A/N: Wow, this has been a long time coming! My muse had finally decided that there is some merit to continuing with this and I apologise that it has taken so long to get anything new out. I'm still working on this and my other currently on-going story, No Matter What, both of which are turning out to be longer than I anticipated. However, I shall write whenever I can and update in the same vein.
Once again, there are some references to sexual assault in this, nothing graphic, but if it causes you distress then please look away.
I don't own any characters from either The Bill or CSI or X-Files, they're just here having an adventure. I don't make any profit from this so please don't sue me!! I mean, we can divide zero as many times as you like but we'll still all come up with zippo!
Enough rambling. I hope you enjoy and whether you do or you don't, please let me know what you think by reviewing. Thanks to all you lovely people who do read this. Hope to update again soon.
"Preliminary reports from the bodies show no signs of semen but there are signs of sustained penetration with both victims. That means he's either using a condom – but that doesn't explain the lack of pubic hairs – or he's sodomising his victims with something else." Dana Scully flicked through the medical examiner's report, sharing salient points with Reyes as she lay sprawled at Dana's feet, tenderly massaging them. Theirs was a very easy and comfortable relationship, although it had taken a long while to develop. Frostiness had gradually given way to friendship and then that one night had changed everything, that one night when they both thought all hope was lost and they only had each other to cling to. They still clung to one another long after the danger had passed, initially unable to slake the desire for bringing ecstasy to the other. That new-love lust had decreased a notch and whilst both women were capable of explosive love making when time and mood was on their side, they were able to be in each other's company without the need to tear their clothes off.
"That red-head didn't take too well to us cutting in did she?" Reyes mused, wincing apologetically as she found a particularly sore spot on Dana's right foot. "Why do you insist on wearing those killer heels when you know this is what it does to your poor feet?"
"How else could I persuade you to give me a foot rub?" Dana grinned, blowing a kiss at her partner. "I can't say I cared much for the reception we got from Ms Willows but I can understand it. If I were in her position, I wouldn't want someone else sniffing around my case either – especially not a high profile one such as this."
"Do you think it's him? Or do we have more than one ex-Army guy running around with the alarming ability to disappear when you look at him?" Reyes asked, her expression growing serious.
"Can't be the same guy, we shot him, I saw the body. Hell I even did an autopsy on him! And I've seen many things in my time on the X-Files but that one I've yet to come across. The similarities bother me though, as does the administrations refusal to release any information about the last case involving a man capable of manipulating people's perception of what is there and what is not."
"Surely though, these people must share some sort of predisposition to being manipulated?" Reyes queried.
"I thought that too, before I witnessed a man disappearing before my own eyes. Would you say I have a predisposition to being manipulated?" Scully responded, gazing down at her partner in every sense of the word.
"I wouldn't say so. Except for…" Monica shuffled closer, running her hands up the backs of the petite red-heads calf, massaging the solid muscles and leaning down to kiss the areas her hands had vacated.
"That's lust not manipulation, and it's also not playing fair!" Dana squirmed under the tender ministrations, tossing the case file to one side as she drew the other woman closer to her.
"What can I say? I can't help it if I find you irresistible!" Two pairs of lips collided in a passionate kiss as the two agents reaffirmed their deep love for one another.
Scully's last coherent thought was, 'ok so maybe not always able to control the passion!'
Sam slowly became aware of her surroundings once again. She felt the warmth of a body beside her but there was something wrong; the curves were more angular, the flesh more sinewy. The more she awoke, the more convinced she was that she was currently in bed with someone other than her wife. Her addled brain struggled to piece together any recollection of the last few hours, days, weeks, she wasn't sure how long it had been since she could really recall any solid definite memory. The wedding, she knew that was real. Her heart still thudded in her chest at the remembrance of Jo standing by the celebrant ready to pledge her life to her lover. The emotions that memory invoked told Sam all she needed to know but everything beyond that point seemed hazy. Her body felt stiff and sore, as though she had worked out too long at the gym; a heaviness in her limbs which ordinarily she would associate with extreme use, but her brain failed to place her in such a situation, especially not one which would see her choosing to spend the night with a woman other than her wife. A door unlocking filled her with a sense of dread; the fear of being discovered by the one woman who held her heart in the palm of her hand she surmised, although the bone chilling terror did not sit well with that scenario. If nothing else, Sam knew without a doubt, Jo could never physically hurt her. Her brain whizzed through numerous possibilities, assessing and discarding in the blink of an eye. The voice which floated through the remaining fog surrounding her brain brought her predicament into startling clarity.
