TITLE: New Ground
RATING: PG-13
DISCLAIMER: If they were mine, they wouldn't be on my Christmas list.
PAIRINGS: GSR, Maybe W/C hints
SUMMARY: When disaster strikes at a crime scene, the split team realizes just what they have lost, and what is still within their reach, especially Grissom.
A/N: This story sort of worked its way into my head, and has slowly begun to leak itself out onto paper. I think this is going to be the first in a series, but feedback will determine that, honestly. So, read on!


"Greg! Don't move!" Sara's voice held more exasperation than anger as she made her way slowly toward the eager trainee. She stepped up beside his hunched form, sighing. "You almost creamed a batch of blood evidence, Greggo. That's not cool."

Greg shot her a pouting look, shaking his head. "I already took pictures and samples. And besides...I was being careful." She just gave him a mild glare, which he ignored, instead pointing in the semi-darkness. "Look at this, Sara."

Pointing her flashlight in the direction of his finger, she too crouched on the ground to get a closer look. As her eyes traced the deep gash in the hardwood floor, a frown creased her face. "What the hell?"

"What do you think it is?" Greg questioned, pointing to the strange green substance inside the jagged line.

She shook her head, pulling out a swab. "I have no idea, but whatever it is, it's sticky." After struggling for a moment, she managed to collect a decent sample.

Greg rose up with her, running a hand through his now tamer hair as his dark eyes roamed the scene. "It almost looks like drying glue."

Sara squinted at the substance, thinking hard. "Glue? It doesn't look like any sort of glue I've ever seen."

Greg just shrugged, taking the sample from her and sticking it in his kit. "I've seen it before, in the lab occasionally. It looks like Elmer's Glue, the funky kind kids always buy for school. Mixed with the right stuff, it can make some kick-ass tinted hair-gel." He grinned.

Sara shook her head at him, sighing again. "I think I'm glad I didn't know you in your teens, Greg."

He scoffed at her playfully. "What are you talking about, Sara? I did that in third grade!"

A smile tugging at her mouth, she tugged his shirt lightly. "Come on, rookie, let's go check out the DB's location."

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

"So, Billy, you want to tell me what happened?" As Brass waited by the ambulance, he decided he was getting to old for this.

The dark-haired little boy gave him his best scowl, before looking at the ground again, his lower lip trembling. "I'll take that as a no?" Billy kicked at the ground , his legs dangling out the edge of the ambulance.

With a sigh, Brass closed his eyes and counted to ten. He'd never been great with kids, Ellie having sufficiently proven that. He just didn't get why they were so damn stubborn.

Looking around, he spotted the first officer on the scene among the spectators milling around. If the kid wasn't talking, he'd see what he could get from the cop. "Hey, Andrews, what happened here?"

The young cop shrugged, glancing over at Billy. "A neighbor heard a crash, and somebody crying. Knew there were kids in the house, and called 911. I was only a few blocks away, but when I got here, the older kid was already dead, with the little one just standing there. Nobody at the scene, no parents home, and no one else knows anything."

Brass nodded. "We've got the mother coming down. No Dad. Apparently she left her kids at home while she worked the night job over at a Casino. Our Vic is twelve, and Billy over there," he jerked his head toward the forlorn figure, "is 4."

Andrews sighed. "It looked like an accident at first, except the place was a mess and the back door was open. But it really just looks like the kid fell off a chair or something, and hit his head."

Running a hand over his face tiredly, Brass nodded again. "Thanks. I want your report on my desk by tomorrow night. You can clear off now." Andrews agreed, and headed back to his car.

Bracing himself, Brass wondered how Sara and Greg were doing inside, before deciding to try and get something out of Billy. Returning to the little boy's side, he sat down as well, ignoring the heated glare sent his way by the 4 year old. "You gonna talk to me yet?" A violent shaking of a messy mop of hair was his only answer.

Before he could try again, a paramedic came around to them, finished talking to dispatch. She gave Brass a polite nod, before turning to Billy. "I have all the supplies I need now, Billy. So, you wanna let me look at your finger?" She smiled brightly at him, and he grinned in return, before turning to Brass.

