Author's Note: Darling Klee and I are going to alternate chapters on this one. We don't own CSI, shocking as that may be.
Grissom couldn't sleep.
Exhaustion flooded his bones, made his steps heavy and staggered. His mind swam with strange voices and images, and he found himself entering rooms with no recollection of why he'd come in the first place.
Every morning, he'd fall into bed after work, closing his eyes and waiting for the sweet blanket of sleep to overtake him. And every evening, his alarm clock would sound before he'd slept at all.
Nick was already out of the hospital. Nick was healing out on a ranch in Texas, and still, Grissom didn't sleep. For five straight days.
"You look beat," Catherine said as they gathered together for assignments.
"Yeah," was all he could manage.
Greg and Warrick walked in the door, laughing about some episode of The Office, and Grissom wondered what was wrong with him. Everyone else cared for Nick just as much as he did, but they'd all put it behind them somehow.
Truth be told, he couldn't even say for certain that it was Nick's abduction that had stolen his sleep. But the timing couldn't have been a coincidence; they'd found Nick buried underground, and ever since, he hadn't slept.
"Okay, we need to get going with assignments," he said finally. "Anyone know where Sara is?"
"She's over in the computer lab, going through Missing Persons reports," Greg supplied as he took a bottle of water out of the refrigerator. "Said she wanted to get a head start on that John Doe from yesterday."
Grissom blinked. He couldn't even remember yesterday's cases. "Okay, well, uh... We've got two murders and a robbery. Duke it out." He dropped the assignment slips on the table and wandered out of the room.
For the first two days, he'd used coffee to make it through shift. But eventually the caffeine just made his hands shake, and he gave it up. His doctor had written him a prescription for Ambien; the drug weighed down his body and slowed his mind, but that was it.
He found Sara right where Greg said she'd be. She was scrolling down a list of Missing Persons, and he wondered how many times he'd walked in on this scene. Had to be hundreds.
"Hey, how're we doing on the..." his voice trailed off as she turned towards him.
She looked like hell. A thick layer of concealer didn't hide the dark circles under her eyes, and her lids were half-closed. "Huh?"
Grissom swallowed, feeling the familiar twinge of concern. "Are you okay?"
"Looking for the John Doe," she replied, her voice low and slow.
"Sara, when was the last time you slept?"
"What?"
"When was..." he shook his head. "Never mind. When you're done there, come see me."
"M'kay." She turned dull eyes back to the screen as he ambled back out into the hall.
Oddly enough, his brain was beginning to sharpen. Sara wasn't sleeping either, and that was a problem that needed solving. He entered his office and shut the door, sitting down at his desk. A quick flip through the rolodex found the number he sought.
Within twenty minutes, the plan was set in motion.
He was elbow-deep in paperwork by the time she showed up at his doorway, but he set his pen down immediately. "Let's take a ride."
"Where?"
"The Natural History Museum. They've got a specimen there that–"
"But what about my case?" she interrupted. "I still don't have an ID on the body, and–"
"I put Greg on it," he said calmly. "You don't have to come along if you don't want to. I just thought it might be a good learning experience for you." He'd pulled out the big guns, said the L word, and her eyes had widened slightly just as he'd expected. "But if you want, I can ask someone else to–"
"No, I want to go," she said quickly. "Just let me grab my purse."
Her purse. That was good; that meant she knew they weren't going to come back to the lab. He threw a few things into a shoulder bag and wandered out to the lobby, his hands in his pockets. Judy smiled at him, and he nodded to her as Sara appeared.
"Let's go."
The drive was quiet. Sara didn't doze off as he'd hoped, but a nice side effect of her presence was that he felt more alert. She tended to do that to his body – make his nerve endings twitch.
"So tell me about this specimen," she said finally.
"Well, the museum recently received a small collection of butterflies from a wealthy man who died," Grissom replied, his head swiveling to the side as he changed lanes. "Their experts are pretty good and were able to identify almost all of the specimens, except one. So they called me."
He didn't add that they'd actually called him two weeks ago.
The museum was dark as they arrived, but Grissom just swiped a pass card through the reader and parked in a side lot. A man was waiting outside for them.
"Dr. Grissom," he said brightly as they approached. "So glad you could come and help us out."
"My pleasure, as always," Grissom replied. "Sara, this is Andrew Falk, one of the zoologists on staff at the museum. Dr. Falk, this is my associate at the crime lab, Sara Sidle."
After shaking hands, they made their way inside the building. The halls were noticeably narrow as they passed several offices and workrooms.