"Wake up ladies, time for your final curtain."
"Sara!" A young voice cut through the din which the weary CSI was desperately trying to block out as she struggled to focus dispassionately on the evidence in front of her. She turned her head, scanning the pressing crowd for the source of the voice, her eyes locking on Catherine's daughter, Lindsey. "What happened? Where's Mom?" A keen intelligence burned brightly behind the younger Willows woman's eyes.
"We don't know anything yet honey but I promise I'll tell you as soon as we do ok?" Sara addressed the distraught young girl, fearing that she would camp out at the already crowded lab until Catherine was returned to them.
"Lindsey, sweetheart, come on out here to wait. You need to let them get on with their jobs." A woman remarkably similar to Catherine attempted to usher the child out of the room, a few years older than the strawberry blonde perhaps and her eyes not nearly as striking but there was no mistaking that they shared much of their genetic makeup.
"I'm not going anywhere. I want to stay with Sara." The younger CSI thought she saw a brief flicker of recognition pass through the other woman's expression as Lindsey mentioned her name but it was gone as soon as it appeared and she could not be sure, did not dare hope that Cath had mentioned her.
"It's fine, Lins knows the deal; no touching, no looking at crime scene photos and no sneaking Greg's coffee!" Sara kept her tone deliberately light, knowing she was only torturing herself having the girl around but needing the connection to her missing colleague all the same.
"I know, I know. I brought some homework with me, can I use Mum's office?" Lindsey hefted her back pack higher onto her shoulder, her face a mixed bag of worry and weariness.
"Course you can. You want a soda, my shout?" Sara pulled herself away from the table of evidence in front of her, rooting about in her pocket for some loose change.
"I'm good thanks, I had one before we heard the news. Just find Mom, Sara, please. I know we don't always get on but she my Mom and I really like her back here with me." Tears threatened to spill from the child's eyes, who suddenly seemed so much younger than her years. Without a second thought and before Catherine's sister could move, Sara enveloped the emotional blonde in a crushing hug, whispering assurances she only hoped she could keep into her ears.
"We may have something here." Nick bellowed across the crowded lab, hoping to draw the attention of his supervisor and colleagues who were frantically working the case.
"What you got, Nick?" Warrick was the first to respond to his yell.
"More a case of what the lovely ladies from the FBI got really. I just got a call from Agent Scully; a friend of hers got to hear about a new video that had been posted online that had set the internet ablaze with talk of special effects due to a disappearing participant. He thought it was right up Agent Scully's street to investigate it, she immediately thought of our missing women." Nick spoke dispassionately, having to treat this as though his friend and colleague was not now one of those missing.
"Let's see the video then." Grissom had joined the pair, gesticulating to them that they should pull it up on the large screen.
"You might wanna close the blinds then Gris, I wouldn't want Lins seeing this and being scarred for life." Nick murmured, moving already to do just that. Once the room was shielded from inadvertent viewers, the usually jovial Texan clicked on the desktop, a large visual of Catherine and another woman filling the view screen.
"What the…?" Warrick voiced the same reaction Nick had had upon first seeing the video. They watched as the unidentified woman approached the bed where Catherine lay bound and naked.
"Is that Samantha Nixon-Masters?" Grissom asked, rifling through the folder in his arms for a photograph. Squinting at the screen, the other men concurred that it certainly did appear to be. Silence descended on the room as they watched the scene unfold, each man's jaw clenching tighter the longer the video played. They watched as the vanishing man from Sam's abduction reappeared on screen in the room with her and Catherine, stopping the feed as he went to join the action, none of them needing to watch what came next.
"I've already set the guys on tracing the ISP for this site, we'll get a name of the owner of the site and pay them a visit." Nick muttered through clenched teeth before Grissom could instruct him to do so.
"Good. Warrick, get Archie to go over every inch of that room on the video. If there's anything on there which can help us trace where it is, I want to know asap. Nick, ring Agent Scully back, tell her what we've found and see if she has any means at her disposal to try and trace any other videos from this same site or similar ones which feature our Jane Does. Doc Robbins believes that our previous victims were assaulted over a period of twenty-four hours prior to their deaths. Samantha has been missing for over eight hours now, Catherine a little over three. Time is not our friend on this one guys. Let's bring those girls home before they have to suffer any more."