"I gotsa boo-boo!" The proud declaration was emphasized by a grubby finger wagging in Brass's face. Pretending to be vastly interested in the bruised and cut digit, Brass's eyes went wide.

"How'd you get that?" He asked, as the Paramedic wrapped the finger up with gauze.

Billy frowned again, his lower lip jutting out. "I was twying to help Awex," Came his soft reply.

Brass guessed that must be the name of the DB, the kid's older brother. "What were you trying to help Alex with?"

Billy's face brightened. "I was helping wif da hammer! But it swipped, and now I gotsa boo-boo."

Brass felt a headache beginning behind his eyes. He'd never understood the toddler-babble. "How did Alex get hurt, Billy? Can you help me out here, please?"

As he'd expected, Billy's scowl returned, and he began kicking his feet out again. It was the paramedic who spoke next, securing the gauze around his finger. "Come on, Billy, you'll help Alex a lot if you tell us what happened. And," She smiled again, winking at him, "I've got an awesome sticker for you if you do."

Billy smiled at her, but it left quickly. "Awex fell down. And now he gotsa boo-boo too. A big boo-boo." A tear splashed down his chubby cheek, and he sent a piece of gravel skidding with his heel.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

"Well, well, well, the enigmatic entomologist final decided to show!" Catherine's dig was dealt with a grin.

Grissom felt himself smiling back slightly as he carried his kit over to her, avoiding the thorny underbrush of the wooded area. "Yeah, sorry about the delay, but Sofia called in sick, and I had to bring in a replacement from Day, since everybody on Swing and Night has cases." He bent over her, his blue eyes searching over the damp ground and the badly decaying body. "So, got bugs?"

"Well, the aren't milk duds, that's certain," Warrick called from his spot examining a fresher victim.

"Man, shut up," Nick groused back, glaring at him. "In the dark, I couldn't tell the things were crawling." His face showed disgust.

Warrick chuckled, shaking his head. "Yeah, man, whatever." Looking over at Grissom, he nodded. "Nice to see you, Griss."

"You too, Warrick. Now, does anybody want to tell me what we've got?" For the first time in several weeks, Grissom felt comfortable again, settling into the dynamics of his old team. As set in his ways as he was, he hadn't got back into the swing of things yet after Ecklie let the other shoe fall.

"So far, we've uncovered, three DB's, all in various states of decay, and all covered in bugs. Some couple looking for a little privacy stumbled across the freshest vic and called the cops. And I mean literally stumbled." She paused to wince. "We can't move them until you get samples, Gil, and we need to get a move on, because it's looking like this may be a serial."

"Just based on a common burial site? There could be a lot of reasons for that," Grissom chided absently, retrieving a few sample containers from his kit.

Catherine grinned. "Nice to know you haven't changed, Gil." He glanced at her curiously, but she just laughed, and shook her head.

Blocking out frequent camera flashes from Nick and Warrick, Grissom started collecting the insects, his eyes scanning over the whole scene quickly. "I think we've got cross contamination. The bodies are too close."

"Do we need to move them?" Nick asked, stopping his photography.

Grissom shook his head. "It would compromise the scene. We've just got to move quickly, and no one is going anywhere until this is done."

"Sure thing, Boss," Nick replied automatically, snapping another photo. He froze again, a flush creeping up his neck as he flashed a glance at Catherine. "Uh, sorry."

Catherine nodded, smiling slightly, her wistful look matching everyone's. "We all are, Nicky, we all are."

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

"Man, what a mess!" Sara was in total agreement. Wires, and tape and other various things cluttered up every surface of the dining room, and a puddle of fresh blood glistened eerily on the hardwood, on and around a broken chair.

"David moved the kid before you got here." She sighed sadly. "He couldn't have been more than twelve." She put a hand on Greg's arm as he made to step inside. "Don't inspect yet, Greg, just observe. Go through all your senses, and tell me what's going on here." Both of them had been pleasantly surprised by how well she did as a mentor.

