Wherever You Are
Author: wobbear
Rating: T
Disclaimer: CSI and the characters are not mine, never will be.
Spoilers?: Post-episode to Living Doll.
Author's notes: This is a short chapter; I'll try to get the next one up later today to tide you over my vacation. Thank you muchly to PhDelicious for the beta. And thanks to you for reading!
Summary: 'If you're going through hell, keep going.' (Winston Churchill) GSR.
Chapter 7
When the world comes in
"Grissom!"
The man in question was headed out the door of the break room.
"Hey, Grissom!" Greg's raised voice and wildly waving arms eventually got through to Grissom's consciousness.
"What?" he snapped, perturbed. While Ecklie had been going on, Grissom had managed to get back into a mindset where he could work and might be useful to Sara. The interruption threatened his delicate equilibrium and he feared he might not be able to claw it back.
"Uh, Archie has, might have, something." Greg nudged the A/V tech.
Focusing properly on the young men, Grissom noticed their nervous tension. He was aware that some of the junior staff felt intimidated talking to him, but he'd thought Greg, at least, was past that. Wait—this was different. He squinted in concentration. These two had a . . . bizarre air of optimism about them.
He silently counted to five and said, "Yes?"
Grissom listened avidly as Archie, stammering a little at first, explained. The tech wrapped up by mentioning possible problems: "She needs to be wearing the vest, have the locator turned on, it needs to be working . . ."
Archie was starting to depress himself when Grissom interjected, "She's only got one vest, we all do. Ecklie doesn't understand about needing spares for when they get dirty . . ."
"Yeah, he seems to think . . . nah, I don't even want to try imagine what Ecklie thinks. Turns out to be a lucky break." Greg risked a tentative grin.
"Hold on—you never mentioned this trial to me because . . .? No, forget it, doesn't matter." Grissom made for the door and beckoned them impatiently. Greg and Archie scrambled to their feet and hurriedly followed; it became apparent that they were going to the A/V lab. En route, Grissom belatedly thought to ask, "Archie, can you check on it from here, or do you have to get in touch with your cousin, someone in the company?"
"Uh, I can do it from here; we did it that way to make the testing easier." The fact that he had an 'borrowed' identity to log into EyeSpy's network was something he thought the boss didn't need to know. Archie had been about to talk to the nightshift supervisor about the trial when Grissom had caught him playing World of Warcraft on a lab computer, during work hours, both big no-nos. He'd been working over several months to re-establish Grissom's trust in him.
A wall between us
The smell was getting to Sara. Not a hint of breeze stirred to refresh her stuffy airspace. The growing heat of the day stoked the unpleasant odors which surrounded her in a malevolent cloud. It was a mixture of oil, hot dust, body odor and, the real pisser as far as Sara was concerned, bodily fluids. A downside of drinking the rain had been the inevitable need to relieve the building pressure in her bladder. After much careful wriggling to lower her jeans and panties then shifting her lower half over to one side as much as possible, the deed had been done. Afterward she'd struggled through the same motions in reverse—no mean feat one-handed and when a wrong move could bring the car down on her—and now had the added discomfort of gritty dirt on her rear and thighs.
Even now, she was trying to joke with herself but it was becoming harder and harder to keep her spirits up. Morbid thoughts about gangrene setting into her trapped arm jangled in her head, along with memories of Zoë Kessler, who'd chewed off her own hand in a failed escape bid. No matter how strong her will to live, self-mutilation simply was not something that Sara wanted to consider. She'd made it this far in one piece; if this was where it had to end, she wanted to face it sound in body and spirit.
But, oh, the relief when she'd realized that it was impossible for her to get a decent angle to bite her wrist.
A sudden thought struck her; she unzipped and wriggled out of the vest. It ended up draped around her cuffed arm. Very carefully turning as far as she could, Sara used her free hand to shove out the part with her name badge on it, as far away from the body of the car as she could. The locator had tested fine with her sitting inside a Denali, but they'd never tried it underneath a vehicle. Got to give them—and me—the best possible chance.
Sara still had questions: had she turned on her GPS locator properly? Was it working? Had anyone besides her even thought of it? Many questions—no answers. Whatever, she had done all she could.
She had faith that Grissom and the team would do everything possible to find her, but they were only human. Wonderful, warm, brilliant human beings, but only human nonetheless. They were her only hope. She was desperately holding onto that hope, but reality was biting and gnawing at her resilience.
Grissom, where are you? I'm still waiting.
Sara's throat convulsed as she fought to dispel the hollow ache of despair. She clenched her free fist tightly, fingernails biting into her palm.
Please don't be too late.
TBC