Rumours

Disclaimer - I don't own CSI.

A/N: Came up with this idea late last year and only now got round to writing it. I'm trying to do as much writing as I can because I've missed it so much. Parts of this chapter are in italics for flashbacks. Enjoy!

Chapter 1

"So, uh, what you got?" Sara asked anxiously.

"Nothing really, well nothing new," Nick insisted, putting on a false smile even she could see through. "Maybe a fibre or two but they look just the same as the ones you found at the scene."

"Good," she nodded. "Well, not good but at least you've got more than me."

"Yep," Nick nodded, staring round the room awkwardly, avoiding eye contact with his co-worker.

A very awkward and uncomfortable silence followed. Everything was awkward between them. It was almost painful. Soon the pair of them simply drifted back into processing evidence as they'd been doing before.

Nick and Sara had been paired up to investigate the murder of a man found in an alleyway a few blocks away from The Strip. It had been a fairly straight forward scene, nothing overly complicated or time consuming. Brass had started running with the idea that the man must have been mugged seen as he had no ID on him so was working on trying to identify him. So Nick and Sara stuck with trying to work out how he had died and why the man had been in the alleyway in the first place in the hope that they'd find out who he was in the process. They weren't having much success and the tension between the pair was becoming unimaginably suffocating. Working together was becoming unbearable.

"No, I don't care. I'm going to ask them," Greg's voice bellowed into the layout room, instantly grabbing the attention of its two quiet occupants.

"Greg, stop, you can't… you can't just ask," insisted Warrick as he came to a stop just behind Greg in the doorway.

"I'm finding out for sure," Greg threw over his shoulder before turning to address Nick and Sara with almost a stern look on his face.

Before Sara had a chance to interrupt and ask what they were doing Greg blurted out a question she never anticipated hearing.

"Are you two dating?" Greg asked as though it was the most normal thing in the world.

A moment of silence hung over them, his question almost echoing off the walls.

"Uh…," Nick gulped and stared off into space.

"Yes," Sara answered nonchalantly. "Well… we were."

"What do you mean, 'we were'?" Greg looked perplexed.

"Exactly that. We were dating," Sara replied, somehow keeping a straight and expressionless face.

"We broke up last week," Nick clarified, looking down and upset.

Greg's eyes widened. "Oh…, I, uh, um…," he stuttered.

Warrick gave Greg a light swat over the back of his head. "I'm sorry, I told him not to say anything," he offered, in an attempt to explain.

"There's no need to apologise," Sara insisted, forcing a smile. "We're good. Still friends. Right, Nicky?"

"Right," he nodded, his heart sinking as he heard her use his nickname.

This was the first case they had worked together since they'd broken up. It was hard for both of them, and they both knew that. Maybe that made it somewhat easier in a strange kind of way. So neither of them talked about it and kept things totally professional, or as professional as they possibly could. It wasn't an easy task but they knew that if they were to get justice for the John Doe that lay in the morgue and the family that he probably had then they had to learn to work together one way or another. It felt strange that they practically had to learn to work together all over again. Things were much different now than they once were, but that couldn't be helped. They took that risk and sadly this time it hadn't seemed to have paid off.

Sara could see the sadness in Nick's eyes, and knowing she'd put that sadness there was near on unbearable. She quickly looked away again. She never wanted to hurt him. Things just happened, words were said, and hearts were broken. That's what happens sometimes. Neither of them wished for it to end the way it did, Nick especially. The way he looked at her before was nothing in comparison to how he looked at her now. Nick would often just stare at Sara with a blank expression on his face, as though he didn't know how to feel. That made Sara angry. She wished he knew how to feel. She wanted him to be angry at her; she was angry at herself. Anger, betrayal, hatred, anything was better than nothing. How could he feel nothing?

Just then she looked up and turned her head to look into his eyes again, see if maybe he felt something now. What she saw took her breath away. She saw love. She thought at first she may have been mistaken but not many men had looked at her quite like that. Sara saw how Nick had once looked at her not so long ago. Love, adoration, desire. That was worse than seeing nothing. Her eyes filled with tears and she quickly excused herself from the room.

"Sara," Nick called after her in a desperate attempt to stop her leaving. He knew what he'd done. But he couldn't help himself, he couldn't help how he felt about her. He'd tried not to let it show but having just talked about the relationship that they'd once had he couldn't stop his emotions reaching the surface. He was only human after all.

