Disclaimer: Sadly, I do not own any of the CSIs in this fic. They are the property of CBS so CBS gets the final say on these characters, even though I think it's about time we saw Greg do the robot.

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Sara Sidle awoke with a start.

She took a moment to orient herself, blinking a couple of times. She must have dropped off while searching through the missing persons database for a possible ID on her victim. For a second, she regretted not going paintballing with Nick, Greg, and the rest of the team. Spending the night with science geeks was bad, but not nearly as bad as spending the night with a bunch of people whose whereabouts were unknown.

She stared at the computer screen for another couple of seconds, and not registering anything, decided to take a break. Stretching as she stood up, Sara made her way down to the break room.

It was deserted, but she didn't really mind. Crossing over to the refrigerator and hoping she wouldn't find anything too grisly, she opened it, rummaging through its contents. A rotten smell wafted up to her, but she had learned to ignore these things. Deciding not to investigate the suspicious-looking container in the back of the refrigerator, she settled on the yogurt that Catherine had just brought yesterday. Hopefully, with the airtight seal, it wouldn't taste like the decomposing whatever Grissom had decided to stick in the refrigerator.

"Sara?'

Sara turned around to see Grissom at the doorway. "Hey, Griss," she greeted, opening the yogurt and noting with a certain amount of relief that the smell of strawberries was stronger than the smell of death.

"What are you doing here?" Grissom asked her, rather surprised. "What happened to paintballing?"

"You know, something about having Greg chase me around with a gun didn't really appeal," she responded lightly.

Grissom gave a wry smile, though she could tell he saw through. "You could have just taken the night off."

"Me?" Sara scoffed. "And leave you here alone? With, what," she gestured at the refrigerator, "Billy the rotting the brain?"

"Liver, actually," Grissom corrected seriously. "I wanted to see exactly how liver cells responded to exposure to--"

"Spare me the details," Sara groaned. Seeing as her appetite had disappeared, she threw her yogurt away and sat down at the table. "Speaking of unidentified livers, I went through missing persons to see if there was a report filed that matched the circumstances of our vic. It doesn't look good."

Grissom sat down next to her. "Nobody is nobody," he said. "Our vic can't hide forever."

"Mmm," Sara agreed. Grissom had an uncannily reasoned way of looking at matters, something Sara couldn't always do. "I just don't get it," she finally said. "He was just a little kid! Who wouldn't notice that their five year-old was missing?"

"Maybe there wasn't anyone there to notice," Grissom pointed out gently.

"That's just the thing! Who would ever abandon their own child? That's…" she trailed off.

Grissom had no answer for this, but his presence still comforted her. A small silence ensued, but it was not unnatural. She could tell that he was absorbed in his own thoughts and was content in letting him think. She liked it when he became quiet like that, and his being there soothed her anger, even though nothing about the case had changed.

She was about to open her mouth again when a small beep cut through the silence. Grissom responded immediately, reaching into his pocket and producing his cell phone. "Grissom." He listened, frowning. "I'll be there right away," he said after a moment. Closing the phone, he stood up. "Brass. A DB's just been called in."

"All right," Sara agreed, standing up as well. "Let's go."

Grissom opened his mouth as if to talk, but then closed it again. He was silent for a second. "You sure you don't want to take a night off?"

Sara tried to hide her annoyance. "And let you have all the fun?" She started towards the exit. "I think not." She didn't have to turn around to se the characteristic eyebrow raise that accompanied his acquiescence.

The car ride over was silent, albeit short. They arrived in a rundown parking lot of a small convenience store a couple minutes later. A portion of the parking lot was marked off by yellow crime scene tape, but Sara could see no dead body.

Grissom sensed her confusion. "It's in a car," he said. He gestured to a black Toyota sitting in the middle of the marked-off section. "That one, I'd say."

Detective Jim Brass was there to meet them, as usual. "We might be looking at a suicide," he told them curtly. "The store manager called the police after he noticed the car had been in his lot for a couple of days. Apparently he had told it to move and got no response." He gestured at a nervous little man who was standing a little off, flanked by two policemen.

Grissom had opened the door of the car. The Toyota was too small for two people to fit inside, and Sara waited at the impatiently. Grissom, however, was unusually quick. He emerged from the car a minute later, face grim. "She's dead all right, but it's not a suicide," he told Brass. He raised his eyebrows at Sara. "Want to take a look?'

Sara nodded, though she could feel a slight apprehension creeping up as she saw the blood splatter on the beige inside of the car door. Pushing the door open, she crawled into the backseat.

A grisly scene met her eyes. There was blood everywhere, splattered over the entire interior of the car. A young blonde, maybe in her early twenties, was sprawled on the seat, her arms and legs positioned at unnatural angles. One look was all Sara needed to see where the blood had come from – the young woman's wrists were cleanly slit. Upon closer inspection, she understood what Grissom had discovered.

