A/N: Much thanks to my beta extraordinaire, Keegan.

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2: a disembodied soul; especially: the soul of a dead person believed to be an inhabitant of the unseen world or to appear to the living in bodily likeness.

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It would have been the most beautiful night she has ever seen in Nevada if not for the twisted metal anchoring her to the desert floor.

A full moon glows in the thick, icing-spread darkness. No garish neon lights, no artificial paradise. It's just her, a wrecked Mustang and the moon.

Her father used to say the moon glows because the ghosts need to find their way back home.

Her mother used to say don't listen to your father when he's drunk.

She lies on her stomach, the glass cutting into fabric and flesh, and squeezes her eyes shut because it's infuriating to be thinking about them and not the things and people that make her happiest.

The stillness in the air reminds her of Pamela's ward: air so cold it chills her to the bone, sterile scents wafting around them and the overbearing silence.

Please go away.

There was a full moon in the sky when she followed behind the body bag that held Cammie's body.

Svetlana's TOD was between two to four a.m., around the time it is now.

It's claustrophobic under the car, and as the memories swirl up from the recesses of her mind, she gasps, fighting for air around her so fast it burns her throat. The rain starts to pour outside, lashing out on top of her and sears her skin as it pools around her.

Suzanna's tears as she turned to face her, shame and fear burning in her eyes.

She's drowning, but in water or in memories, she's not sure.

It's a wet, messy blur; she's irrational and crying and headstrong and so not ready to say goodbye, in spite of everything, so she does what she does best: fight.

--

At first the heat is welcoming, warming everything with its nearly tangible strands as far as the eye can see. But like everything in Vegas, even the heat is extreme. There's no in-between, no welcoming grey. It burns pale skin and imbibes moisture from wet sand.

And so she walks, up dusty slopes, on level ground, over jagged rocks. Over parched plants and coloured fliers from Tangiers and Planet Hollywood and fine, milky white bones.

She walks, because each laboured foot forward is a step further away from the wreck, the ghosts and closer to any place but there.

"Four times five is twenty."

Left foot.

"Four times six... is twenty-four."

Right foot.

"Four times four is... what is it? Sixteen. Sixteen."

Left foot.

She shakes her head lightly and a humourless laugh bubbles from deep inside. How to forget sixteen?

Not-so-sweet sixteen, sixteen blocks from our place to his favourite café, sixteenth of September, sixteen books left on my 'books to read before I die' list.

Right foot.

A shadow on the dusty ground catches her blurry eyes, and she turns quickly to catch a flash of brown hair disappearing into the wind. She just stands there, feeling the sun beat down on her, blinking sand from her vision.

"Hello?"

A shiver runs from her spine right to her knees, amidst the scorching sun.

Natalie has brown hair.

She continues on, feeling the fear rise and she's suddenly more lost and disorientated than ever. It's a stretch for Natalie to be lying in wait behind a boulder or shrub, but then again, being kidnapped and posed under a few tons of metal sounds absurd too. She whips her head around to see nothing but endless desert terrain and blinding sunlight.

"Just keep going, don't stop."

Right foot.

"Don't stop."

Left foot.

"Don't stop, Sara."

Stumble.

"Stop following me!" she screams into the desert wind, and tiny grains of sand embed themselves into her sore throat but she doesn't feel a thing because all her nerves, every one of her senses are under assault and her world is spinning and burning up in the middle of this Nevadan desert.

"It's me," the soft voice says gently, and she turns around to see a person standing in the blinding sunlight, and for three seconds, she doesn't breathe.

It's Cammie.

"Hello," she says cautiously, kneeling down in front of her in camel-coloured sweats. She has her hair in a loose ponytail; her eyes lined with coal and her throat an expanse of smooth white skin.

Sara exhales loudly, trying to keep her stomach from convulsing from the shock and fear. Her vision keeps tilting; everything is spinning in garish Technicolor, and Cammie's face swims in and out of focus. "You're not supposed to be here."

She smiles, utterly ethereal and beautiful. "The same can be said about you. You're safe now, okay? You're safe now."

She can feel herself losing consciousness, and she fights for control over her body. "That sounds familiar," she says hazily as the words trip over her tongue.

Cammie tightens her grip around her fingers. "It's going to be okay."

She wants to shake her head, but that in itself is too much effort and murky darkness takes the place of brilliant sunlight as her eyes close even though there are too many things to say. I'm sorry for everything, she wants to say, but there's no more energy left except to breathe. I'm sorry for holding the hand of your murderer, I'm sorry for not being able to save you. I'm so sorry for everything.

"Sorry," she rasps, clinging onto her hand. "I'm so sorry."

Cammie might be screaming or staying silent or this may all be an illusion created by her confused mind, because just like that, it's over. No white light, no overwhelming fear, no divine sense of peace.

It's like tipping over an edge, its top bright, its bottom endless. It's a balancing act, and all her life she's been balanced, if not just slightly off-centre, but now she falls and all the light in the world is gone.

--

An obscured word dances in her vision, and as she blinks and inhales and blinks, feeling void and weightless, it comes into focus and she exhales loudly, clouding over the oxygen mask.

Grissom.

She lifts her eyes to his, and the world and everything else is balanced once more. His eyes are so bright and wide and relieved and sad that it makes the only part of her that doesn't hurt, her heart, ache.

He smiles, a tiny smile that makes her think of a pearly-pink seashell surrounded by plastic bottles and broken shoes and fallen sandcastles in the middle of a beach; the rush of having a suspect spend life behind bars after convicting him of first degree murder of his wife and three kids during New Year's Eve.

It's bittersweet.

She starts to smile, but then she catches sight of her sitting next to Grissom, her dusty sweatpants touching the edge of his dark slacks, and the smile dies on her lips because all she can hear is her voice, sweet and calming and light.

It's the voice of a dead person.

"She's here, she's right next to you!"

He doesn't acknowledge her but tightens his grip around her hand and she realises that all he can hear is the helicopter's engine and see the condensation of her words in the mask.

"Honey, you're safe now. We're going to Desert Palms in less than a minute," he says, voice raw yet breathless.

She shakes her head quickly, causing the icepack to slip off her forehead. The panic in her eyes is clear as she struggles to pull off the oxygen mask while her frantic words keep melting against the plastic.

"She's right there, why can't you see her?"

Grissom looks calmly at the medical technician, but his palm is freezing and slick in hers. The blonde medical technician holds the icepack firmly in place on her forehead, and speaks into the microphone connected to his earpiece.

"ETA is thirty seconds; ten milligrams of Diprivan at arrival, patient is distressed."

"She can't hurt you now," he says gently, but his calm is slipping along with her frame of mind. Cammie's staring at her from the corner of her eye, looking petrified.

"I'm not talking about Natalie!"

The helicopter shudders and the doors fly open as he's pushed aside and she looses grip on his hand, the last thing that reminds her of yesterday. A nurse materialises and slips a needle into the top of her hand as a flurry of people push her through swinging doors and into an antiseptic world of blinding lights.

The last thing she sees is Grissom in the confined helicopter, sitting amongst all the medical equipment and discarded medical paraphernalia as her vision dissolves by its edges and the calm sets in.

He's alone.

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TBC

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A/N2: I know that post-Living Doll/Dead Doll fics have been written over and over, but I hope you guys enjoyed this chapter. Thanks for reading!