Disclaimer: They're not mine.

The snow around her little house was melting. Fresh spring air was being carries in on the soft breezes and early flowers were pushing their colorful heads forcefully up into the world. Sara's first semester teaching was half over and she still loved it. She loved planning out her lessons, loved teaching them to her students, watching them understand the concepts. Her days working at the college were a breath of fresh air coming through an open window and chasing the lingering stagnant air of Las Vegas away. Things were easier out here. At least during the day she could pretend that her past wasn't real. The nightmares were still there just as bad as ever though. But she expected that.

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While Sara was flourishing in her new life Grissom was deteriorating. He didn't sleep, barely ate, worked constantly and threw himself into every case with a rabid single minded focus. His hunger for justice seemed to increase tenfold and his drive was unstoppable. He worked to avoid his demons. And everyone around him knew that demons name was Sara.

Catherine especially was worried about him. She saw through his attempts to convince everyone that he was fine. She knew that inside he was shattered and she hated Sara for it. Sara knew what this would do to him. Yes, after her encounter with Natalie Sara had been worse and god knew that girl needed some serious therapy. But this was unforgivable.

This most recent case was worse than usual. Lately every case had seemed especially bad. Four foster children, two boys, two girls, and their foster parents had been murdered in their home the night before. The adults had been shot first in their sleep, one shot each straight between the eyes. It was over before they'd had a chance to wake up and realize what was happening. The house was on the outskirts of Vegas and there weren't any neighbors living close enough to hear the shots coming from inside. One of the boys, twelve years old had come out to the hall though and that was where he was found. Lying on his back, a pool of blood around him, eyes staring at the ceiling, two bullets in his chest. The younger boy, five, was found huddled in bed with the younger girl, age four. He had tried to shield her but the bullets had found their targets. The last girl, nine, seemed to have been the focus of all this. She had been dragged from her room, flailing and fighting, through the puddle of blood in the hall, leaving a thick smear down the stairs and outside. Out there on the grass her attacker had cut her throat, leaving her unable to scream and then she was left in the grass to die.

The scene had been found the next evening by the foster mothers coworker who had been sent to the house when she hadn't shown up for work and calls to her home and cell had gone unanswered.

Swing shift was already too swamped with other cases to take this one on too so right from the beginning Night shift had been called in. As far as they were concerned this was the only case happening that night. Grissom could tell that they would be logging a lot of overtime with this one. They worked steadily through the evening and night processing the scene. Night turned to day and still they were there, going over everything with a fine toothed comb. This case touched everyone; there was no way it couldn't. Everyone was on edge, everyone wanted to do their best, to be perfect at their jobs to bring these people to justice. Every once and awhile Catherine could be seen hiding a sniffle and the few drops that fell from her eyes.

Slowly as they went on twenty four hours straight people started to drop. First went Greg, heading home for a shower and nap. Then at hour twenty six Nick and Warrick took their leave. Finally at hour twenty seven Catherine gave up. She needed to go home and hug her daughter. Reassure herself that she was still ok. She made Grissom give her his word that he would leave soon but even though he promised he would she knew he wouldn't. When she came back four hours later, before any of the boys she brought him a change of clothes and something to eat. Together they transferred the mountains of evidence from the scene back to the lab and began sorting it. Finger prints together, photos sent to be printed and studied, blood sent to the lab.

Grissom sighed wearily. "This one is bad Catherine." His voice was low and quiet.

"They're all bad Griss"

"Yeah but.." His voice trailed off. "This one is worse."