Hey sorry everybody! I am better... although migraines have now decided to plague me! I can never win, eh? I know I said Thursday or Friday but I had typed up a quarter of this chapter yesterday and then sent it to my e-mail so I could finish typing it up while I was at my mom's doing my laundry and well... I thought it was saving and it wasn't! I was SO mad! And I couldn't type it up again because I had some stag & doe to go to and I was already running late! So I just typed it up now on my computer. This chapter is a longer than the previous chapters because everything starts to come into play here. And as for Shirley... yes... she will come back. But she's not a bad person! I was thinking of making her a bad person, but she's not. She's just a coffee diner waitress. What harm can they do? Ha ha! But I do have a warning here... the next few chapters are gonna be angst-y type... no humor, no hot sex scenes... but I promise it will come back into play shortly.

Now a few mentions here:

FloatingInMoon - Shirley... she's a good character:-P

lil Kass - Sorry, Bryant doesn't walk in on them... yet. You're going to have to wait a few more chapters for that ;-)

And of course, to everybody else who is reading... thank you for reading! And I hope the next few chapters don't deter you from reading further


Catherine and Sara sit on the floor for the next 30 minutes, with Catherine whispering comfort in Sara's ear while Sara holds Catherine like she was her life jacket keeping her from drowning. Chicken had quietly slipped out of the lab to give them some privacy.

Sara's sobs have calmed down to lighter sobs. They stay like that for another 5 minutes.

Sara looks up into Catherine's eyes, which are filled with tears

"Hey, you ok?" Catherine whispers to Sara, still stroking her hair.

"Yes and no" Sara replies honestly

"Ok." Catherine looks confused "Care to explain?" Catherine asks

"Yes I'm ok, because you're here. You held me and let me cry. You made me feel safe and no one has ever made me feel safe after..." Sara stops and Sara's thoughts go off into the distance for a few seconds and then returns "And no I'm not ok because Chicken informed me there was a hit on AFIS from the prints I pulled outside of Dee's window" Sara says

"Chicken?" Catherine looked at Sara like she had just gone crazy

"Oh, the lab tech that was here. His name is Norman Clucker, but he wants to be called Chicken as everybody calls him Chicken. So, next time you see him, his name is Chicken." Sara replied and Catherine smiled amused at that nickname "I know, I thought the same thing." Sara said knowing what Catherine was thinking.

"Ok, so back to the hit… What's the perp's name?" Catherine questions and Sara's face falls

"Douglas Stoberman. He kidnapped, raped and murdered another girl 6yrs ago in San Francisco. He got life imprisonment 5yrs ago, except he got past security and has been on the loose for a month now." Sara says with no emotion

"Does this have anything to do with earlier today?" Catherine now hopes this has nothing to do with earlier nor why Grissom put her on this case.

Sara is quiet for a few minutes

"Yes." She whispers, as tears start silently falling. Sara turns her head so Catherine doesn't see

"Do you want to tell me the connection between this case, the case from 5yrs ago and why it's got you so upset?"

Sara sighs and looks at Catherine, looking deep into her eyes seeing love, compassion and concern for Sara.

"I have to speak to Grissom first. He knows what happened. But afterwards, I will. I have to, it's now part of this case, so you have to know sooner than I was expecting you to." Sara sighs yet again "This is going to be hard for me, Cath… It's going to be hard working this case, but it will be harder to tell you why it's going to be hard."

"That's ok. I'm here, and I'm not going to judge you or look at you differently, you know." Catherine says

"I know"

"I'm here no matter what, Sara. I'll help you through this baby. I love you."

"I love you too" Sara stands up "I should go call Grissom now. And after I'm done… can we go back to the hotel? I'm exhausted."

"Of course, baby." Catherine gets up and pulls Sara into a hug.

"Thank you" Sara says kissing Catherine on the cheek. "I'll go call him now. Bye"

"Bye." Catherine says, watching Sara put her hands deep in her pockets as she walks away as if she's defeated.


"Hey Grissom? It's Sara"

"Oh! Hello Sara. How's the case going? Any leads?"

