When he arrived, the lab was eerily quiet and Horatio had to try a few doors before he found a face he knew.

"Horato." Catherine's voice was surprised but steady.

"Catherine." His look was sympathetic and she smiled wanly back. "I'm here to help."

She shook her head. "I'd say help is what we've got in spades right now. What we need is a solid lead."

"I understand. Would you-" He was cut off by the sound of scuffling, like a fight between a boy and girl, both about the age of five.

Both CSI's moved quickly, Horatio with his hand on his gun, toward the lobby and the source of the sound. He recognized the annoying trace tech who was playing tug of war with a delivery boy. They were joined simultaneously by Grissom and the rest of the team, spilling out from different rooms. Nick, Horatio felt, was conspicuously absent.

After a bit of confusion, Grissom snapped on his gloves and peered at the parcel, so engrossed he hadn't noticed Horatio's presence. He left them all in the hall as he examined the manilla bubble envelope, first tactilely, then slitting it open and using the ALS. The source of the quiet became immediately apparent standing there with the four CSI's. They barely breathed.

Entering the lab where Grissom worked like kids who had missed first bell, they stood around the table and listened to the blank space on the tape before it played. Horatio recognized the song and frowned. Catherine was right. He was trying to get under their skin and when Grissom clicked 'watch', Horatio knew the bastard had succeeded.

Horatio had come to learn something about the way Grissom acted when he was upset which was, if you could get him shouting, everything would be fine. When he failed to loose control and simply shut down, there was trouble on the horizon. Lips parted, eyes dark behind his glasses, still as death, Grissom was a picture of himself at his most upset.

The rest of the team showed more obvious signs of distress and Horatio knew that Grissom's sole thought was the keeping of his team focused so they could find Nick; So they could be complete again and that pressure was squarely on Grissom's shoulders.

He didn't stare at the picture for long, moving instead to calculate how much air his CSI had which got everyone else thinking about practical problems. The sight of their friend in a box, underground and panicking being more than most anyone could cope with.

~~~~#~~~~

After Sara and Warrick filled him in, Horatio ducked outside to finally greet his lover. Grissom was standing just outside a sitting room and Horatio could see he was trying to steady himself. Reaching out, he couldn't deny the pang of hurt when Grissom stepped away from his touch, instead fixing Horatio with eyes that looked black in the gloom of the lab at night.

"I need to focus," he said simply. There was no regard for Horatio's feelings or his own. That side of Grissom was effectively closed until further notice.

His jaw worked a moment. "The city won't finance the ransom." Again, words spoken with no emotion even thought they could be a death sentence.

Horatio looked to the floor, hands on his hips. "That's not surprising."

Grissom pursed his lips, frown deepening. "It probably wouldn't make a difference anyway I just...wish we had one more card up our sleeves." He paused, looking Horatio over. "I need your eyes."

Shoving that hurt feeling away down deep, Horatio made certain it didn't reach his face as he nodded. "You've got them. I'll start with the photos from the scene."

Grissom kept his eyes on the blue pools, loosing some of their lustre in this light, a moment longer before turning abruptly and pushing open the door.

Horatio watched him through the glass a moment before walking back to the layout where the feed of Nick was stationed. He opened his laptop and flipped open his cell, making contact with his financial advisor and bank. Luckily, he was a fantastic customer otherwise they wouldn't put up with the late night calls they had received from Horatio on more than one occasion. His focus didn't waiver from this task even as Nick's parents entered with Catherine and Grissom.

When it was just he and Grissom in the room, Horatio cleared his throat and walked towards him. "I can have fifty thousand here by 5am."

Grissom, shaken jarringly from all his current, pressing thoughts, stared blank facedly at Horatio.

Horatio looked briefly back at his laptop, hands on his hips. "I can double that in a day."

This didn't quite have the desired effect as Grissom's composure threatened to break. He shook his head a little. "That's..."he shook his head again. "We don't have enough, one way or another." His mouth was parted just so, a thank you and so much more on the tip of his tongue before his face darkened again. "Please just have a look at the photos."

Horatio nodded and returned to the table, pushing aside his laptop and opening files of photos. Grissom allowed himself one precious moment to look at the handsome figure of his lover before his gaze drifted to Nick. He pulled up a seat opposite Horatio and lifted the evidence bag containing the coffee cup.

Horatio had never seen someone stare so intently at something seemingly so meaningless.

When Catherine entered some time later with a duffel and plunked it in front of Grissom, the ensuing conversation would have made Horatio laugh under any other circumstances. She was always telling her former supervisor to be more politic and here he was, spelling it all out for her.

Horatio's mind emptied, however, when Grissom said he would make the drop and he stood up before thinking. She sound of his stool scraping on linoleum drew Catherine and Grissom's attention to him.

But what could he say? Don't do it? There was no one else that line would sound more hypocritical coming from than himself, Horatio knew. If it were one of his team, he would walk into anything for them and few knew that better than Grissom.

"I'm coming with you." His gravelly tone was firm.

"No, you're not." Grissom eyed him over the rims of his glasses, his voice calculating. "He'll ask for one person and this whole thing could go south if we don't give him exactly what he wants."

"And if what he wants is to take another member of this lab down?" Horatio placed his hands on his hips, cocking his head slightly to the side.

Catherine took a step back from the table, eyes raised but avoiding the two men.

"We've got to assume he's after the ransom." Grissom stood and picked up the bag. "Our focus is on getting Nick back and if this is our opportunity then so be it."

Sharing a brief look, Catherine and Horatio followed Grissom out.

A mile from the drop a caravan of police cruisers, tactical response units and paramedics were parked under the baking Nevada sun. Standing out back of his Denali, Grissom had a bullet proof vest handed to him by Catherine which he promptly threw into the SUV. Removing his holster, Grisom found Horatio's hand on his with an iron grip. He looked up.

"Don't be stupid." Horatio held onto Grissom's hand like he held onto his gaze. Here, there was no argument for the Vegas supervisor to make. Horatio would not let him.

Slipping his holster back into his belt, he turned from his lover and got in the Denali. Hands on his hips, a frown beneath his sunglasses, Horatio stood in the dust kicked up with Catherine beside him. He felt sick watching the SUV getting smaller and smaller. This was a nightmare, literally the fabric from which his night terrors were woven.

