Whisper of Life

By: Manigault

Post Episode---- Living Doll

Disclaimer: If they were mine then Sara would not, I repeat would not, be in jeopardy. Alas, they belong to CBS and others who must enjoy leaving us biting our nails.

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Wet earth moved beneath her finger tips as she struggled to regain both consciousness and answer the staggering question of why did she feel this dampness between her fingers? Managing to open her eyes after much difficulty she waded through the confusion of where she was and why she hurt so badly. Nightmares could give her blinding headaches, but this intense pain in her abdomen?

Where was Grissom? He should be home, waking her up from this horrid dream. Only she didn't remember going to bed. With a frown Sara moved to sit up and realized she couldn't move. Willing herself to wake up, she fought back a sense of panic as reality started to creep back into her mind, along side the short blast of memories. She was on her way back to the lab after going home to check on Bruno, feed him, take him for a short stroll. She opened the trunk of her car when an unfamiliar voice called her name.

Looking up, she barely had time to register the crazed looking female when she felt a bolt of electricity shoot through her body, dropping her to her knees as she made a lame attempt at reaching for her weapon. Another shot of electricity and she blacked out.

Gasping for air, Sara felt the wetness beneath her cheeks and wondered at the salty taste of the rain. Who would do this? Who was the female that had done this to her and what twisted reason could she have for going to such extremes?

She was working on the miniature killer case and they were making head way towards finding out who the killer was...

A female? Could she and everyone have been so far off as to not consider the possibility that the miniature killer could be female? Was this some random act of violence or was she the target of an insane killer?

Sara. The woman had called her name so it wasn't random. Now she was in the desert someplace, rain falling on her hand, drivelets finding their path to her face where it was pooling beside her mouth, her nose.

With intense concentration, she managed to lift her head enough to take a painful peek around her immediate area. It was night. Was it the same night or had a day gone past with her unaware of her situation?

Grissom. A soft moan escaped her lips as she thought of what terror he must be going through knowing she was gone. Opening her fingers, she grasped for some leverage to pull herself from her cramped position, but her fingers clutched only wet earth as mud slid through her grasp.

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"Gil. Gil!" Brass stepped between the distraught man and the lunatic woman that was singing that creepy song over and over. Although Grissom had asked to speak with Natalie alone, he, along with Catherine and Greg had stood on the other side of the glass and watched the exchange.

Motioning towards the door, Brass urged Grissom to step outside of the room, his own patience stretched tight as he tried to push that terrifying song out of his head.

"Bleach. You should let me bring in buckets of the stuff and surround her with it, Gil." Brass watched as Grissom slumped against a wall, his defeated expression tore at the hearts of his friends.

Catherine and Greg had stepped out into the hallway, uncertain of what action they should take, but certain that they needed to do something to ease his desperation.

"We'll find her, Grissom." Greg tried to keep the fear from his own voice as he spoke, but it filtered through. Grissom didn't seem to hear him anyway, Greg thought, as he made some excuse to find Nick and Warrick and then sprinted off at a brisk pace leaving Catherine and Brass to stand uneasily in front of Grissom.

Clearing his throat, Brass motioned back towards the interrogation room. "I'm going to have a doctor come in and see about giving her something to calm her down. Maybe a sedative will stop the instant replay we have going on in there."

"I'm sure she has a lawyer on their way in." Catherine said dryly, her eyes sweeping over her distraught friend that was now sitting against the wall, his hands covering his face as defeat echoed in the slump of his shoulders.

Pushing aside the disbelief that Grissom had openly admitted to his love for Sara and wondering if she knew about this depth of emotion, Catherine crouched down beside him and placed a hand on his back. Aware of the curious spectators that were walking past or glancing over at them, she softly suggested that they go back to the lab, back to his office where he could have some privacy.

At the word privacy, Grissom's head snapped up and he scrambled to his feet. Catherine could only guess at what was going through his mind as he strode quickly from the police department and out into the night. Following slowly, she hesitated at the door as she was greeted by the sight of Grissom standing in the parking lot, rain coming down on him in sheets, his head raised towards the sky.

Sofia swung the door open as Catherine stepped aside to allow her and another officer entrance. Pausing beside Catherine, Sofia looked back out into the night at the frozen man.

"Is he okay?" Sofia's voice was heavy with concern as she pushed the rain hood back from her head.

"If we don't find Sara soon, and alive, then I'm not sure if he'll ever be okay again." Catherine knew that Sofia wasn't aware of Grissom's confession, but she didn't feel like hedging the truth and by the look in Sofia's eyes she didn't need to hedge. "What is it?"

"Drawings." Sofia nodded towards Grissom. "Many drawings of him and Sara. Some together and others alone, but the fact that she drew them at all is telling. Do you think they are really together?"

"I don't know anything for certain right now, except for the fact that Grissom is going to be sick if he stands out there much longer and that we need to find Sara." Looking at the other woman Catherine asked her if there was anything in Natalie's apartment that could clue them into where she had been taken.

