Part 7
Grissom sat up and stretched. His back was killing him. He had no idea how people managed to sleep on this couch, it was the most uncomfortable thing in the world. Grissom was in the break room. He had gotten the DNA sample from Aaron Barker and had decided to get some sleep before the results came back. The couch in his office was a lot more comfortable, but it was currently occupied by Sara Sidle, and he wasn't about to disturb her. He looked at his watch, 7:00pm; the rest of the night shift should be here soon. He stood up and stretched. He had better go and check on the DNA results before Sara woke up, if she thought he wasn't working hard enough while she was sleeping she would never forgive him. When he got to the lab he found Greg already there.
"Evening, Greg. What are you doing here so early?"
"Covering for day-shift. They had two people flake out and leave this week, the DNA lab person quit, and the woman from the print lab was fired because she had been losing evidence and not running some prints at all. Wonderful woman." Greg yawned. "Now I know what you guys go through when you pull double and triple shifts."
"The perks of being a CSI. Do you have results for me from the samples I dropped off earlier?"
"From Aaron Barker? Yes I do. And I have good news and bad news. His DNA matches the semen found on the outside of the Vic's pants, and on the water glass Sara found and printed."
"What's the bad news?"
"The epithelial on the rope is not a match, and the skin cells from under the Vic's fingernails are also not a match to Aaron Barker, but they are a match to the rope."
"So he isn't our killer."
"That is for you CSI types to decide, I just process the evidence."
"Thanks Greg." Grissom walked out of the lab and right into Nick.
"Hey Boss, how's your case?"
"Not so good, yours?"
"I was just coming to ask you to give me a case. I wrapped mine up last night, remember?"
"Right, I forgot. Why don't you join Sara and I on our case, we don't seem to be getting very far on our own." Grissom and Nick went to the break room and Grissom brought him up to speed on the case. Then he sent him off to look at the evidence for himself and see if he was able to catch something that he and Sara had missed. After checking in with the others to see how their cases were going, Grissom headed towards his office. It was time to wake up Sara.
Grissom opened the door to his office as quietly as he could and stepped inside, closing the door behind him. The only light in the room came from the lamps on a few of the cages of his various bugs and spiders. Sara was sound asleep on the couch, curled up on her side using her jacket as a pillow. She looked so sweet; he really didn't want to wake her up. Plus, when she found out that Aaron Barker was probably not guilty, she would throw a fit, he really wasn't looking forward to that either. He sat in a chair and watched her sleep. There was no harm in letting her get a few more minutes of precious sleep. He wondered what she could be dreaming about. He could see her eyelids fluttering and she was almost smiling. He hoped it was a good dream, the real world was hard enough, he thought all dreams should be good ones. For a moment the idea of waking her with a kiss, like the fairy tale Sleeping Beauty, crossed his mind, but he forced it back in his mind. He was in denial about his feelings for Sara, and he rather liked it that way, much less complicated.
Grissom moved forward and gently put his hand on her shoulder, lightly rubbing her arm to coax her into consciousness.
"Sara, time to wake up." He said softly.
Sara mumbled something in her sleep and rolled onto her back. She lazily opened her eyes. When she saw Grissom there she sat bolt upright on the couch.
"What?…how?…when?…oh God, Grissom. You scared the shit out of me! How long have you been sitting there, was I talking in my sleep? What happened with the case? How long have I been sleeping?"
"Slow down, Sara, one question at a time. I just got here to wake you up, you mumbled something in your sleep but I have no idea what you said, and you have been sleeping for almost nine hours."
Sara relaxed a little and rubbed the sleep from her eyes. "What about the case?"
"Bad news there, Aaron isn't our guy. His DNA was on the water glass and the semen was his, but nothing else was. The DNA on the rope, and the skin under her fingernails was not a match to him; someone else was in that apartment and killed her. The evidence seems to support his version of the story after all. Nick is looking over the evidence, we'll see if he is able to find something that we missed."
"That can't be, that guy is guilty as sin. He has to be. He beat the shit out of her for years, this time he went too far. I know I'm right."
"Sara, we can't make the evidence say something that we want it to; we just have to let it tell us its story."
Sara stood up and grabbed her coat from the couch. "I'm going back to talk to Benny Holstein. Maybe he has thought of something new, or maybe he saw Aaron come home with a bloody sword, I don't know. I just can't sit here while Mara's killer is going to walk. I have my cell, call if you find something new." And with that she walked out of his office.
As she pulled out of the parking lot, Sara thought about her dream. She had dreamed that she was a princess in a castle and Grissom came riding up on a white horse to save her from something. Then they rode off into the sunset together. She shook her head. What a silly juvenile dream. She really wasn't the damsel in distress type. She hoped Grissom had told the truth when he said that he didn't know what she had mumbled in her sleep. He did not need to know that she had been dreaming about him. That would just be weird. He would probably try to get her committed or something. Damsels in distress and white horses, and Grissom as a knight to boot. She was seriously losing it. Oh well, she had the case to think about now. It was time to put another deadbeat boyfriend behind bars. Come hell or high water she was going to prove he was guilty.