Sam struggled against her bonds, her body twitchy and restless. Her head was pounding and she could not believe that she was wishing with all her might for them to inject her with whatever it was they had been giving her. She had never experienced a craving quite like the one she was in a grip of at that moment. She knew she should be trying to help the woman strapped prone on the bed, in the dim recesses of her mind, she knew that there was no happy ending to the scene developing before her but her sense refused to cooperate with the rational part of her mind.
Catherine's heart raced as she felt herself drifting back towards a more lucid state of mind. She had had the most vivid dream of making love to Sara, of finally giving in to the desires her heart and head had long since battled over. She made to roll over, pulling up short as she found herself unable to move.
Sam watched the door open, bile leaping to her throat as two masked men entered. With the drugs no longer dampening her awareness, her eyes alighted on the glinting weapon carried by the second and larger man. Tears sprung to her eyes as she thought of her daughter, her grandson, the new baby on the way and of her wife; her beautiful, amazing, incredible wife, the woman she had spent so long trying to develop a lasting relationship with only for obstacle after obstacle to be thrown in their path. She thought of how she had felt during Jo's abduction, of the keen sense of loss despite not knowing if her partner was ever coming home and she offered up a heart-wrenching silent apology to the woman who would soon have to live with that hollow grief-stricken crater. Mentally preparing herself, Sam tried to steel herself for the end, not wanting to give either man the satisfaction of seeing her fear.
Catherine tried to turn her head towards the sound of movement but found even that movement difficult. Her head felt as though it suddenly weighed at least three times as much as it ever had before. She considered her options; it could be help coming to rescue her, but then why so silent? It could be whoever had taken her in which case she would damn well go down fighting. What the hell was going on? Why couldn't she remember anything? And how the hell did they manage to get her here, wherever here was, in the first place? A voice at the end of the bed to which she was tied made her jump in the silent room.
"Excellent, you're both awake. Make it a good show ladies cos no matter what the audience want, there's going to be no encore to this one."
Both awake? Ladies? Cath's brain was racing. If she was not alone, had last night really been a dream or did they get Sara too? If not, who was this other woman? She couldn't let harm come to another while there was blood in her body, her conscience would not let her. She desperately struggled against the ropes binding her to the bed, ever more so as a gloved hand was laid against her shoulder.
"Right, let's see about finding out some things." Phil strode to the desk at the front of the Crime Lab, fixing his gaze on a youngish looking woman.
"Sir, can I help you?" the woman enquired, looking wearily up from the telephone message she had been scrawling on a pad in front of her.
"I really hope so, we've just flown in from England about Samantha Nixon-Masters." The name seemed to switch a light on behind the girl's eyes.
"If you'll take a seat for just a moment, I'll get someone right out to see you Mr…?"
"Hunter, Phil Hunter. I've got her daughter and grandson here with me." Phil impressed upon the woman the importance of receiving any news.
"I'll be right back sir." The woman scurried off leaving the phone ringing but figuring that yet another news station could wait.
Jo watched the officers stride purposefully around, wondering if any of them really had as much purpose as their walk suggested or if it was all a show designed at reassuring others that everything was under control. Since viewing the video, she had refused to return to the hotel, even for the briefest of times. She needed to be nearby, she needed to know the instant they found out anything, be it good or bad. She hoped that Abi would get there safely but was dreading seeing the young woman. How could she face her after letting her and her family down so spectacularly? Her head snapped up as a now familiar set of boots walked towards her. Rising from her chair, she asked, "anything?"
Guiding the British woman back into the seat, Sofia gently explained to Jo that there were a couple of new leads which were being investigated but that her main reason for coming to her was to let her know Sam's family had arrived at the crime lab and were being brought to the precinct. "We've set aside a room for you all, somewhere a little quieter, give you some privacy."
"That's good of you, thanks. Do you have some body armour I could borrow?" Jo quirked one side of her mouth upwards, the smile never making it even halfway to her bloodshot eyes.
"I'm sure no one is going to blame you for this." Sofia attempted to assuage the woman's guilt as she stood, wondering what the future would hold for this family. No matter how many victims of crime she dealt with, the detective found some who got to her more than others. She knew that this would be a case which stayed with her for a long while even after it ended.
"Grissom, we got something here." It was Warrick's turn to holler, numerous pairs of feet immediately dashing in his direction.