Eleven: Left out in the Cold

Breathe.

Just breathe.

Easier said than done, Gil Grissom rued as he choked on the frigid air currently invading his lungs.

It's not hard.

Just in and out. Repeat as necessary.

Simple, really, Sara had once informed him.

It certainly didn't feel simple in the suffocating dark.

Or perhaps it was the smothering coarse sheet that made him feel that way: unable to breathe, as if buried alive, but without the dirt or the decreased air supply. That and with the bitter cold and chilling fear equally conspiring against him.

Panic would help nothing, that he knew.

Come on, just breathe.

In desperation, his reeling mind latched onto a memory from only a few weeks before:

The early afternoon sun blazed bright as he ascended from the below deck dark. Holding up a hand to shade his eyes, he blinked back the momentary brilliance.

Then almost as if resolving out of a mirage, Sara was there - his Sara - even more aglow in all the sunshine.

A few loose curls having come free from her hurried ponytail danced in the breeze as she perched there barefoot, dressed in little more than a light jacket over what he knew would be a tank top and a pair of drawstring yoga pants hung extra low on her slender hips by her body bent into one of those complicated yoga poses he never could quite remember the name of.

Hank lay curled up not too far from her; his half-drowsy eyes fixed on Sara as if to ensure she wouldn't just vanish.

Or perhaps Grissom was just projecting his own feelings onto the boxer yet again. He felt that way, too, these days, like she might just vanish if he let her out of his sight for too long.

Once Sara had neatly righted herself into a far more comfortable looking seated position, she called, "I know you're there, Gilbert. You don't have to lurk."

"I... I didn't want to disturb you while you were -"

"Breathing?" she offered with a laugh as his voice trailed off.

"Busy."

"Never too busy for you," Sara said turning, the grin she greeted him with as warm and welcoming as the sunshine streaming about them both.

Indicating her bare feet, he said, "Your feet have to be freezing."

She shrugged this away with an indifferent, "Mind over matter. If you don't mind, it doesn't matter."

"That's not what you say when the cold feet are mine."

Sara elected to ignore this. She patted the space beside her. "Come. Sit. Give it a try."

"Mind over matter?"

"How about we start with something simple. Like breathing."

Grissom gave her a look as if to inquire why he would suddenly need to learn something he was fairly certain he already knew how to do.

"I do know how to breathe," he maintained. "You just put your lips together and blow."

"Cute, Gil," Sara sighed at his cheek. "But I'd stick to whistling instead of humor if I were you.

"Come on." She patted a space on the deck beside her. "It's time I taught you something for once."

Perhaps Grissom probably should have, but he didn't tell her this wasn't the first time she had taught him something. Sara did that nearly every day, in both big and little ways.

Instead, he said, "I thought you said breathing was simple: Just in and out. Repeat as necessary."

Recalling that she had indeed told him as much once she laughed, "So you do listen -"

"From time to time." Grissom grinned.

"Time for a more advanced lesson then. Abdominal breathing."

Sara ticked off its virtues on her fingers. "Good for reducing stress, quieting the mind, keeping your limbic system more under control.

"How else do you think I kept from decking Ecklie all those years you were away?"

Conrad Ecklie might not have always (or ever) been his favorite person on the planet, but "He couldn't have been that bad," protested Grissom.

"He wasn't," Sara reluctantly admitted. "Still, it did come in handy."

When Grissom continued to look a little askance, she quipped, "Don't knock it until you try it."

It was his turn to turn conciliatory. "I wouldn't dream of it, dear."

Besides, what harm could it do? He was willing to try most things once, particularly with Sara by his side.

So he sat; rearranged his limbs until he mimicked her position.

Sara gave him a long, lingering approving once over before saying, "This mean you're done protesting?"

"Just awaiting your instructions."

"First thing you need to know is you need to breathe from here," she said her hand flat against his belly. "Not from here," she finished, tapping his chest.

Taking up his hand, she rested his palm about his middle, "Here, feel the difference."

While Grissom did really attempt to give it a go, he rather thought that if Sara was serious about wanting him to breathe, then perhaps she shouldn't have her hands on him, as even her simplest of touches still served to take his breath away.

