Vivisection. After hours spent trying to pinpoint the word to best describe his afternoon on the stand he finally had it. In a desperate attempt to create reasonable doubt, the defense had waged a merciless attack not on the evidence of the case on trial, but on the investigator responsible for its identification and analysis. Every mistake he had ever made, professional and in some cases otherwise, since he was a CSI level one over 25 years earlier, had been paraded in front of the jury in an attempt to taint his reputation, leaving him feeling completely and utterly drained. All he wanted to do was go home and collapse, surrender to unconsciousness until shift began and he could once again throw himself into the realm of the tangible and absolute, into the science for which 'reasonable doubt' and degrees of truth were foreign concepts.
Summoning what little energy he could, he headed toward the Denali and dragged his weary body behind the wheel. As he drove, he found himself wondering whether or not Sara would be there when he arrived. He hadn't spoken to her since before he left for court, so had no idea of how her case was coming along, or how much overtime it was likely to demand, but be could hope… In the two years they had been together, they had had perhaps more than their share of arguments, but despite the occasional animosity, neither had ever doubted that what they had together was meant to last.
"Damn" he breathed on a sigh as he approached to townhouse they shared, noting Sara's car was nowhere in sight. Deciding if he couldn't have Sara, he would just have to settle for a long, hot shower to work the tension out of his tired muscles, he slipped his key into the lock and froze. Suddenly alert, he catalogued the scratches around the lock and gently tested the handle. Noiselessly the door swung open and the sight before him stole the breath from his body: overturned furniture and broken picture frames littered the room; a small fortune worth of r are and precious specimens lay damaged beyond repair; and, the impressive array of electrical equipment that had once stood in the corner was nowhere in sight. Whilst the house now seemed quiet, and he doubted that whoever had done this remained inside, he backed away a safe distance from the door and pulled out his phone to call it in. Half-way through dialing he was suddenly struck with a realization that made the trauma of the cross-examination and finding his house ransacked seem like a pleasant morning in the park. How are they ever going to keep their relationship secret now?
Sitting in the break room, thumbing through a journal she had read a dozen times before, Sara silently willed time to speed up. She had been assigned a 419 on the strip at the beginning of shift, and after 12 hours of processing the scene and working the evidence, had found that one little detail that had nailed the suspect. That was two hours ago, and the adrenaline had long worn off, caffeine less and less able to fill the void it left behind.
"Hey. What are you still doing here?" asked Nick from the doorway. "I thought you closed your case hours ago."
"I did, but our beloved Lab Director put a rush on some fibers from the dayshift, bumping the last of my stuff in the process. As soon as Hodges pages me that he's done and I can log the evidence into storage, I'm out of here."
Moving to the coffee pot and eyeing the contents with suspicion, Nick asked, "You want some company? Warrick left already, but I am happy to entertain you for a while."
"No thanks, Nicky. You've been here longer than I have. Go home and get some sleep."
"Okay, if you insists", he sighed out gratefully in response.
"Hey, Nick? Thanks for the offer, though."
"Anytime, Sara. Anytime"
When his retreating figure was finally out of sight, Sara's eyes moved back to the clock on the wall, noting that only minutes had passed. Discarding the journal, she decided to fill her time thinking of the most painful ways she could rid herself and the lab of Ecklie once and for all.
Unsure of exactly how much time had passed, Grissom glanced at his watch and galvanized himself into action. Waving only for a moment, he pulled out his phone and started dialing; Brass first, then Warrick, Nick and Greg. In a selfish attempt to postpone having to deal with Catherine's anger once she learned the secrets the townhouse would tell of his and Sara's life together, he decided to let her be, knowing full-well that he would pay dearly for the decision in the days to come.
The conversations all followed the same basic pattern: awkward greeting, followed by cryptic request, met with the inevitable confusion, and finally agreement. Graveyard had ended over six hours earlier, and he regretted having to call them in when they should, by all rights, be indulging in some much-needed sleep, but he needed a team he could trust.
"Now for the hard part," he said aloud to the empty space before him, before dialing one last time.