Fear Itself

Chapter Ten

Catherine was fighting off the bit of nausea from the mild morning sickness as she drove to work. She had to drop Lindsay off at her grandmother's before quickly leaving.

Her heart palpitated with anxiety. She couldn't think about the baby at the moment. Not while Sara was out there somewhere, in her mental state, unable to think or care for herself. Catherine began to weep as she pulled into the crime lab.

When would all of the pain and violence stop? Her life was complicated enough as it was, and now, Sara, her friend and coworker was stuck with only God knew who.

She wiped her tears and took deep breaths before heading inside.

She saw Warrick heading toward her and she hugged him.

"Hey," he said solemnly. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah," she said, trying to fight off her tears. "You?"

"I'm good," he said. "I know you're upset about Sara's abduction. We're going to find her."

Catherine hugged him again. She wanted so desperately to tell him that he was going to be a father, but she had to think about Sara, and he needed his mind to stay focuses as well. She had taken her medicine to stop the pains. As long as she stayed calm and focused, she and the baby would be fine. The news could wait just a little bit longer.

"Come on," Warrick said softly. "Let's go see what's going on."

Nick, Greg, and Grissom were already in his office, just as anxious.

"Okay, now that everyone's here, we can quickly get started," Grissom said. "As of two hours ago, Sara was taken from Desert Palm. The nurses said that two men that worked at the psych ward there received phony papers for transport to a sister hospital out just outside of Reno. Santa Teresa hospital's transport vehicle went missing with Sara in it."

"Did the vehicle make it to Reno?" Catherine immediately asked.

"No, the two guys from Desert Palm who were driving were lured over to the side of the road and shot and two different men climbed in," he explained further. "We're working with day shift and the FBI to find Sara. She's deteriorated over the weeks, so she won't be able to get herself out of this mess."

The place she was in was damp, dim, and cold. The only form of warmth offered was the pitiful ray of sunlight coming through the crack of wherever she was.

Two men were hovering over her, but she was so far gone, she couldn't make out their faces. They were whispering about something or another, and they laid her down on a small, dirty mattress.

"She knows way too much," one deep voiced man said. "She's the only one who saw who caused the freeway explosions, and she works with one of them. We should go ahead and kill her now, make an example of her."

"No!" A second man hissed. "Are you out of your mind! To kill was not our original plan! This was about the families, right?"

"Well, some of the other cadets are questioning whether they were going to get paid," the first man shot back.

"As I recall, I out rank you sergeant," the second man said. "Stand down."

The deep voiced man, nodded and back up from his commanding officer.

"She's not a liability anymore," the CO stated surprisingly sympathetically. "She's way too far gone to talk. Poor beautiful creature."

In some far-reaching place in Sara's mind, she had filed away the men's conversation, the way they looked and how they were involved. At present though, she only saw what she wanted to see and heard what she wanted to hear.

The two conspiring men left her and she hardly noticed. Her eyes closed and she shivered uncontrollably.

Grissom felt his heart thumping away with fear for Sara.

He knew how abduction cases with very little leads usually went. The likelihood of the captors killing Sara was very high, considering how crazy people have gotten. He prayed that she was in tune enough to try and escape. Her condition had gotten worse, and she was back to just staring. She was non responsive to light, touches, and voices.

Of course, that didn't mean she didn't hear them. He always knew that she could hear what people were saying, even though her eyes betrayed the latter, he was convinced that she heard every word of conversation. He knew that she could see from some place in the back of her mind. Her soul was trapped in some kind of purgatory, making her float in between her latter world, and the present.

"Grissom," Nick's voice interrupted his thoughts.

"Yeah?"

"Catherine and I are going over to Desert Palm to interview the driver that was shot," Nick said.

"Okay," he agreed. "Warrick and I will head over to the scene where he was shot."

Nick nodded, knowing that his supervisor was scared for Sara. So was he, and he wanted to find her as soon as possible.

He still hadn't found any peace whatsoever through all of the chaos. It seemed as if one thing after another kept happening, and he had no time to just sit down, and think about his life as he knew it.

