A/N: This is the first chapter of eight that I will deal out over the course of the next month. It was crazy idea that I had while talking to Eliza, so I'm going to credit this to her. ;)

Between the Shadows

Into the night

Something was wrong with her. She could feel it deep within her body, a new energy currency that pulsed through her veins. It felt good and strange at the same time and as she stood beneath the warm spray of the shower, she closed her eyes and tried to listen to her body. Tried to figure out what it was that made her feel so alive, so good and so much like a stranger in her own head.

A soapy hand ran down her arm, back up and lingered over her left breast. Taking a shuddering breath, she felt for the familiar pulsing of her heart. There was silence, a silence lodged deep within her body, telling her that in a perfect world, she would be in the morgue. No logic, no science could explain why she was standing in the shower, washing away the dirt and the grime of a crime scene while her heart had ceased to beat.

The crime scene, dark and shadowy out in the desert between shrubs and dunes, something had grabbed hold of her, had pulled her down into the dust and she had blacked out too fast to realize what the hell had struck her.

Luckily she had woken up before anybody missed her, before anybody could comment on the fact that she seemed disoriented. Nobody knew that anything had happened to her at all.

She turned off the faucet, rested her head against the cold tiles for a moment before she stepped out of the shower and wrapped herself in one of those wonderfully soft terry towels.

Her skin reacted immediately, tingling wherever the towel touched her. The mirror over the sink revealed a misty reflection of her and as she wiped away the steam, she gasped.

Her skin was paler than usual, like marble. She ran a finger over her cheekbones, so much more pronounced than before. Before what? Her body was changing and she was trying to wrap her mind around that fact.

Ignorance seemed like a good way to go, if she ignored the changes, the missing rhythm of her heart, if she just went to sleep, maybe she would wake up and everything would be okay.

She rubbed her skin dry, amazed by how cold it felt and, without bothering to slip into her pajamas, snuck into bed.

Grissom was on his side, turned towards her as she crawled closer to him, pressed up against his warm body and draped an arm around him beneath his shirt.

"Honey, you're freezing." he whispered, drawing her even closer. He didn't notice the changes in her body with the lights off. His hands traveled over plains of cool skin, trying to warm her up.

"I can't get warm." she replied, her eyes heavy lidded. The sun was just coming up, throwing a ray of light against the wall. It seemed unnaturally bright to her, the way it struck the edge of the wing of a glass-cased monarch butterfly. She blacked out again, resting against his chest, before any coherent thoughts manifested themselves in her head.

The sun was setting when she awoke, feeling numb and empty. Grissom sat in the armchair by the window, watching her.

"Something's wrong with you." he stated, rubbing a hand along his jaw line. She sat up with a newfound grace, stretched her arms and felt the unknown energy course through her again. Then there was another feeling, a hunger for something she could smell and taste on her tongue, a hunger for something she couldn't quite grasp.

"I want you." Her voice sounded husky, coated in dark chocolate and he got up as if she was pulling him by strings. Sitting down beside her, he ran a hand down her arm.

"So cold Sara. You're so cold." His lips landed on her shoulder, kissed their way to her collarbone and finally found her mouth. A jolt went through him when he realized that even her mouth was cold, as if she had eaten ice cream.

He wanted to know what was wrong with her, wanted to take her to a doctor to get checked out because the way her eyes locked with his scared him. The way her eyes seemed darker, with a violet tint close to the pupil scared him.

Her tongue tangled with his and he lost track of his thoughts, cupped her head and held her close. He was determined to warm her up.

TBC