Warrick sighed as he set down the magazine he was flipping through.

"What's wrong?" he asked.

Nick looked up from his cup of coffee, one eyebrow raised.

"What do you mean?"

"I mean that you've been in a shitty mood for weeks and I'm tired of it. What's wrong?"

"Nothing."

"Don't lie to me, man."

"I just…I don't want to talk about it yet, okay?"

Warrick looked at him for a long minute. He wanted to push it, to make his friend open up to him. But he could tell from the look on Nick's face that he wasn't going to budge.

"Alright. But you better talk to me at some point, okay?"

Nick gave him a small smile.

"Yeah, yeah."

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"I need to talk to you," Catherine said as soon as she walked into the lab.

Nick looked up from the microscope.

"Okay. About what?"

"I just got a call from the D.A.'s office. Please tell me you did not leave evidence for the Scarpo case in your truck before bringing it back to the lab."

Nick frowned. "It was only for a couple minutes, Cath. My allergies were killing me. I had to run home and grab some meds."

"And you took the evidence with you?"

"I could barely drive my eyes were so itchy. If I had thought I could make it to the lab first, I would have."

Catherine sighed. "Nick, you can't do that. You cannot leave evidence unsecured –"

"It wasn't unsecured!" he protested. "It was in an LVPD truck. It was locked. I brought it straight to the lab once I had grabbed my meds!"

"That doesn't matter," she insisted. "You broke protocol, and somehow the defense found out about it. Now our case could get thrown out."

"Cath –"

"No," she interrupted, holding up a hand to stop him. "Don't. I have to go see if I can fix this."

Without another word, she turned around and walked out, leaving Nick to stare after her in guilt and confusion.

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"You seem to be in an even worse mood than usual," Warrick commented when he walked into the locker room and found Nick sitting on the bench, his head in his hands.

"Just leave it," he mumbled.

"Come on, man. Talk to me."

Nick sighed, looking up. "Cath yelled at me."

"Oh yeah," Warrick said. "I heard about that."

"From who?"

"Catherine."

"So, what? She's going around and telling everybody what a big screw-up I am?"

"Well, you did screw up, Nick."

"What was I supposed to do?" he asked, his voice rising. "I needed to grab some medicine, or I might have crashed the stupid truck and spilled our evidence out all over the road. I had to make a choice!"

"And it was the wrong one," Warrick retorted, his voice rising to meet Nick's. "You could have called one of us to bring you something. You could have carried with you. Instead, you broke protocol and possibly ruined the case!"

"You too?" Nick yelled. "I don't have to just deal with Catherine breathing down my neck, but I have to deal with her lap dog too?"

Warrick's expression hardened, and he got in Nick's face.

"What did you say?" he asked, his voice low and menacing.

"You heard me. Little miss Catherine can't do anything wrong in your eyes. It's kind of pathetic really."

"Watch it man. Don't go taking your bad mood out on the rest of us. It's not our fault you've got a bug up your ass. In fact, maybe you wouldn't have fucked up if you'd stop moping around here like you lost your best friend."

"Don't. Don't you dare pretend you know what's wrong with me."

"That's the point, Nick! I don't know! Because you won't tell me. We're supposed to be friends."

He had nothing to say to that. Warrick's words had cut too close to home, and Nick knew that he was dangerously close to losing it. So he shook his head and walked toward the door.

"Forget it," he threw over his shoulder. "You wouldn't understand."

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"Hey Nicky," Sara greeted as she passed him in the hall.

"Hey," he smiled, realizing that it was the first time he had done so in a couple days. "Can I talk to you for a sec?"

"Actually, I'm on my way to court. Testifying in the DelCarro case."

"Right," he said quietly.

"I'll talk to you later though, okay?"

"Yeah," he answered, but she was already past him and walking out of the building.

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As Nick continued down the hall, he passed Grissom's office. His boss looked up as he passed, calling his name. Nick stopped and sighed, guessing that he was in for another ass chewing.

"Yeah?" he asked, poking his head into the office.

"I need to talk to you. Shut the door please."

He tried to take a steadying breath as he closed the door. When he turned to face the room again, Grissom was standing in front of his desk, leaning back against it.

"I heard you had a run-in with Catherine and Warrick today. About leaving evidence in the Scarpo case unsecured?"

For some reason, it was more than Nick could take. Catherine and Warrick yelling at him was bad enough, but he couldn't take it from Grissom too. He wouldn't be in a bad mood at all if it weren't for him, and he irrationally figured that everything that had happened that day was his fault.

"You know what, Gris?" he asked, his voice rising quickly. "I don't want to hear it from you. I've already gotten reamed by Cath and Warrick. I don't need to hear it again – especially not from you!"

Grissom watched him carefully. Warrick wasn't the only one who had noticed the CSI's bad mood of late, and he was slowly starting to piece together what was going on.

"Why not from me?" he asked. "Did I do something to upset you?"

"You're damn right you did!" Nick yelled, his emotion getting the better of him. He hadn't meant to yell at his boss, but now that he was started, he found that he couldn't stop. "You lied to us – all of us – for more than a year!"

"Lied to you?"

"About you and Sara being together."

