Disclaimer: I own nothing.

Nick woke up feeling subdued, but calm. He recalled what had happened the previous evening, or has it been longer ago. Anyways, he knew everything that had happened, but it felt odd, distant, he wasn't upset or frightened. Everything felt like through a thick layer of  The urgency he had felt before to find out what ha happened had disappeared. What had they given him?

He looked around the room. Sara was sitting in a chair, reading some magazine He could not see the cover, but it was probably some scientific journal.

"Hey Sara"

"Hey Nick, you are you?"

"Okay, a bit groggy", he had to think to get the sentence together.

"The others?"

"They will be fine, don't worry" Sara avoided details. Nick either didn't notice or didn't pick her on it.

"Did they tell you how long I have to stay?"

"Till the morning."

"Good", he wasn't sure whether or not he meant it.

"Don't you have to get back to the scene?"

"Well, Grissom and Warrick are all over it" Normally she would have questioned his more or less discrete attempt at getting rid of her, but decided to leave it for now. He probably just need to be alone to sort things out.

"You'll be ok?"

"Sure" he hoped that his voice didn't show that he wasn't.

"When they release you, just call and someone from CSI will pick you up."

Only when Sara had left, he noticed that Sara had been strangely avoiding. He wondered why she had not asked him any questions regarding what had happened. Well after what he had pulled at the scene, the doctors had probably told her not to upset him with questions.

After leaving the his room, Sara headed to the nearest payphone, inserted a coin and called Grissom.

"Hi, Grissom. I'm just calling to tell you that Nick woke up. The doctor wouldn't let me ask questions yet, apparently he got very upset before and they had to give him a sedative. They are releasing him tomorrow probably.  I wonder what happened to spook him like that? Have you found anything yet?"

"We've found more bodies in the basement. It'll be a while before we are done"

"I'm coming over now to give you and Warrick a hand"

~~Next Morning~~

"Mrs. Jansen died of a gunshot wound to the chest. Death was immediate. But she had been shot a few minutes prior to the fatal shot. A bullet to the side. No vital organs were hit, which is a wonder. She would have slowly bled to death. Signs of a struggle, scratches on her neck, on blood her knuckles. But I have found something that might interest you. There were traces of fabric in her wound. It is fairly common that there are traces of fibres from the victim's clothes in a wound, but these don't look like they came from what she was wearing. I sent both bullets from her chest, samples of the blood, as well as the fibres up to the lab." Doc Robbins gave Grissom the main results from the post.

"Good, what about GSR on her hands?"

"Her hands tested positive for GSR, she did fire a gun. Before Grissom could ask, he added, I haven't processed the other bodies found in the basement yet. I'll page you then."

Further search of the premises had revealed a total of 5 bodies, stashed in the basement, excluding Mrs Jansen. The women, all in her early 20ties, were not yet identified. They had been dead for times ranging from a few days to more than a year, based on initial examination. The police suspected they were illegal immigrants, which Mrs Jansen had hired as domestics. They had dug a bullet from the living room wall, one from the upper rim of the couch and one from the floor. The report on the bullets was going to be done in an hour at the latest, Bobby Dawson had promised Grissom when he had checked on it for the second time.

Frustrated at the fact that no matter what he did, it would take time until they could clear up what had happened, he made his way back to his office, dreading the prospect of another message left by Detective Hiller, the officer investigating the shooting.

He almost bumped into Greg.

"Careful there Grissom."

"I've got the result you want."

"Great", he followed Greg to the lab.

"First: blood."

"The blood on the floor is from three people. Catherine, Brass and Diana Jansen. No surprise. Blood Diane Jansen's hands is Catherine's. DNA gave no matches for the 5 bodies in the basement however."

"Second: fibres. The fibres from the couch match those found on the body of our victim Nura Fadira. The fibres from the gunshot wounds are interesting. From the 1st wound in the side, they are from her shirt, white cotton, and from Catherine's blouse, light-blue cotton-synthetics mix. In her chest wound were only white cotton fibres. "

"So when Catherine was grazed, the bullet travelled on, hitting Mrs Jansen. Since it had first ripped Catherine's blouse, the fibres were transmitted to the wound."