Greg closed his eyes immediately, breathing in deeply. "Smells like blood," He said quietly. "And...some sort of chemical, like, glue, maybe. The air doesn't smell stale, so this room has been lived in." He felt Sara nod her approval beside him, so he opened his eyes and began to look around. "The chair's busted, but there's blood on top of it, so, maybe the kid fell off of it? It doesn't look like it was used to hit him on the head, and his little brother wasn't hurt....right?" He glanced anxiously at Sara, who nodded again. "Uh...other than that, this place is so junked up with tools and wire and weird stuff, I don't know what to make of it. But it doesn't look like a dinning room should."

"Yeah, it's a wreck, and we've got a lot of work to do."

Slowly, they made their way inside, taking thorough samples and photos of everything they came across, before bagging it. Greg did most of the work, Sara watching him and giving out advice. They worked their way from the perimeter in to the middle of the room, where the broken chair and blood rested.

"Man, there was some major tinkering going on in here," Greg said, a quarter of and hour later, as bag upon bag of metal and wires were collected, along with an entire tool box. They now stood above the focal point of the scene, taking photos to catalog the evidence.

Sara nodded, but her eyes were glued to the dining room table, which had obviously been pushed out of its original position. "Hey, Greg, come and take a look out at this. You see the scratches right on the edge of the table?" She ran a gloved finger along the chipped edge. "And..." she plucked something out of the gouges with her tweezers, holding it up for the former lab tech's eyes.

Greg frowned. "A splinter of wood." His glance shifted from the table to the busted chair. "Matching the wood type of the chair." Again, his fingers ran rapidly though his hair, which was quickly becoming a signal of his concentration, much like Grissom's raised brow or Sara's squint.

They both looked around again, their gazes landing on slight dents further in on the table. "Four. Four legs of a chair?" Sara waited, but he didn't seem ready to say anything else.

"Go on, Greg, play it out for me. If you've got a theory, it helps to say it out loud and run all the angles. Call the scene."

He frowned deeply, biting his lower lip. "So, the chair was up on the table, and our vic was standing on it. But...the chair slid, right off the edge of the table, falling apart as it went, and the kid crashed with it. Cracked his head on the floor. I...I don't see any signs of...uh, foul play." His expression was nervous as he waited for Sara's verdict.

"What about the open back door?"

He shrugged. "Two kids home alone, obviously very busy messing around with something, maybe they just...forgot?"

Sara agreed with him, her own, more seasoned eyes having picked up nothing. "But why was the chair on the table in the first place?"

Both were quiet for a moment, trying to piece together the puzzle. When their gazes fell to a strange shadow on the table cast from somewhere up above, their eyes slid simultaneously up to the chandelier. Looking at the strange silhouette inside cover of the lit lamp, with wires peeking over the edge, all Greg could think was that he'd messed up again.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

"How did he fall, Billy?" Brass prodded gently, wanting the little kid to keep talking. When Billy didn't answer, he tried again. "What were you helping Alex with, huh kiddo?"

Billy blinked slowly. "Awex wanted to be just wike Daddy. He was makin' it so he could help stop it, so he could be bettah dan Daddy, an' not mess up."

Brass desperately wished that made any sense. "What was he making?"

Billy's reply, already quiet, was cut off by Brass's cell phone. Cursing, he answered with a brusque, "What!"

"Brass?" He rolled his eyes. Was it so hard for Sara to come outside to talk to him? But she was still speaking into the phone, her voice sounding slightly funny. "Brass, don't let anybody in the house, ok? And-"

Not listening, he cut her off. "Hold on a sec, Sara, OK? Just hold your horses!" He pulled the phone away slightly, looking back at Billy. "Sorry, kid. What did you say he was making?"

Billy's voice suddenly seemed a thousand times louder, his whisper echoing inside Brass's head like a scream. "A bomb." The child's eyes were wide and innocent.

Not breathing, Jim Brass could hear Sara's voice over the phone again, funny and hoarse. "...and call the bomb squad, Brass. Call the bomb squad."


So...yeah. DUN DUN DUUUNNNN! ::evil grin:: GSR fluff in this story DOES come, I swear, but that doesn't happen for a while, until after the angst and drama and all that other fun junk, and the fewer reviews I get, the further away it is! (Hint....hint) Uhm, I'm desperately looking for a beta, and I really hope you all like this so far Thanks for Reading!