But then it always had.

Not entirely ignorant of Grissom's state of distraction, Sara directed: "Close your eyes."

Satisfied he'd done as instructed, she said, "Feel how your regular breathing is fairly short and shallow?"

That that, too, was her fault, he opted not to inform her.

"Now, inhale deep through your nose. Slow. Nice and slow.

"Hold it there. Hold. Hold.

"Now exhale - Let it all go."

She pressed against his hand. "Keep your hand there. Feel how your belly expands as you inhale then contracts as you exhale?" He nodded. "That's how you know you're doing it right.

"Now, again. In... Out..."

"Repeat as necessary -" he quipped.

It didn't matter that he couldn't see her reaction with his eyes closed, Sara still rolled her own eyes at Grissom's flippant comment anyway.

Yet he did as she told him once, twice, three and then four times before he asked, "How come I've never seen you do it this way?"

"You're new. Just shut up and breathe, Gil."

"Yes, dear."

xxxxxxx

Back in the bitter cold, Grissom did have to give his wife credit. His panic really did begin to give way as he gradually eased his breathing back into some semblance of normality.

In. Out. Repeat as necessary, indeed.

How strange, he momentarily mused, and yet perhaps not, that the one who took his breath away would give it back to him again.

Not calm, but calmer, his mind began to creep back into clarity. Albeit a throbbing headache and equally indignant stomach rendered focusing far more problematic than usual.

Slowly, he mentally ticked off what he knew: he was cold, cuffed and in some sort of freezer. That had been the extent of what he'd managed to work out before he'd slid back into unconsciousness.

That he wasn't locked alive in a morgue or mortuary drawer took no more than the lifting of his head and the stretching out of his fingers to determine. Neither brushed cold steel.

Wherever he was didn't smell of food, so not a commercial refrigerator. Felt too cold for that anyway.

No, the prevailing scent above the gagging odor of alcohol (isopropyl or ethanol he couldn't quite work out, both came off equally astringent) was one he knew all too well: decomposition retarded by chemical preservatives.

Probably formaldehyde judging from the cloying sweetness - in high concentrations. Ergo, the near blinding headache and nausea. The organic molecule CH2O did possess the annoying habit of triggering migraines. Hence why he usually kept his specimens safely sealed in glass.

Perhaps a mortuary freezer, though the redolence reeked far too much for ordinary embalming. One, two, not even half a dozen conventionally preserved specimens gave off that much stink even in a closed off room, so there had to be more.

Cadavers explained, too, the rough fabric against his flesh. The dead never cared about thread count. Nor did you ever have to worry about them being afraid of the dark.

Funny, when it came to working out as much as he could about where he was, the dead told him.

Like they always had.

Only where would you keep a concentration of corpses, probably all made mobile by gurney?

The only place he could arrive at was some sort of anatomy lab. But a full anatomy/physiology lab in a city that lacked a medical school?

Of course, he might not even be in Vegas at all.

After all, Grissom had no clue how long he'd been out. Could have been minutes or hours. Days he doubted, as he was cold, but not yet shivering too badly.

How had he gotten here anyway? he wondered

His usual faultless memory failed him.

His last hours returned only in brief, fleeting flashes.

Rising. Pouring coffee. Picking up the puzzle pages. Hank on his lead. An empty park. And then -

Nothing.

Frustrated, beyond frustrated, Grissom settled on taking his own oft repeated advice of the sort frequently dispensed to weary witnesses suffering from the usual mental blocks brought on by shock.

When you can't remember, the best place to begin is the beginning.

Think back, not to right before it happened, but to the start of the day.

You woke up and -

Hank had been the only one in bed with him when he had woken at 7:32. He knew the moment down to the minute as he had rolled over and blinked the clock into focus in order to determine the time.

Finding the space his wife usually occupied beside him both empty and cold to the touch, he called out for her.

Only the small apartment remained quiet. No shower running. No puttering about in the kitchen. No rustling of paper. No scrawl of pen or click of keyboard keys. No sounds at all of his wife.