"Should I… should one of us…," Greg stumbled over his words, still a bit in shock.

"Nah, she wouldn't want that," Nick shook his head.

"Should you, maybe…," Greg offered.

"She definitely wouldn't want that," Nick smiled weakly. "She'll be okay."

"I told him not to say anything," Warrick insisted, trying to comfort his friend.

Nick shrugged. "You know the truth now."

"I'll speak to you later," Warrick insisted, the tone of his voice saying that there was no room for arguments.

Nick nodded as Warrick pulled Greg backwards out of the room before he could say anything else. As soon as they were out of sight he removed his latex gloves and rubbed his hands over his face. He let out the mother of all sighs. This was not how he'd imagined his friends finding out about his relationship with Sara, or rather former relationship. At the start he couldn't wait to tell everyone but that's exactly what Sara didn't want to do, she wanted to wait and see where things went. It turned out that she was right, as she always was. Things hadn't worked out between them apparently, according to Sara. Nick supposed that this situation was probably worse than the whole team knowing about their relationship when it had started and watching it fall apart. Now they were going to pick up on every little thing, even the smallest of tension between them. And they'd probably point it out too. His day had just got a whole lot worse.

As Warrick and Greg walked away from the layout room they headed in separate directions. Greg still hadn't gotten his head round what had happened and naturally felt very guilty. Warrick aimed for the break room. When he turned the corner he saw Sara heading straight towards him.

"Urgh," she exclaimed in frustration as she quickly turned around to head back in the direction she'd come from.

"Wait, Sara," Warrick jogged slightly to catch up with her.

"What?" she sighed, narrowing her eyes a little.

"I just wanted to see if you were alright."

"Absolutely fantastic," she glared at him, being sarcastic. "But you won't care about me once you and Nick have a good gossip about what happened."

"Sara, don't be like that…," Warrick reached out for her arm as she tried to walk away from him.

"Has he not told you I'm the bad guy in all of this yet?" Sara questioned as she pulled her arm out of his grasp and briskly walked away.

Warrick sighed and contemplated following her, but relented. In the end he decided she just needed some time to calm down.

"Won't talk to you either, huh?" Nick asked, crossing his arms over his chest and leaning back against the wall behind Warrick.

Warrick jumped slightly as he turned round to the voice coming from behind him. Seeing who it was, he offered his friend a sympathetic smile. "What happened, Nicky?"

Nick chose to answer with his own question. "Have you had breakfast yet?"

Within an hour Nick and Warrick were sat in a diner booth waiting to be served their bacon and egg breakfasts. Nick was unusually quiet, and looked somewhat glum and disheartened.

Warrick chose to clear the air. "I can't apologise enough for Greg asking about…"

"It's fine," Nick interrupted. "You didn't know what had happened."

"That just makes me feel more guilty," he insisted. "We should have known, we're your friends. We should have noticed something was different."

"And we probably should have told you, but you can see why we didn't, in case this happened," Nick shrugged, looking out the window.

"Well, I suppose I had my suspicions," Warrick commented thoughtfully.

"How come?"

"There were some, rumours…," he voiced his opinion.

"Yeah, I bet there was," Nick simply rolled his eyes.

"We really had no idea you two had been dating," Warrick shook his head in despair, assumingly still slightly in shock. "I can't believe we didn't notice sooner."

"Thought there were rumours?"

"There's always rumours," Warrick countered. "And yes, I thought there was something between you but I didn't think either of you had acted on it. You two had been dating the whole time, and we had no idea."

"Yeah, well, had being the operative word," Nick sighed. "It doesn't matter anyway, it's over."

"What happened, Nicky?"

"It just didn't work out, simple as that," Nick stared around the room.

"How about we start from the beginning," Warrick suggested. "How did it start?"

"By accident really," Nick smiled slightly at the memory. "We didn't plan it, it just happened. But neither of us regretted it, at the time anyway."

"Okay, okay, truth or dare," Sara declared, sipping on her coffee.

"Do you wanna go first?" Nick asked.

"No, you can," she insisted, relenting and allowing him to ask the first question.

"Okay then. Truth or dare?"

"Truth," she decided.

"Have you ever had a one night stand?" Nick asked with interest almost instantly.

"Really?" Sara raised her eyebrows, giving him a look. "I thought you'd have asked something better than that."

