A Shoulder to Lean On

Part Four

Notes and disclaimers in part one

After seeing the marks on Kevin McCallum's body, they stayed with him for a long time, trying to get him to talk, but to no avail. When it was evident that they were getting nowhere, Warrick excused himself, going out to his car and getting his camera, taking pictures of the marks on Kevin's body. "Probably won't do any good," he told Nick and O'Riley when they left Kevin in the room, giving him yet more time to think about what he could do. "But you never know."

Nick nodded. "I'll start tracking down that surveillance footage. You want in?"

Warrick was about to nod, but then he remembered that there was someplace else he had to be, and he looked at his watch, finding to his dismay that he was already way late to meet up with Sara. "Sara's working on the shooting reconstruction; I told her I'd help her out."

Nick held up his hands. "Far be it from me to stop you man," he said, but with a smile on his face that Warrick wasn't entirely crazy about.

"What?"

Nick was all innocence. "What?"

"You got something to say, come out and say it."

Nick shrugged. "Just that you and Sara seem to be spending a lot of time together. That's all," he said. "You got something you want to tell us?"

Warrick blew air out between his lips. "Man, you're trippin'," he said, even as Sara's words from the previous shift ran through his mind, the query she'd voiced that he hadn't been able to answer.

"I'm just wondering why you care so much… why this means so much to you."

Nick's voice came in on the tail end of Sara's, his tone pure scepticism. "Am I?"

Warrick rolled his eyes, waved a hand in disgusted dismissal before turning on his heel and making his way back to the lab and Sara. He tried to put Nick's insinuation out of his mind, because he knew it was ridiculous. He was just looking out for Sara, that was all. She needed a friend, was going through one of the hardest things she was probably ever going to have to go through. If Nick knew what he knew, he'd be doing the same thing. That was all there was to it.

Warrick told himself that, several times, but for some reason, it didn't make it ring any more true.

Such thoughts stayed in his mind as he made his way back to the lab, but he forced them out once he stepped through the doors, making his way to the AV lab where he knew Sara would be waiting for him. He didn't waste any time apologising when he saw her bent over the computer typing, a frown on her face. "I'm sorry I'm late. What bullet are you on?" From the time he'd been gone, not to mention from the tension across her shoulders, he figured she was pretty near to the end, and her next words bore that out.

"109, finally." He just about kept back a wince, keeping his face neutral. "Height, distance, angle." She tapped each key ferociously, and he found himself wondering if he should move backwards lest she stab him. "This has been a very laborious shift," she concluded dryly, turning to him and looking into his eyes. He wanted to ask her if she was all right, but there was something in her countenance that made him think she'd lynch him if he tried, and besides, in the back of his eyes, he was sure he could see a spark of humour there. "Are you in the mood for a light show?" she asked, and he grinned, knowing that she'd read his mood and thoughts perfectly.

"Yeah," he said, turning his attention to the screen. "Hook it up."

With the press of a key, the screen came to life, showing the crime scene and the bullets moving across it. Streaks of red light converged in one direction, making a distinct image, one that looked familiar to Warrick. "The trajectory is all pointing in one uniform area.  Looks like some kind of a pole."

The second the last word left his lips, an image invaded his mind; Sara, walking down the hall and nearly skewering some poor lab tech with a limbo pole. He knew exactly what she was going to say, and he wasn't surprised when she said it, in a very "I told you so" tone of voice. "Or a bamboo stick."

What with the absence of GSR, Warrick had been sure that the pole was indeed a piece of debris that had just happened to be on the roof of the warehouse. He'd more or less forgotten about it in the investigating of Kevin McCallum's story and the mysterious glass. Now it looked like the bamboo stick did indeed have some kind of bearing on the case, though Warrick couldn't imagine what or how. It was an extra piece to a puzzle that already had too many, and he couldn't help but laugh. "The whole case has been like this," he observed. "It's like you can't wrap your head around it, you know?"

Sara began running through the evidence they'd collected so far. "A bamboo cane with black swirls descending downward, no GSR, 109 rods, 109 bullets, all fired from the same gun."

