A/N: Thank you to everyone for your patience and to my reviewers for your kind words and support.
As a trigger warning, this chapter contains violence.
"Oh, Saaaaara…"
A woman's sing-song voice broke through her drug-induced sleep, and Sara blinked heavily as she clawed her way to consciousness. Her abdomen reminded her sharply of its recent injury when she attempted to sit up too quickly, and she let out a harsh hiss of pain.
The dark, comfortable room where she had fallen asleep was no longer the same. The blankets and sheet on the bed had been stripped off around her, leaving only a bottom sheet and the pillow which had been under her head. The television Grissom had brought in for her to watch old VHS tapes had likewise been removed, although the table where he'd placed it was still there, a towel draped over the top of it. Sara's phone had been charging on the bedside table, but it was now gone. The overhead light was also on, bathing the room in a harsh, unnatural glare.
Of course, none of that mattered because the person who was supposed to be on the bed beside her was now tied to a chair on the other side of the room, his form slumped over in unconsciousness. Blood oozed from a deep gash on the side of his face, but she noticed no other injuries.
"Gil!" Sara exclaimed, pushing herself off the bed without caring about the pain it caused her body.
"No, no, not too close," came the voice again, the one which had awakened her.
Sara stopped abruptly, looking up from Grissom and finally noticed the slim woman standing behind his chair, a gun in her hand. The muzzle was not pointed at Sara but squarely at the back of Grissom's head.
"Brenda," she murmured, recognizing the nurse who had tried to kill her and Greg at the hospital.
"So glad we could all be together again," the woman purred, making no attempt to disguise her obvious contempt.
Before she could say more, Sara stated, "He's not the one you want. Let him go."
"Oh, but it just isn't fair," Brenda said, her tone laced with unnatural saccharine. "Your loving Gil believes you're utterly perfect and innocent. I think it's time he learned the truth, don't you?"
"I don't know what you're planning but-"
"Oh, if you want to know what I'm planning, just take a look under that towel, Sara," the woman directed her, nodding towards the stand where the television had been. "I'm sure it will all become clear."
A feeling of icy terror slid down Sara's spine, but she did as she was bidden, very conscious of the fact that this woman held Grissom at gunpoint. Slowly, she moved towards the makeshift table and noted that the towel there was folded over top of something. Swallowing apprehensively, she pulled the top layer back, revealing an assortment of implements: knives and scissors, mostly, but also a box of matches, a nail file, and a bottle of nail polish remover.
Sara knew immediately understood Brenda's purpose and her stomach turn. Without a word, she flipped the towel back over.
"I won't do it," she declared, looking back at their captor.
"Oh, I think you will."
With that, she did something behind Grissom's that Sara couldn't see, and the man opened his eyes as he cried out in pain. He flexed automatically against the bonds tying him to the chair, and for a moment, Sara wondered if he might be able to break through. But his reaction only lasted a moment as he caught sight of Sara standing in front of him, staring at him with alarm.
"Sar-" he began. But before he could even complete her name, Brenda did something more to him. Whatever she did, his words cut off with another agonizing cry.
Belatedly, Sara realized that Brenda must be holding a knife, and she'd stabbed it into Grissom's back. Each movement she made pushed the knife further into his body, hurting him more.
"Stop!" she begged.
"I see I have your attention," the woman gloated haughtily. "As I'm sure you have surmised, if you don't do as I say, I will kill your precious Grissom here. If you don't do as I say quickly enough, I will push this blade deeper and deeper until I pierce a lung. Or perhaps his heart. It's difficult to tell from this angle…"
"Let him go," Sara interrupted, holding her hands up in a gesture of defeat. "I'm right here. You can do whatever you want with me. But he isn't part of this."
"Oh, but he is. He means everything to you, just as my Dan meant everything to me. And now, before he gets to watch you die, you're going to do all the things to him that Dan did to me."
With a sinking feeling of horror, Sara thought of her mother, of that horrible night filled with blood and death so long ago. She thought about the social worker whose name she could not remember, the way she had clung to the woman's hand as though it were a lifeline. Very slowly, Sara shook her head.
"You'll have to kill us both. I won't hurt him."
Instead of answering, Brenda shoved the knife even deeper, and Grissom gasped. Sara's eyes met his, and she lowered herself to the floor until she was on her knees. But rather than beg for their captor to let him go, she addressed the love of her life.
"I'm so sorry, Gil," she whispered, unable to keep the tears in her eyes from escaping down her cheeks.
"You'll really let him just die in front of you?" Brenda hissed. "When all you have to do to stop this is pick up a knife?"
"That won't stop you," Sara hissed. "You'll just use me to torment and torture him until you kill us both."
Deliberately, she brought her gaze up to Grissom's face. While his eyes were weighed down with pain and stress, she could see approval shining back at her. Almost imperceptibly, he nodded at her. She knew with utter conviction that he was showing support of whatever decision she made, whether to accede to Brenda's wishes or not.