"It's something I've always wondered about you," he insisted, pursing his lips to prevent a large smile creeping onto his face.

Sara cleared her throat and shifted rather uncomfortably in her seat. She supposed it was a fair question, a question that she may have been likely to have asked him when her turn came. She took a long sip of her coffee before inhaling sharply and answered, "Yes, a few. But I'm not exactly proud of it."

"Really?" Nick seemed almost shocked. "I never really saw you as that type of woman."

"Well, I guess there's a lot about me that you don't know yet," she stated correctly, looking slightly smug. "Now it's my turn. Truth or dare?"

"Truth."

"Have you ever had a one night stand?" she asked.

"Come on, ask me a different question," Nick gave her a look.

"What's wrong with the question I just asked?" Sara wondered, feigning innocence.

"I've already asked it, and you can't ask a question twice," he stated.

"Since when?"

"Since right now," he insisted. "I know that you know the answer to that question anyways. I know what people say about me."

Suddenly the situation had turned rather sombre. Nick looked utterly dejected. Maybe playing truth or dare hadn't been the best idea she'd ever had. He'd invited her round to his apartment for breakfast, and it made a lovely change from her usual boring morning routine. Once breakfast had been eaten she had been reluctant to go home, so Nick had suggested she stay for a while and they could just watch some TV, maybe even a movie. Flicking through the channels made them remember when they were so glad to sleep during the daylight hours; there was never anything decent on the TV in the morning. So they'd just sat and talked for a while. Sara had complained about Greg a couple of times, and moaned about some new day shift tech who clearly had a crush on her. But Nick was more than willing to listen to her, to let her get the things that frustrated her off her chest. Now she thought she'd upset him, and that was the last thing she wanted. She hated seeing him like this, all sad and serious. You could normally count on Nick to lighten your mood in even the slightest way.

"You know, perceptions can be deceiving, I think so anyway," she offered, breaking the silence. "And I don't like to listen to any of that stuff, to rumours of any kind. I like to judge people by who they are."

Nick finally made eye contact with her again and gave her a smile. "Go on, ask me another question."

The time had pasted fairly quickly that morning, though by this point it was pretty much the afternoon. They could do that though, pass the time with ease. It was part of their characters, and very much part of their friendship. Their typical banter had ensued, along with their usual flirtation.

"Truth or dare?" he asked again, a short time later.

"Truth," Sara smiled.

"Oh, come on," he exclaimed. "Live a little. I'm gonna ask you again; truth or dare?"

"Fine. Dare," Sara rolled her eyes at him.

"Good," Nick grinned triumphantly. He took a short moment to pause and think about what his dare would be. He'd already had a few options floating around inside his head since Sara had first suggested they play the game but one idea had stuck out and just wouldn't leave him. What she'd said before had given him courage that perhaps there was something there between them, even the tiniest of something's. Truth be told he was taking advantage of the situation, but who wouldn't? He'd always considered himself a chancer, and this was his chance to push the boat out. He was going to see just how much she'd let him get away with. "Would you kiss me?" he blurted out.

"Excuse me?"

"Let me rephrase that. I dare you to kiss me," he announced.

"What?" Sara looked perplexed.

"You chose dare, right? So I'm daring you to kiss me," Nick tried to explain himself and looked almost smug in the process.

"Yeah, I chose dare, but you can't do that…," Sara fumbled over her words.

"But I can, and I have," he grinned. "You're not scared, are you?"

"What? No," she shook her head. "It's just…"

"So what's the problem then?"

Sara pursed her lips and let out a sigh. She couldn't believe he'd dared her to kiss him. Who does that? She tried to make out like it wasn't a big deal, that it was the most normal thing in the world. But of course it was a big deal. This isn't the type of thing that usually happened to her. He knew she was stubborn and wouldn't even consider backing down, but that would have been why he'd asked. But it'd thrown her as to why he'd dared her to kiss him; she wondered why now. She tried her best to glare at him, thinking he looked way too arrogant. He was enjoying it. He was probably thinking that despite her stubborn and determined nature that she would back down, and he would win. It was a win win situation for him.

Sara mustered up all her resolve and courage, grabbed Nick by the collar of his shirt and pulled him into a rather fiery kiss. Nick's eyes bulged in complete surprise as he sat there totally stunned and bewildered. After a few seconds she pulled away, but Nick's expression remained the same.

