A/N: Well this is the last chapter. Thank you very much to all of you who took the time to review. I really, really appreciate your comments and I'm glad you liked the fic.
Chapter 8
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Nick walked into the locker room and found Warrick and Sara storing their gear, getting ready to head home. Nobody said anything as Nick walked past the two to reach his own locker. Warrick shut his locker just forcefully enough for Nick to look up at him; they exchanged a look before Warrick quickly glanced at Sara and headed out.
Sara didn't acknowledge Nick's presence, and he didn't say anything as he stood next to her and opened his locker. She closed hers and sat down on the bench, watching Nick, waiting. Once he closed his he turned to her.
"Sara-"
"I know," she interrupted.
Nick was relieved to hear her tone was not one of biting anger but rather solemn understanding. "My place?"
"Okay."
They silently walked out and made their way to Nick's house.
"Can I go first?" Sara asked as she sat with Nick on his black leather couch.
Nick gestured for her to go ahead as he leaned back onto the cushions.
Sara took a deep breath, staring down at her hands in her lap to avoid his eyes, at least for the moment. "Well first I wanted to apologize. For yelling at you and storming off."
"Apology accepted." Nick noticed she didn't say anything about the kiss.
"And I'm not angry with you," she continued.
Nick raised an eyebrow. If yelling and storming off wasn't her definition of angry, he'd hate to see Sara actually get upset.
"Well maybe I was at first, but when I got home I realized I wasn't. I realized I was just disappointed." She looked at him. "In you."
Nick looked at her curiously, not understanding where she was coming from.
"How could you think that I would do something like that to you?" Sara continued.
"Think that you would do what?" Nick was still clueless.
"That I would use you like that."
Nick didn't know what to say. He'd never thought about it that way. "Sorry, I just..."
"What?"
Nick sighed. "I just wasn't sure."
"So you do think that I would use you like that?" Sara challenged, the sense of calm she had been so carefully clinging to beginning to slip away.
"No, of course not. But..."
"But what?" She glared.
"Sara, sometimes people do things they don't mean. When you have all these emotions running through your head, you're confused, you're not thinking clearly, so you do impulsive and desperate things-"
Sara scoffed. "So now I'm desperate?"
"No, I didn't mean it like that-"
"Well I don't see any other way you could mean it," Sara retorted as she shot up from the couch and started to head for the front door.
"Sara, will you let me explain?" Nick followed her to the door. "I just didn't want to take advantage of you, that's all. I didn't want to hurt you."
Sara whipped around. "You didn't want to hurt me? So what, you were doing me a favor?" she looked at him in disbelief.
"Yeah." Somehow, the way she had put it, his reasoning didn't seem as logical as he thought it was.
"Well thanks a lot then," she snapped, her caustic tone laced heavily with sarcasm. She was about to open the door, but she instead turned to him and attempted to gain her composure somewhat before saying one last thing. "You know, I was planning on telling you that I really do have feelings for you and that I thought there could be something between us, but since you don't trust me and just think I'm lonely or desperate or whatever, I guess it doesn't really matter."
Sara opened the door and walked out, and again Nick watched as Sara drove away. However, while the last time he felt he was partly to blame for her dramatic exit, this time he didn't feel like he did anything wrong. Sure, he'd used the word "desperate," but he regretted it as soon as the word escaped his lips and he didn't mean it like Sara thought he did. But she didn't let him explain. This time it was Sara who had jumped to conclusions.
More unsettling than the argument itself was the fact that he was starting to realize now that maybe Sara wasn't confused or lonely and wasn't acting on an impulse when she had kissed him the other night. Despite his theory, he could tell by her tone and the look in her eyes not five minutes ago during their civilized conversation on the couch that maybe she was telling the truth. And of course he would never think Sara would use him or hurt him, just as he hoped she knew he would never do such a thing to her.
The worst part of it all was that he realized he actually had feelings for her, more than just friendly feelings. In all honesty, he knew he always had them, but hearing Sara say she felt the same way made him realize his feelings weren't in vain. He was actually a little shocked to hear her say that; he'd never imagined that Sara would reciprocate his feelings.
But for the moment, he didn't know what to do. Although unsure if it was justified, Sara probably wouldn't believe anything he'd say, or else she'd probably find some way to start an argument and storm off yet again. All he could think to do now was just wait it out. He inwardly groaned as he thought of going into work that night, having to see her, or worse, having to work with her. It would be a long and tortuous shift, or maybe even a long and tortuous week, or month, or heaven forbid, career.
As Sara drove off, angry tears threatening to spill, she had a feeling of déjà vu. Only this time, she wasn't sure if she had the right to be angry. Maybe she should have let Nick explain. Maybe she'd been wrong all along. Deep down she knew Nick knew that she would never intentionally hurt him.
Still, she couldn't completely get past the fact that Nick had pulled away that night at his front door. Did he say that he actually wanted something to happen between them? Sara couldn't really remember. That only complicated matters, to know that he felt that way.
So now what? She was upset, and she didn't really know why. Maybe it was because she didn't want to admit that it was possible that she was wrong about Nick and she'd blown the whole thing way out of proportion. Whatever the reason, she was pretty sure that she didn't even want to be upset. Nick was her friend, no matter what. At least she hoped they still would be, after all this. She wasn't sure if she could face him at work that night, and she prayed she wouldn't have to work a case with him.
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When Nick walked into the break room, he saw Sara, her back to him, sitting at the table with Catherine. He deliberately focused his attention on the coffee machine as he headed straight toward it.
