"Hey, Scopie," Sara said, patting the golden retriever mix on the head as she took off her jacket and threw it on the couch. She bent down to greet the dog more fully, scratching behind her ears. In response, Scope (short for microscope) wagged her entire body, pressing up against her owner for more attention. Sara grinned at Scope, who was still a baby at eight months. "Where's Gris, Scopie?"

At the sound of Grissom's name, Scope perked up. "Where's your guy, Scope?" Sara asked playfully. "Go find him!"

The dog took off. She was only eight months old but her training was really sinking in. Grissom and Sara had gotten the puppy partially for companionship, but being the workaholics they both were, they had decided to train the dog to find evidence: blood stains that had been cleaned, people, clothing, etc. They had started out training her to find Grissom or Sara. . . depending on who was handling Scope.

The puppy ran back to her, bumped Sara with her cold, wet puppy nose, and ran off again. Grissom emerged from his office, the room in the apartment farthest away from everything, followed closely by a bouncy Scope.

"Hey, you're home," he smiled slightly, sadly. She had the feeling that something was wrong.

"Hey," she smiled back, tamping down the thought. "I knew you were. Did you take Scope out yet?"

He nodded, and added, "I fed her, too, so she'll need to go out again in an hour."

"That's enough time to eat breakfast," she grinned, raising her eyebrows quickly.

"What do you want?" Grissom seemed quiet.

She looked him up and down, finally meeting his eyes. "I have no idea, but I have to kiss you or I'm going to faint."

"Okay," he stuttered; he'd hardly gotten the words out before she'd planted one on him.

"This 'no physical contact at work' policy is killing me," she explained as they pulled apart.

Grissom just nodded, not saying anything, not meeting her eyes. "Grissom, what's wrong?" Sara asked, eyebrows knitting together in concern, disturbed by his attitude. "Come on, talk to me."

He sighed heavily, and said, "Sara, sit down."

Sara complied, the puzzled look still on her face as he retreated to his office without a word. Scope jumped up on the couch next to her, Sara rubbed her ears and told the puppy with honesty, "I'm worried about him, Scopie." The puppy licked her cheek.

Grissom emerged with a case file in his hands, he moved Scope off the couch and sat down next to Sara, sighing again.

"What is it, Gris?"

He took out two pictures, one a morgue shot of Jerry Phillips, the other a man she thought she recognized. "Could you tell me, without a doubt, who abducted you?" Grissom asked.

She took a good look at both photos, then pointed to Phillips. "That's him," Sara said. "Without a doubt. He's the guy I saw in the bathroom mirror, right before. Can't miss those eyes. But why do we care now? He's dead."

Grissom fiddled with his ring, a nervous habit they had both developed in the last seven months. He twisted it around his ring finger with his thumb, which Sara did as well, especially when she was anxious about something. She watched him do it now, and wondered again what was going on. "Could you tell me who assaulted you, without a doubt?" he asked finally.

Sara looked over the photos again, picked up the one of the unknown man, then put it down again. She did the same with the Phillips picture, then shook her head. "No. I can't say either man was responsible, but I don't really remember."

"That's Gary Barnes," he said, pointing to the unknown. "I was talking to Tony Dodd today, and he was telling me that when Phillips confessed, he kept talking about Gary, and how Barnes wasn't going to let this go by. Tony sent me the transcript of the confession."

"You think Phillips was a patsy for this guy Barnes?"

"I looked into Phillips' record, mostly non-violent crimes. The worst thing he ever did was not paying a traffic ticket."

"Maybe he was staying below the radar, so if he ever got caught they'd go easy on him. Like Ben Jennings."

"Ben Jennings was innocent," he reminded her.

"I know, but that was the brother's idea, remember?" Grissom nodded. "What about Barnes?"

"This guy was bad, Sare." He noted that she was shaking. "Assault, rape, attempted murder. . .and Phillips' half-brother."