"Question here is, who was the target, Catherine or Mrs Jansen?"

"We'll know us soon as the ballistics report is done."

The ballistics report came on the minute when Bobby Dawson had promised it. From the total of  four bullets, two were from Diane Jansen's gun, one from Catherine's gun and one from Nick's gun. Mrs. Jansen had fired that shot which had grazed Brass and the one which had hit the living room wall. Nick had fired the shit which had wounded both Catherine and Diane Jansen, so the intended target of the shot had been Mrs Jansen. While there was no doubt about this for Grissom, he could imagine that Detective Hiller would find some uncomfortable questions to ask regarding this. Catherine had then fired the shot which had killed Mrs Jansen.

Surprisingly Grissom's concerns regarding the interview didn't come to pass.  Even though Catherine didn't recall all that had happened, her story checked with the evidence they had found.

"I'm not sure exactly how we got to that room in the basement. When she was down, I ran away from her, but she caught up with me. I remember fighting, trying to keep her from shooting me. A one point she dropped her gun, but was reaching for it. This is when I had to chance to …well to shot her. Catherine ended her account. Her demeanour was calm. Grissom wondered whether the shock over having had to kill a person would set in later. However, Catherine had been forced to use her gun before and had dealt with it very well.

"That'll be all, Ms Willows" Detective Hiller said and got up. "We'll need for you to sign your statement at the station once you are recovered."

Nick couldn't honestly say that he felt up to going to the station and giving his statement, but he would ever admit it. So when Grissom had asked him whether it was ok for him he had agreed. Now he was sitting with Detective Hiller and Grissom.  He had done fine up until the point where Diane Jansen had grabbed Catherine.

"Then …then there was a shot, I could really see where it had gone and then, he struggled, embarrassed at his failure to put his mental images into words. It wasn't so much the consequences that he was afraid of, it was of seeing himself as the person responsible that scared him the most.

"Is it true that you fired your gun at Mrs Diane Jansen?"

"Yes, I was sure she would kill us, I mean she had..."The very memory of it scared him.

Grissom, usually not to most sensitive person towards human emotions, decided to intervene.

"It's all right Nick. We know that it was self-defence, she fired at you. You had good reason to believe that your life was in danger."

The were standing in the living room, the scene of whatever had taken place that had shocked two CSIs. Okay, let's replay it. Jim, you were there, so you know exactly where everyone was standing.

"Catherine and I were at the couch. He pointed to the stop where it had stood. Nick was behind us, I think close to the door into the corridor, but I could really see him. Mrs Jansen was standing right next to me. "

"Sara, you are Catherine, Warrick you are Nick, and I am Mrs Jansen."

Everyone moved into their respective places.

"I open the drawer, the Mrs Jansen hits me over the head, I go down." Brass sat down on the floor.

"We found traced of your blood on a bottle. The bottle was probably standing on this table, Grissom pointed to a small table. She grabbed to first thing she could reach. Out of impulse. Now, Brass is on the floor and I grab Catherine. From somewhere I got a gun. A struggle ensues, and a shot is fired, grazing you Jim. "

"That tallies, the bullet we pulled from the floorboard was fired at  a low angle." Sara pointed out.

"Accidental shot during a struggle."

"Means I got lucky", Brass commented, cynically.

"Very lucky. Mrs Jansen gains the upper hand. According to Nick, she threatens to kill Catherine and then fires a shot in his direction to prove her point."

"Yeah, the bullet whole here in the wall, proves it. Warrick pointed to the wall. Nick seizes to opportunity, seeing that he won't be able to talk her out of it and fires at her."

"He gets her, but also get Catherine."

"Accident. "

"Both go down for a moment. Catherine gets to her feet first and runs."

"Why not use her gun?"

"Instinct, there are two options fight or flight. Option fight didn't work before, now it's option flight. At this point we don't think anymore. Catherine runs from the room." Grissom theorized"

"Yeah, but how did she end up in the cellar and didn't go for the front door?" Warrick wondered.

None of them knew an answer to this.