Disclaimer: Not mine, never has been and never will be.

A/N: This is my first planned multiple chapter story, which I have been working on since February. You may think it has similarities to "Grave Danger", but every similarity is pure coincidence. I hope you enjoy.

Pairing: N/S

Fade to Black

Grissom

I wondered if she thought I was Nick since she kept repeating his name. I could hear her gasp for air, I could almost feel her pain. I had heard her scream. I had personally interviewed all the victims who survived the attacks of the psychopath who was now holding Sara captive, so I knew and I understood. I understood better than anyone else what was happening in the room just twenty meters away from where I was standing. The FBI agent standing in front of me was frantically signaling me to say the things they had instructed me to say, but all I could think about was that she was asking for Nick and I wondered why, why she would do such a thing and just before the line went dead she asked me to tell Nick she was so sorry, so so sorry. It was then I realized she knew she was talking to me.

Earlier

It hadn't taken me long to understand what happened when I saw Brass and his men approaching me, one of them holding a small girl in their arms. I knew she was 15 years old, but she looked like she had just turned ten. She was the last one of the girls who went missing in a time period of two months. The last one, but the third one who was more alive than dead. The third one alive, but the first one I couldn't really be happy about. It crossed my mind that she looked like Sara. I thought Sara must have looked like her when she was 15 years old. It was then that I realized Sara wasn't with Brass and his men. I had sent Sara with Brass two hours ago. I had called her in on her first night off in three months. I had called her in, because I knew someone or something outside of work was making her happy. I had called her in, because I couldn't take it. I couldn't take her being happy and me not being the one making her happy.

Before I could ask Brass turned to me and said that Sara had traded places with the girl. Right that moment my brain shut down. Far away I could hear Brass say that Sara had said she wasn't afraid to die. She had said that death couldn't be as painful as life could be.

TBC