TITLE: Chanel No. 5
AUTHOR: BirchWriter
RATING: Mature for graphic crime scene and other happier scenes to come.
SUMMARY: Case File set in the week between 'Unbearable' and 'King Baby'. GSR.
DISCLAIMER: I don't own them, but if Anthony Zuiker wanted to give them to me, who would I be to refuse?
SPOILERS: Basic knowledge of Season 5 and all seasons prior.
A/N: This is my version of how they got together, it's their first time and mine too. Hope you guys enjoy.
BETA: She made me use this header, wrote my disclaimer, kept the continuity, she fixed my glaring mistakes and made me use Sophia Curtis in this story, but I drew the line, no Lady Heather. All my love to the fanfic writer who inspired me, MSCSIFANGSR.

Chapter One

Sara entered the bedroom with her kit clutched in one hand and blue booties covered her work boots. With her eyes closed, she sniffed the air in the small enclosed space before she allowed herself to visually inspect the crime scene. She could detect a curious mix between blood, urine, fear, coconuts, licorice and what she was sure to be Chanel No 5.

And she was instantly transported back to that horrible day in 1983 when the world she knew came crashing from beneath her. The blood, urine and fear were to be expected at a crime scene, but the combination of the coconut, licorice and the perfume was almost too much for Sara Sidle to bear. There had been fresh coconuts that morning for breakfast, she recalled eating several strands of licorice before her father was killed before her very eyes and the perfume was her mother's signature scent.

Snap out of it, Sidle. You are not a kid anymore. She quickly composed herself, allowing the memories to seep from her body. You've got to stop letting it bother you. It's not a secret anymore, now Grissom knows. Time to move on, I can't let him think I can't do my job because of something that happened a long time ago.

She stood for a few more seconds, willing herself to be a professional and when she opened her eyes, she slowly exhaled, mentally preparing herself for what she was about to see: draped haphazardly across one twin sized bed was a comforter almost completely saturated in blood, the bedside table knocked askew, contents scattered; the other bed made up perfectly without signs of disturbance and the bodies of two children, twisted grotesquely in death with their throats slit.

Sara's first thought was that the victims had been garroted, but she reasoned a knife or another type of sharp instrument used precisely could have achieved the same results.

Sara assumed both victims were girls, dressed as they were in matching American Girl nightgowns, but one body was faced downward and she'd have to wait until David Phillips pronounced them dead before knowing for sure. The detective in charge of the investigation had said there were twin daughters aged somewhere between 6-8. Brass had warned her in advance of the gruesome scene that awaited her, and she quietly thanked him for his foresight.

She took another deep breath, the odor of the room now taking on the more familiar metallic smell of blood and she carefully placed her kit at the doorway to the room on the plastic sheeting covering the floor of the hallway to prevent cross-contamination as she quickly snapped on latex-less gloves and took out her Nikon F-5 to document photographically the carnage in the room.

She shuddered to think what the other members of the assembled swing and night-shift teams faced in the other rooms of the house. Catherine, Sophia and Greg had drawn the daunting task of the investigating parents' room where their bodies had been found in the same predicament as had Sara's victims, Nick with the bedroom of the teenaged son whose throat had been severely severed, Warrick outside on the perimeter so he could practice his specialty in casting errant foot prints and possible tire tracks, and Gil Grissom was supposed to be in the twin's bedroom with her, but she wasn't entirely sure where he was right then.

He might have been busy running interference with the Sheriff of Clarke County from the press, who appeared like vultures just moments after Jim Brass had called in the criminalists from the different shifts. The night-shift had all arrived separately, being they were all called in. A reporter from the one of the local television stations had stopped Sara on the way in, but her contrite, "No comment." left the reporter standing on her heels.

But this is Catherine's case, so she should be taking the heat, not Grissom. Thought Sara as tried to keep her thoughts on task.

As she snapped crime scene photos, carefully as not to disturb any evidence, Sara Sidle thought back to a similar case, a family dead in their suburban house, but two daughters had survived. The case had been one of the first few after she'd moved to Las Vegas. She remembered the haunting blue eyes of the youngest child, Brenda Collins.

