Author's Note: As most long-time fans of the show know, this episode was originally written with Grissom as the main character. I can see shades of that in it (it reminds me a lot of Gentle, Gentle which is one of my favorite Grissom episodes). But I think the rewrite was fortuitous, and I don't think it serves the story or the characters well to shift it back to Grissom being the one acting emotionally because he's convinced Cassie is alive. This episode is SO good when it comes to dealing with Nick's trauma and also the deepening of his friendship with Sara. It's so important for their character development.
That said, I think there's value to Sara and Grissom's relationship for Grissom to be present and even to witness her interactions with Nick. Especially if this is set at a time when their relationship is right on the cusp of transitioning from undefined to serious. Most of the rewrites I've seen, rewrite it as we imagine it was originally intended, with Grissom and Sara at odds. This is a different kind of rewrite. I've stayed in canon for the episode as much as possible. The timeline stays the same as does most of the on screen dialogue. I've only added Grissom into the mix, filling in missing scenes and imaging how his presence might have affected his relationship with Sara.
Additional Note: This story is NOT set in the same universe as More Myself than I Am and Nights Bright Days. This story stands alone and assumes a very different progression for their off screen romantic relationship.
Sara carried her coffee in one hand and a Styrofoam container of scrambled eggs and toast from the local diner in her other as she followed Warrick and Nick across the street toward a picnic table where they planned to eat.
The diner and park were both within walking distance of the Red Rock Motel, the only motel in the tiny town of Pioche, Nevada. Two and a half hours from Vegas, in rural Lincoln County, Pioche seemed idyllic if a little off the beaten path.
The disappearance of the McBride family, and the horror scene left in their wake – house ransacked, blood pools congealing on the floor and stairs – had been far beyond the scope of experience of the local law enforcement team.
Though it was not entirely unusual for the Las Vegas crime scene investigators to be called out to assist in far-flung Nevada towns when there were high profile or unusual crimes, Sara was used to being greeted with suspicion and stonewalling on these trips. This time, however, Sheriff Brackett had been the one to call them in, and he had been nothing but helpful during their investigation, which had been a welcome surprise.
Nick had taken the assignment solo originally, but once he'd had a chance to survey the scene, he quickly called for backup. Catherine had stayed behind, but the rest of the night shift had piled into a city-issued Denali and headed out into the desert as the sun began to rise yesterday.
Warrick had driven, with Grissom riding shotgun, while Sara sat in the back listening to Greg's excited chatter and shooting sidelong glances at the passenger seat, trying not to think about the breakfast date she and Grissom were supposed to be heading to after work. Alone.
Sara sat her breakfast on the picnic table and threw a casual glance over her shoulder in time to see Grissom step up onto the curb from the crosswalk. He was on the phone updating the Sheriff on their breakfast plans.
"How'd you sleep?" Greg asked, sitting beside her.
"Fine," she said, honestly. Despite her normal insomnia and the fact that she was sleeping somewhere unfamiliar and out of her normal sleep rhythm, she had been asleep within minutes of her head hitting the pillow.
Once they had arrived in Pioche, all thoughts of breakfast dates had been forgotten. The crime scene was breathtaking. Every cabinet was open, every surface covered in debris. There were dozens of shoe prints, fingerprints and blood pools to process, and that was before Sara stumbled across the marijuana growing operation the family was running out of their basement. Even with everyone pitching it, it had taken most of the day to get the samples collected and organized. By nightfall, they had all been dead on their feet, having worked a triple broken up only by their roadtrip.
"Did you disinfect the entire room before going to sleep?" Greg teased.
"Did you bring your nonoxynol 9?" Nick asked with a grin, always happy to join in the teasing.
Sara tried not to think about the number of people who had slept in the bed before her, or the traces of bodily fluids that luminol would reveal in her room. She shuddered and jerked her head toward Greg, shifting the focus off herself.
"How'd you sleep?" she asked.
"Like the dead," Grissom answered for him, sliding into the seat across from her, next to Warrick. She lifted her eyes to his face with a questioning smile, and he scowled. "Though the dead are far quieter. He snores like a freight train."
Sara tried to hide a smile as Greg scrambled to defend his honor, swearing no one had ever complained about that in the past. While Nick and Warrick were busy ribbing Greg, she took advantage of the opportunity to catch Grissom's eye and give him a private smile.
The Red Rock Motel had only three vacant rooms when they checked in. As the only female in the group, Sara was automatically given one to herself. Nick and Warrick had quickly buddied up, leaving Grissom to bunk with Greg. In a perfect world, Grissom would have spent the night in her hotel room, in her bed. But their relationship had to remain a secret from everyone, including the other members of their team. Romantic relationships between members of the same team were forbidden, and Sara did not want to be forced to transfer to another shift, not to mention deal with the fallout they might face since Grissom was her superior.
It was probably for the best, she reasoned, as Grissom subtly looked her up and down and raised an eyebrow approvingly. Her face warmed, and she tore her gaze from his, feigning interest in Greg's passionate defense. It had only been six months since she and Grissom had crossed the line from friends to lovers, and neither of them was eager to define whatever this was between them or to open themselves up to the opinions and judgments of others.
After everything that had transpired between them – the years of fighting and misunderstandings and jealousy and longing – it was so nice to finally have things be…easy. It felt like it used to, back before she moved to Vegas, when he flirted with her, and chatted on the phone with her long past when they should both be sleeping, and twice had invited her to seminars where they could step outside their real lives for a while and find each other in the darkness of their hotel rooms.