"Uh. Yes. That's why I'm calling. You need to know this." Sara said with a quiet voice

"Ok? And what's the lead?" Grissom asks

"Fingerprints. Hit from AFIS came back as Douglas Stoberman" Sara says almost in a whisper to keep back her tears

"Douglas Stoberman?! Isn't he in prison?" Grissom replies not believing what he just heard

"That's what I thought. But last month, he got past security and he's AWOL" Sara's voice starts breaking "Gris? What am I going to do? How am I supposed to keep my emotions out of this? I've already broken down twice today! And I can't leave Catherine with this. I need to be here." Tears are now streaming down her face "I miss her so much, Grissom. I don't know if I can handle it if Dee ends up dead too!"

"Sara? Sara. It's ok. I know it's hard, and it's going to get harder but you are an extremely strong person, Sara. And I know if you put your mind to it, you won't let your emotions make your decisions and compromise the case." Grissom reasons

"I can't be so sure, Grissom" Sara says as if she's losing faith in herself

"I believe in you, Sara." Grissom says with determination

Sara sighs "Ok. Fine. Whatever you say. I'll try. I gotta go. I have to tell Catherine now. I'll call you with any new information. Bye" and then Sara hangs up.

"I believe in you, Sara" Grissom says to the dial tone


Sara walks back to Catherine. Catherine notices Sara's exhausted body language. So Catherine walks up to Sara and wraps her arms around Sara.

"How are you holding up, babe?" Catherine asks

Sara nuzzles her head into Catherine's shoulder "I called him. Now I have to fill you in on everything." Sara pauses then sighs "Like I said before, it's going to be really hard for me. I'm not one for talking about my emotions, feelings whatever. I don't talk about anything because it's so damn fucking hard for me" Sara pauses again, like she's trying to find what to say next. But Catherine feels her shirt getting wet

"Sara. It's going to be ok. You don't have to tell me this second. You can tell me when you're ready." Catherine whispers in Sara's ear, pulling her closer

Sara pulls away and looks at Catherine. The look in Sara's eyes broke Catherine's heart into a million pieces. The light that was in Sara's eyes was gone. She looked so far away yet she was so close.

"Cath? Can we call it a day? All these emotions that have been running amuck today has got me so exhausted. I feel like I can sleep for days."

"Of course, sweetie. Let me get our stuff, and I'll meet you at the truck, ok?" Catherine asks

"Sure" Sara says in a quiet voice.

Sara turns to walk away then stops. Sara kisses Catherine and Catherine kisses back. As soon as Sara started the kiss, Sara stopped and pulled away. Sara looked deep into Catherine's eyes.

"Thank you. For everything" Sara said trying to convey how serious she was.

"You're welcome." Catherine smiles. With that, Sara turns around and walks away, head hanging low looking at the floor.


When they got back to the hotel room, Catherine and Sara changed into their PJ's (tanks & shorts) and they are now laying in bed together with Sara's head on Catherine's chest and Catherine's arm wrapped protectively around Sara. They've been laying there in silence for 15 minutes and Catherine had thought Sara had fallen asleep considering she's exhausted from the day's events.

"It was just over 6yrs ago when I was in San Francisco…" Sara starts in a whisper, which startled Catherine "My fiancé Jennifer and I had just got back from a full day out with our daughter, Emily. We went to the park, and I taught her how to fly a kite that day" Sara pauses "The look on her face when she finally got that kite up in the air and flying… it filled my heart with so much love. It was such an overwhelming feeling." Catherine could feel Sara smiling against her chest, and Catherine knew exactly the feeling Sara was talking about.

"After the park, we went to McDonald's" Sara chuckles as she remembers the memories "She wanted a 'chweesebugga hammy meal' and of course we got it for her. It was her day. Anything she wanted to do, we did." Sara chuckles again "She got ketchup everywhere! She loved ketchup on everything. After McDonald's Emily wanted to go to the beach and build sandcastles, so we built sandcastles, pretending she was the princess of the castle. She loved princesses. Then Emily and Jennifer persuaded me to let them bury me in the sand. We had so much fun." Sara paused again, and sighs

"Then we watched the sunset. Oh, that sunset was beautiful. Everything was perfect at that exact moment. I wished time could've stood still then. I had Emily in my arms, head on my shoulders, dropping off to sleep. I had Jennifer on my other side our arms wrapped around each other's waist. Oh, it was perfect." Sara chuckles again "Emily said the cutest thing to me, she said 'The sun is going to sleep, mommy. The sun is pwetty just like my two mommies' It amazes me how sweet and innocent children are... After the sun was gone and it was dark, we went home, got a bowl of popcorn and snuggled up on the couch and watched Emily's favorite movie, The Lion King. Emily had fallen asleep in my arms during the movie, so afterwards Jennifer and I put Emily to bed, and we went to bed ourselves as we were tired also."