He sighed and went in search of Catherine. She had bolted straight out of Grissom's office, mumbling about having to go to the restroom real quick. He figured that she should be out by now, but when he knocked on the door, he heard her voice call "I'll be out in a second!". He stood outside the door, and he heard the unmistakable sound of her vomiting. He chalked it all up to stress.

Meanwhile, Catherine threw up everything she had consumed up to this point. Last night for dinner, she and Lindsay had decided on pizza, and Catherine devoured several pieces, much to Lindsay's disgust, in hunger.

Now, the baby was making her pay for it, and she retched again.

When she was finished, for the moment, she wiped her mouth with toilet paper, and flushed the toilet.

"I'm never eating pizza again," she vowed as she rubbed her belly.

Catherine splashed water over her pale face then she washed her mouth out. She grimaced at her appearance, but now was not the time to be vain. She ran her fingers through her hair, reapplied a little blush, and headed out.

"Sorry Nicky," she said. "I had some bad food last night."

"Oh, what did you have?" Nick asked.

"Pizza," she said as they headed out to the parking lot.

Nick looked at her strangely for a second.

"Well no wonder you're throwing your guts up," Nick said in his drawl. "You hate pizza."

Catherine felt like kicking herself. Now Nick would be asking questions all day. She should have said bad Chinese. That pretty much covers all sudden stomach strains. It was a known fact that Catherine did not like pizza. It had way too much grease, and the combination was just disgusting to her palette. Until last night, however. She had a taste for pizza, and it was good, but just not when it was coming up the other way. She assumed the baby didn't appreciate the extra spicy pepperoni.

"Cath?" Nick asked, bringing her out of her trance. "Are you sure you're okay to handle this case?"

"Yeah, why?" She asked as they made it to the Tahoe.

"Well, just a two weeks ago you're having weird cramps, and now you're throwing up," Nick started. "Maybe you need to rest."

"Nick, I'm fine, okay?" She insisted. "Just don't fuss over me. I'm a big girl, I can take care of myself."

"If that's true, then how did you end up feeding yourself pizza last night?" Nick quipped.

Catherine groaned.

"Nick," she whined. "Please don't make me think about how I actually ate it. I'm going to get sick all over again."

Warrick just knew that Catherine was pregnant. There was nothing overtly obvious to him about it until she made a run for the restroom, pale as a ghost. But it was subtle things: how she avoided him at work, the way she paled at the sight of a doughnut, her moodiness. Of course, it could have been stress too, but when she started having the cramps and dizziness, he knew. He didn't know what cramps had to do with pregnancy, but the dizziness put it in concrete. Catherine was only God knew how many weeks pregnant, and she was running around after the maniacs who abducted Sara.

His first thought was to call her and suggest, well, force rather, that she go home and rest. Then he realized that she may or may not be aware that she was pregnant. He was pretty sure that by now, she would have probably been suspecting, but not really sure. Either way, she thinks that he doesn't know, and by him telling her that she needs to think about the baby would only serve to upset her, and she was already emotional enough as it was.

"Warrick," Grissom's harsh tone shook him from his thoughts. "I need you to focus."

"Yes sir," Warrick said respectfully. "I'm sorry. I was just thinking."

"What about?" Grissom asked.

"Just everything," he answered. "I can handle it later."

They walked carefully around the scene. Warrick photographed the pools of blood from each of the two men from transport. It was then that he noticed something. A small slip of paper, and a bracelet.

"Hey Gris!" He called as he kneeled down to pick up the two items.

"What is it?" Grissom asked.

"I think it's a folded page and a bracelet of some sort," Warrick said as he unfolded the paper. "UTOPIA AMERICA CORPS. CADET DIVISION, NEVADA."

"Catherine said she saw the same thing at a suspect's house," Grissom said. "They're based somewhere here, and wherever they are, Sara will be."

They both looked at the bracelet.

"It's an allergy bracelet," Warrick said. "Instead of dog tags around the neck, they can be made into a bracelet. It looks like it was yanked off."

Grissom grinned.

"Good girl, Sara."