"Right through here," Dr. Falk said, ushering them into a brightly lit room. "The specimen is encased in glass, so if you need to remove it–"
"Shouldn't be an issue," Grissom assured him. "Shall I call you when we're done?"
"Of course."
Sara watched Dr. Falk leave, a puzzled look on her face. "He didn't want to stay?"
"I'm sure he'd want to," Grissom said, pulling a chair up to the table. "But he knows I like to look at specimens alone."
"Oh, then... should I–"
"No, please, have a seat," he said at once with a grin. "I'd appreciate your help on this."
She smiled back at him tiredly. "Right, like I'll know anything that zoologist didn't."
Leaning over, Grissom picked up his shoulder bag, drawing out a large textbook. "He probably doesn't have one of these. It's got photos and drawings of nearly every butterfly in existence." He passed the book to Sara, then peered at the butterfly specimen. "For starters, I can tell you it's from the Lycaenidae family. What else do you notice about it?"
She took a seat next to him and leaned forward obligingly. "Well, it's blue..."
"Meaning it's in the Polyommatinae subfamily." Gesturing toward the book, he raised an eyebrow.
Sara sighed, opening the book and flipping to the Polyommatinae section. "Now what?"
"Now you figure out what type of butterfly it is, while I do some paperwork," he replied, pulling several files out of his bag.
"You can't be serious."
"Oh, I am." Feigning intense concentration, he opened a file and peered at the papers inside. "Unless," he said, not looking up, "you don't think you can do it."
She set her jaw stubbornly and pulled the book toward her, scanning the page and looking up at the butterfly for comparison.
It was hard to hide his smile as he watched her covertly. He'd figured out long ago that the best way to get Sara Sidle to sleep was to give her brain a tough challenge. Once she'd solved it, she'd crash. And once she crashed, she'd sleep for hours.
"Wow," she murmured, drawing a breath. "These are beautiful."
"The blues are," he agreed.
"Look at the Common Blue," she said. "Look at their color. How can they call that common?"
He chuckled. "They're not judging its merit, Sara, just its pervasiveness."
To his delight, she wasn't just glancing at the pictures. On each page, she took the time to read the history and description of each butterfly, even the ones which bore no resemblance to their specimen.
Finally she nodded her head and looked up at him with a satisfied expression. "Found it."
"You're sure?"
"Yup." She handed him the book, pointing to a photograph. "It's a San Francisco native. The Xerces Blue. "
Putting aside his papers, he scooted closer to the specimen. "A Xerces, really?"
"The coloring, the shape of the wings, it's all a match." She leaned back in her chair. "Plus it fits the profile."
"What profile?"
"Well, if our rich dead guy left a small collection of butterflies to a museum, then I figure the specimens are probably pretty rare. The Xerces is extinct, so that fits."
He nodded, studying the butterfly closely. "Good work, Sara. I think you're right."
"You probably knew what it was the second you saw it," she said with a tiny smile. "Why'd you ask me to come along?"
"I wanted you to get familiar with this textbook," he replied. "I get called out on consults a lot, so I figured if you knew how to use the book too, then maybe you could help."
"Oh." She nodded, and he got a whiff of something sweet. Shampoo, maybe, or body lotion. "So now what?"
"Now we make the good doctor's day by telling him he's got a Xerces, and then we get something to eat."
They stopped at a 24-hour diner. Sara looked through the menu contentedly, twisting a lock of hair around her forefinger. He watched her from under his eyelashes, noticing the way the light struck her curls. The way she hummed under her breath, the way her eyes squinted a little to read the small text.
"Griss? You ready to order?"
She was staring at him, and the waitress was staring at him, and Sara still looked the same as she had when he'd met her seven years ago–
"French toast, please," he said finally. "And a glass of milk."
They talked about work, of course, but there was a comfort level that had been missing for a while. She teased him once or twice (twice, he thought) and he gave her a few compliments that made her blush lightly.
It was easy, and that was perplexing.
They lingered over their food, ordering decaf coffee and sipping it slowly. But eventually the waitress and her pointed looks chased them from their seats, and they got back in the car.
He drove her home, and she didn't protest, didn't mention that her car was still in the lab parking lot. He told her he'd pick her up that night for shift as she climbed out of the car sleepily.
When he watched her walk away, he felt as if there were a thousand Xerces butterflies fluttering in his stomach.
And here he'd thought they were extinct.
He drove home, fell into bed, and slept for ten straight hours.