Grissom is sitting in shock, with blood on his hands and the lights from the emergency vehicles painting him in a garishly pat
Grissom is sitting in shock, with blood on his hands and the lights from the emergency vehicles painting him in a garishly patriotic display. He can dimly hear Catherine crying in the background, sobbing, and is grateful to Nick for taking her in his arms and holding her, because he should be doing that, he's her friend, but he can't. He can't move.
"Warrick," he whispers, over and over, at random intervals. "Warrick."
Greg is standing near him, with no idea what to do. He wants to touch him, lay a hand on Grissom's shoulder, sit beside him, anything, if it would help. But Greg's thought processes are slow and scattered, and Grissom is, well, Grissom, and so he can't think what to do. And then he hears, in this midst of a string of "Warrick"s, something different. Even fainter, almost impossible to hear over the surrounding chaos, but easy because their world had shrunk to include only the four of them.
"Sara."
That, at least, he can do something about.
Sara is hauling grocery bags out of her rental car when her phone rings, and she swears at it. She's trying to get ready to cook dinner for her mother, because it's easier to spend time with her mother when she has something else to think about, and she's a miserable cook so it takes a lot of thinking.
But her phone's ringing, and it doesn't do that a lot lately. When it does, it's usually Gil, and she has been known to bolt out of libraries leaving a stack of books on the shelf in order to talk to him. So she shoves one bag back on the seat of the car and fishes in her purse for her keys and her phone, fumbling with the lock while she answers. "Hey you," she says, her voice warm.
It's Greg who answers. "Sara." His voice is barely recognizable, and there's a ton of noise in the background. The rough brown paper of the grocery bag is suddenly slippery, and she hears bottles and boxes clank and bump as it falls to the ground.
"Grissom, where's Grissom?" Her voice is too loud and too panicked.
"He's fine, Sara, he's okay, we're all –" He cuts himself off with a funny choking sound in his throat, which it takes her a minute to place. She finally does; it's the sound Greg makes when he's trying not to cry. She's only heard it once before, in the hospital after he was attacked.
She'd hoped never to hear it again.
He's quiet for a minute, and she hears the noise in the background again, the unmistakable sounds of a crime scene. "Greg –"
"Come home, Sara." He's got it under control, but he still sounds strange. "You need to come home now."
She'd bought red wine vinegar, and she watches the stain from the broken bottle seep through the paper bag, dark and irregular, as she listens to what Greg's telling her.
When he's finished, she doesn't think, she doesn't worry, she isn't even aware of making a decision.
She goes home.
FIN