Nick's odd behavior didn't go unnoticed by Catherine. "Hi Nick," she greeted, her tone indicating she was a bit surprised at Nick's unusually quiet entrance; he usually never failed to come into work with a friendly smile and a cheerful greeting.
"Hey," Nick replied, his voice registering no emotion as he poured his coffee, not even glancing up. He went to sit on the couch without another word.
Catherine glanced at Sara, who acted like Nick wasn't even there as she read, or rather probably pretended to read, the newspaper in front of her.
Warrick and Grissom arrived shortly and assignments were handed out, and to both Nick and Sara's dismay, they did end up working together, on a suspected homicide in a residential neighborhood. The only saving grace was that they were working with Catherine, so they didn't have to be alone.
"Hey Catherine, take a look at this."
Catherine approached Nick, finding it odd that he had called her over when Sara was only a few feet behind him.
Nick pulled back the curtains to reveal a through and through bullet hole in the window frame. "Nine millimeter?"
"Probably," Catherine replied.
"I got a gun," Sara announced as she pulled the weapon out from a laundry hamper full of dirty clothes. "Not a nine millimeter though."
"So maybe we're looking for two shooters," Catherine reasoned. "I'll go check the perimeter outside, maybe our second weapon was dumped there. You two can finish up in here."
"I'll go," Sara volunteered, a little too quickly. She wasn't sure she could deal with being alone with Nick just yet. "I'm pretty much done over here anyway," she stepped out of the walk-in closet and headed out of the bedroom before Catherine could protest.
Catherine looked at Nick, whose expression indicated that this was not the time to talk about it. "I'm gonna go downstairs and talk to O'Riley," was all she said.
"Yeah." Nick turned and went back to work.
The three finished up and headed back to the lab, and Catherine's suspicions grew as she watched the strange behavior of Nick and Sara. They weren't angry and they were working fine together, but something was different about them. Their interactions seemed distant, a little too professional considering how friendly and flirty they always were with each other even while they were working. They didn't seem distracted from the case so Catherine didn't see any immediate cause for concern, but they seemed uncomfortable, which made her a little uncomfortable as she worked with them.
Nick walked into the break room, a troubled expression on his face. "Hey Cath, you got a second?"
Catherine looked up at him, indicating he had her attention.
"It's about me and Sara."
"I figured as much."
Nick looked around to make sure nobody was heading toward the break room. "We kind of kissed."
"I didn't figure that much." Her surprised expression quickly dissolved into a frown. "What do you mean, 'kind of'?"
"I mean, we did. But then I jumped to conclusions, and said some stuff, and now Sara's pissed off. And I know she won't listen to anything I have to say, much less believe me."
"Well have you even tried talking to her yet?" Catherine gave him a look.
"No. C'mon, you saw her."
Catherine sighed. "Nick, despite how you two freakishly complete each other's sentences half the time, she's not that good of a mind reader. Just talk to her. We all know you two are gonna get together eventually. Better now than later." She stood up. "I'm gonna go see how Bobby is doing on our shell casings." And with that she left, leaving Nick more confused than he was before their conversation.
What did she mean, "we all know"?
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Nick wasn't ready to take Catherine's advice, so the next night was just as painfully awkward as the previous one. Given her stubbornness, he figured Sara wouldn't initiate any kind of discussion, so he knew he'd probably have to be the one to say something. He just wasn't sure how to go about it. Despite how well he used to be able to read Sara, things had changed between them and now he was having more than a little trouble.
Sara had made it through shift without much difficulty; while she did somewhat miss the ease with which she used to be able to talk to Nick while they worked together, the tension between them didn't really interfere with her ability to do her job. She still talked to him and they worked fine together, it just wasn't as comfortable and friendly as it had been.
Nevertheless, it was still uncomfortable, and she knew that in her line of work, she needed to reduce any kind of non-work-related stress and tension whenever possible. She walked into the locker room and was relieved to see the person she was looking for. "Do you have plans this morning?"
"Uh, no, not really." Catherine gave her a quizzical look.
"Uh, I was wondering if you wanted to grab some breakfast. I kind of need someone to talk to. And some advice."
Catherine sighed, knowing exactly what this was about. "Wait here." She stepped out of the locker room and saw Warrick approaching. "Go get Nick."
"Huh?"
"Go get Nick." She grabbed his shoulders and turned him around. "Hurry up."
"Alright, alright. No need to get pushy."
A minute later Warrick returned with a protesting Nick.
"What is the damn hurry?" Nick's tone was testy as Warrick practically pushed him down the hall.
"Hey, don't shoot the messenger," Warrick replied as they walked up to Catherine.
"Stay here," Catherine ordered Warrick as she grabbed Nick by the arm and pulled him into the locker room. She sat him down on the bench next to Sara. "Look, you both made mistakes, you both have feelings for each other, and you're both either too stubborn or too stupid to do anything about it. So apologize and kiss and make up and get on with it. I'm not getting in the middle of this. God, it feels like I'm in high school again," she rolled her eyes as she left the two alone.
Nick was the first to speak. "I guess Catherine's right."
"Yeah."
"I'm sorry," Nick apologized.
"No, I'm sorry. I did all of the yelling and storming off. Most of this was all my fault anyway."
"Yeah, you're right. It was your fault. I take my apology back," he teased.
Sara shot him a glare, feigning anger.
His only response was a toothy grin. "So do you wanna grab some breakfast?"
Sara smiled. "Sure." She got up and started for the door.
"Wait." Nick stood up and gave her a kiss, short but perfectly sweet.
She looked at him, wondering where that came from.
"Catherine said we should kiss and make up," he smiled.
"So that was just for Catherine?" Sara teased.
"Yeah." He kissed her again. "But that one's for me."
The End