A/N – I had a hard time writing this. I finally got Super Thermal Underwear Man from the Undie World (thanks to my eight year old) out of my head in time for my four year old to stick an image of reindeer pulling a chicken in there. Aren't kids great? If nothing else, you're never bored.
Disclaimer – It's not my fault. My muse made me do it.
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Determined and fuming, Sara grabbed her cell phone.
"Willows," came the greeting on the other end.
"Catherine, it's Sara."
"Are you okay?" Catherine asked.
"I'm fine. I really was only out for a few seconds. There's no concussion, and although the cut on my scalp is over two inches long, it wasn't too deep… just bled like a bitch," Sara explained.
"Nick called to let me know Grissom was taking you to the hospital," Catherine said.
After exhaling a long, calming breath, "I should have called you myself. Sorry about that."
Sara could nearly hear the gears moving as Catherine asked, "Grissom took you home, then?"
"Yes, he did," Sara ground out, "and I'm perfectly fine."
Catherine could easily make out the angry edge in Sara's voice, and asked, "I take it Grissom decided you shouldn't be working tonight?"
"Oh, yes," Sara replied, those two words saying it all.
"Tell me what the doctor in the emergency room said," Catherine demanded.
Sara took a deep breath and explained, "When I fell, I slammed flat and hard after hitting my head on the gravestone. It knocked the wind out of my sails. What Nick assumed was me being unconscious was me with my eyes closed trying to get my breath back. Since that didn't happen right away, I passed out for a few seconds. The doctor cleared me. I'm hale and hearty, except for the stinging from the cut on my head."
Catherine's first thought had been to just let Grissom handle it. However, Sara was now her responsibility, not his. "I'll pick you up in thirty minutes," the blond said. Either way, Catherine figured either Grissom or Sara was going to be angry with her. She happened to agree with Sara, though. If she wanted to go back and finish processing, Catherine didn't see a valid reason why she couldn't.
When Catherine arrived, Sara met her at the front door, "Thanks for taking me back to the scene."
"You do realize I'm now going to have to face Griss with the fact that I just overrode him," Catherine informed Sara.
"I know," Sara said quietly, "and I'm sorry about that."
"I should have been paying closer attention on the Marlon West case. I didn't supervise you at all on that," Catherine said.
Sara sat quietly, finally muttering, "It wouldn't have mattered. It was the desert that pushed me to that point."
Settling back in the passenger seat, Sara focused on the drive, all the while knowing there would be hell to pay later. Her husband was not the type to let it drop. If anything, she'd known him in the past to avoid her if he got angry or upset over something.
"I felt stupid," Sara blurted out. "I felt ridiculous walking through the graveyard. It made me feel jittery. When I found the body, I felt even more ridiculous. I think I may have screamed before I cracked my skull on the headstone."
A wry smile twisting her lips, Catherine said, "I can understand that. There's something about a graveyard at night that can put anyone's teeth on edge."
When they arrived, Brass was on-scene, and multiple lanterns and lights racks had been set up around the graveyard, so it was easy to find Nick and Greg. More patrol cars lined the narrow lane, and Sara could see patrolmen fanning out throughout the cemetery. Sara thanked her supervisor again, and waved her off.
"Hey guys," Sara greeted, walking up to where the body Sara had found still lay. "Wasn't David coming?"
Eyeing her carefully, Nick responded, "Yeah. He's running a little late, though. He's stuck in autopsy."
"The doctor cleared me," Sara reassured him.
"Good," Greg said, rubbing his hands together in anticipation, "welcome to your grave."
"Ha ha," came her reply, but she smiled when she said it.
Greg walked Sara over to the site of the first body, and looked around the graveyard, "We called in a few more bodies to perform a search. Finding the second body unnerved us a little. We want to make sure there aren't more."
"Describe what you've got so far," Sara said, eyeing the young man who lay face-down on the ground in front of her.
"We don't have an ID on the vic, but you can see what looks like an exit wound in his back. We'll know more once David gets here, and we can roll him," Greg explained. Walking her to the body of the next young man – the one she'd inadvertently stumbled across – he crouched down. "There's no ID on this one either."
"What do you need me to do?" she asked them.
Nick held up his camera and said, "I'm taking shots of the headstones around the victims."
"I'm dusting the headstones for prints," Greg added.
Looking out towards the patrolmen fanning out, Sara offered, "How about I check in with them, and start working the perimeter." Making verbal notes to herself, she murmured, "They had to come from somewhere." At their nods, they set to do the job.
Meanwhile, Catherine walked into Grissom's office and promptly sat uninvited across from him.
"I took Sara back to the cemetery," she informed him. "It wasn't your call to make."
"It never bothered you before," he evenly replied, never looking up from the paperwork, but thinking about Hannah and Marlon West. Catherine should have been supervising then, too, but had deferred to him to handle it.
"You're right," she admitted. "I intend to rectify it, though."
Rising from her chair, she waited until Grissom looked up from his paperwork and said, "I'm Sara's supervisor. You can't be. I suggest in the future you remember that or you'll have two very pissed off women to deal with instead of one."
Approaching the door, Catherine turned back, adding, "You might want to ask yourself if you would want your spouse to yank you publicly from a crime scene against your will." With that parting shot, she left to find Warrick. He'd phoned her on her way to pick up Sara that he'd gotten everything from the assault loaded, and was heading back to the lab.
On a deep breath, Grissom sat back in his chair. When the call came from Nick just minutes later telling him they'd found two more bodies, Gil placed a call to Ecklie. A media storm was about to hit. He then called Warrick and Catherine. They needed all hands on deck. From what Nick said, the patrolmen were not even half done searching the graveyard.
Finally, Grissom placed another call.
"Yes?" Sara asked in a low, dull voice.
"We're pulling in the full crew on this one, so I'll be there shortly," he said.
When he received nothing but silence, he added, "I should have talked to you privately."
He winced at her, "Yes, you should have."
When he began to speak, Sara interrupted with, "Now really isn't the best time, Gilbert. I have to go. I'm getting flagged down by another patrolman."
Grissom frowned as she hung up. Calling him by his full name in that tone had a feeling of dread building up in his chest.
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A/N – Okay, people. Today is my birthday. So please be kind, and even if you think the story sucks, hit the review button and say "Happy Birthday old lady".