She lowered the camera and shook those thoughts out of her head, she knew she had to stay objective about the current case and not let the ghosts of cases previous cloud her judgment in this one. Evidence would solve the murders of this family, not preconceived theories from old cases.

"Hey," the voice of her supervisor interrupted her thoughts. She looked up at the figure standing just behind her kit in the hallway. He was dressed as he usually did at work with dark jacket with a button-up shirt peeking out, dark pants and gloves covering his hands. "Find anything probative?"

"Just taking preliminary photos." She sighed audibly as she returned the camera to her eye and resumed taking photos. She steeled herself against his authority, hoping he wouldn't find anything wrong with her work, after all it was her first case with Catherine back since she'd been suspended by Ecklie.

"What," he noticed her body stiffened at his question. But Grissom continued his line of inquiry, "Do you want me to do?"

Sara relaxed and felt a bit of amusement at his question, but the circumstances mitigated quashing those types of feelings. "You're the boss, what do you want to do?"

"Not in this case." The silence was not unbearable between them, finally he said, "I'll start on this side," when he realized she wasn't going to tell him what to do. He pointed to the left where there wasn't any discernible blood evidence, as he dropped his kit beside hers. He opened the aluminum case and retrieved the items he needed and stepped into the room, sporting the same blue booties over his shoes.

Sara continued taking photos of the bodies and their immediate surroundings and Grissom worked through the room searching for any anomalies. And wordlessly the two criminalists worked collecting minute evidence for approximately 45 minutes before the arrival of the assistant coroner.

David Phillips entered the room with an air of quiet detachment and shyness. "Grissom, Sara," He greeted the two C.S.I.'s with a nod before looking over the two children. "Shame when there's kids involved."

Sara had been down on her knees sorting through the clutter from the bedside table when David came in wearing the same ugly blue booties to protect tracking evidence from room to room. She almost laughed at his appearance, wearing a cream colored turtle-necked sweater over a pair of blue jeans.

"Did your date get interrupted?" Sara rose from her position with an unexpected hand from Grissom, who had been standing above her, going through the large double closet.

"Unfortunately." David replied before he bent down over the first girl and checked for a pulse, finding none; moved the limbs of the young girl checking for signs of rigor mortis, then he checked her liver temperature. "95.1 degrees. Roughly the same as the adults and the teenager in the other rooms, meaning they all died at about the same time, roughly 3 hours ago."

He repeated the same procedure on the second girl after he'd turned the body over, he looked down at the temperature gauge and muttered, "That can't be right."

Grissom looked at the young man without comment but Sara's ears picked up on the sound of distress in his voice, "What's wrong, David?"

He re-stuck the instrument and got the same reading, "This victim's liver temp is the normal body temperature of a living person, which either means she just died or she had an elevated fever before death. Liver temp right now is 98.6 degrees."

Sara blanched as the information processed in her brain; she realized she had been in the bedroom for over an hour and if the child had just died, then it was her fault. She hadn't lifted a finger to check if the child was still alive. She had assumed from the report she was given by Brass from the paramedics who first responded that there were no survivors to this tragedy.

David methodically rechecked the second body for signs of death, "Rigor has set in some of the major joints of her body, so theoretically she's been dead at least three hours."

Grissom heard the audible sound of Sara's relieved sigh. He seen many seemingly inconsistent facts associated with death in his 20 years as a criminalist and the several years he'd spent as a coroner. For some reason he breathed his own sigh of relief when he heard Sara's.

Sara stood back as David motioned for Grissom to assist him in placing the two small bodies into the standard black body bags and transferred them gingerly to the awaiting stretchers outside in the hallway. Two other men pushed the stretchers away, with David following at a respectful distance.

Sara immediately began combing through the area where the first girl was found and Grissom started working on the section where the second body lay. Sara wondered why her boss was still in the room with her, after all the time he'd spent avoiding her the past several years.

"Why didn't you go back with the bodies like you usually do?"

"I'm needed here." He didn't even bother to glance at her. Sara wondered if he were embarrassed by her confession to him thirteen days ago.

"You checking up on me, making sure I don't blow up at anyone or at Catherine again?"

Grissom looked up at Sara, but wouldn't meet her glare. He seemed to stare at a point just behind her. She could see the lines of worry etched around his eyes and she thought she saw something in his eyes, but before she could name it, it was gone.

