Sara looked around the parking lot irritably. O'Reilly had offered to drive her home, but his car was parked a block away. She tapped her foot impatiently while she waited for him, mentally going over the evidence she's seen that day.

Suddenly an arm was around her throat. "Don't turn around, bitch. I'm givin' you a warning: leave the bitch with the dog's case alone or you're both gonna get hurt bad."

He was breathing hard in her ear, a repulsive sound. She knew the man meant to terrify her, but Sara wasn't afraid, she was just majorly pissed off. Sinking her nails into his arm, she crunched the heel of her boot down onto his instep. The man yelped and loosened his hold on her neck. Taking advantage of this, she shot an elbow back into his solar plexus, making her attacker drop his arm entirely. "You fucking idiot!" she yelled, then kneed him. He dropped to his knees, clutching his groin.

Being herself, Sara refused to flee. Instead she stood, panting slightly, and watched the man closely, waiting for him to make another move at her. When he didn't, she took the opportunity to grab hold of the wool ski mask he wore and jerk it off. Before she could get a good look at him, though, the man roared out of his kneeling position, trying to grab her again.

When she slipped out of his grasp, he threw a punch, now more concerned with her not seeing his face than with delivering his warning. The flying fist glanced off Sara's cheek as she turned away from it. Truly furious now, Sara got in a blow of her own at his nose, hearing a satisfying crunch when she connected with it.

He'd had enough, it seemed. Sara's attacker turned and ran for the bushes behind the building. She stood still for a minute catching her breath and debating whether she should go after him. The decision was taken out of her hands when O'Reilly pulled his car up in front of her. "Jesus, Sara, what the hell happened to you?"

"I'm fine. The rapist just tried his damndest to scare me off. I beat him up instead."

The detective gaped at her. "The rapist? The one we're after?" Sara nodded and O'Reilly's face began to turn red. "And you didn't yell for me? Are you STUPID, Sidle? He could have had a gun!" He glared at her, then sighed. "Which way?"

"Toward the back. He skirted the bushes. He's got red hair, by the way, and I scratched him."

"Well go get your ass inside so someone else can process you!" he said, then hurried off in the direction Sara had indicated.

Ecklie sneered when he saw Sara. "What happened to you?"

"A rapist came after me," she said flatly. "Can we just do this, please?" She held out her hands, "I scratched him, so I might have DNA."

Ecklie blinked. He hadn't been expecting to hear that Sara had truly been attacked, of all things. He'd been thinking along the lines of a catfight with Catherine Willows. "A suspect? Are you kidding?"

"No. Please, just get started, I want to go home."

"I'm calling Grissom," was the day supervisor's response. "I'm not processing you without him here, you know he'll flip out if I or any of my people touch you."

"Don't!" Sara said, but Ecklie was already on the phone.

"Hello Gil. I have something you might be interested in seeing down at CSI. Seems that rapist your team's been after? Well he's been after your team too." Sara could hear Grissom's raised voice even though the phone was pressed to Ecklie's ear. "Why don't you just come down and find out, Gil? Yes, Sara's here with me. Move, Grissom, I'm not dealing with your case by myself." He hung up.

"Geez, Ecklie, could you have handled that any worse?" Sara asked, annoyed at how the man had toyed with Grissom.

"There's a reason, Sidle. If I'd told him you were hurt he'd be speeding his way down here and probably get himself killed on the way."

Sara was forced to admit he was right, but she didn't like it. "I'm not hurt, anyway. I'm fine," she said, then subsided. Slumping against the wall, she counted the minutes until Grissom arrived.

Exactly ten minutes later, Grissom banged open the door to Ecklie's office. "What the hell's going on, Conrad?"

Ecklie shrugged and pointed across the room to where Sara was perched on a chair. "Ask her, I'm just the innocent bystander."

"Would you guys stop it? This is not the end of the world. A suspect tried to attack one of us, this is nothing new. Why are you acting like someone just got killed?"

Grissom grew still. " 'Tried to attack one of us,' Sara? And exactly who would that be?" He scowled at her. "Come here." Sara stood up and approached him, back stiff. Grissom took a close look at her. "You have a black eye and you're bleeding. What did you DO, Sara!"

"I didn't 'do' anything, Grissom. I was waiting for O'Reilly to pull up and the guy grabbed me. I scared him off. That's it. The only reason I'm here is so Ecklie could process me, but he refused."

Grissom sank down in a chair. "You might feel fine, but I certainly don't. I knew I shouldn't have left you here!" He motioned her toward him and took hold of her face gently. "Did he hit you hard?"

"He barely even tapped me. Stop it, Gris. I'm fine, honestly. Can we PLEASE just get started?" She wiped the back of her hand at the blood on her face. "The blood isn't mine. I think I broke his nose. The blood probably came from there."

O'Reilly appeared in the doorway along with one of Ecklie's team. "He was gone by the time I got there, Sara. I got the ski mask he dropped, though." He looked around the room. "Oh, hi Grissom. Good thing you're here."

Ecklie's CSI, named Jared, was visually examining Sara from where he stood. "Are you hurt, Sidle?"

"No, for the five-hundredth time!" she exclaimed. "I just want someone to process me, for god's sake." She stool up and walked to the door. "Let's go, Jared. Grissom, O'Reilly, we'll be back in a little while." The young man shrugged and followed Sara out the door.

Sara felt strangely removed from the situation as Jared swabbed the blood off of her hands and face, carefully scraped under her fingernails, and helped her exchange her clothes for a pair of department sweats. "Ok Sara, I'm done," he told her. "You might want to go get yourself checked out, though, just to make sure he didn't crack your cheekbone or anything. But you knew that," he chuckled nervously. He went off to distribute the evidence to the various parts of the lab that would use them.

Sara returned to Ecklie's office, where the three older men were in what looked like a deep conversation. "O'Reilly? You ready to get started with the interview?" she asked. The detective, still slightly red in the face, nodded and led her away again.

Grissom watched them leave and sank his head into his hands. He would die young if Sara kept this up.