~~~~#~~~~

Catherine paced. Horatio leaned against the door of the Denali they had both arrived in, arms crossed over his chest, barely breathing.

His mother had been catholic but Horatio had been uncertain about the faith as a child and had outright abandoned it in his teens. He believed in hope and well wishing, but not praying. All he had to do right now was play out the last things he had said to his lover, his partner. There were few things that bothered him more than doing nothing. In his mind, a great many evils could have been prevented if someone had simply done or said something. Inaction, if he believed in sin, would be a big one.

When the sound of the blast came ricochetting off of the hills around them, Horatio was in the drivers seat so fast he had to wait for Catherine before speeding off, at the head of the snake of vehicles. Skidding to a stop, he was out with his gun drawn before anyone else had gotten there. He didn't wait for Catherine as he charged into the building, exactly like the explosives expert ought not to have.

He didn't care.

"Gil?" His voice could carry when he wanted it to. In the silence following the blast, it's rough, heavy tones sounded like lead bouncing around the shell of the warehouse. He kept calling out until he saw the movement to his left when he entered the back room.

Holstering his gun as he knelt next to Grissom, Horatio said his lover's name softly as he held his head in one hand and used the other to search his body. Grissom was covered in blood but none of it appeared to be his. Shifting his focus, Horatio brought out a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped the blood spatter from Grissom's face.

Grissom looked stunned and could not move his gaze from the spot where the man had been standing moments ago. His mind, addled by the explosion, was trying to fumble through too many thoughts at once. A man had just died. He himself seemed to be alive. Horatio was here. Nick. Nick. The man didn't say where Nick was. They still didn't know where Nick was.

He found himself forced to look at Horatio by strong hands on either side of his face. Not knowing it at the time, he read Horatio's lips. He couldn't hear him.

"Are you all right? I'm gonna stand you up, okay?"

Grissom didn't give consent, just let himself be hauled to his feet and clung to Horatio as he was half dragged from the building. There were flashing lights on the Ambulance that Horatio brought him to, but no audible siren...

Horatio's mouth was open, breathing hard from hauling 180 pounds of near dead weight. Grissom couldn't see the blue of his eyes behind his sunglasses. His hand gripped Grissom's shoulder for a moment until he was forced aside by an EMT.

Hands on his hips, he leaned over slightly as he caught his breath before looking back up to Grissom sitting in the back of the ambulance.

"He left us with nothing," Grissom said softly, his face deeply perplexed, staring into the air in front of him.

Horatio exhaled, looked back to the building, back to his lover. It was a good thing the man had blown himself up. It saved Horatio the trouble of having to hunt him down and kill him himself.