Sara's voice starts to break, and Catherine pulls her closer as Sara snuggles closer to Catherine needing to feel this comfort of being in someone's arms.

"About 2 o'clock I woke up, thinking I heard someone walking around the house, and I thought I heard Emily call out for us, like she usually does when she had a nightmare. I laid there for a few minutes trying to hear something, anything. But I didn't hear anything else. I told myself I was probably dreaming, but I had a gut feeling something was wrong with Emily. Call it mother's intuition. I woke Jennifer up to tell her I was going to check on Emily and check around the house, and I asked her to keep the phone by her just in case. I got up and threw on a pair of jeans and a tank, and then grabbed the baseball bat I kept under the bed. First thing I did was check on Emily. Normally, I would open the door and take a look in and wait until I see her little body rise and fall to her breathing, but that night I walked in to see her. I needed to know she was ok. When I saw her, I was happy she was there, alive and breathing. I gave her a kiss and tucked her in again."

"Then I walked around the house, checking all the windows, doors and if the alarm was set. The front door was unlocked. It seemed suspicious to me, because I always lock the doors before we go to bed, but I reasoned with myself saying I probably forgot because we were so tired. So, I locked it. I checked the alarm and that wasn't set, either. Again, I reasoned telling myself I forgot because we were tired. I set the alarm and took one last look around the house before I went back to bed, but I still had a feeling something was wrong with Emily. I thought I was being paranoid because I had just saw her. So I got back into bed, told Jennifer everything was ok, and that I had forgot to lock the front door and set the alarm. Then we went back to sleep."

Catherine had been laying there, listening to Sara just letting her talk without any interruptions as she knew this was hard for Sara. Catherine was shocked when she heard Sara was engaged, but not as shocked as when she heard Sara had a daughter. But she didn't want Sara to continue, because she knew this wasn't going to end in some fairy tale ending. But she knew Sara had to continue and tell her everything. Catherine had pulled Sara closer and tightened her arm that was wrapped around Sara when she heard Sara start to cry, and felt the tears wetting her chest. Then Sara continued;

"I had woke up to a blood curdling scream coming from Jennifer in the direction of Emily's room. I shot up out of bed and ran to Emily's room where Jennifer was. It was the first thing I noticed. Emily wasn't in bed. We were frantically looking all over the house trying to find Emily. Then I looked at the front door, it was unlocked again! I looked at the alarm and that was deactivated, too! That's when I knew someone had taken Emily, and was in the house when I checked the house."

Catherine gasped at that, and her eyes filled with tears. Catherine tried to imagine how she would feel if someone took Lindsay from her, from the comfort of her own home. Where she was supposed to be safe.

"Those next two weeks were the worst weeks of my life. Everybody was out helping to look for Emily. But for each day Emily was not found, we were losing more faith that we would find her alive. But I was determined to find her alive. My Emily. She needed to be alive. I hardly slept or ate those 2 weeks. I was out looking for Emily almost every second of every day and night just to find her. Jennifer stayed at home just in case any one called with news. That put a strain on our relationship because I wasn't there when she needed me the most. I needed her too, but I didn't know what to do. I needed to find Emily, so I threw myself into finding Emily alive and pushed Jennifer away." Sara starts to cry "Then two weeks later, I decided to check out the fields, ditches, woods, what have you… when I looked in the field… I… I…" Sara started crying harder as she remembers what she saw

Catherine started stroking Sara's hair trying to soothe Sara. Catherine started silently crying along with Sara. She can't imagine what Sara must've been going through

"It's ok Sara. It's ok. Shhhh…. Let it out. Just let it all out. It's ok." Catherine kept repeating but what Sara told Catherine next, shocked Catherine.


Yeah, I know a cliffhanger... I don't like cliffhangers much myself. Then why did I leave it as one, you ask? Because the chapter was getting too long. :-P And maybe I felt like being evil... muah ha ha ha! Well, I must go... the dog is begging to go for a walk. The next chapter should be up shortly. I haven't finished writing it yet. Hope you all enjoyed, and my apologies for it being long. Thanks for reading!