"Phillips could confess to the assault because he was there, but Barnes did the damage," she realized. "Damn it!"

"Barnes and Phillips co-owned the house in Georgia, but Phillips lived there. Barnes moved around a lot, but he was in San Francisco during the murders."

"Barnes made Jerry follow me, abduct me, but that was it. Barnes. . ." She trailed off, getting progressively more upset. "I thought this was over," she choked.

"We got the wrong brother again," he said.

"There was never evidence that it was more than one guy!"

"I don't think Barnes used Phillips until you," he told her.

"Shit, I thought this was over!" she repeated, brown eyes tearing up.

"Hey, hey, don't cry," Grissom said, wiping the tears from her face, taking her in his arms. "Sara, it's okay."

"It is not okay, Gris. This bastard's still out there." She glared at him as a small smile came over his face. "What're you smiling at?"

"You didn't let me finish," he chided. "He's in custody."

"What?"

"I took off early tonight, want to know why?"

"You got a phone call, didn't you?"

"Dodd called me," he agreed. "Apparently Barnes was shot during a bar fight. When they went through his stuff, and realized that he was Phillips' brother, they searched the place he was staying. Found another knife with his prints and your blood all over it."

"Oh, wonderful," she muttered sarcastically, her eyes dried. "You know how long he's going to stay in custody? Not long."

"We have evidence linking him to you. . . " "But I couldn't positively ID the man to save my life," she countered.

"One piece of evidence is. . ."

". . .worth more than ten eyewitnesses, I know. But the evidence isn't conclusive, it's circumstantial."

"Your blood, his prints. . ."

"Means nothing. Means he picked up the knife. Doesn't mean he did anything."

"If we calculate the grip angle, we can determine how he held the weapon," he offered.

"Grissom, when most people pick up a knife, they hold it in the same way as they would to cut someone. It's not definitive."

"Why are you playing the devil's advocate?"

"Because I don't want this guy going free because the evidence is crap!" Scope's ears pulled back at the sound of her owner yelling.

"What about the San Francisco evidence? We can get that shipped here, run some tests, link him to those crimes, too."

"Is he even charged with the murders in San Francisco?" Sara challenged.

"He could be if we link the evidence," Grissom offered.

She sighed, looked away from him, her face caught up in a scowl. "Is the evidence from Georgia coming?"

"On its way," Grissom said. "I told Tony to ship it overnight when he called."

"What about San Francisco?"

"Also coming," he said. "Made the call to Kate right after I got off the phone with Tony."

"Why did you bother asking me if it was already coming?" Sara said, turning back to him, her tone slightly accusatory.

"Because even if you didn't want to review it-and I figured you would-I wanted to do it."

"You know me too well," she said, a half-smile quirked on her face.

"Well, we've only been married, what? Seven months? And we did live together for almost a year before that. And we were friends before that."

She cringed slightly at the M word. "There has to be another word for 'married' that doesn't sound so. . .married."

"Joined, united, wedded. . .?"

". . .Cheesy?"

Grissom nodded, gave her a smile. "You're still working through it."

"I have days where I'm completely blown away that I'm hitched, you know? It's insane that I'm someone's wife." Sara shuddered. "And it's really creepy that I'm your wife, no offense."

"None taken," he shrugged. "I know exactly what you mean. I woke up today, for example, and thought 'Oh, I'm a husband. Guess that means I have to take out the trash.'"

"Grissom," she said, locking eyes with him, "I have no idea how your mind works. That made no sense."

"I know," he said with a grin, stealing a kiss.

"You love it when people can't figure you out, you big lug."

"And you love trying to figure me out, don't you?"

"I guess we're even then," she said, stealing a kiss of her own.

"I guess," he replied, kissing her again.

"The dog has to go out in," she checked her watch, leaning in to kiss him again, "fifteen minutes."

"We really should finish talking about the case," he offered, kissing her back.

"We should," she agreed.

Scope's ears pulled back again as the bedroom door slammed shut.