"The cuts are clean," she shouted. "No sign of hesitation. And the cut on the left wrist tapers off towards the lateral side." Had the woman cut herself from left to right, as they all do, the cut would have tapered off towards the inside of the wrist. Instead, the cut was made form right to left from the point of view of the woman, indicating that an outsider her slit her wrist.

She could tell that Grissom was pleased as she climbed out of the car. "This is now a crime scene," he informed the officers, handing her the kit. "Sara, take pictures and collect anything you can find in the car. I've called the coroner and he's on his way. I'm going to talk to the owner." With that, he headed off in the direction of the store manager.

Ducking back into the car, Sara snapped a couple pictures of the body. She was tempted to put the woman back into a more humane position, but knew better. Instead, she tried not to look at the body as she searched the car. There was a lock of blond hair on the front seat that indicated a possible struggle, and Sara took a couple pictures before bagging it. She proceeded to check the purse that was on the passengers seat for a wallet, but finding nothing, could only assume that either Grissom or Brass had already taken it. Nothing else that seemed of great importance was in the purse, but she took it anyway.

Seeing that there was nothing else to search, Sara had no choice but to return to the body in the backseat. The amount of blood splatter indicated that there had been a struggle while the woman bled out, but there was no sign of whether or not the killer had been in the car while she as struggling. Snapping a couple final photos, Sara climbed out of the car. "There isn't much in there," she told Grissom, who was crouched on the asphalt near the car. "A lock of the vic's hair in the front seat indicates a struggle. I'm thinking she was pulled out the front seat and into the back."

"I could buy that," Grissom replied, pointing to something on the asphalt for Sara to see. "More hair, right outside the car."

Sara bent down, snapping a couple pictures so Grissom could bag it. "What did the manager say?"

"Not much," Grissom admitted as he aimed the flashlight further down the asphalt. "He didn't see anything or hear a struggle. But he said that it had been a busy night."

Sara glanced at the rundown store. "Busy enough so that he didn't notice a struggle outside? She put up quite a fight. I find it hard to believe she didn't call for help."

Grissom shook his head. "It's what he told me. But Brass is working on it." He inspected a spot on the pavement before moving on. "Anything else?"

"Blood in the car indicates that she had been moving around after her wrists had been slit. There are extensive bloodstains on the seats near the doors. She was clearly trying to get out."

Grissom frowned. "She was in the car. One would think that the one on the outside would have a hard time opening the door."

"That's the thing," Sara pointed out. "There must have been someone preventing her from opening the door. The thing is, I can't get any evidence of another person in the car."

"Maybe we're not looking in the right places." Grissom nodded to the door handle. "Did you check for prints?"

"That's what I came out for." Sara dusted the handle. "I've got a distinct set of prints." Taking them off, she pocketed the evidence. That seems to be it, though. There's only one set. And for all we know, they're our vic's."

"Then we'll have to look elsewhere." Grissom stood up. "I don't have anything either. I think our best bet is the body. We'll run it for semen and see what we can get. We'll take it from there. We'll look for stains in the car when we get it back to the lab, if we need to."

Sara nodded, stepping aside as the coroner arrived. "So this is the new case?"

"Yeah." Grissom nodded. "I want you on this one." He paused. "Unless you don't want it."

Sara watched the body as it was lifted from the car. A feeling of dread had washed over her when she first saw the woman's wrists, but she wasn't going to let Grissom know. "I want it," she replied quickly.

"I'll transfer the old one over to day," Grissom said. "I have a feeling we're going to need the entire team on this. We can hope for the best on the body, but as of now, we have virtually nothing to go on."

"We'll find something," Sara assured him, stifling a yawn. "Even the lack of evidence is evidence, and it never lies." She stopped. "Hell, that's one of your mottos."

"You're learning, my young Padawan." Grissom gave her a wry smile when she turned to face him incredulously. "Closet Star Wars fan." He started as the coroner slammed the door of the van. "I should get back to the lab and transfer the old case."

"I'll start with the prints," Sara began, but Grissom cut her off.

"You should get some rest, Sara. We have to wait for the autopsy to come back, at any rate. It'll take Al a couple hours at least to process the body. Come on, I'll take you home."

Sara wanted to protest, but she knew that was right. She didn't want to risk him taking her off the case either, so she agreed reluctantly. "The lab is fine. My car's there, anyway."

If Grissom had been put off by her response, he didn't show it. "Let's go, then."

Arriving at her home thirty minutes later, Sara had to admit that getting some rest had been a good idea. It had been a miracle that she made it home safely, as it was all she could do to keep her eyelids from drooping as she drove home from the lab. Stumbling through the door, she yawned as she prepared for a quick shower.

The lure of sleep quickly dissipated as she stripped off her shirt. The slightly elevated scar across her left wrist stood out against the rest of her skin as she stared at it, a sick feeling in her stomach rising slowly. The memories would not stop flowing as she took her shower, and by the time she crawled into bed, she was wide awake with the dread of what she was certain she would relive if she fell asleep. Willing herself to keep awake, she picked a book up from her bedside table and began reading, waiting for the hours to pass.