Chapter one

A post-ep for 6X05: Gum Drops that has now turned into a casefile all of its own.

Warnings: The casefile deals with the topic of sexual violence against children. I hope this topic is handled with dignity and respect, but please do not read if this will be upsetting to you.

This fic also contains sporadic bad language.

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Sara had finished processing the Daniels' knife and shoes and was in the locker room when Nick returned from interviewing Cassie McBride. He looked as tired as she was; his skin grey under the strip lighting that illuminated the lockers and benches.

He paused for a moment between stowing his jacket in his locker and taking out his street shoes, and looked her up and down. She knew that the dark circles under his eyes were twins of his own, and that her shoulders were slumped with fatigue and misery.

His voice broke into her thoughts. "Sara, would you like to join me for breakfast?"

Sara fought a wave of longing so intense it nearly made her knees buckle. The McBride case had awakened some ghosts and a coil of fear and tension and desperation was lying heavy in her stomach.

Every time a case involving a child came up she could tell from the looks of her colleagues that they suspected that it might have personal resonance for her. Warwick's eyes full of gentleness and compassion. Nick's and Greg's courteously speculative, protecting her as best they could from the worst horrors of each individual case. Catherine's wary and impatient.

Sara knew that Catherine found her occasional outbursts to be histrionic and that she had more than hinted to Grissom that Sara needed to be gently confronted about her response to cases involving violence against women and children.

Sara's objective side could understand Catherine's perspective, and even applaud its unsentimental kindness. Nick, Greg and Warrick's avuncular protectiveness sometimes came off as patronising. The hurt, scared Sara, though, felt exposed and ashamed by Catherine's judgment of her inability to rip the band-aid off, and found herself unable to curtail her brusqueness around the redhead.

Sara had thought for a long time that Nick might have ghosts of his own. She had a pretty decent spider sense when it came to childhood trauma and Nick was, after all, remorseless when it came to chasing down child abusers and killers. She had rejected that hypothesis eventually, and reminded herself that all decent, normal people felt protective toward children and did not need a movie-of-the-week back-story to feel outrage at innocence harmed.

For a while, though, she had wondered if his invitations to breakfast after a brutal case with a minor victim might lead to mutual confession and commiseration.

She thought of how delicious it would be to have Nick's concerned eyes turned on her while she purged herself of some clammy, anxious memories. He was capable of enormous warmth and kindness, and she craved the comfort that might bring. But even as she could imagine the sense of warmth and giddy liberty that speaking to Nick would elicit, she could foresee the sucking wave of shame that would break over her afterwards.

She stashed her work jacket in her locker as her throat ached with unshed tears; reminding her of the days when she played Tori Amos and sucked down countless Marlboros in a bid to forget.

She wished someone would ask the question that had been hanging in the air like smoke since soon after her arrival in the Vegas crime lab; the question to which she was too afraid to volunteer the answer. She was exhausted by the constant cycle of remembering and forgetting and she knew that the McBride case would provoke nightmares, sleeplessness and that queasy sense of foreboding that would plague her for at least a week.

She closed her locker door, resting her palm and forehead against the cool metal.

"Sara?" Nick asked. He had put on his shoes and was leaning forward to lace them up.

Sara felt her stomach roil, tasted the bile rising in her throat. She straightened up and slung her bag over her shoulder.

"No thanks, Nick," she said, as brightly as she could. "Some other time."