"Oh, but it's all about timing, isn't it? Gil here knows all about that, doesn't he?" Leaning down, Brenda spoke into her captive's ear. "Everything you did was to buy time for help to come, wasn't it? Even a little while ago, when you tried to get the gun from me, that was just another stalling tactic, wasn't it?"
Grissom tried to take a breath, but the blade in his back caused him to shudder with the effort. After several panting inhales, he mustered the strength to answer her, "Go to hell."
Brenda twisted the knife deeper and he groaned in pain. The sound caused doubt to flicker in Sara's mind, and she glanced at the torture implements arranged on the table once again.
Grissom had brought himself to do it, after all. Why couldn't she? He'd spent hours in hell, inflicting cut after cut after cut on her body, followed by burns and other injuries. And while the damage he inflicted on her was relatively minor, she knew every moment killed him a little more.
"Tick tock, Sara."
Before she could answer the psychopath, Brenda pushed the knife harder and suddenly Grissom spasmed. He coughed, and Sara could tell from the blood at the corner of his mouth that she had likely punctured his lung, just as she'd threatened. Whether deliberately or not, Grissom looked away from her as he struggled against the pain and sudden internal injury. His breath came in sharp, desperate gasps, and Sara feared the worst.
"Stop!" she shouted, surprising both herself and Brenda. The other woman froze, watching her as she said again, more urgently, "Please, just STOP!"
Brushing away the moisture from her face, Sara begged, "Please, stop hurting him. I'll do whatever you want. Just… stop."
For an interminably long moment, no one said anything, and the only sound in the room was of Grissom's wet, labored breathing and muffled sounds of pain.
"Pick up a knife," Brenda instructed her finally, nodding to the table.
Sara stood up from the floor, not hurried but not hesitantly either. She once again pulled back the towel to stare down at the instruments. One sharp-looking paring knife from Mrs. Grissom's kitchen caught her eye, and she picked it up.
"Very good. Now I want you to cut him."
Taking a deep breath, Sara looked down at the knife and then at Grissom.
"Anywhere?" she asked, stepping closer.
Brenda's gun as still trained on her and the other hand wrapped around the handle of the knife sticking into Grissom's back. Attacking the woman would likely result in further harm to Grissom and Sara couldn't have that.
"Anywhere," Brenda said.
Slowly, Sara nodded. Then, without a word, she slid the blade across her own wrist.
Despite her difficult childhood and the lonely years thereafter, Sara had never attempted suicide. But in her line of work, she had certainly seen the bodies of those who had taken their own lives. Many overdosed on pills. Some used a gun to great and final effect. But the old standby was, of course, to find a sharp implement and open the most accessible artery.
Sara knew she could not hesitate. As soon as Brenda realized her intent, she would likely be stopped, and Grissom would suffer the consequences. No, she had to be decisive but not so much as to incapacitate herself too quickly, either.
She sank back to her knees, the hand holding the knife instinctively moving to cover the injury. The sight of hot blood running through her fingers filled her vision for several long moments before Sara felt the pain, before she heard Brenda's cry of surprise or Grissom's strangled scream. When she had been shot, everything had taken on a haziness, making it difficult to remember. But this time, her senses felt even sharper than usual.
Brenda lunged towards her, perhaps to try and stop the bleeding. But as soon as the other woman was close enough, Sara grabbed at her shirtsleeve with her bleeding hand. The injury made it difficult for her to clench her fingers, but the distraction was just enough. With her right hand, Sara stabbed the paring knife with all her strength into Brenda's gut.
The gun fell from her attacker's hand, but Sara pulled the knife back and stabbed her again and then again a third time, knowing with the last strike that she'd caught the woman in some vital part of her abdomen. They both went over onto the ground in a heap, but Sara was on top and she used the position to her own advantage, pushing the knife even deeper into Brenda's stomach.
The other woman clutched at her, using her waning strength to try and push Sara off, to pull the knife out, or - at the very last - to reach in vain for the gun. But Sara stayed on top of her, using her weight to lean into the knife, keeping it firmly in place. As Brenda's blood spilled out, she eventually stopped fighting and her eyes fluttered closed.
Only when Sara's own vision began to blur did she pull away from the woman, reaching as she did so for the gun. The blood on her hands made it slippery, so she gripped it carefully. When Brenda did not come after her, when she did not move at all as she lay in the midst of a growing pool of blood on the floor, only then did Sara finally turn to Grissom.
He stared at her with wide, terrified eyes.
"Sara…"
Her name barely came out through a raspy gasp, and it was swiftly followed by a fit of bloody cough.
"Shhhh," she answered him, moving awkwardly across to the chair where he was tied.
Her strength was failing her, but she managed to get to him. But even as she reached to untie the ropes holding his arms in place, she knew she was not going to make it. The blood loss was stealing away her consciousness too quickly.
Even as her vision began to tunnel and bright sparkles flickered at the edge of her sight, Sara remembered something: the sign he had shown her once, the one he had used when they had been in that garage together, just before he thought was going to die. Folding down her middle and ring fingers, she held her uninjured right hand up to him in the sign for, "I love you."
Just before losing all awareness, Sara thought she heard the sound of sirens approaching in the distance.
TBC