Disclaimer: I don't own CSI.

A/N: To my Oh-so-loyal readers... I know, I know. I take forever to update Attrition, and I'm starting a new one? However, I am under the potentially incorrect belief that having something a little lighter to work on in addition to Attrition will make me feel a little less... blah, every time I work on it. In the past, multiple stories have worked for me, so I'm hoping, and I'm hoping that you'll follow me on this adventure as well. :)

That being said, reviews are appreciated. I'm a little apprehensive about this story and how it will unfold, so please, give me feedback. 3

Finally, thanks once again to Pati, who helped me make this understandable to people who might not be familiar with the potential extremes of the North. If this chapter makes any sense, or is any good, it's because of her help.

Enjoy!

Prologue:

"We're going to be just fine." He said, but it was in the way that people speak when they're afraid those around them will panic. And maybe that isn't so far from the truth, Sara thought, watching her boss and mentor, one-time friend and love-for-all-time, as he moved around the tiny building.

It had been foolish to come here in the first place. Foolish not to wait when they'd both known the forecast. Foolish to keep coming, even as temperatures dropped and visibility lessened. Foolish to try to follow up on this slimmest of leads. …Foolish to come here with him at all, to Minnesota. She could so easily have briefed him before he got on the plane. So easily have offered her insight via email and telephone. Really, had she ever failed to answer his calls, save for a single page, years previous, when she'd been out of town and out of the service area, pretending to like wine?

But then Grissom would have been here alone, and in general, emergencies were better when shared. Sure, you had to share resources, but you also had help… extra insight… someone to talk to. …Something that might prove invaluable here shortly.

She glanced around the cabin that had clearly been abandoned for years—a decade, maybe more. There was nothing to process here, she thought bitterly, but they were lucky to have made it here at all… to have the meager shelter it offered. She gnawed on her bottom lip. She wasn't prepared for this, and that bothered her perhaps more than the situation itself. She knew what to do in an earthquake, and a flash flood, and how to survive in the desert, both in the heat of the day and when it turned frigid during winter nights. But she didn't have any winter survival knowledge for the north. She didn't know how to survive a blizzard. Yeah, she'd lived in Boston, but she had been young… she hadn't yet seen the importance of being prepared and informed on every possible danger that might befall her. …She hadn't yet seen the varied horrors life had to offer; she'd experienced a few very personal horrors, but she didn't yet know that people who were good and kind and sane could still lose everything exactly the way she had, for no real reason at all.

Grissom sighed in frustration at his cell phone and then caught her still-worried eyes and modified his voice before speaking. "…Do you have cell service?"

She immediately retrieved her phone from her pocket, checking the signal—it was weak, but there. She passed him the device in silence, and watched as he tried to hide how excited he was by the wavering, blinking line. Grissom showing excitement over this, as opposed to some science experiment or body covered in bugs… it meant that they were in pretty big trouble if he couldn't get through to anyone. She crossed her fingers and turned away from him while he made the call, pretending not to listen so that he could concentrate and pretending not to panic so he would stop tiptoeing around her.

Surely he could get in contact with the Hennepin County lab, and they could send someone from the city—someone in a large truck, with a plow and four-wheel drive and chains on the tires? Someone who would look at the swirling white that blocked out everything and feel no fear. People in California regarded earthquakes as matters of course, to some extent, didn't they? She had, when she lived there. …So people in Minnesota must be able to handle a measly little blizzard, no problem, right?

Her hands were shaking, but they were already in the pockets of a coat that was absolutely not warm enough for the climate, so she wasn't too worried about Grissom seeing them. She clenched them anyway, thinking that this would certainly calm her, a little.

Grissom was arguing with someone, but it sounded… confused. Like the connection was breaking up and he was having trouble really understanding what the person on the other end was saying, let alone getting his message across. Sara blocked it out, thinking that listening to that escalating conversation could do nothing to help her efforts to remain calm. She let her breath out in a rush and then scowled when it came in a white puff, bright and visible, even in the darkness. It was so cold, and it was only going to get colder. She took another glance around, thinking that in her anger she might have been hasty in dismissing this place as a potential scene… at least until she had seen all the rooms. And then she decided she needed to do something; she needed to be useful and feel like she was not just sitting here, waiting to freeze to death.

The cabin had no electricity, a result of the neglect of the place rather than some crazy attempt at recapturing a simpler, more rustic time. There were old, old lamps plugged into the wall, and even a television, though it had no cable boxes, merely a VCR. If she had to guess, this place had never had cable of any kind. It was small—the front room consisted of a living room and a kitchen, with bar stools pulled up to a counter to make up for the lack of a dining area. Her feet took her towards the hallway as she considered that she might as well check the rooms to be certain there was nothing to find. There she discovered far more doorways than she'd expected.

Directly across from the living room was a bathroom, complete with bathtub, and foolishly she thought of a hot shower before realizing that even if the water hadn't been turned off, there would be no electricity to work a water heater of any kind. She flicked on the small Maglite she had tucked in her pocket and flashed it around the room—there were no signs of recent life, and none of death either.

She moved to the next doorway and found a small utility room—said water heater in a corner, with a washer and dryer crammed in beside it, and some cleaning supplies on the tiny shelves. It smelled musty and she wrinkled up her nose as she repeated the procedure, confirming with a glance that this trip had been entirely foolhardy before firmly closing the door behind her again.

At the far end of the hall were two doorways—the first, on the same side of the hall as the bathroom and utility room, housed a bunk bed covered in tattered, threadbare, race car bedspreads, and a toy box in the corner. The second, behind the kitchen she thought, was the adult bedroom—it had a full-sized bed and another old television. Neither room held anything they'd been looking for, and this would be the one, other than perhaps the bathroom, where she could expect… something.

What did catch her eye was the fireplace in the corner. Grissom had told her this lake was pretty devoid of fish and would therefore not have housed ice fishers. He had told her that any cabins on this lake—all abandoned, now—would have been strictly summer retreats. She frowned at the out-of-place detail, taking in the elaborate stonework façade and the carved mantle above it. It was the only thing she'd been able to see, in the dark, that implied that the cabin had ever been more than a rundown shack on a shrinking lake in the middle of nowhere. It hinted at elegance, and it made her sad.

She shivered, only partially from the cold, and closed the door on the room, heading back out to find Grissom off the phone and looking through cupboards in the kitchen with his flashlight. She cleared her throat, and he looked at her a little sheepishly.

"They, uh… they're gonna try to get someone out here as soon as the weather clears up a bit. It's just that we're, uh… pretty far out and these roads are awful in winter. They don't get salted and in a blizzard, there's no way to see black ice or to…" He seemed to take in her confused face and offered a smile. "Well, they're trying, but it might be a little while, so we have to make the best of this, for the time being." There was something in the way he couldn't exactly meet her gaze that gnawed at her, making her feel sick to her stomach.

He was being falsely optimistic, which could only mean one thing—they were in a shit load of trouble.