the other way around. When you were bottling everything up and I was trying to open you up, when I wanted you to talk to me. When I asked you, when I begged you to talk to me, when you were bottling everything up after Warrick's death and what did I get? You pushed me away, he was gone and I needed you, you needed me and you pushed me away, you wouldn't let me help you."

As his eyes darkened and the tears finally fell from hers, angry at first and then hurt and shocked, they both knew she had gone too far.

"I'm sorry..." she whispered hollowly, voice cracking, "I'm so sorry, Nick..."

"I know, I know. Come here." He murmured softly, unable to condemn her for something that had slipped out in the heat of the moment when she looked so broken and so vulnerable,

He wrapped his arms around her and pulled her close, murmuring softly as he did so,

"It's OK, you're alright...I'm sorry too. I shouldn't have pushed you."

"It's not that...It's not that I don't trust you or-"she told him in a fractured whisper, "I just...I can't Nick, I-"

"Hey, shh, it's alright, I understand...You just gave me a bit of a fright, I'm worried about you." He told her quietly, "But you don't have to say anything Sara, I know you, I know what you want and I'll respect that. I just want you to be OK...And this is all just as long as you know that if you ever can, I'm here..."

"I do. I know, I do, thank you..." she breathed sadly, knowing that that time would never, could never come.