"I didn't see anything, Catherine, but I know that Warrick and Nick are heading over there to go through everything. Nick says that he left Greg to follow up on wrecker companies to try and trace how Natalie was able to take the Mustang away from Vegas. There has to be a trail. It's not like she could have driven the car out there and turned it over by herself."

"May I borrow your jacket? I need to go speak with Grissom."

After pulling on the borrowed jacket, Catherine ventured out into the rain. The night was cold and she only hoped that Sara was sheltered enough by the flipped over car that the rain wouldn't seep into her clothes and to her skin.

"Gil? You need to come with me so we can keep searching for Sara."

Grissom vaguely heard Catherine speaking as he felt the rain pelt against his skin and thought about Sara and whether or not she was sheltered from the cool water.

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Freezing. She was so cold and the steel trap she was tucked beneath did nothing to keep the water from drenching her clothes until they offered no protection from the Vegas elements. Tired. She was so tired and her body ached in places she didn't know she could hurt. She'd never thought telepathy was possible, but she sent a silent plea, a beacon, towards Grissom for him to find her soon.

Her neck hurt from trying to keep it lifted off the ground and away from the pool of water that was building beneath her mouth and nose. If she could only pull her arm towards her head then she could at least prop herself up on her hand.

As hard as she tried, she could only move the fingers of her right hand. She had no idea how the miniature killer had positioned her in such a way that she couldn't move an inch and that was enough to dampen any optimisim that was fighting to surface.

Grissom. Hurry.

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He had let Catherine prod him into returning to the lab, but he refused to change into the jumpsuit that she brought him. Sara was out there in the rain and the least he could do was suffer with her to some small degree.

Nick and Warrick had returned with a sketch book that contained many drawings of Sara beneath the car, but nothing that could give them a clue to what part of the desert she was located.

Sofia was assisting Greg in locating the company that had been hired or rented a tow truck to Natalie in the hopes that it would be a direct link to discovering where the crushed Mustang had been left.

He stood in his office. Lost. That crazy song played over and over in his brain as he kept going back to that line about the doctors not knowing what was the matter with the doll's insides. Was Sara in pain? Did Natalie injure her in some manner that wouldn't be obvious when she was found?

Spinning in a half circle, Grissom's eyes fell on the miniature of his office that he'd wasted precious time on for the past few weeks. Time that he could have been spending with Sara, cuddling in bed with her as she snacked on her yogurt and Bruno dozed at their feet. Wasted hours. Precious time. In one fluid movement he picked up the miniature and threw it against the wall watching it shatter into hundreds of tiny pieces, the result giving him little satisfaction but somehow feeling right.

Someone cleared their throat behind him and he spun around to face a flustered Hodges who stared back at him with wonderment.

"What is it David?" Grissom's clipped tone did nothing to ease the uneasiness Hodges was feeling, yet he forced himself to speak.

"I've been studying the latest model and I think that you should see something."

Grissom fought back a retort. Hodges was trying to help and he'd been on target with discerning much about who Natalie was so why not listen to him?

He didn't trust his own voice so he nodded and moved towards the door. Hodges led the way to the conferance room where the model lay, taunting with its mere presence.

"When we find Sara then whoever moves her needs to be aware of this booby trap." After witnessing Grissom smash the model seconds before, Hodges had decided to go straight to the point and explain what he'd discovered.

Grissom watched as Hodges explained that when you lifted the Sara miniature a device was set to explode. "At least that's what I think it's there for, but I refrained from testing my theory because, well, you know."

"Lift it." Grissom refused to call the tiny figure Sara or refer to it as anything but an object.

Shooting him a quick look, Hodges carefully lifted the doll and waited in anticipation of the small boom. Nothing. Embarrassed, Hodges averted his eyes from Grissom and made a move to replace the figure when a hand on his arm prevented him. Leaning forward, Grissom squinted at the landscape as a steady stream of expletives escaped.

Hodges bent forward to see what had agited Grissom and discovered that the figure had been planted on a cluster of cacti. Turning the figure over, Hodges saw the tiny tears in the clothes of the doll and let out an involuntary groan.

"Do you think it's poisonous?"

Shaking his head, Grissom picked up a magnifying glass and bent close to the cacti. Almost to himself, he spoke aloud as he studied the small plant. "Pediocactus sileri or Siler Pincushion cactus." Relying on his past fascination with his dad's collection of botany books, Grissom searched his memory for the facts related to the cactus plant and rattled off his knowledge.

"Grissom?"

Grissom stepped back from the table. "I know where she is."

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She was dreaming. She had to be dreaming because she heard Grissom's gentle voice whispering in her ear assuring her that she would be okay. A slight smile tilted up the corner of her lips and she refused to open her eyes lest the wonderful voice fade.

"Honey? You're okay. I'm here and we're going to have you out of this nightmare any minute." Grissom lay sprawled on the wet ground, his face inches from Sara's as he clutched her right hand in his left and pushed the hair back from her face with his right. He was barely aware of the sirens echoing around them or the sound of the chopper that had landed nearby. His focus was on the prone woman trapped beneath the Mustang in an eerily similar position as the miniature.

All details of finding his way to Sara's side were blurry to him and would probably remain so for the rest of his life, but he was here and she was alive.

She was alive.

The End