"Camera glass, blood droplets everywhere," Warrick continued. "DNA that says five people were there, one boy's dead, one boy's injured, and he ain't sayin' nothin'…" He couldn't come up with any conceivable way that those elements could be related, and yet they had to be. But from the look on Sara's face, she couldn't shine any light on it either, and that perplexed him even more. He and Sara together made a good team, balancing one another out, keeping one another in check, thinking along the same lines, spurring one another along to come to the right conclusion. They'd never come up against a case they couldn't solve, and the fact that they seemed to be doing now rankled. "Is this the end of the road?" he asked her, just in case he was reading her wrong, but her quiet answer told him he wasn't.

"Forensically?" she asked him, looking at the now blank screen, then back to him. "Yes." She sounded as depressed about it as he was, certainly as tired and frustrated, and she sighed, turning back towards the blank screen. Pushing the keyboard away from her, she gave herself room to rest her elbows on the table, covering her face with her hands, her shoulders rising and falling in another huge sigh.

Warrick frowned, glancing towards the deserted hallway, then back to her, reaching out carefully to rest his hand on her back. He was concerned about how she might react, but she didn't move, and his frown increased when he felt the tension along her spine. That wasn't good for anyone, he thought, let alone someone in her… He stopped the thought before it could finish, biting the inside of his cheek as he moved his hand up and down her spine. "You want to take a break?" he asked her quietly. "Go for a walk, clear your head?"

He felt the muscle of her back move slightly as she straightened a little, but he didn't drop his hand. "No," she replied, moving her hands to push back her hair, tucking it behind her ears. "I'm fine."

"You look like you're about half an inch away from collapsing," he told her, not unkindly, and she chuckled, though she stopped when he made his next suggestion. "You want to go get something to eat?"

Her face twisted into a grimace, and colour leeched from her face. "No," she said firmly. "Thank you."

Warrick tilted his head, eyes narrowed in concern. "You feeling ok?"

She smiled wanly. "Nauseated," she told him. "When they say morning sickness, they forget to tell you that it comes and goes all day." She shot him a wry smile, shook her head at the look he gave her in return. "Don't even think about saying it."

"Say what?" He tried for innocence, thought he missed it by a mile, a suspicion borne out by her next words.

"Anything to do with my condition." She sounded amused, placing extra emphasis on the last two words, lips twitching. "If you keep on like this, I will have to kill you."

"You just wouldn't be able to do my autopsy," he countered, regretting his use of the "A" word when she visibly gulped. "Sorry."

She pressed a fist to the underside of her nose, drawing in a deep breath, letting it out slowly. That must have made her feel better, because she gave him a tremulous smile, though she couldn't hide the slight shaking of her hand as she held it up to him to indicate that his apology was unnecessary. "It's fine," she said. "Except that it looks like this is a kid who's going to love its sleep and be squeamish at the sight of blood…" Her dry assessment made him grin and she rolled her eyes. "Thanks for the sympathy."

"I've got nothing but sympathy for you," he told her, honestly if not humourlessly, and he stood up, moving his hand from her back to her shoulder, squeezing gently. "Come on, let's get you to the break room… there's some ginger ale in the refrigerator, it'll settle your stomach."

"Sounds good." A pause as she looked up at the screen. "If I can move from this stool that is." Snickering, he took a step back from her, noting as she moved that she did seem stiff, though of course, after one hundred and nine bullets, he'd be stiff too. His snickers quickly vanished though when he saw her sway on her feet, one hand going to her forehead, the other grabbing for the table, and his hands shot out without him even thinking about it, steadying her.

"You ok?" He didn't even try to stop the alarm from coming out in his voice, and his worry didn't abate when she took her time in replying. He could hear her breathing, deep and laboured, and when she looked up at him, her face was chalk white. "OK," he heard himself saying. "Let's get you-"

"I'm fine." She interrupted him with no conviction whatsoever, and he simply raised an eyebrow, staring her down.

"Look," he said after a second of thought. "Why don't you go up into one of the offices upstairs, lie down for a bit?" It was common practice among the night shift CSI's to do that, especially when they'd worked daylight hours as well. The offices upstairs, manned exclusively by office personnel working solely during the day were all furnished with couches where many a weary nightshift CSI had found solace, if not sanity, after an hour's lie-down. When she bit her lip, he knew that he was getting somewhere, and he pressed ahead, promising, "I'll come get you if I hear anything."

She looked down, and he knew the battle was over. "Promise?" she mumbled, and he grinned to himself, wanting to pull her into a hug, but knowing he couldn't, not with the rest of the lab ready to pass by outside.

So he settled for increasing the pressure on her arm momentarily. "I promise."

