This is my first CSI fanfic and actually my first fanfic in a very long time (previously I have made attempts at Spooks, Wire in the Blood and Casualty.) From the start I will apologise for my English/Scottish roots which mean I know painfully little about Las Vegas and actually America in general, aside from what I see on the TV. Therefore if any references I make are incorrect then it is probably down to my Britishness and I apologise!

Aside from that little explanation please feel free to review, and flame, as much as you like! I am open to criticism – hopefully it can only lead to improvements in my writing (which I profess is not any kind of masterpiece!)

The harsh ringing of the telephone, painfully close to Sara's ear, woke her with a start. A stab of pain shot through her neck as she sat up; that would teach her for falling asleep with her head on a desk. She glanced, through tired eyes, at the clock. It was 2p.m. She should be at home, feet up, dozing in a position that did not lead to excruciating pain. But who was she kidding? Everyone expected her to be here way outside of working hours; she was even past worrying about the fact that everyone expected her not to have a social life. She reached clumsily for the phone.

"Sara Sidle, Las Vegas Crime Lab."

"Sara, it's Grissom. I need you to get down here now."

Sara sighed as Grissom continued to talk, at her, not to her. Only just aware of what he was saying, she noted down where exactly she had to go and hung up. Oh well, an hour of sleep was better than none at all.

When she next returned to the lab, Sara was unable to think straight. And it was not through lack of sleep. The scene she had just surveyed had to be one of the most horrific she had ever witnessed. A twenty six year old woman. Beautiful. Well, she had been once. So much blood. Of course, Sara could cope with blood. She had seen enough of it in her lifetime to fill an Olympic swimming pool ten times over. But this was different. There had been blood where it had seeped from the victim's head, her arms, her stomach. Her face had been carved into like a piece of meat. Someone had been determined to ruin that pretty face. The smiling image of Jennifer Thornton, on holiday, face glowing with happiness, haunted Sara. It had sat there on the mantelpiece above her body, serving an all too gruesome reminder of what had once been. Whoever had killed Jenny was, in Sara's mind, pure evil.

Sara shook her head in a futile attempt to rid her brain of the graphic images. She had taken cases far too personally many times before and knew she could not afford to do so again.

"How long had you known Ms Thornton?"

"About a year."

"And how long had you been in a relationship with her?"

"Pretty much the whole of that year."

Sara stared at the man sitting in front of her. Philip Bowran was ashen faced but other than that he displayed no signs of emotion towards the fact that his long term girlfriend had just been hacked to death. Sara had taken an immediate dislike to him. In fact dislike was not strong enough a word. No tears. No anger. Just calm collection. The calm collection of a killer.

"Did you kill your girlfriend?"

"Excuse me?"

Even Sara herself did not know what had sparked the outburst, but now she had started there was no way to control it. She pushed her chair back, the legs scratching against the floor, and stood up, anger throbbing in her blood.

"You killed her and now you can't even bring yourself to display any feelings about it."

"I came here to answer questions, not be accused! My girlfriend has just been found dead and I am feeling bad enough without you telling me I killed her!"

"Bad! You don't even care!"

At that moment the door to the interview room came flying open and Gil Grissom marched in, grabbed a struggling Sara by the arm and pulled her outside. Sara wrathfully noted Philip smirking at her as she slammed the door shut behind her.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?"

"My job – catching a murderer!"

"There isn't the slightest speck of evidence against that man."

"As yet there's barely any evidence at all. But he did it. I know it."

"You have been getting more and more out of control recently, Sara. I don't know what's wrong with you but you have to sort it. I want you to take some of that holiday you're owed – Lord knows there's enough of it."

"I don't need a holiday, Grissom. I need to lock that man up."

"It wasn't a suggestion, Sara, it was an order."

And with that Gil Grissom opened the door to the interview room and shut it behind him, leaving Sara and her raging emotions to themselves.

When at last Sara did reach her apartment all she wanted was to be back in the lab. Knowing and accepting that that was not an option she instead chose to sit on her sofa and draw her knees up to her face. She felt her eyes fill up and hastily wiped away the moisture. But soon she had no control over the tears that were flowing from her eyes. Recently she had had no control over any of her emotions. She could be up one minute and the next like this, crying as though her life were at an end. Every case she saw involving a dead woman was manipulated in her mind until she had convinced herself the victim was entirely defenceless and innocent, and the perpetrator of the crime her evil, violent husband/boyfriend/long term partner; whatever the scenario she could make it fit. Make it fit in a way which allowed her to ensure justice. Each time she came across a case like this one she was determined to make it the one; the one which would heal all her emotional wounds and allow her to close the door on her past. But she knew that was not going to happen. Interfering in lives which were nothing to do with her and turning a murder into the crime she wanted it to be was not going to change her. All it had served to do was turn her into an emotional wreck.

What was it Grissom had once told her? That everyone needed a distraction or the job would screw them up in the end. Ok, so maybe those weren't his exact words but he had the right idea. Somehow she had never been able to see him as a rollercoaster kind of guy but whatever it was he did when he wasn't working must work. How frequently did Gilbert Grissom come home and rock himself to sleep with tears running down his cheeks? Well, Sara had no official witness but she would be willing to wager a large amount of money that it was not a regular occurrence.

She picked herself up from the sofa and stumbled over to a mirror. She could hardly bear to look at her sorry reflection. Eyes red raw from nights of crying. Hair tangled and struggling to escape from a messy ponytail. Her face was drawn, her cheekbones jutting out. She had seen corpses that looked better than she did right now. Re-examining her pallid and emaciated face she wondered when she had last eaten. Failing to remember the date and location of her last full meal, she turned to the even harder task of placing when all this had begun. When had she had become unable to emotionally detach herself from any case? Eventually she conceded that it had been a gradual progression. She had always been good at hiding her emotions from the outside world. She liked to think she still was – outbursts like this only happened when she was in the privacy of her own home.

But in the past she had also perfected the art of keeping her feelings locked so deep inside herself that they were out of even her own reach. Yet somehow, over the last few weeks they had begun to fight back and were now in control of her body. Sara's greatest fear was that soon they would escape and it would not only be the four walls of her apartment which witnessed her breakdowns but other people. And she could not afford to let that happen.