"I'm sorry, Nick," Grissom said gently. "But I don't understand how our relationship was any of your business."

"We're friends!" he yelled. "Hell, we're practically family! You, me, Sara, Cath, Warrick, Greg, Hodges, Brass – we're together so often that we had no choice to become close. But you – you sat there for a year and pretended like nothing had changed."

"Nothing really had –"

"Everything had changed!" Nick bellowed.

"How?" Grissom asked, his voice still calm and quiet. "Nick, what's really bothering you? Do you blame me for something?"

He lost a hold of all the anger he'd been carrying around as he sank into a chair close by. When he raised his eyes, Grissom was surprised to see tears there.

"It feels like you stole her."

"Who?"

"Sara. She's my best friend, Gris, and you took her from me. And you didn't even see fit to tell me. It hurt," he explained, the last words coming out in a whisper.

Gil watched him for a long time, everything suddenly clicking into place. To be honest, he had never even considered Nick's feelings when he and Sara had started dating, and now he regretted his lack of foresight. Sighing, he pushed himself away from his desk and took a seat in the chair next to Nick's.

"Do you want to know why I called you in here?" he finally asked.

"To yell at me for screwing up with the evidence."

"No. I called you in here to tell you that I'm leaving Las Vegas."

A look of confusion and panic came over the younger man's face.

"And you're taking her?" he asked, his voice sounding small.

Grissom gave him a small smile.

"No, Nick. I'm not. Sara and I stopped seeing each other two weeks ago."

"What?"

Grissom shrugged. "It wasn't working. We finally realized that we didn't love each other. We wanted to do, but we just couldn't. Our hearts belong to different people."

Nick frowned. "So…you're leaving?"

"There's somewhere else I need to be. Someone else I need to be with."

"Who? Wait – that's none of my business."

"Teri."

Nick's eyes widened. "Really?"

"Really." Grissom watched him for another moment. "You love her, don't you? Sara, I mean."

Nick lowered his eyes again, leaning his arms on his thighs.

"I'm sorry," he said quietly.

"You have nothing to apologize for," Grissom assured him. "I wish I had realized it sooner. Maybe then we wouldn't have hurt you."

Frowning, Nick looked up again. "You said "our hearts belong to different people." Does that mean she's in love with someone else too?"

"Yes."

"Oh."

"I think you're missing a vital part of this equation, Nick."

"What do you mean?"

"You were right when you said that I stole her."

Nick shook his head. "No, Gris. I shouldn't have said that. She –"

"She never belonged to me, Nick. Someone else has always had her heart. Maybe if I hadn't taken her from where she belonged, a lot of pain could have been avoided."

"Where she belonged?" he asked.

Grissom nodded.

"With you."

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When his shift was finally over, Nick headed wearily to the locker room. Catherine had been able to keep the Scarpo case from being ruined, and he and Warrick had had a long talk. When he told his friend what had been bothering him and about his conversation with Grissom, Warrick finally understood. He knew what it was like to watch someone you loved walk off with someone else. Nick was just glad that he wasn't holding a grudge against him for the awful things he had said.

As he walked into the locker room, he stopped suddenly, seeing Sara sitting on the bench staring into her locker. He wondered if he should leave her be, but he couldn't make himself turn around. So instead he walked in quietly and took a seat next to her.

"You okay?" he finally asked.

She turned and gave him a small smile.

"Yeah, actually. I'm better than I have been in awhile."

"I know about Gris," he said quietly.

Sara nodded. "He said he was going to start telling people."

"And you're okay with it?" he asked again. "With him leaving?"

She shrugged. "I'll miss him. He was a good friend. But the other stuff didn't work. If he can go be happy somewhere else, then I think he should go."

"What about you?" Nick asked. "You deserve to be happy too."

Sara searched for a way to change the subject.

"Didn't you want to talk to me earlier?"

Nick nodded. "Yeah. I kinda had a bad day."

"You seem to be having a few of those lately."

"I was angry," he said quietly.

"With who?"

"Grissom."

Sara frowned. "For what?"

"I don't want you to be mad at me."

She reached out and took his hand.

"Just tell me, Nick."

He refused to meet her gaze, locking his eyes on the floor.

"It felt like…like he had taken you from me."

"What?"

"You're my best friend, Sara. And for the past few months, it feels like…we never see each other anymore. We never really talk. When I found out about you and Grissom, I got angry. I knew that he was the reason."

"And it didn't help that I didn't tell you about him," she said quietly.

He shook his head.

"How much did he tell you?" she asked suddenly. "Grissom."

Nick raised his eyes to her and held her gaze.

"Everything."

"Everything?" she asked.

He nodded. "Why didn't you ever say anything?"

She shrugged. "I never thought you'd look twice at me. I'm a far cry from the girls you normally go out with."

"I only go out with them because I can't have you."

She raised a hand and cupped his cheek, rubbing her thumb along his skin.

"You already do have me."

He leaned into her touch, closing his eyes.

"Do you want to get breakfast?" he finally asked.

Sara smirked at him.

"Are you asking me out on a date?"

"I am."

"Then let's go."

He opened his eyes again and stared at her for a moment. Then he leaned in and kissed her softly.

"Let's," he whispered.