A.N.: Thank you everybody for your patience through the good, the bad and the sluggish. Your reviews mean so much, and I've never seen so many reviews for one of my stories. Sorry it's taken so long. Been on vacation for the past month. Happy New Year, guys!

Chapter Eleven

Sara was awake and pacing through her cell early in the morning when Nick and Grissom arrived at the jail. She looked much better than she did the night before, when Grissom had first seen her. Her face looked more relieved than tense, her eyes were sad, but nowhere near the swollen red orbs they had been when he had seen her last. She seemed comforted by his presence, and it relieved him. Even though it had only been a day since he had seen her, he felt like it had been an eternity.

Her eyes brightened when she saw them. "Nick? Catherine sent you?"

"Hey, Sara," he replied with a grin on his face. "How are you doing?"

"Can't complain," she told him and he smirked at her weak attempt at humor.

"Do you remember anything now, Sara?" Grissom asked her. She shook her head.

"I just remember waking up. And all the blood in the room. The room had that metallic smell." Nick opened his field kit and began setting up a syringe. Sara's eyes shifted to Grissom. "What is he doing?"

"We're going to take a blood sample. There's a good chance that you were drugged," he told her. "We'll send the contents out to Doc Robbins." Sara put a hand on her hip.

"What about here? Wouldn't that make it go faster?"

"I'm pretty sure everyone is in on this in some way or another, Sara, and in the event our killer is a public servant, we don't want to run the risk." Sara nodded.

Sara began to roll up the sleeve of her long-sleeved jumpsuit and held out her arm for Nick. "So, you think I was drugged?"

"It's a good possibility as to why you won't remember anything." Sara nodded, wincing as Nick drew a vial of blood from her. She exhaled as he withdrew the needle. "Thanks, Sara." He gathered a container. "I'll get this shipped ASAP to Doc." Grissom nodded and Nick left the cell to take care of it.

They were silent. Finally, Sara broke the silence. "I'm sorry about last night, Gil."

"Don't be," he told her. "You were scared. It's natural." She nodded.

"What happens if I did this, Gil? How can I live with myself after that?"

"You didn't do this, Sara." She shrugged. He brushed a strand of hair out of her face. "Nick and I are going to prove that you didn't do this."

"Why is it when I try to escape death, it follows?" she asked, her tone tearful. Grissom took a deep breath. He had no answer for it. He never fully understood how important it was for her to see the finer, happy things in life. To enjoy the simplicities that life brought, none of which included blood spatter, subdural hematomas, charred remains, fibers, hairs, and all the other wonderous complexities that forensic science offered. She was so focused on science and on capturing those who committed crimes that she never really understood the beauty of daylight and smelling flowers, of just being happy to have the sunlight on her face, or the breeze brush against her during a simple walk on the beach. The simplicities had been absent from her life for a long time, and it appeared they would be continually denied from her for the next little while.

He wanted to ask her why she had called him; what she expected to happen between the two of them. Would she come back to Las Vegas if she managed to make it out of the situation? Although he was tempted to ask her, he understood that it wasn't the appropriate time to ask her to put her life on hold for him. To come back to him so he could provide the sort of happily ever after idea that he had envisioned for the two of them.

Sara could sense the tension between them, and decided not to address it. She didn't want anything to become awkward during the case. "Are you sure you want to do this, Gil? Is this too awkward?"

"No, no," he assured her. "Everything is okay. Just take it easy, and before you know it, Nick and I will have this case solved." She nodded. He knew it would be awkward. He had known it the second she had called sobbing for help. But he knew that she needed his help, and he would never let any harm come her way.

"Okay," she replied after a seemingly eternal silence. "I trust you guys." Grissom fought the urge to flinch at the words. He knew this was serious. Her life was in his hands.

Nick returned a short while later as the two spoke candidly about the case. "The, uh, blood work has been sent to Doc. He said he'll call your cell when he gets the tox screen back." Nick found himself enveloped in the odd, thick awkwardness that Sara and Grissom shared as they sat in the prison cell. He cleared his throat. "Um, Gris, do you want to go and look at the house? We should gather the evidence now before they get somebody in there to clean the house."

Grissom nodded and he turned to Sara. "We'll be back in the morning to tell you everything we found at the crime scene, okay?" She nodded and he stood to his feet. "Come on, Nicky." The two men left the cell.

"Grissom, is everything okay with you and Sara?" Nick inquired. Grissom shrugged.

"Everything's fine, considering the circumstances, Nick," he replied.

"Is she coming back to Vegas after all this?"

"I don't know. Sara and I haven't talked about it, Nick," he answered. His tone was slightly strained. Nick knew better than to press the issue and they walked out towards Grissom's Chevy Tahoe in a tense silence.

The ride to Sara's home was awkward, tense, and Nick fought the guilty feeling that he had hurt Grissom's feelings by asking so many questions. But the entire situation was so curious to him. It wasn't like Grissom to sneak off like a thief in the night for anything or anyone. When he had learned that it was Sara who had called him, begging him to save her from an uncertain, dark fate that was reminiscent of her mother's, he had been skeptical. Sara had left in the middle of the night, leaving Grissom a goodbye letter. Nick had battled his feelings of anger and resentment towards Grissom and Sara for months afterwards. He felt Grissom could have done more to make her stay and that Sara's abrupt departure and letter was a copout. Of course, he never told Grissom this. Greg on the other hand, he had ranted to a lot since finding out about Grissom and Sara's relationship.

The relationship had upset him, too. It had caused Sara to transfer to the swing shift with that wide-eyed Ronnie Lake, and it upset him that the team had been split up. But he knew that Sara and Grissom – Mr. By-The-Book – had actually broken protocol by engaging in a relationship with Sara. Sara's transfer had only seemed appropriate. He knew it. Any time he would have given Sara a big case, Catherine was probably going to throw their relationship in the face. He liked Catherine; she was a good friend. But she knew how to manipulate her way into taking the big cases. She was ambitious, and ruthless, and she knew how to play politics. It was why Grissom relied on her so much with the political backstabbing that took place within the ranks of the CSI building.

The Tahoe pulled into the driveway of Sara's home, a two-story wooden home with front steps that were cluttered with rotted leaves. Nick wondered if Sara ever left the house. The car stopped and they sat in silence for a second. "You ready to do this, Nicky?"

"Yeah," Nick replied, unbuckling his seatbelt. "Let's go get Sara out of that prison." They opened the doors and made their way to the back to gather the field kit. It was time to solve a murder.