"No."

She was afraid to ask him anything else out of fear of what he may or may not say, so they worked in comfortable and uncomfortable silence for about 15 minutes before Sara's 'aha' startled Grissom who had been pulling a long strand of hair out of one of the smaller blood pools.

"What'd you find?" His eyes met hers head-on for the first time since he demanded answers to his questions at her apartment.

"A few glass fragments and maybe the top and neck of a broken perfume bottle. Earlier, when I first walked in, I thought I smelled the lingering odor of Chanel No. 5. And now, I found the source." She held the evidence tightly within her grasp, clasp in her forceps with a gentle grin on her face.

"Bag it," Grissom said abruptly turning back to his work. Sara felt a bit of a let down, she still felt the need to please him even after everything that had happened between them. She knew she should shut off her personal feelings for him, but of course that was easier said than done.

They continued, again in silence for another 30 minutes or so when Greg came bounding into the room.

"Grissom, the cops have caught the guy...I guess I should say, girl...woman who did all this. Warrick followed his nose and the evidence to a car where we found a woman passed out, covered in blood, with a knife on the seat beside her. We alerted Brass and the cops arrested her, well, they carried her to the hospital because they couldn't revive her. She was freaky looking with all that blood on her. I thought she was dead. But she wasn't so they called a padded wagon to come get her."

"What were you doing there instead of your assigned station with Catherine and Sophia?" Sara knew the look Grissom gave Greg intimately. He'd given her that same of look of skepticism at times. Sara wanted to speak for Greg, but he surprised her with his immediate answer.

"Catherine kicked me out. The bedroom was too small for the three of us, although this one is smaller. How are you guys not killing each other, cause I thought Catherine was gonna explode what with Sophia talking to herself. Anyway, Catherine told me to help Warrick." Greg shrugged his shoulders and continued, "So, the woman reeked of perfume and when I was with still working with the girls, I smelled the same perfume in the air."

"Sara smelled perfume here and also found a piece broken bottle of perfume," Grissom admitted to Greg. "And you'd better not let Sophia or Catherine hear you referring to them as 'girls'."

Sara was surprised he'd given her credit, but Grissom wasn't really one to steal someone thunder.

"Case closed then, huh?" Greg smiled at Sara and gestured with his arm to escort Sara out of the room.

"Not so quick, my young C.S.I. We still have to collect evidence. And we don't know for sure this woman committed these crimes, it's possible it's a separate case. The blood may or may not be our victims." Sara smiled as she watched Greg's hopeful face fall upon her words.

"Does Nick need any help?" Asked Grissom in his usual no-nonsense tone.

"No, he's finished and the senior women investigators are also finished." Grissom had to laugh at that despite himself. "You two are the only ones not finished with your part of the scene."

"Greg, do you want to stay here and help Sara finish this scene or go to the hospital and process the woman?"

"What? I get a choice? Wow, Grissom, thanks."

Sara watched both men: Greg practically beaming with pride and Grissom staring at him like the younger man had sprouted horns.

After several moments, Sara broke the silence, "Aah, Greg?"

"Yeah, Sara?"

"You gonna answer Grissom's question?" She chanced a look at her boss and could tell he was doing his best not to smirk.

"Hmm, yeah, I'll stay with Sara; besides Warrick already went to the hospital on Catherine's orders with the woman from the car. Were you going to process her?"

"Not my call in this case, Greg. If Catherine is finished then I'll grab her and head over to the to the morgue. The medical examiner should have gotten started with at least one of the bodies. As much as I love a good 'early roll-out, all hands on deck', I have other business to attend to, like running my own shift." He turned to Sara, "I'll leave my evidence for you to log and I'll see you two back at the Lab." With that, Grissom left the room.

"Is he still pissed at you?" Sara could tell Greg's tone was teasing, but she knew there was a grain of truth with the question.

"For the suspension, being cooped up in this room with me for a couple of hours, for the last few years or just everything in general?"

"A, B, C and D. Answer the question, Sara."

"Probably all of the above. Now, let me show you were to start..." She deflected his attention to the task at hand, but she really wondered if Grissom was pissed at her, not for what she'd said to Greg, but because he now knew her most closely guarded secret. Her past.

To be continued in the next chapter.