Which was when he noticed his phone alight with a text alert banner. Clicking it open, he read:

SARA

Today 7:17 AM

Got called in.

Haven't forgotten

I owe you breakfast.

48 Across yomammajoke

Love you.

Big surprise, Grissom rued. Vegas was Vegas after all.

He rose, then after considering his reply for a moment, set about typing, whistling as he went for Hank to follow.

In the kitchen, he found coffee currently keeping warm in its heated carafe and the day's Las Vegas Sun already folded open to the puzzle page. A pen and a spare pair of reading glasses sat nearby waiting and ready to go.

Despite being disappointed at finding his wife gone, he had to smile at this. Sara knew him all too well.

What she hadn't known was that he'd mostly given up his puzzle habit post divorce. Regular newspaper delivery proved difficult with a boat. While he told himself that the experience wasn't the same online, mostly it just hurt too much having to complete them on his own.

But while Sara might not be here this morning to trade clues and answers, she had given today's crossword a start.

Per her text, he located 48 across, penned in yomammajoke. Glancing back at the prompt, he was glad she had. There was no way he would have come up with that one.

The rest of the puzzle however could wait. A quick glance at the weather app on his phone indicated the morning was far, far too nice to waste indoors.

Him having finished up a quick cup of coffee while Hank scarfed down his usual big bowl of kibble, Grissom clicked leash to collar, then sketch book and puzzle pages in hand led the boxer out into the day.

Their brief walk soon found them comfortably ensconced on their usual park bench. Hank, having taken his place at his master's feet, was all too soon yet again fast asleep. Grissom sat back content to enjoy the peace and quiet and his crossword. Usually an easy enough thing to do. People, he found, tended to leave one another to their own devices.

Strange, Grissom mused, to live in a city of hundreds of thousands, more than half a million these days, and still find oneself utterly alone.

Upon reaching twenty-two across (clue: Chinese cabbage; answer: bok choy), he paused in his puzzle to consider what best to serve tomorrow night for dinner. Good thing they were going out that night with his mother, as he doubted Sara had bothered to pack a lunch. It was equally possible she would forget to eat anyway, busy as she often got on a call. As for tomorrow, it never hurt to be prepared.

It was then that he hit on the perfect solution.

Off in the paper's margin he scrawled: bread, butter, cheese, cream, tomato soup, oranges.

Recalling the very pleasant way the day before had begun, he underlined oranges twice.

Not only did he favor the fruit's sweet tart taste (particularly sucked from Sara's skin) but his wife really was, as Ticos were wont to say, and even more so these days, the other half of his orange.

Words might still fail him, too often, too, even now with her, but at least in this, he could hint at his heart.

Gladdened, he returned to his puzzle. He'd been back at it for a few minutes when his far more post-surgery sensitive ears picked up the light fall of feet on concrete. A common enough sound as it was in the park, he opted to ignore it. Hank's head however lifted.

But then Hank frequently got attention in the park, especially if there were any children about. The dog's patient and naturally sweet temperament well disposed him to strangers. Even at his ancient (for a dog) age, the boxer relished all the extra attention. So it wasn't all that uncommon for a stranger to come up for a pet.

Except Hank hadn't been the focus of attention. Grissom had the order muddled.

Unsurprising, as next everything suddenly seemed to happen all at once.

Hank hadn't barked. That he was clear on.

From out of the blue, there came a crash. Something - no someone - careened into him. With violent jolt, his head and neck jerked forward then back.

Stunned, and thus before he knew it, there was a bite and hiss his near his neck too long - too hard - too loud - to be that of an insect.

When he tried to bat whatever it was away, a pair of hands, which by their small size should have proven unable to keep him down, pressed him back into the bench as the world around him began to fade in and out like an old fashioned radio signal being tuned.

He tried, but failed to shake off the sudden mind-numbing dizziness.

Just before his vision completely blurred, he caught sight of a figure kneeling before him.

His brain had barely matched name to features before the fuzziness overtook him:

Hannah West.

Leaning in, the young woman simpered, "Goodnight, Dr. Grissom."