The next time he saw Sara was when he responded to Nick's page about surveillance videotapes, and the three of them were helping O'Riley round up their Junior Tarentinos. He gave her a hard look when he saw her coming towards him with Nick, because he didn't think she'd been lying down for that long. She nodded at him, flashed him a quick smile, as if seeking to reassure him, but it did anything but. She didn't look any more rested than she had when he'd walked her up to one of the deserted offices upstairs, and if anything, she looked paler, more drawn than she had a couple of hours previously. He wanted to ask her if she was feeling all right, but he knew better than to do that in front of Nick.

Besides, when they found the videotape they were looking for, bringing it to the lab, leaving O'Riley to interrogate the kids, he had a feeling that they were about to break the case, and then she'd be able to go home and get some real rest. He'd be more than willing to do her share of the paperwork if it would put some colour back into her cheeks.

When he saw the contents of the video though, he thought that it might take more than a good night's sleep.

Five kids, all of them looking familiar, and not a little wild, were mugging for the camera, boasting about their stunts.

Speedway surfing, where cars were driven at high speed, one of the boys standing on the car hood, rolling off onto the hard asphalt. Warrick shook his head at the sight, hard pressed not to wince, hardly able to believe what he was seeing. From the silence to his left, Nick and Sara were feeling the same way.

Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Sara glancing across at him, but he was transfixed by the next stunt on the tape, what the kids called "The 150 Yard Marker". That involved four of them strapping on football helmets – and how sick was it, Warrick wondered, that he wanted to praise them for taking that minor precaution? – while the fifth shot golf balls at them.

Then came a scenario that was familiar to them.

Bamboo Russian Roulette.

At the mention of bamboo, Warrick shot a quick glance at Sara, whose eyes were locked onto the screen, and he thought that it could have been his imagination, but she seemed to be holding herself just a little bit straighter, as if she was concentrating hard on the images playing across the view screen.

All the pieces of the puzzle fell into place as they watched.

The bamboo pole, dropped by one kid down through the hole in the ceiling.

The gun, let spiral down it, firing all the way.

The four others, running crazily, dodging the bullets.

Sounds of gunfire and laughter echoing through the lab.

A crazy, dizzying shot as the camera fell to the ground.

But it was still recording, and they saw, captured in perfect digital quality, Timmy McCallum, saw the bullet hit him the chest. Saw him fall to the ground, looking right into the lens, saw him fighting for his last breath. Heard the alarm of the other boys before everything went black.

Warrick had never heard such quiet in the AV lab, and one look at Sara and Nick told him that they were as sickened by what they'd just seen as he was. Nick, his jaw set, his expression serious, turned slowly to meet his gaze, shaking his head, but his expression changed from disgust to concern when his eyes fell on Sara.

Warrick followed his gaze, felt an identical expression coming to his own face. Sara's head was in her hands, elbows resting on the table, back ramrod straight. Her breathing was loud in the silence of the room, deep and even and too controlled. Though he wasn't sure why, Warrick felt a shiver go down his spine, felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand up one by one, and when he dragged his eyes away from her, meeting Nick's worried glance, he mouthed a single word.

"Go."

Nick nodded quickly, keeping his voice as natural as possible as he rose from the stool. "I'm going to book this in," he said. "Get it to Archie, get him to grab some stills off it…" All of which could be done there, and they all knew it, but Sara didn't look up, and Warrick wasn't about to call him on it. "I'll catch you guys later," Nick concluded, beating a hasty retreat, leaving Warrick and Sara alone in the too-quiet room, and Sara still didn't move.

Feeling for the first time a thrill of real fear, Warrick reached out a hand, let it hover over her back, dropping it at the last second before it made contact. For some reason, touching her didn't seem like an option, so instead, he said her name quietly. "Sara?" When there was no response, he shifted slightly so that he was sitting closer to her, closer, but still not touching her. "Sara, you ok?"

When eventually she raised her head, turned her face to him, he couldn't stop his concern from showing, because she was ashen. The words, "I don't feel so good," were formed on bloodless lips, and this time, when his hand reached out, it did make contact, rubbing her shoulder carefully.

"You don't look so good," he observed, in what he felt could possibly be the understatement of the century. "You want to go home?"

Slowly, as if each movement hurt, she shook her head. "Something's wrong." Her voice was barely a breath, but it was enough to have him on his feet, slipping a steadying arm around her waist, helping her to stand too.

"Let's get you to the hospital."

End part four