Later, when she worked for him, when he was her boss, when he couldn't bring himself to take the risk on the life she had offered him with her, those nights haunted her. The feel of his hands on her body. The look in his eyes as he touched her.
When he was angry with her — for wanting him too much or not enough, for pursuing him or pursuing another man — her name was a knife in his mouth, cold and hard and dangerous, and she wanted to hate him. But then she would remember the way he had said it once, whispered against her skin in ecstasy, and she could not bring herself to despise him. Or to give up hope that they could have that again.
Now, she had all that and more. He was her best friend. They watched movies and debated philosophy and played chess and rehashed old cases and made love. Over and over. He was funny and smart and sweet. He kissed her shoulder while they cuddled on her couch watching television. He listened without complaint to her endless ramblings. He cooked her favorite meals in the kitchen of his townhouse. And he read her poetry as they lounged in bed on lazy summer afternoons.
She didn't need a name or title for what they were to each other. She didn't need the world to sanction their relationship. He was hers. And she was, finally, so happy.
Sara was brought back to the present by the ringing of Nick's phone.
"It's Cath," he said, standing and stepping away from the table as he answered.
The phone call seemed to remind them all why they were there, and all joking and teasing was forgotten as the conversation turned automatically back to the case.
They were discussing the drug operation as motive, theorizing about who else might have known about it, when Nick rejoined them.
"DNA confirmed to everyone but Cassie," he said, naming the McBrides' ten year old daughter.
"Interesting," Sara said, pondering the implications of that discovery, while the conversation around her reverted back to the drugs, and whether the McBrides' nerdy son might have bragged about the operation in a desperate bid for social standing, inviting trouble into their home in the form of trigger-happy teenage boys looking for a cheap high.
Sheriff Brackett arrived then, bearing a basket of homemade muffins from his wife and a video tape of grainy surveillance footage from the ATM where one of their teenage suspects had stopped for cash during the window of time when the McBride's disappeared Friday night.
"I'll give it over to Archie and see if he can clear it up," Warrick said, reaching for the tape.
Greg made a quip about Warrick being in a hurry to get home to his wife, the mystery woman they had yet to meet since his impulsive drive-thru wedding last month, and Warrick offered to draw straws if anyone else wanted to head back to Vegas. They shook their heads though, and Grissom gave Warrick the go ahead to take the tape and go, while the rest of them returned to their breakfasts.
When they were finished, Sara lingered at the table with Nick as Grissom hurried off to reconvene with the Sheriff, Greg in tow. Sara gathered their trash, clearing the table, while Nick sat quietly, his face drawn, lost in thought,
"You coming?" she asked.
Nick's eyes focused slowly on her face, but he gave his head a quick shake. "Go ahead. I'll catch up."
A shadow of concern began to settle in Sara's belly as she thought back to Nick's announcement earlier about the DNA results.
"You think she's alive," she said softly.
Nick nodded, a hopeful grin playing at the corners of his mouth. "You don't?" he asked. Sara took a slow breath, processing. "None of her blood was found at the house."
"I think she was drugged…and she was lucky if all they did after that was kill her," Sara said gently, wanting to bring him back to reality, but not wanting to be cruel. They both knew the odds that Cassie was still alive were far worse than the odds that the people who murdered her entire family in cold blood had done terrible things to her before ending her life.
"I don't think she was drugged," Nick insisted. "She's a smart girl. She hid that cough medicine in her shoe. That's like hiding green beans in your napkin."
"I hope you're right," Sara said, forcing a smile. And she did. Of course she did. She wanted nothing more than for Nick to be right. For Cassie to be alive and unharmed somewhere. For them to find her safe. But that hope was dimmed by years of processing the bruised and broken bodies of innocent children. "But everything in our experience tells us they're dead. All four of them."
Nick shook his head sadly. "That doesn't mean we just give up."
"No one's giving up," Sara said immediately. "It's just that…you're acting like you're going to rescue a person, not recover a body. And on this job, that's just not usually the case."
"I was rescued," Nick said.
Sara's stomach dropped, remembering their frantic search, the way they clung to the hope that they would find him before his oxygen ran out, pushing the button over and over to watch the live feed of Nick in his plexiglass coffin.
"It was not your day to die. When it's your day…it's your day. You know?" she said finally, her voice shaky with emotion. She would forever be grateful that it had not been his day, that he had been given another chance. But she knew all too well, as an investigator and a survivor, that miracles were called that because they were rare and unexpected. In the years that they had worked side by side, Nick had become more than a coworker, more than a friend. He was the brother she'd never had. Her family. But Sara had lost her family once, and she knew how miraculous it was that she hadn't lost him as well.
"I don't think it was Cassie's day," Nick said.
Sara nodded slowly. She had said her piece. She had tried to temper his hopes. But she could see now that Nick needed to believe that Cassie was still alive. That his miracle could be hers too. That the universe was not always a cruel and heartless place. That what they did was more than just solving puzzles and getting justice for victims. He needed to believe that he could make a difference for Cassie. That he could find her and save her the way they had found him and saved him.
Sara did not share his hope, but she had nurtured that hope once, and she remembered how it had sustained her. She wouldn't deny him that now.
"Okay," she said finally. "Let's go."