A/N: So I'm at home sick insert frustration here and thought I could update again now that this site seems to send out alerts again. Thanks for your reviews and thanks to Emmithar for the beta.


Chapter 7

"Sara, please tell us from the very beginning what happened. We can go slowly, if you want to," Brass explained her. Sara nodded in the small private room of the Las Vegas Police Department that Brass had led her in, Catherine being present as well.

Right now Sara did not have a problem talking about what had happened at all. She did not feel affected by it, knowing that this would probably come later. Right now she was much too focused on keeping Greg out of the matter, on telling nothing wrong, to feel that way.

She had given Catherine only a short statement the other day, and the blonde had taken samples from her, deciding then to give Sara the chance to rest before they would meet up again at the PD the next morning.

Sara knew that the search for Charlie was on, but she did not have a clear idea what leads the crime lab and the police had.

She started to tell them what had happened, Brass asking question for clarification from time to time. It was not too difficult to keep Greg out of it; nothing of what had happened could not have happened without him. She had thought about it and was telling Brass and Catherine now the story she had made up which was basically telling the truth, only she did not mention that Greg had been there, what Greg had done. She only mentioned Charlie.

When she had finally finished telling how she had been found and returned to the lab in the following, Catherine and Brass were looking at her quietly, apparently wondering, amazed even maybe at Sara's obvious calmness. They did not know that Sara was concentrating on staying calm because she needed to focus, focus on not saying a wrong word.

"Do you have idea about the motive?" Catherine asked finally.

Sara shook her head. She realized she would have to talk with Greg about it. He might know. She had gotten the feeling that everything had happened because of him, for him. She had not been able to look into Charlie's crazy mind. Maybe Greg could tell her. But there was nothing she could tell Brass and Catherine.

"Did he… hurt you?" Brass asked quietly, and Sara figured what he was wanting to know.

Once again she shook her head. "Not that I know of," she admitted though.

She was pretty sure that nothing had happened. She hoped Greg would be able to fill the gaps, the times in that she had been unconscious. She realized that she would have to talk to him; hanging up on him when he was calling was not going to be a way to achieve that.

When Sara was apparently not going to say anything more, Catherine opened a file she had brought.

"The samples I took from you… the DNA testing came back with four different DNA sets: yours of course, Greg's, the DNA of the man who found you, and an unknown fourth," she told them.

"Charlie," Sara said.

"You know his name?" Brass wondered. Sara realized that she had never brought it up so far.

"I… I think he mentioned it." It had been Greg of course who had told her his name.

Brass looked somewhere between surprised and amused.

"Did he give a surname?" he asked incredulously.

Sara shook her head. Greg would most certainly be able to tell it if they were really friends, but that was information she could not disclose.

"Can you give a description of him?"

This time Sara nodded. Soon a woman had been called who seated herself with Sara at a computer, starting a program that would help them making a picture. Sara described Charlie as well as she could, but was finally rubbing her forehead frustrated, for it was Greg's face that was constantly popping into her mind, her brain apparently trying to forget Charlie's.

"Do you need a break?" she was asked and Sara negated that.

After they were finally finished, Catherine offered to take her home.

"I'd like to go to Greg's actually," Sara stated. They needed to talk. She needed him to fill the gaps in her mind, to answer the why, if he could.

"I'll get you over there," Catherine declared and Sara only nodded.

Some minutes later Sara leaned back in the passenger's seat of Catherine's car while the blonde started the engine, pulling from the parking lot into traffic smoothly. Catherine turned the radio on, glancing at Sara briefly.

"Can I ask you a favor?" Sara wanted to know. It had been in the back of her mind.

"Sure," the blonde agreed. Sara was searching for the right words, before she started.

"Can we keep this between us? I mean I don't want to spread it in the whole lab…"

Catherine was silent for a moment before she shook her head. "I'm sorry, but that won't work, didn't work, actually."

Sara looked at her sharply. "What do you mean?"

"By last night half the dayshift knew about it. I did, Greg did… Sara, the lab is investigating… it wasn't possible to keep it from Gil, Nick or Warrick."

Sara leaned back in her seat again. "I see." More people she had to lie to.

"I told them to leave you alone, that you'd come to them if you needed anything," Catherine added.

"It's okay." As much as everything was alright.

Catherine looked at her questioningly for another moment before she left her alone. They did not talk anymore until they arrived at Greg's place. Then Catherine insisted on stopping by Greg's as well, so the two women made their way to his apartment, Sara ringing at the door.

It was as if Greg had been expecting her, for the door was opened quickly, but Greg was obviously taken aback when he did not only see Sara in front of his door but Catherine as well. He caught himself quickly though, smiling at them.

"Hey."