"Happy now?" she crossed her arms over her chest; it was her turn to be smug.

"Wow…," was all Nick could say, before he cleared his throat. "Yeah, I'm, uh… I'm happy."

"Good," she smiled at him.

Suddenly their eyes met. They couldn't look away. In that moment they knew things had changed between them, for good. And they hoped, for the better.

Warrick tried to look optimistic as he continued a minute or so later, bringing Nick back into reality. "When did it start?"

"Um…," he trailed off and smiled at the waitress as she handed over their plates of food, allowing him a few seconds to think. "About 3 months ago."

"That long ago?" Warrick raised his eyebrows in surprise.

"I guess we're good at keeping secrets," he gave him a weak smile.

"We found out eventually," Warrick insisted, almost defensively.

"After we'd broken up."

"And surely that should prove something to you, to both of you. It was only last week that you broke up, so things can easily be salvaged. There is clearly still some chemistry there," Warrick offered. "There's definitely something there."

"Oh, I doubt it. Sara made that very clear. You guys were just slow, that's all. You saw something that was there once, but whatever it was it's gone now. Whatever we had is gone now," Nick frowned, only making eye contact with his plate.

"I don't believe you," Warrick argued.

"Things have to go back to normal," Nick insisted. "That's what she wants."

"But things won't go back to normal, will they?" Warrick reasoned. "You must know that. I'm really sorry things didn't work out. But you two could be great together."

"You think so?" Nick wondered, not looking convinced as he lifted his head to meet his friends' gaze.

"I know so," he smiled.

"Well, can you tell Sara that?" Nick scoffed, turning his attention back to the window as he mindlessly played with the food on his plate. "She won't listen to me."

"So Sara ended it?" Warrick surmised.

"Wow, you should really work for the police, you know that?" Nick said sarcastically.

"Come on, play fair here," Warrick gave him a look.

"Yeah, she ended it," Nick nodded reluctantly. "And I have no idea why."

"Seriously? She gave you no reason why?" he asked, incredulously.

"Yep, she ended it, without any explanation. I asked and I asked, but she can barely look me in the eye anymore let alone talk to me," Nick looked completely deflated. "I don't know if it's something I've done or said because she won't tell me so I can't do anything about it, I can't make things better again."

"That doesn't sound like the Sara we know," Warrick insisted, looking a bit confused as to why she would behave like that. "There must be a reason why, surely?"

"It had started out so good, you know? I mean, the pair of us were practically walking on eggshells at first because it was completely new to both of us but it felt different, felt right. I really thought that we could have gone somewhere, that we could have had so much together, but she ruined all that," Nick hung his head.

"Oh, come on you don't mean that. I know you better than that. You're just hurt…," Warrick began.

"Damn right I'm hurt," Nick interrupted him. "I put so much into our relationship, and for what? I kept it a secret from everyone because that's what she wanted despite the fact I was desperate to tell you all. I loved her, and she through it right back in my face."

"I know you're angry but you need to ask yourself if you still want to be with her," Warrick insisted.

"Of course I want to be with her," he exclaimed. "But my feelings count for nothing. She's made that perfectly clear."

"You need to talk to her, tell her how you feel," Warrick told him.

"She already knows exactly how I feel."

"Then tell her again," Warrick maintained. "Don't give up. You love her, right?

"More than I thought I could love anyone," replied Nick.

"Then don't let her forget it," Warrick said softly. "Remind her how good things were, and how good they could be again."

"But she won't listen to me," he looked Warrick in the eye, showing him just how upset the situation made him.

"You have to try," Warrick wasn't going to back down.

"Urgh," he grunted in despair.

"You've gotta fight for her," Warrick insisted, trying to build up his friend's spirit. "You need to show her you still love her."

Nick nodded. "Nothing beats falling in love with your best friend," he stated matter of factly, sounding rather like a wise old man.

"Wow, Nicky, you've got it bad," he chuckled lightly.

Nick laughed in spite of himself, rubbing his hands over his face and mumbling, "Yeah, I know. It's pathetic."

Warrick shook his head. "You know what you want and that can't be a bad thing."

"Do you think so?" Nick didn't seem to be convinced.

Warrick nodded. "Just talk to her, remind her how you feel and how good things were when you were together, make things right. Then kiss, or do whatever it is you do to make up and put this behind you," he insisted. "Then be happy."

Thank you for reading. The last part will be up soon. Please review.