2- "Answers"

"Sara," Grissom said through the darkness, and Sara wished she could see his face. His voice was shaky, quiet, unsure. He had to take a deep breath before continuing, "You were attacked. At a crime scene."

Sara sucked in a deep breath. She remembered when Catherine was attacked... that was ages ago... but she was fine in the end...

Catherine suddenly stood up, for no reason, and left the room. Little did Sara know it was to hide the tears that were streaming down her face...

"How?"

"The officer on scene suffered a rare seizure and collapsed, and you were the first on the scene... the murderer was hiding, and attacked you..."

"There is something you're not telling me."

Gil choked, not being able to find the right words, but continued on, saying, "He took a shovel... he bashed you across..."

He stopped suddenly, feeling sick, and feeling acidic anger boiling inside him. Sara, on the other hand, was feeling sick for herself. Slowly she reached up to touch her head, but she felt nothing. Just normalcy.

"Gil?"

He said nothing.

"Why is my head fine?"

In his silence, she felt cold fear icing its way through her veins, like the sedative, but in reality it was much, much worse...

"Gil, why is-"

"You were comatose."

Sara exhaled sharply, and her mouth formed the first word to the question she was dreading the most, but Grissom answered it.

"Three years, Sara. It's been three years."

With that, Sara leaned back and took a deep, calming breath. She hadn't noticed, but the entire time Gil had been holding her hand. She was shaking. She felt cold. So many emotions, feelings...

She rubbed her face again, and said, "Well, okay... um... three years. Wow."

Catherine returned to the room, and sat down, and just broke down, "Sara, that night... the night I got the call, I was so scared. We stood by your bed for weeks, but nothing happened... the doctor said you would be like this forever."

Suddenly, anger surged through Sara, and she even surprised herself by saying, "How could you do that? Just leave me like this? I would rather die than..."

"Your parents."

That shut Sara up.

"They kept you on life support. They were the ones that decided you should keep the-"

Grissom coughed suddenly, and Catherine said, "She doesn't know?"

Sara gripped onto Gil's hand harder, "What? I don't know what?"

It was then that the stress, the stress of three years of unemotional attachment, of straining himself, of regretting, Gil finally felt a tear slide down his cheek. Sara could faintly see it in the predawn lights.

"I visited you every week... and eight months ago... a new nurse was assigned to your ward... he seemed nice, I met him several times... it wasn't until two months later I noticed the bruising... the familiar bruising..." He took a deep, shaky breath, and continued on.

"It took another month of me complaining to even get the hospital to notice what I already knew..." His voice flashed in a rare moment of anger, but then he grew sad again as he said, "And by the time they led an investigation and set up hidden cameras, it was too late..."

Sara's heart stopped beating as the truth of the situation hit her. With the same shaky hand she used to feel her head, she reached down to her stomach. She touched it gently, and gasped.

I'm pregnant.

Warrick Brown was investigating odd ligature marks on a Jane Doe in the light of the morgue when his cell phone rang.

Nick Stokes was slowly tweezing and odd fabric sample off of the cadaver in a house in the suburbs when his cell phone rang.

Greg Sanders was working his first solo arson case when his cell phone rang.

She was awake.

Catherine had left to go get food, leaving Grissom and Sara together. Sara was sitting up, drinking water, and desperately trying not to throw up. After the sun had risen, Grissom noticed Sara didn't touch her belly, or even look at it. She had been exceptionally quiet.

"So, what's happened?"

Grissom lifted his eyebrows, "Well, we found the murderer who hurt you, the second person on the scene killed him, so after your surgeries, we made Greg a CSI as a replacement."

"Really?" Sara said, and smiled for the first time since she awoke. The thought of Greg as a CSI was funny. He was always the lab tech; it was weird to think of him as anything else.

"He's already a Level Two. He's so much better than any of us could hope, but he could never replace..." Gil caught his words in his throat and wrung his hands together nervously. Sara smiled her slow smile, and Gil finally looked at her straight in the eyes.

"How are you feeling? Are you okay?"

Before she could answer, the door opened and everyone filed in cautiously. It took them a moment to register that Sara was fully awake, and when they did they all, in unison, sighed in relief and smiled. Everyone was crying.

After hugs all around, everyone sat down and was followed by an awkward silence. They were so used to Sara being unconscious; it was weird to see her alert. She smiled a smile then said, "So, CSI Sanders, I have to say I've heard good things."

Greg blushed in a very unlike himself move and said, "Yeah. You called me out of my first solo arson case."

Sara smiled bigger, "Oh, sorry. If I would've known, I definitely would've waited."

They all laughed and began a low conversation. Slowly but surely everyone left, and Sara was alone.

Well, not exactly alone.

As the sun sank down into the Vegas skyline, Sara slowly reached out and touched her stomach.

"Hello, my name is Sara... it's good to meet you..." She whispered.

"After silence, that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible is music" -Aldous Huxley