"Hey," Sara returned. "I want to talk to you." She looked at him, and she saw the question in his eyes. His glace darted over to Catherine for a moment, his expression changing to a slight frown then.

"Okay," he said slowly, stepping aside to let her in. Sara walked into the apartment, while Greg stayed at the door looking at Catherine who did not make any movement to come in as well.

"I'm just saying hi," the blonde woman smiled. "And thanks for taking care of Sara right now."

Greg smiled insecurely. "You're …very welcome." If she knew how much he had taken care of Sara, Greg doubted she would be saying the same. But she did not know, as opposed to his first thought when he had just seen both Sara and her.

Catherine said goodbye after that and Greg closed the front door to follow Sara into the living room.

"You didn't seem to be too happy to see Catherine," Sara stated, knowing she was pressing the right button. She just had to make him talk to her.

Greg sat down onto the carpet, looking up at her. Sara had sat down at the couch, looking rather uncomfortable.

"Well, for a split-second I wondered if you had told her the truth," he admitted sighing. "Maybe that would've been better…"

Sara shook her head silently.

"I mean, I'm gonna feel bad every time I see her or one of the others at the lab," he explained. He was not looking at her anymore, but was staring at the floor crestfallenly.

"You didn't do anything wrong, Greg."

"I made you lie to them."

"It was my decision," she reminded him quietly. Greg did not answer her and Sara delved into her own gloomy thoughts for a while, staring at Greg's wallpaper, before he spoke again.

"We shouldn't have done that. We should trust enough in the system that we're working for…" He paused. Trust in it that it would turn out right. "We're deceiving our own people…" Then Greg was quiet again, looking carefully up to Sara again, seeing the tears in her eyes.

"I'm sorry. I didn't want to make you feel bad," he said deflated. He slid the few paces over to her. "I'm just feeling horrible that I made you do that." He took her into his arms and Sara sobbed quietly into his shoulder. He realized that she was risking everything for him… her job, her career, and he wished he could make her take it back.

After some minutes Sara leaned back with puffy eyes, looking past him at the other side of the room.

"It's not fair that you're taking that risk, Sara," Greg said finally. "It was horrible enough that all that had to happen to you, and now you're risking everything." He hoped that was enough to convince her of the plan that had been forming in his mind.

His tone had obviously alerted her, for she looked up to him again, frowning.

"What are you going to do?"

"The lab is darn great at finding things out, you know. And I don't want all this coming down on you, when they find out that I was involved." He knew she would not like it. She would hate it actually.

"What are you going to do?" she asked more sharply. She would yell most likely. But he had to do this.

"I'm going to turn myself in," he answered simply. "That will still hold up your statement. You were out of it for some time and just didn't know that I was into it as well."

"No!" Her answer was loud and clear.

"Sara, I need to do this…" He stood up.

She jumped up. "Don't you dare!"

"Sara…"

"I was so scared! I was horrified at what you and your friend were going to do to me!" she was almost yelling at him. "It was like in my worst nightmare when I woke up and you were putting that gag in my mouth, were forcing me into that cabin, I was scared as hell." She paused for a moment, and she knew that Greg would not interrupt her.

"I was lying in that wood, afraid I was going to die, or one of you would come back and finish me off, and still at the same time I was thinking to find an explanation until I thought my head was going to explode."

Sara was crying openly now, and dropped back onto the edge of the couch. "And still I knew that I would forgive you one day… because I just couldn't imagine I wouldn't…"

Greg was dead silent the whole time she was talking and looked more crestfallen than he ever had.

"So, Greg, I want one thing of you… that you listen to me and don't go and turn yourself in," she stated quietly but firmly. "None of that was your fault, do you understand me?"

Greg was still silent and Sara hoped that he would listen to her. She could not bear him doing what he intended. She wished all of that had never happened, realizing that this thinking was futile. But one question once again came into her mind.

"Greg," she called him, hoping he would even hear her. "Can you tell me… why Charlie did it?" How she was asking it, it sounded more like she would ask a suspect why he had committed a certain crime. She had sounded calm, professional, scarily after her outburst only some minutes ago.

"For me," Greg stated simply after a moment of silence. "He did it because I had told him about you. You were a random target, yes, but he took you because you came close to the woman I…"

"What, Greg?"

Greg felt that she deserved his full honesty, if that was the only thing he could give her.

"I'm not sure how much I told him in my drunken state, but I remember telling him that I'd never had a chance with you, that it doesn't matter how much I love you, you'd never look at me this way…"

Greg doubted that he would ever be able to look at Sara again. He had been honest, that was what he had wanted, but he felt the offence of telling her how he felt after everything that had happened to her because of him.

After a long while he looked up to her again after all. It was worry that caused him to do so, as Sara had not given any sound of her after his narration. And it broke his heart once again to see that she was crying again, and again because of him.

TBC